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"The ethnographic and exotic nature of early 20th
century European art compelled members of the
Ukrainian avant-garde to seek inspiration from
Ukrainian Folk Art, imbuing its elements and
archaic forms with a contemporary dynamism
often expressed in abstract form."
Elena Kashuba, "From Utopia to Tragedy" 2017.
The movement known as Futurism is, to Western Europeans, primarily of Italian
origin and the names Marinetti, Balla, Boccioni and Severini well-known. Less
famous were their counterparts in Russia - and yet their influence was more
far-reaching. Marinetti's visit to Russia in January 1914 showed that, according to
Velemir Khlebnikov, 'far from being an off-shoot of Western Futurism, we had
actually overtaken our Italian brothers. We have found nothing new in the dozens
of manifestos sent to Russia by Marinetti'.
The movement of Russian Futurism, as practised
by Larionov, Goncharova, and Malevich was
more inward-looking and concentrated less
on the urban, the industrial. Inspiration came
from Folk Art which had no place in Marinetti's
world. Writers too played a prominent role
as Pasternak, Mayakovsky and Khlebnikov all
blazed a trail of experimental writing without
par in Europe. This, in turn, gave birth to its own
movement within the borders of Ukraine.
Boris Pasternak
