Russian Literature X X V I (1989) 397--406 North-Holland

TOWARDS THE MEANING OF A ZAUM' WORD IN CHLEBNIKOV

PAUL SCHMIDT

The usual assumption made about a proper name is that it has a unique, specifically defined referent. Our intuition about proper nouns assumes their unique- ness, and we expect, whenever an interlocutor or a narrator first uses a proper noun, that he will share with us his knowledge of its referent, as well as what- ever of its connotations are important for our under- standing. Even if~. ~n a narrative situation, part of the strategy is the withholding of such information until the tale unfolds further, we expect finally to be made party to the "properness" in question. In the writings of Velimir Chlebnlkov, such expectations are often deliberately frustrated. Either the referent is not identified, or the speo~u connotations of the referent important for our understanding of that par- ticular place in the text are not made clear. Henryk Baran, writing about Chlebnikov's story "Ka", states the problem clearly: "... the reader is potentially deprived of what might actually be elements of seman- tic patterns present in the text, and his possibili- ties for constructing a satisfactory, all-encompasslng interpretation of the tale are thus restricted", l

We may assume further that a proper noun has always an historical connotation. Its "properness" is also a statement of its own mortality. It came into being on a certain day, it exists, it will some day cease to exist. Even the "once upon a time" and the "happily ever after" that begin and end fairy uales, in their deilial of historical time, are an implicit acknowl- edgement of the historicity of proper names.

In the case of Chlebnikov the problem of identify- ing a proper noun is made more complex because of his regular use of neologisms as a poetic device, and a satisfying reading of Chlebnikov depends on our recog-

398 Pau~ S e h m i d t

nition of these neologisms and their possible associa- tions and meanings. Ronald Vroon's brilliant study (Velimir Xlebn~kov: A Key to the Coinages [Ann Arbor 1983]) shows us how it is possible to ascertain mean- ings from these neologisms by analyzing their morpho- logical structure and determining semantic classifica- tions for their parts, and by careful examination of their textual environment. But what are we to do if we suspect that Chlebnikov has invented a proper ncun? Is an imaginary proper noun susceptible to the same kind of analysis? V.P.Grigor'ev has demonstrated the com- plexities of Chlebnikov's use of proper nouns, and he shows that they may indeed prove a fruitful field of inquiry a~d yield valuable perceptions about poetic language.

II

In the story "Ka" there are numerous proper names; all exceyt three have been identified, and of those three, t~¢3 are compounds that contain at least one identifiable element. One proper name, then, remains unidentified - ASCU. The word occurs twice in "Ka", in the following passage:

H Ka npe~cTaavm MeH~ y~eHoMy 222 r o s a . A! ~epes ro~ noc~e nepBoro, Ho Mna~eHqecKoro KpHKa

cBepxrocy~apcTBa AC~Y. '~c~yl" npoHaHeC y~eH~, S

BS~JLqI-IyB Ha ~0~ MS,~IKa.

The text of "Ka", the immediate environment, offers us only a single clue - the apposite noun sv~rahgosu- darstoo. But we lack here any of what Ronald Vroon, speaking of neologisms, calls "keys, aside from direct translation, which the poet condescends to provide on occasion. The first ... is the context ... <...> The second is the outright provision of models" (1983:102). No model±s here provided° Our next step must then be to widen the context, to m~ko an examination of Chleb- nikov's other writings for any passages that may yield information toward a meaning.

In the printed texts we find that the word occurs another four times. Here are the four passages in question:

1. A letter to Michail Matju~in, post-marked January 18, 1915 (a month before "~a" was written), where Chleb- nikov is charting the course of naval battles in the First World War, as data for his theory of the cyclical repetition of historical events:

A "Zuum'" Word in Ch~ebnlkcv 399

...nocue~ 5off B CeBepHoM Mope c n o B p ~ . ~ e m u ~ "HaROHOM" H rHSe.,x~m *'F~u0xepa" 11 ~apa a "raseJcua" Ha l~OreHe CBO--

FL~e~aMH aeJiHKaHa aeCyT Ha eeSe KaMH~ yqeHR~ O TOM~ qTO MOpCJc~e 6OH BORH~ 1914 HOBTOpH~T 6opb6y EJBpO~M H ACI~y {HcJlaMa)• Ha~IHRR C 1905 rosa, --~eHHo 5off " E m o x e - p a " H ".l']aRoHa" I I .~H"ap~x o T - e v a e T 1271 u 1270 x'op~/ n o e - ~ e ~ e r o KpecTonoro noxoAa. . . (NP, 377)

