The Contexts of Ukrainian Futurism. Day 2 | Synopsis of the international roundtable within the exhibition “FUTUROMARENNIA”

On October 14 and 15, 2021, Mystetskyi Arsenal hosted an International Round Table “The Contexts of Ukrainian Futurism”. The online events took place within the framework of the exhibition “FUTUROMARENNIA”.
Speakers of the first day, October 14:

• Oleh Ilnytskyi — Professor of the University of Alberta, Canada, author of the book “Ukrainian Futurism (1914 — 1930th)”;
• Przemysław Strączek — Doctor of the Artistic Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences of Warsaw, curator of the Dresden Avant-Garde Archive;
• Andriy Boyarov — media artist, architect, supervisor, and explorer of Ukrainian and Lviv avant-garde.

On the second day of the round table, October 15, the speakers were:

• Hanna Veselovska — the Doctor of Arts, the professor of the Institute of Problem of Contemporary Art of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine, author of the book “Ukrainian theatrical avant-garde”;
• Piotr Ripson — the Professor for the Polish-Japanese Academy of Computer Technologies, the curator of the Jewish Historical Institute and the Head of the ICOM Poland;
• Yaryna Tsymbal — Ph.D. of Philological Science, literature critics and literature theorist from the Institute of Literature named after Taras Shevchenko of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine, researcher of literature of the 1920s, Ukrainian avant-garde, author of the project “Our 20s” in the publishing house “Tempora”.

The two-day round table was moderated by Ihor Oksametny, co-curator of the FUTUROMARENNIA project.

Ihor Oksametnyi: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, dear audience, for everyone, who has joined us already. We are about to start the second part of our round table and discuss the context of Ukrainian Avant-garde. The round table that has been held in the framework of the “Futuromarennia” project and the exhibition that has finally been launched in “Mystetskyi Arsenal”. And I would like to congratulate you all with that and invite all of you to join us at our exhibition. The exhibition will last till 29th of January 2021. So please make sure you join us. My name is Ihor Oksametnyi and I’m one of the co-curators of this exhibition. Together with Victoria Velychko I have going to be moderating our today’s event, our todays discussion. To start with, I would like to have couple of words on the project itself. The project has been supported by Ukrainian Cultural Fund.

The main goal of our project is to show the way the Futuristic ideas have been shown in the sector of Ukrainian culture in 1910-1920s. That is why we have gathered lots of different materials and exhibits. We have more than 500 exhibits, the visual art masterpieces, film and photo documents, the unseen issues and publications before and of course lot of things that we have used what the technical capacities “Mystetskyi Arsenal” has provided us to visualize and to revive this complex phenomenon that Ukrainian Futurism was. Yesterday we have had the honor to host Oleh Ilnytskyi, Przemyslaw Strozzek and Andrii Boiarov as the main guests of our round table. Today our speakers at the second round table we are about to held, I would like to introduce you with Hanna Veselovska, the Doctor of Arts, the professor of the Institute of Problem of Contemporary Art of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine. She is the researcher of the Ukrainian Avant-garde theatre. She has authored the book on the Ukrainian Futurism, Ukrainian theatrical Avant-garde. We pleased to welcome Doctor Piotr Ripson, who is the Professor for the Polish-Japanese Academy of Computer Technologies, the curator of the Jewish Historical Institute and the Head of the ICOM Poland. We also pleased to welcome Yaryna Tsymbal, who is the Ph.D. of Philological Science and who is literature critics and literature theorist from the Institute of Literature named after Taras Shevchenko of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine. We have discussed the Ukrainian-Polish Futurism yesterday, giving the overall scope. Today our speakers are going to the mentioning the specific aspect of Ukrainian-Polish Futurism as well. I am happy to open with Hanna Veselovska, who is going to give us a lot of information on the Futurism and theatre history of Ukraine. Please, Hanna, the floor is yours.

