SLAP IN THE FACE OF PUBLIC TASTE
To the readers of our New First Unexpected.
We alone are the face of our Time. Through us, the horn of time blows
in the art of the word.
The past is too tight. The Academy and Pushkin are less intelligible
than hieroglyphics.
Throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc. overboard from the
Ship of Modernity.
He who does not forget his first love will not recognize his last.
Who, trustingly, would turn his last love toward Balmont's perfumed lechery? Is this the reflection of today's virile soul?
Who, faintheartedly, would fear tearing from warrior Bryusov's
black tuxedo the paper armorplate? Or does the dawn of unknown
beauties shine from it? Wash your hands that have touched the filthy slime of the books written by those countless Leonid Andreyevs. All those Maxim Gorkys, Kuprins, Bloks, Sologubs, Remizovs,
Averchenkos, Chomys, Kuzmins, Bunins, etc., need only a dacha on
the river. Such is the reward fate gives tailors. Believe it or not, Russian Futurism is more "avant-garde" than its Italian counterpart.
Check this flicker selection of Russian avant-garde book covers.