2. A letter to G.N.Petnikov and N.N.Aseev, postmark- ed September 19, 1916. Here the word figures as a title, in a series of titles of pieces that Chlebnikov is pro- posing for an anthology:

S coSpa~ ~n~ BpeMe~u~Ka I. ~Lu H Hsa. 2. 5+n. 3. ~oro- Bop. 4. NepeqeHb corHa~. 5. ~pHKaS SeMHOMy map¥. 6. CTHX~. 7. ~Cb~O. 8. 0 AC~Y. 9. rase~y. I0. HpH- coe~HHeHl4e K MapcHaHaM° 11. PHCyHOK Bap~m~Lq CMepT~. |2. CeMb KpbcqaTMX.

CTaTb~ noqT~ Han~caHa. Ka HeT. YMO~I,H HaneqaTaTb eTa- Tb~. TaM CTpamHo saxJc~e aem~ + H.H.AceeB, Ha~p° [O~05p~Jl] ° XOT, oHa ~JlOXO H~HcaHa. (SP, V;306-307)

3. A second letter to Petnikov, post-marked Septem- ber 30, 1916, again with a list of proposed titles, this time a somewhat different list:

~OSO31eH co~eR H ~oKa CBO60~eHp ~ xoqy ~yMaTb~ qTO CSOpHMK 5y~eT3C~ITb, ~JIH CTaTbH 'W~epeBO BOHH'°

'~ H SeMHOR map" -- Ba + B - 12 CT°, ACJjY -- 4 CT.,

HBa H ~ u . Hepe~eHb cornacH~x. 5 M + n. rasenna. KpHT~eCK~qO CTaTb~. CTHXH. IIHcbMO HnoH~aM. (SP, V:307)

4. An essay first published in the anthology Saver- nyj ~zbornik (Moskva 1918) under the title "Kop'e v budu~ee. Ljalja na tigre". Given the occurrence of both these titles in the various lists in the 1916 let- ter to Petnikov concerning the anthology Vremennik, it is very likely that this essay was written in 1916 and intended for ~1&t collection. The essay concludes as follows:

CKOpSb xopomaR noqRa~ BOHH. H K llamefl pyCcKOH KySHe eTa peK npHcoo~HRHTCR oqep~H~e MOHOTKH ~nnoHa, ~eM K o5~e~ ~eJU~, pasra~Ke BO~H As~ = Ac +~ +y.

(SP, V:215)

We now possess a wider textual environment in which to examine the word ASCU, although nowhere is the word defined. Two appositions give us a fairly specific geo- graphic reference: "Asou (IsZam)" and ".,. k na~ej rus-

400 Paul Schm£dt

skoj kuzne sta rek prlsoedlnjajutsja o~erednye molotk£ Nippona. My idem k ob~ej cell, razgadke roll Azil = As +c +u". We recall uhat the apposition in the passage ~rom "Ka" identifies Ascu as a "sverahgosudar8tvo", and we note the variant spellings of the word in that passage: in capital letters in the narrator's text, and regularized for its repetition in the quoted speech of the scientist. From this we might be tempted to as- sume ASCU to be an abbreviation for a state name, of the type USA and USSR, and thus to search for the phrase it abbreviates. The other spelling variant, how- ever, from citation 4, above, with its mathematical symbols, gives us pause.

We note here, however, that a comparison of these four citations yields probable clues to ~e identity of some of the titles Chlebnikov lists in his letters to Petnikov. The "Pis'mo" listed as item seven in the September 19th letter is no doubt the "P~s'mo japon- cam" of the later letter, and it is obviously this text that we know as "Pis'mo ~vum japonoam" (SP V:154-157). The title GazelZa, item nine in the September 19th let- ter, and repeated in the later one, both times in close proximity to the word Ascu, must surely concern the battleship Gazelle mentioned in the letter to Matju~in, and would likely have been concerned with the Laws of Time. Pere~en' sogZasnyoh doubtless corresponds to "Pere6en'. Azbuka urea" (V:207-209) and the text called "5 +p", item two in the first letter, and "5 m+ p" in the second letter is surely "Vtoro$ $azyk" (V:210-211); both these texts appear in Vremennik I. It is certainly possible that the text listed as "ASCU" and "0 ASRU" is the essay published later as "Ljalja na tigre", since this is the only place where the word occurs in any of Chlebnikov's theoretical writings thus far published.