Hanna Veselovska: Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Good afternoon, dear colleagues. It’s a pleasure for me to be the part of this really wide scale project and it’s a pleasure for me to discuss the issue of Futurism in Ukraine, because if we speak about the Futurism in Ukraine, this is a good way for us to join a very broad and overwhelming broad of culture, the European cultural side and international cultural cycle. I would like to talk about the Futurism in theatre in Ukraine. It’s an important issue for me, because I’m going to talk that the theatre has been in Ukraine and Futurism has been present in Ukraine, they have collaborated in some way. But we cannot say that we have had the really full scale Futuristic theatre in Ukraine. We might only mention some serious injections on the theatre from the Futuristic movement, but we might not say that we have the full-blooded Futuristic theatre in Ukraine. Of course, the way the Futurism has influenced the theatrical art…

We should start with Mykhailo Semenko and I’m sure that you have discussed his persona yesterday, we have mentioned him multiple times, but I’m sure that we have to start with Mykhailo Semenko still. Mykhailo Semenko has been the person, who has actually made this injection of Futurism to Ukrainian theatrical art. He has really inspired big circle of people. We are starting with Anatoliy Petrytskyi and Robert Lysovskyi, who have been the people Mykhailo Semanko met in 1918 in Kyiv, the people who have become the members of the Flamingo Group. Speaking of Petrytskyi, we are gonna getting back to him couple of times again. He was definitely an artist, who has been working with Futuristic performances… Speaking of Robert Lysovskyi, he is not that wide known in our circles, but I still true believe that anyway he has also implemented his Futuristic dream. He has become very famous by making the design for the “Lufthansa Airlines” and you know his blue bird can still be seen at the main wings of this airline. So, when Semenko has met this group of the young people that has definitely influenced him and has been the main reason for him to also get acquainted with Les Kurbas. And I know, that as a lot of people has written about that and we have a lot discussed about that, there are different versions of when they exactly met one another, but I do believe their meeting has taken place in the young theatre at the very beginning of 1919. That was also supported by Petrytskyi, who has been participating as a main artistic designer and artistic director in the young theatre performances as well. We know that Kurbas wanted to make one of the performances by the drama written by Mykhailo Semenko. Kurbas has been also participating in Semenko’s magazine “The Art”, he has been also participating in translation of “The Dying art” piece.

If we take a look at the preface to this novel itself, you can see that there is a lot of communalities between those ideas, that have been interesting for Kurbas and the ideas that have interested Semenko as well. They have been discussing the very same destruction of arts. They have been discussing the same death of arts and long live arts. The highest point of the relations between Semenko and Kurbas was 1920, when Semenko in his newspaper has included his article that has been titled “Les Kurbas and the presence”, that has been a very praising text, that has been ended with the words, that Les Kurbas is on the bridge of the world’s creativity. The injections of the Futurism and the influence of Semenko have also covered not just Les Kurbas and not just Lysovskyi and Petrytskyi, but they also influenced a broad circle of Les’ Kurbas friends, the ones that he has met and he has been working in the young theatre. That was first of all Marko Tereschenko, who in 1920s has already been acquainted with Kurbas at this point. He has collected his troop, that has been under the title “Centrostudio” and then later this “Centrostudio” has been reshaped under a different theatre that was titled “The theatre of Hnat Mykhailychenko”. The theatre troop has been existed till 1925 and later on it has been reorganized and Marko Tereschenko has started to work in Odessa. We can call this theatre group a real Futuristic theatre, we might even call them that way. They tried to set out Futuristic performances based on the poems of Ukrainian poets.

