Our Notes & References

With Rodchenko’s original collage: a fragile ‘hand-made’ edition of no more than 10 copies, here without restoration.

An exceptionally rare work, republished only in 2025, by “one of the most inventive and extreme members of the Russian avant-garde” (Janececk): we could locate only one other copy worldwide in institutions or at auction, in the Russian State Library in Moscow,without wrappers and with an inferior collage.

“In a series of remarkable book works of 1912 to 1920, Kruchenykh and his collaborators challenged [the legacy of Johannes Gutenberg] in an unprecedentedly complete way, step-by step departing from our European expectations about what a twentieth-century book should be” (Janececk). During the First World War and the October Revolution, the pioneer of the ‘transrational’ poetic language zaum lived in Tiflis (modern-day Tbilisi), where he founded the short-lived Futurist group ’41°’ alongside Ilia Zdanevich (Iliazd) and Igor Terentev. While in Baku in 1920 and later in Moscow, Kruchenykh continued publishing his avant-garde works under the ’41°’ imprint until 1923.

“The most significant results of his artistic endeavours in the Caucasus were published by Kruchenykh in numerous small […], partly handwritten, hectographed ‘personal’ editions between 1917 and 1922” (Ziegler). Departing from Gutenberg’s method of printing books with movable type, Kruchenykh — partly due to “a lack of both money and available printing resources” — produced several “Autographic Books (Hectograph)”, as he termed them (Janecek). Essentially small booklets of just a few leaves, they were printed using hectography (a process similar to mimeography) or carbon paper, sometimes incorporating “rubber stamps, typescript, and simple pencilled manuscript […] The paper used was whatever was at hand, ranging from stationery to lined school-notebook paper and graph paper. In other words, Kruchenykh basically made use of office supplies available to someone working as a draftsman for the Erzrum Railway, as he was at the time” (Janececk). The print runs of these books were very limited, as the quality quickly deteriorated during printing.

While in Baku, Kruchenykh produced ten separate issues of Miatezh [Mutiny] under the imprint of ’41°’ in 1920–21. With a print run of “no more than ten copies, they were printed on a duplicator, with some pages made using carbon paper” (Ignatova, our translation here and below). The first issue featured works by Kruchenykh and his fellow futurist Velimir Khlebnikov, while the subsequent ones contained only texts by Kruchenykh.

Our ninth issue, “titled The American Goat, is the only one decorated with a frontispiece collage by Aleksandr Rodchenko. This collage is made of red glossy paper with coloured pencil lines, characteristic of Rodchenko’s style [at the time]. Each collage in this edition is unique” (Ignatova, our emphasising).

This issue of Miatezh contains three poems that are more surreal in their imagery and fantastical themes than strictly ‘zaum’ in their wordplay and sound experiments. The first and longest poem, “Kozel-amerikanets” [“The American Goat”] — signed and dated 1920–21 — includes a gem of a phrase: “Don’t be surprised […] After all, we live in Baku, the most American city! Nothing is spared here to keep up with the style”. It paints an unsettling picture of an American dandy transforming into a goat, culminating in a bizarre bestial ritual and infanticide. The other two poems, “A Poem Dedicated to [the artist Boris] Shatsman” (signed and dated 1921) and “By the Glow of Coal” [“Otsvetom uglia”], continue the dreamlike tone. The latter references Malevich, who “descends in a basket to shelter milk carborundum miners” (our tentative translation).

None of these verses had appeared in more conventional print until the new 2025 edition of Unpublished Kruchenykh [Neizdannyi Kruchenykh] (Moscow, Gileia), which published “Kozel-amerikanets” introducing readers to the poet’s “post-zaum” works “for the first time”. According to the publisher’s memo, the entire small print run of “Kozel-amerikanets” (Baku, 1921) “disappeared without a trace. After moving to Moscow, Kruchenykh made a few manuscript copies, which Aleksandr Rodchenko wrapped in his cover” (Kudriavtsev). The 2025 editors appear to have used the archival copy without wrappers from the State Library, as they make no mention of the main title Miatezh or other little-known issues from the series. The only other three known poems from the series — “Zveriak”, “Rany moi krasnye voruny”, and “Zhenshchina v peshchere” — taken from an unspecified issue from 1920, were published in the 2001 edition of Kruchenykh’s Verses. Poems. Novels. Opera (St Petersburg, Akademicheskii Proekt).

In January 1920, Rodchenko wrote: “I have about twenty finished sketches for paintings… I’ve cut out twenty sheets of Whatman paper the size of the glass; I’ll make colored drawings. I’m thinking of calling the new pieces “Linism.” The surface is dispensed with logically, and to express the greater constructiveness, the architecturality of the composition, the old favorite of paintings—texture—is dispensed with as well” (cited in Aleksandr Rodchenko: Experiments for the Future. Diaries, Essays, Letters, and Other Writings). The years 1920 and 1921 proved to be indeed highly productive for Rodchenko. In addition to working at the Fine Arts Department of the People’s Commissariat of Education (Narkompross) and the Higher Technical-Artistic Studios (VKhUTEMAS), he collaborated with Kruchenykh on five book projects — the only book collaborations between the two artists. Sukhoparov lists three editions beside the present one, all published in Moscow in 1921: Zzudo (though MoMA does not credit Rodchenko as part of the production), Tsotsa, and Zaum. To these, we can also add Zaumniki (EUY, 1921), to which Rodchenko contributed his text.