We note further the concatenation of items 7, 8 and 9: "Pisrmo ", "0 ASCU", "Gaze~lu". Assuming "0 ASCU" to be indeed "LjaZja na tigre", then all three texts pro- vide us with a context of cooperation and unity between Russia and Japan in a pan-Asian context, and oppose this unified Asia to Europe. This context is reinforced by Chlebnikov's anti-German feelings, and by the com- parison he makes in the letter to Matju~in between the World War and the Crusades of the eleventh and thir- teenth centuries.

If we return now to our original text, to "Ka", we find one other oblique reference to ASCU in its identi- ty as a "superstate". In section seven the narrator tells us: Kos#er vspyohnuZ, i u negoj sobrav~4s' vmss- tej besedovali mrs sebja 4 Xa: Ea Eohnatenaj Ka Akbara, ga Asoki i na~ junoNa. Slovo 'sverohgosudarstvo' msl'-

A "Zaum'" Word in Chlebnlkov 401

kaZo ~a~ej ffem sZedue~" (SP IV:64). The word "sosroh- gosud=rstvo" may here be read as a replacement for its earlier apposite term ASCU. Again 5he pan-Asian context is repeated: the Ka's of the great Moghul Emperor Akbar and the Maurya Emperor Ashoka join Chlebnikov; twenty- two centuries are brought together to discuss "the will of Asia".

Let us, on the basis of the citations, construct a hypothetical definition of the word ASCU. ASRU is a "superstate" which will c~e into being in the year 2221-2222. s It will unite all Asia - Russia, Japan, Indi~, Sri Lanka (or, more precisely, the periphery of Asia; China is curiously absent). It is a government of time, not of space, and it exists in fundamental op- position to Europe. (It seems clear, by the way, that the parenthetical apposition "ASCU (IsZ~mu)" in the letter to Matju~in is not meant to identify ASRU di- rectly with Islam, but in the specific context to show Islam as an earlier manifestation of a pan-Asian oppo- sition to Europe.)

~e now have a rough outline of a semantic frame within which the concept exists. We must now ask how Chlebnikov arrived at the form of the word itself, and if the form carries any semantic element. Is it indeed an abbreviation? If not, what do its component letters represent?

III

Chlebnikov provides us with a striking formulation in the "Pis'mo drum Japoncam", 1916, where we read: "... Azija set' n e tol.':kosevernaja zemlja, n a a e Z e n n a - ja mnogo~enom narodoo, no ~ kakoj-to klo~ok pis'men, na kotorom dog,no vozniknut' slovo JA" (V:155). Is it possible that ASCU, or As +c +u, as it is also spelled, is this "~:Zo6ok pis 'men"? And in what sense can the word "JA" be said to arise upon it? A new word for this new Asia is clearly desired, and must be invented; Chlebnikov goes on to speak of this new word and tells us: "Mo~e% b~t'~ ono e~6e ne postavZenoj togda ne doUg- hy ~i obN~ie sud'byj nekoto~ym peromj naplsat r o~a~ad- hoe sZovo? Pus#' had nim zad~alas' ruka mirovogo pi- satalj~!" (V:155).

In order to examine how the hand of the universal writer works, we must turn to some of Chlebnikov's la- ter writings. In a manuscript dated April 13, 1919 (N.S.), published in SP as "Chudo;~n~ki mi~.a", Chlebni- kov works out some of the principles of a universal language. His goal, he tells us, is "... sozdut' ob- ~ij pis'msnn~$ Sazyk ... postrolt' pis'mennye znak~j

402 Paul Sch~idt

ponjatnye i prlemlemye dlja vsej naselennoj ~elove~e- stvom zvezdy...". In the essay, Chlebnikov presents, without further proofs or reasons, a set of correspond- ing general meanings for e,ch of the consonants of the Russian alphabet. These meanings are expressed as dia- grams in space and time. In that list, we find that "S zna~t nepodvi~nz~u to~kuj slu~a~uju ischodnoj t o ~ - koj dviffeniju mnogich druglch to~ekj na~naju~ich v ne$ svoj put t". And C, we find, means: "prochod odnogo tela 6ere= pus~oe mesto v drugom" (V:218).