The same ideas Marko Tereschenko has proclaimed, he has supported at the pages of the Futuristic magazines. We know for the first of all, that we had seen the manifest “Art of performance” by Tereschenko in 1921. But then he publishes the continuation, the second article. This is a book “Art of acts”. This is a book that has been published in 1921 and his article has been titled just the same way, “The Art of performance”. He also published his article “The present and the past of the performative art”. His connection to Futurism Marko Tereschenko has also supported with other points of view, other positions and other actions. He has been among the ones who have signed the declaration of Ukrainian panFuturism, the one that has been published in “Future” magazine. The one that claimed, that the art is the outdated feature of the past. They have spoken about death of arts, the liquidation of arts, the disease of arts. These articles have been published in the “Semaphor of Future”. They have been published as separate leaflets. They have been published in “Holfstrom” publishing house in 1922. The author has included a libretto of the Futuristic performance by Marko Tereschenko, the one that has been titled “The sky is burning”. The activities and the main action of this theatre has been basically the most important examples of the Futuristic art, theatrical art in Ukraine. We can say that due to close collaboration between Marko Tereschenko and Ukrainian Futurists and poets, because he has been making those performances based on the poems of Pavlo Tychyna, Ellan-Blakytnyi, Semenko, Sosiura, he has made his first performance “The house of the new world”. That has been shown in Kyiv, that was a musical-theatrical composition, based on the poems of those poets, has been very abstractive composition, that has been first of all, the unification of the characters, using only really high dramatic actions and gestures and just making the composition, the settings really remarkable dramatically figure.

The second performance he made, the second performance that has been made only based on Futuristic poets Semenko, Shkurupiy, Skrypnyk “The sky is burning”. This libretto has been published in these small leaflets as well as a separate piece. The artistic supporter of the performance was Vadym Meller. That is an important fact as well, because at this moment we have another injection of Futurism to another artist Vadym Meller. Because “The house of the new world” was the joint work between Petrytskyi and Semenko. They were acquainted for quite a long time and they have been collaborating together significantly before. After the performance “The sky is burning” Hnat Mykhailychenko’s theatre made another couple of the performances. They showed play called “The pitiful March”, based on the poems of Mykola Liubchenko. But their next famous performance was “The carnival”, based on Romen Rollan’s text, the translation of Yuriy Yanovskyi. This “Carnival” was artistically directed and supported by Vadym Meller. Using these paintings in this performance, we might see this approach to the destruction of art. All of the figures exist separately from one another. All these compositions and pictures have been collected through the separation of the figures one from another and only then collecting them in one background. This is a photo of this performance, the way it looked like. The performance had a lot of satirical moments, lots of humor, parody, sarcasm – all of the comedy and humor. Techniques and methods that were available that time, they have been used in multiple plays by thetare of Hnat Mykhailychenko. And they have been an important directorial methodology of Marko Tereschenko. This is once again “The carnival” play, that has been shown in Kyiv’s opera in 1923. Vadym Meller was artistic director and with a support of Borakyvskyi. The activity of Marko Tereschenko has been in some way disturbing to Les Kurbas, because he didn’t agree in some ideas of Marko Tereschenko. This idea of collective action and performance wasn’t close to Les Kurbas, but despite that this period from 1920 -1925, the relations between Kurbas and Tereschenko have been friendly. They have been quite close friends. There is lots of information about some moments of recollection on the modern art between the two of them. They still can be found in Les’ Kurbas texts as well. So, in 1920-1926 Semenko has been balancing between supporting Marko Tereschenko in his search and between his friendship with Les Kurbas as well.