In 1932, Kruchenykh created a bibliography of his works printed in the Caucasus, detailing the sub-titles of each of the ten issues: Book I. “With the participation of V. Khlebnikov”, Book II. “Twelve Ballads on the Poison of Kormoran, etc.” [“Dvenadtsat ballad o iade Kormorane i dr.”], Book III. “Neprilich”, Book IV. “Poems” [“Stikhi”], Book V. “Bogomaternaia”, Book VI. “Lyric poetry” [“Lirika”], Book VII. “Monsters” [“Chudovishcha”], Book VIII. “Poems” [“Stikhi”], Book IX. “The American Goat”, Book X. “Poems” [“Stikhi”]. Many of the listed works are known only through this bibliography, as noted by Sukhoparov in his monograph on Kruchenykh (Munich, 1992).

Of the ten issues, we could locate only four examples: as mentioned above, one copy of this ninth issue without wrappers, catalogued as “Kozel-amerikanets” by RSL; one example of the fourth issue, at the State Museum of Vladimir Mayakovsky; and two examples of the pink and crimson wrappers respectively of the “first” issue without further details on their content and locations.

The MoMA catalogue includes in its checklist only a fragment from the second issue (if not a different work): Poetichnyi kalendar. Iz knigi Miatezh II [Poetic Calendar: From the Book Mutiny II] ([6] ll., (23 x 18.3 cm). “Cover with carbon copied manuscript text on front; carbon copied manuscript text and 1 leaf of pencil manuscript text. Inscribed by Kruchenykh”).

The printed title on pink wrappers appears to have been used for most, if not all, issues of Miatezh: our example bears a blue pencil correction on the upper wrapper, changing “I” to “IX”, along with a striking addition of diagonal blue and red lines similar to those in Rodchenko’s frontispiece; the same blue pencil was also used for a handwritten correction on page 9. The Mayakovsky Museum’s issue “IV” does not have any corrections on its pink wrapper, which is otherwise identical to ours.

The RSL copy has a similarly styled Rodchenko frontispiece, created with the same bright red glossy paper and blue and red lines; it is however less successful and dynamic than the present one. The printed text in our copy appears brighter and clearer than that of the RGB example (except for pages 4, 6, and 8), suggesting that it was copied from the original earlier; pages 4 and 7 contain a few marginal additions that are absent in the RSL copy.

In contrast to the 10 pages as in our copy, the scan of the RSL copy shows 11 pages, though the last page does not seem to logically follow the previous one. This may be a mistake in the scanning process (which we have noticed in other instances). It is also very possible that different examples of the present edition varied in content after the main poem, “Kozel-amerikanets”. This peculiarity of Kruchenykh’s books is highlighted by Janececk: “A complete set of the entire hectographic series has yet to be assembled, but analysis of a number of them has revealed that they have been organized in a unique way […] In the Gutenberg context, one tends to assume that there is a distinction to be made between a book and a manuscript, that is, a manuscript exists in a single handwritten copy while a book exists in multiple (numerous) identical copies, and one copy of a work with a given title will have the same contents as another. What if a title was merely the rubric for an ad-hoc assemblage of miscellaneous pages from an available stock? What if many different titles contained a similar assemblage of pages from the same stock? What if only a single copy of a given title was made?”.

Provenance

Christie’s London, 30 June 1988, lot 769, illustrated in colours, est. £4-6,000, sold £13,000 hammer to:

Private European collection until 2024.

Bibliography

Not in MoMA, The Russian Avant-Garde Book, but the catalogue still briefly mentions the series on p. 46; Ignatova, Natalia. “Kollazh v knigakh russkogo avangarda” // Antikvariat, #18 (June 2004); Janececk, Gerald. “Kruchenyhk contra Guttenberg”, The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910-1934, MoMA, New York, 2002, pp. 41-49; Kudriavtsev S. Introduction to Aleksei Kruchenykh. Poemy. Foneticheskii roman. 1920-1940, Gileia, 2025; Kushner A. S. (gl. red.). Aleksei Kruchenykh. Stikhotvoreniia. Poemy. Romany. Opera, Sankt-Peterburg, Akademicheskii proekt, 2001; Lavrentiev, Alexander N. Aleksandr Rodchenko: Experiments for the Future. Diaries, Essays, Letters, and Other Writings, New York, Moma, 2005; Sukhoparov, Sergei. Aleksei Kruchenykh v svidetelstvakh sovremennikov, München, Verlag Otto Sagner, 1994; Zhukova L. G., Karpova D. V. Knigi A. E. Kruchenykh kavkazskogo perioda iz kollektsii Gosudarstvennogo muzeia V. V. Maiakovskogo. Moskva, Gos. muzei V. V. Maiakovskogo, 2001; Ziegler, Rosmarie (Rozmari Tsigler), “Poetika A. E. Kruchenykh pory «41°». Uroven zvuka”, ‘L’avanguardia a Tiflis’ — Quaderni del Seminario di Iranistica. Uralo-Altaistica e Caucasologia dell’Università degli Studi di Venezia 13, Venice, 1982, pp. 231-258; Ziegler, Rosmarie (Rozmari Tsigler). “Gruppa «41°»”, Russian Literature 8 (1985), pp. 71-86.