In the ~ame essay Chlebnikov proceeds to work out some possible combinations of these consonants into semantic clusters. They ta)~e the form of syllables con- sisting of consonant plus vowel (although, he tells us, "s to~ ogovorkojj ~to ~snye z~uk~ zdes' s~u~a~ny i sZu~at b~ago~vu~no") and these syllables are joined with the mathematical plus sign, exactly as As +u + u is spelled in citation 4 above. Chlebnikov then pro- ceeds to a demonstration of this universal zvezdny$ $u- zyk by translating into it - and his choice is signifi- cant - a passage describing the break-up of Attila's hordes and their settling in the steppe, yet a further reinforcen.ent of the identification of Asia's hostili- ty to the West, and of Russia's identification with Asia (SP, V:216-221).

Let us for the moment assume that the "meanings" of the consonants of the word As +u + u are those given in this essay. There still remains the difficult problem of the vowels - ospecially given Chlebnlkov's disclaim- er above, and given his further remark, when speaking of the zvezdnyj ~azyk alphabet in the essay "NaSa os- nova": "No glasnye zvuki menee izu~eny~ ~em soglasnye" (SP, V:237).

In a letter to Petnikov, undated buu most reasonab- ly written in fairly close proximity to the letters cited above, Chlebnikov twice speaks specifically of A and U, the two vowels in the word As +~ +u. ~ It is a complicated text, where many of Chlebnikov's most cen- tral theoretical ideas are sketched out rapidly and elliptically. For our purposes the following passages, cited here passim, are crucial:

3HaeTe, ~TO Hama ~e~bp y~e yBeH~aBmaR HaC, pema~

CTPFHHOfi HPpo~ TO~ qTO pe~aeTcH ~y~eqH~M ~OeM~ C~aTb sDes~llOMy MHpy ~nCTb Ha~ ~bMM D OT~e~aBKu~Cb OT HeHyX--

.h"~X nocpeRHHKOB M~y HHMH H HaMH. <...>

BH nOMHHTe tITO ~bl/IO OCHOBaHO O X B a T H B m e e 3 e M H O ~ m a p n p a -

BHTP.qbCTBO n O g T O B . BM noMm, Te , K a K S B e H H ~ a H C T p y H a n J / e -

MeH coe~m~na To~Ho, MOCKBy~ H CHHra~yp. <...>

A "Zaum'" Word in ChZebnikov 403

KaK Ha/~e ~an~ CB~sa/IH ~ylcsy y B pOKOT CTpyHbl A, B mar nexoTm~a H ynap~, ¢e~a, pOKOT BO~H~ .UR~'~ poz~e~ -- no,obtuse TOqKH nyqa cy~56~. <...>

ApHabxaTTa H K ~ e p ! M~ CHoBa ~ e1~o, Fo,~ 60r 'OB ~peBH~X BanHK~e cB~eH~ae CO6~THR, npOHOC~ecs ~epes 365 neT. 3TO noKa B~c~ua~ CTpyHa rammed 6y~eT.q~IHHHa, H He Bo~ea~ /~H ~, BH~, ~TO Ha KCHlle STOFO pacTy~e~'o CKaqKa saKoHoB po~a HaX0~HTCH KO~eSaH~e I'~aCHOR y H

~onH~ rnasHoR ocal s~a~e~o M~pa CTpyms A. 3TO nepB~ pas~en H a m e r o ~o~oBopa c HeboM ~e.noBe~ecKo~o po;~a, n o ~ - IDICaHHOFO Kl~OBblO Be2IHKOR Bo~Hblo

(SP, V:313-314)

In these passages, the image of"the sounding string" of humanity is articulated as a fu**damental metaphor for conceiving the way in which the Laws of Time will eventually operate as a unified system. The metaphor is more explicitly worked out in the essay "NaSa osnova", in the third section entitled "Matemati~eskoe ponimanle istorii. Gamma Budetljanina". Here the vibration of the A string ("~tu struna est' kak by os' zvu~u~ego £skus- siva") and of the vowel u ("8amogo nlzkogo zvuk= azbu- ki", Chlebnikov calls it, and cites the studies of E~erba for its vibration rate)(SP, V:238-239) are named as two of the fundamental units in the scala of the Futurians - which scale Chlebnikov tells us "forges in- to a single register wars, years, days, steps, heart- beats - that is, it ushers us into the great sonic art of the fu~Ire" ("skouyv=st u od~. zvukorSad voSny~ go- da, sutkij lag~j uda~y serdoaj te eat' uvod~t has v ve~ikoe zvukovoe iskusatvo budu~ego") . In this scale of the Futurians, composed of various "beats", regular measures of human time that fit into a system of accord with cosmic t~le, A and u have a double significance: the foundation of musical harmony and the foundation (because the lowest) of sound in human speech; they are also letters of the alphabet, and can thus participate in the creatLon of a zaum' word. These two vowels at least, then, have been somewhat "studied". 7