Moreover, Semenko throughout these years has become a very influential figure in the theatrical environment. Of course, his interest in theatre was very important. He tried to work in theatre directly. You can read his reports on the performances and plays. He has been making the overviews of the traditional plays, that has been directed by Oleksandr Zakharov in Kyiv. We can see this has influence on theatrical environment and we can see different publications on Semenko, provided by “Berezin” theatre, supported by Les Kurbas, “The barricades of theater” magazine, where they had an article titled “Mykhailo Semenko and Panfuturism”. There was a clear characterization of the main ideas of this direction and main ideas Semenko had. Except for the experimentation of Marko Tereschenko, we have to recall another theatrical groups, that have been operating Kyiv and tried to do something Futuristic as well. One of these groups has been headed by Oleksii Kapla. They have been making political performances. Sometimes they worked in Russian language. They made performances “Hands of China” or “Can you hear us, Moscow?”. There is another director working with Les Kurbas, director Zakornytskyi, who has worked with a political workshop named after… With this theatrical troop they have also prepared the different types of social political performances. They tried to make the same performances during his key period. This has been said that 1926 has become the year of the final breakup between Mykhailo Semenko and Les Kurbas. Of course, it’s quite obvious there were lots of reasons why they were separated. But Mykhailo Semenko also made his choice over the transformation to Futurism. He is now preferring Anatolii Petrytskyi, who has been collaborating with Ivan Franko theatre in Kharkiv. And he is supporting basically Ivan Franko theatre in Kharkiv. I cannot speak about Ivan Franko theatre in Kharkiv as the one, who would follow the Futurism. It’s not explicable throughout these years. Of course, they’ve made some Avant-garde performances that Borys Hlaholin as a director has provided. But still the Futuristic injection, if we can say this, this theatre has had, with the support of Anatolii Petrytskyi and due to Anatolii Petrytskyi, who had provided the design on the main artistic production of the state from the “Viy”. “Viy” performance based on Marko Kropyvnytskyi layout and retransformed by Ostap Vyshnia. We had a lot of publications over this performance.

What was Futuristic about that and what Anatolii Petrytskyi has offered, so we might mention this performance as a performance that has lot of Futuristic ideas represented and implemented on the stage? There were lots of different interesting publications from Les’ Kurbas students. Students, who went to see premiere of “The Viy” performance. They have seen it twice. They have given a very detailed outline to Les Kurbas about how this performance went. The key idea for them was the Futuristic set-out. There was a scene at Mars. So, the Ukrainian goes to Mars and they meet Martians there. Then he comes back into a very archaic environment, to Polissia and then he goes to the lake from the forest song. This moment, as the people said, lasted only 3 minutes, but it has been a key sequence in the play. We can see it was a key sequence, that there was a try to get outside of the familiar environment, to get outside of the Ukrainian folklore environment, a try to set out a completely different world at Mars, to meet Martians there. There were 25 Martians, but still not been able to stick there and to get back somewhere you belong. As witnesses have mentioned, all has been done in the best way: the machinery, the stage design has been done in a perfect way and it has also begun using the screens, that go up and down and create a new stage place. Again, the students of Les Kurbas said it was all very good, the Mars sequence lasted only 3 minutes, but it made the most significant impact on people. This work of Anatolii Petrytskyi in the Ivan Franko Theatre hasn’t been completed in any way, because in the Franko Theatre they were then on following more realistic artistic directions. Even though in “The new generation” magazine in 1920- 1925 they still supported the activities of Ivan Franko theatre. Even though, of course, there were no serious contacts after that and no serious collaboration between Semenko and Hnat Yura. They didn’t have it later on. Anatolii Petrytskyi has become the main artistic director and the main artist of Kharkiv opera and his “Futurodreaming” has also been implemented very brightly in the activities of the opera theatre.

You know, opera theatre, the musical theatre of the second half 1920s has taken a very significant position in Ukrainian Avant-garde. And we might also see that, by following this project of the main building of the Kharkiv opera theatre, that hasn’t been unfortunately implemented. These Avant-garde activities that have been connected with the ideas of the Futurism in the opera, has not been only connected with the name of Anatolii Petrytskyi, it has also been connected to Oleksandr Khvostenko-Khvostov. So, one of the first his ideas were outlines for Prokofiev play “The love to the three oranges”, that has to be staged in Kharkiv opera. It has never been set out. It was planned to be directed by director Lapytskyi, but unfortunately through the time distance we see that’s even for better, that it has never been performed. Because Lapytskyi was very stubborn realist as a director and wouldn’t have been very capable of evaluating these fantastic projections and those fantastic outlines that Oleksandr Khvostenko-Khvostov has been providing as an artistic director for what has to be done on the stage. What else has to be mentioned, that’s the opera theatre, the artists and artistic directors are not always dealing with the Avant-garde pieces. Most of the cases they know how to reprocess, how to retell in the Futuristic way not only “The love to the three oranges”, but Borodin’s “Prince Ihor” opera as well. This is the material Petrytskyi started to work with. And starting from 1928 at the stage of Kharkiv opera we have seen “Turandot” in his design and in the direction of Flabe, who has come from Prague to Ukraine at that very moment. He still considered he will be able to find the creative ground for his production. He didn’t feel comfortable in Prague at that time.

