Zaum - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Zaum is a word used to describe the linguistic experiments in sound symbolism

Sound symbolism

Sound symbolism or phonosemantics is a branch of linguistics and refers to the idea that vocal sounds have meaning. In particular, sound symbolism is the idea that phonemes carry meaning in and of themselves.-Origin:...

and language creation

Artistic language

An artistic language is a constructed language designed for aesthetic pleasure. Unlike engineered languages or auxiliary languages, artistic languages usually have irregular grammar systems, much like natural languages. Many are designed within the context of fictional worlds, such as J. R. R....

of Russian Futurist poets

Russian Futurism

Russian Futurism is the term used to denote a group of Russian poets and artists who adopted the principles of Filippo Marinetti's "Manifesto of Futurism"...

such as Velimir Khlebnikov

Velimir Khlebnikov

Velimir Khlebnikov , pseudonym of Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov , was a central part of the Russian Futurist movement, but his work and influence stretch far beyond it.Khlebnikov belonged to Hylaea,...

and Aleksei Kruchenykh

Aleksei Kruchenykh

Aleksei Eliseevich Kruchenykh or Kruchonykh or Kruchyonykh , a well-known poet of the Russian "Silver Age", was perhaps the most radical poet of Russian Futurism, a movement that included Vladimir Mayakovsky, David Burliuk and others. Together with Velimir Khlebnikov, Kruchenykh is considered the...

.

Coined by Kruchenykh in 1913, the word zaum is made up of the Russian prefix за "beyond, behind" and noun ум "the mind, nous
Nous
Nous , also called intellect or intelligence, is a philosophical term for the faculty of the human mind which is described in classical philosophy as necessary for understanding what is true or real, very close in meaning to intuition...

" and has been translated as "transreason" or "beyonsense" (Paul Schmidt

Paul Schmidt (translator)

Paul Schmidt was an American translator, poet, playwright, and essayist.He graduated from Colgate University in 1955, and studied at Harvard University.He studied mime with Marcel Marceau and acting with Jacques Charon....

). According to scholar Gerald Janecek, zaum can be defined as experimental poetic language characterized by indeterminacy in meaning.

As Kruchenykh has it, zaum is a transrational language, "wild, flaming, explosive (wild paradise, fiery languages, blazing coal)," which awakens creative imagination from the manacles of everyday speech. Zaum "can provide a universal poetic language, born organically, and not artificially like Esperanto

Esperanto

is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...

."

Examples of zaum include Kruchenykh's poem "dyr bul schyl" and his libretto for the Futurist opera Victory over the Sun
Victory over the Sun
Victory over the Sun is a Russian Futurist opera premiered in 1913 at the Luna Park in Saint Petersburg.The libretto written in zaum language was contributed by Aleksei Kruchonykh, the music was written by Mikhail Matyushin, the prologue was added by Velimir Khlebnikov, and the stage designer was...

, and Khlebnikov's so-called "language of the birds

Language of the birds

In mythology, medieval literature and occultism, the language of the birds is postulated as a mystical, perfect divine language, green language, adamic language, enochian language, angelic language or a mythical or magical language used by birds to communicate with the initiated.-History:In...

", "language of the gods" and "language of the stars". The poetic output is perhaps comparable to that of the contemporary Dadaism but the linguistic theory or metaphysics behind zaum was entirely devoid of the gentle self-irony of that movement and in all seriousness intended to recover the sound symbolism

Sound symbolism

of a lost aboriginal tongue. Exhibiting traits of a Slavic national mysticism

National mysticism

National mysticism is a form of nationalism which raises the nation to the status of numen or divinity. Its best known instance is Germanic mysticism, which gave rise to occultism under the "Third Reich". The idea of the nation as a divine entity was presented by Johann Gottlieb Fichte...

, Kruchenykh aimed at recovering the primeval Slavic mother-tongue in particular.

In modern times, contemporary avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

poet Sergei Biriukov has founded an association of poets called the "Academy of Zaum" in Tambov

Tambov

Tambov is a city and the administrative center of Tambov Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Tsna and Studenets Rivers southeast of Moscow...

. Other practitioners of zaum poetry include Serge Segay and Rea Nikonova.

The use of Zaum peaked from 1916 to 1920 during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. At this time, Zaumism took root as a movement primarily involved in visual arts

Visual arts

The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...

, literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

, poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

, art manifesto

Art manifesto

The art manifesto has been a recurrent feature associated with the avant-garde in Modernism. Art manifestos are mostly extreme in their rhetoric and intended for shock value to achieve a revolutionary effect. They often address wider issues, such as the political system...

es, art theory, theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

, and graphic design

Graphic design

Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

, and concentrated its anti war politic through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

through anti-art

Anti-art

Anti-art is a loosely-used term applied to an array of concepts and attitudes that reject prior definitions of art and question art in general. Anti-art tends to conduct this questioning and rejection from the vantage point of art...

cultural works. Zaum activities included public gatherings, demonstrations, and publications. The movement influenced later styles, Avant-garde

Avant-garde

and downtown music

Downtown music

Downtown music is a subdivision of American music, closely related to experimental music. The scene the term describes began in 1960, when Yoko Ono—one of the Fluxus artists, at that time still seven years away from meeting John Lennon—opened her loft at 112 Chambers Street to be used...

movements, and groups including surrealism

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

, nouveau réalisme, Pop Art

Pop art

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...

and Fluxus

Fluxus

Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...

External links

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