The combination A~ +o +u, then, might be thought to unite A, "the central axis of the art of harmony", with S, "a motionless point that serves as a point of de- parture fcr the motion of many other points which begin their path in it", with C,"the passage of one body through an empty place in another", s with U, "the low- est sound in the alphabet".

If we superimpose upon this combination of sounds and semantic "nodes" the various geographic and politi- cal contexts mentioned above, then an elaborate concat-

4C4 Puul Schmidt

enation of images begins to flow from the complex word ASCU: the idea of a future "superstate" based on t1~i- versal harmony; the vast silent continent of Asia, out of which so many tribes and peoples have ridden in all directions, especially toward the West; the drone of the Buddhist "om" that unites all Asia. We begin to make out, dimly, the vast dimension of Chlebnikov's conception. In particular, the complex way in which this zaum' word from the vocabula~ of zvezdny$ Suzgk "means" what it means is illustrative of the kind of power that Chlebnikov ascribed to language. The word ASCU in fact provides an excellent exm, ple of Grigor'- ev's claim that, for Chlebnikov, "po~ti~eska~a funko~a kGk by p~8odoZeDaet u n~go ant~nomiSu SGzyk= ~ tekst=j 'koda' i '8oob~6eniSa'". s

New York

NOTES

I. Henryk Baran, "On the Poetics of a Xlebnikov Tale: Problems and Patterns in 'Ka'", in: The Structural Analysis of Narra- tive Texts, ed. A.KodJak (Columbus, Ohio 1980), 115.

2. V.P.Grigor'ev, "Onomastika Velimira Chlebnikova (individual'- naJa po~ti~eskaJa norma)", in: Onomastika i norma (Moskva 1976).

3. Velimir Chlebnikov, Sobranie proizvedeni~, ed. N.L.Stepanov, tt.I-V (Leningrad 1928-1933), t.IV:49. Henceforth all refer- ences to this edition will be cited as SP, followed by a vol- ume (.Roman numeral) and page n-mher (Arabic numeral). The other prlncipal edition of Chlebnikov is: Velimir Chlebni- kov, NeizdaIhnye proizvedenija, ed. N.I.Chard~iev and T.Gric (Moskva 1940). All references to it consist of NP and a page number.

4. One other letter to Petnikov of the same period (SP, V:308) (there is a question of the precise dating of the letter) dis- cusses the anthology and contains a similar list, and a number of variant titles, although the word ASCU is not this time in- cluded.

5. Let us note that 2222 is 317 years after 1905, the year of the Russian defeat of Tsushlma and of Chlebnikov's determination to find the Laws of Time. The moment of determination ts de- scribed in "Ka" Just before the paragraph in whlchthe word ASCU occurs: "... ja brosil v reku dvukopee~nuju den'gu, ska-

A =Zaum'" Word in ChZeSnikov 405

zav: nu~no zabotit'sja o nauke bud~ego" (SP, IV:48). 6. The two letters to Petnikov cited above are from the fall

of 1916. Chlebnikov was in the army during this fall and the winter of 1917, and in correspondence with Petnikov. The ex- ultant tone of this present letter, however, and its refer- ence to "... ulicy, rasterzannye l'vinymi ~eljustjami vossta- n/j..." make it probable that it was written soon after the February revolution, i.e., early in March, 1917.

7. In another earlier text (SP, V:187-190) the five vowel sounds are listed, with brief "meanings" attached. A is followed by the word "against (protiv) " and U by "s1,hmissiveness [pokor- host' ) ".

8. The consonant C [~] has been less elaborated than any of the others in Chlebnikov's system; hence its function here is less clear as yet than that of the other letters. An examina- tion of unpublished materials may shed more light on its sig- nificance.

9. GIigor'ev, op.cit., 189.