The next performance was “Prince Ihor” directed by Forreger, who has also come to Ukraine from Russia at that point of time and has also been under the artistic direction of Petrytskyi. The visual dissolution there have been mostly decided by the artist. In most cases I’ve mentioned Oleksandr Khvostenko-Khvostov and Anatolii Petrytskyi in the other cases. And it was a very important outline as well, because it was against the tradition of the psychologization of opera, that has been common to the Russian stage at that moment. Lapytskyi has been one of the foundators who hasn’t made performance in Ukraine. That were very spectacular performances. They have been really fascinating for the people of that time. They were both fascinating for the citizens of Kharkiv and foreigners, who visited Ukraine. And visited the performances of Kharkiv opera first of all, to see “Prince Ihor” performance. I also have to mention the “Hopkins band”, that has also been provided in 1931 and Petrytskyi as an artist and set designer has been working on that. And he has been providing that as well in a very Avant-garde way. We have the continuation of the Futuristic project by Khvostenko-Khvostov in Kyiv in 1929. Kyiv has seen one of the most high-tech operas “Johnny is playing”. Krenek was a very young composer at this time. His music at that moment has been a very Avant-garde music, that has had a little bit of cautious appreciation in Europe, but Krenek has been staged in Ukraine – one of the first in Kyiv, then in Odessa. The director of the Kyiv performance Mykhailo Dyskovsky, and he is the director, who has built up a very dynamic production. That was also an important moment, because before that the theatre slightly had the continuation and coherence of action and the avant-gardists, especially the Futurists wanted to make a performance as an editing principal. They’ve tried to do this in editing way, when one sequence is completely divided from the other sequence and just going to be edited in cuts.

So, these are some of the photos of this play. As you can see the has been a multilayered construction at the background. Those constructions have been made as some kind of a flying machine. You can see there is some kind of moon-walking device on the stage. These all has a significant impact on audience. Also in this performance they have used the modern communication types. They’ve used radio, telephones. They even used different sounds that have been connected to the sounds of the city. They have used it as a part of this performance and it was very important to show the atmosphere of new world and the modern contemporary city. The next stage of futurization has been made with the help of the artist during the theatrical performances. The next stage has been supported by Anatolii Petrytskyi in Kharkiv, but that has now touched the ballet. Speaking of the ballet, Anatolii Petrytskyi has shifted from the fabula to this reality that is facing the modern Ukraine at that main point. The one that have everyone been expecting at that moment, that we might be critical towards though. But when we are speaking about industrialization, about the construction of really huge, big project, and as Anatolii Petrytskyi has said that the 5-year plan needs industrialization, automation of production, the change of the processes of the economy is going to change the art and our everyday life. The same characteristics that all of the sectors of the world will have, the art will have as well. “The football player” ballet, that has been dedicated to the issues of sport, dedicated to the football players, when the main character was the football player and the main events took place in the stadium – they had all ended with this industrial carnival as well. Moreover, in the final of this industrial carnival the modern dancers danced as well. They have shown those natural events. They have shown the oil, natural resources. All those things that can make industrialization possible. It was clear it wasn’t really connected to this “Football player” ballet, because it was very primitive, but it was the main sequence of the play, where they tried to use that for promoting and propaganding industrial future.

As far as I understand I don’t have lots of time to talk about that, but I still want to mention another important person that has influenced Ukrainian theatre in significant way. He has come in Ukraine in 1929 and he tried to make couple of Futuristic performances in Ukraine. That’s Ihor Terentiev. He was born in Ukraine, but up till coming to Ukraine in 1929, he has become famous as an experimenting director abroad. In 1929 he comes back to Ukraine and he starts very active and I would even say aggressive in experimenting in Ukrainian theatre, in different theatres. He started in Luhansk, he has been experimenting in Odessa, in Dnipro, in Vinnytsia, in Kherson. Also Ihor Terentiev was in close collaboration with “New generation” magazine. So, speaking of the support of the theatrical art from the side of “New generation” newspaper, of course we can say, the support of Marko Tereschenko is considered… Anatolii Petrytskyi as the main artist of the Ivan Franko theatre in Kharkiv and the support from Marko Tereschenko as was mentioned in the beginning of my speech. Ihor Terentiev has also had been an important part of this process. There was an idea that he was going to be the leader of the “Lefrist Front” of the Ukrainian theatre and he’s going to be the certain opposition to one that we’ve already, the one who’s been head by Les Kurbas and his troop. This kind of attitude towards Terentiev… It was said that we had Les Kurbas, Ivan Mykytenko joining him in his premiere just to see what he was doing. He has also showed his idea “The theatre of the socialistic competition”, that has been created by Ihor Terentiev and that has been making performances in Ukraine for some time. One of the big scandalous performances was the performance in 1931 “The weirdo”, that has caused an important resonance in the society that was kind of new towards traditional Ukrainian theatre. It has been closed in a very fast time. So, Ihor Terentiev was forced to leave Odessa. He has been working with his theatre later on and with his theatre he has been in a close collaboration with Nedolia, one of the biggest writers at that point. One of his plays have been published in the “New generation” magazine. At the same time Ihor Terentiev has been making the performance based on “Myna Mazailo” by Mykola Kulish. But this play in the interpretation of Ihor Terentiev has had a completely different sound and completely different emphasizes and highlights/ And the main moment was to make a parody on Ukrainian literature figures, on the people, who haven’t been supported by the Futurists of the “New generation” and the members of the “New generation” magazine.

The most scandalous performance by Ihor Terentiev was the “Shot” by Oleksandr Bezymenskyi. And the play and poems have been translated by Semenko. It was an important fact, because again Kurbas hasn’t been supported with any ambitions of Mykhailo Semenko in his drama performances. But then, when Bezymenskyi play translated by Semenko has been shown in multiple theatres and has been staged by Tereschenko in Odessa. For example, it has been staged by Tereschenko in 1930 in Dnipro. That was the project for the theatre of Dnipro city that hasn’t been fully completed.

I can also say that Ukrainian theatre in the end was close to Futurism and all of those injections of Futurism made by Mykhailo Semenko, they have been very aggressive and active and have been seen. But we cannot speak of Ukrainian theatre as a Futuristic theatre. We can only mention Marko’s Tereschenko early works and his works of 1991-1992. Thank you for your attention.

Ihor Oksametnyi: Thank you, Hanna, thank you very much. I just wanted to remind our audience that you can also participate in our discussion, you can comment, you can ask questions under our stream. And I would like to mention couple of our questions, that have already been expressed by our audience. I would like to read them out if I may. So, Hanna, there is a question for you. Can you tell us what are the modern theatres in Ukraine that might be called the most Futuristic?

Hanna Veselovska: It’s a very difficult question for me, I would say. I do believe… You know, those are the theatres that are working with very modern technologies, that can be called Futuristic. For example, those are the projects, that have been completed with the help of multiple screens or video projections, that may be called Futuristic right now. At this moment I cannot recall… Okay, I’ve recalled. Kosternynskyi’s direction. I do believe, he has shown very Futuristic projects for the “Hamlet” performance. And I do believe if we are making this comparison than we can make these comparisons like this with this kind of performances as we…

Ihor Oksametnyi: Thank you. And another question. Why we don’t know a lot about Ihor Tereschenko, unlike we know about Les Kurbas. One of our audiences is asking.

Hanna Veselovska: Well, we don’t know quite a lot about Tereschenko. He has been under the shadow…
Ihor Oksametnyi: No. no. Ihor Terentiev.
Hanna Veselovska: Oh, Ihor Terentiev. We know a lot about Ihor Terentiev. We have publications and the monographies in the west about him. We do not know enough about his Ukrainian period of work. But I’ll try to fill this gap in my research as well. We do not have a lot of photos and we don’t have a lot of photos about his performances, because they didn’t last for a long time. But about his performances, overviews of that – we have a lot of that.
Ihor Oksametnyi: Yes, thank you very much, Hanna. And I think that I would like to pass the floor to Piotr Ripson. He’s going to continue our today’s round table with Polish Futurism topics. He’s going to tell us about Bruno Jasienski and Lviv. So, please, Pjotr, the floor is yours.

Pjotr Ripson: Thank you, very much and thank you for inviting me to this interesting round table. I believe it’s high time that’s research on various Avant-gardes, especially French Avant-gardes in Central and Eastern Europe become more super national and involve scholars from different fields. I prepared a short presentation to which I am going to switch right now. It is a short story that is probably little known, at least in Poland it is little known to scholars. In which the main protagonist is Bruno Jasienski, one of the most prominent figures of Polish Futurism. Which was very loud, but a short-lived literally phenomenon in Polish culture between saying 1900-1917-1915. The war time is a little bit less précised because of the dynamics of the war at that time. And basically by 1923 we can say that Futurism in Poland was declared even by the Futurists to be over. S

o, my narrative is going to be about a dark side of Polish Futurism, when Bruno Jasienski moves to Lviv, which is the dark time within the Polish Borowiec – this considered by Poles Polish-Ukrainian city. And plays an interesting role, I think, in the development of Avant-garde in Poland in general. I am switching now to the presentation. Here it is.

Alright, let’s move to Lviv. Although Lviv wasn’t considered to be central place for the development of the early Avant-gardes in Poland for the Polish side of culture, so to speak. However, the first exhibition of expressionism and Futurism takes actually place in Lviv before such phenomena reach Krakow or Warsaw or other cities. So, it’s a very early start. This is 1913, which is broken by the war. After the World War I ends and Lviv becomes a part of Polish territory with serious conflicts with Ukrainian population and fights between Poles and Ukrainians and the Jews in the city – I am not going to discuss that. We have a number of phenomena that appear very quickly in Lviv that are connected to Futurism in a very wide sense. Futurism basically was a movement that had a literally character and the main protagonists were writers, poets Bruno Jasienski, Alexander Wat, Anatol Stern, Stanislav Mlodozeniec and the most versatile artist and poet of them all Tytus Czyzewski, who was both a painter, but also a poet and a theatre play author. I would say one of these movements in Europe that were very eclectic, that catch up both with cubism, Futurism, dada to a certain extend and invented different code-words, different “isms” to define a character. So, we had Ultraism in Spain and in Poland we had Formism. Formism, which was just a way for the visual arts to stress that the form of the work of art is the predominant quality that artist should focus on much more, than its content.

This has to do to a great extend with this dichotomy in Polish culture, where the verbal symbolic literally and narrative was very dominant in the arts. And once independent of this new state was gained, we have to get rid of these old narratives and symbols, we have to focus on from, which is the main element and feature of the new arts. So, they called themselves Formists and we can understand that some of the artists within the Formist group were alined with the Futurists, with the main person being Tytus Czyzewski. And Formism became movement that was very widespread. One of the artists said that in 1918-1920 if you wanted to say you are a modern painter, you would say you’re a Formist. So, you have a very wide plethora of stylistics, individual stylistics within this movement. And some of the artists are living in Lviv at that time – Jan Hrynkowski, Leon Dolzycki and so forth. So, Lviv together with Krakow and Warsaw and Poznan to a certain extend becomes one of the centers of the Formist movement. The third Formist Exhibition takes place in Lviv with already more artists from the city – L. Lille, Z. Vorzimmerowna and so forth. But by 1923 Formism starts to go into decline. And what happens in the city? I am trying to look at this narrative, that I am having here, from a city prospective. Is that the city goes silent with the modern arts for a moment? The young artists, which will become central for the new arts in Lviv. Which is the artist group alongside the Ukrainian artistic formations. They basically started their mature activity at the end of the decade around 1928-1929.

So, 1922-1924 is a moment, when young generations are leaving the city and there is a certain vacuum in the sense of, I would say, Polish cultural modernistic presence. There are some interesting phenomena and examples of things happening in town. For example, Polish-Jewish Expressionism finds its very vocal code in the person of Ludwik Lille, who is illustrating couple of books: book by Boleslaw Dan “The song of songs”, a collection of poems by Rilke published in 1922 in Lviv. And this is another version, I would say, of this Modernism, which is rooted also in Expressionism and especially, perhaps, in Jewish Expressionisms. It’s very difficult to draw hard lines between these phenomena as I would say, a number of them have exactly these multifaceted not very lineal type of character. Also “Gilgamesz” by Jozef Wittlin is illustrated by Lille. And in 1923 the first prose work by Bruno Jasienski appears precisely in Lviv in the publishing house “Odrodzenie”. The cover of this slightly erotic story is made by Zygmund Waliszewski, a young Formist artist, who recently came from Tbilisi, where he was together with the members of Georgian Avant-garde in the city. Appearance of this book gives start, opens the floor to the presence of Bruno Jasienski in the city. Who is Bruno Jasienski, who moves to Lviv around 1923? He is a very well-known author, perhaps the most known Polish Futurist with such publications as this one daily “Nuz w bzuhu”, a poster-style publication “Knife in the belly” with the futuristic autography. Two or three books of poetry. One of them is the small imagine here on top right “Piesn o glodze”, “The song about hunger”. He is not only a very vocal, very vibrant voice to be heard in cafes and theatres in Krakow, Warsaw, Zakopane and so forth, but also a character that is self-styling himself into a very modernist, a little bit blazered person with an extravagant closing and a tie. In 1924 a very important book comes out, which signals shift from Futurism to Constructivism actually in style. This is a book of poetry by Bruno Jasienski and his colleague from Warsaw, Anatol Stern. A Futurist poet, who was active together with Alexander Wat in the capital of Poland. It’s called “Ziemia na lewo”, “The earth to the left. It’s the first photomontage, type of publication with constructive stenography and the cover by Mieczyslaw Szczuka, an artist connected to the communist party of Poland, a very important constructivist on propaganda, an artist, who unfortunately died at the very young age of 29, I believe, in the Warsaw mountains.

So, in 1924 we have this first self-defining publication of Bruno Jasienski and his compatriot… Proletarian poets… The whole connection is about the Proletariat and exploitation and so forth and so forth. And he is using a very strong expressive tone attacking bourgeoisie and so forth. So, this is how Bruno Jasienski appears on the scene in 1924. In those years in 1923-1924 he moves to Lviv. Sorry for this long Polish quotation, which is taken from one of the Polish language publications in Lviv “Kurier Galicyjski”. However, Bruno Jasienski moves to Lviv and gets married to daughter of someone who seems to be very wealthy, influential person, Herman Arem. It seems that he was also an important shareholder in the Baczewski distillery. And I am mentioning this, because finances seem to play a certain role in this story. We don’t know much about Klara Arem, the wife of Bruno Jasienski. She is his first wife, he got married again later in Moscow in the1930s. However, Jasienski marries Klara, moves to Lviv. As this famous Futurist poet and he started to become the head publisher of the magazine called “Winnica”, just like this town in western Ukraine. I am not very clear why this name “Winnica”, which, of course, means also a place, where wine grapes grow and wine is being produced, why this name has been chosen. And he, the Futurist Jasienski in charge of the magazine “Winnica” has transformed into, I would say, different persona. These are the covers of the magazine “Winnica”, which are suggesting modernistic bourgeois type of publication, which is addressed to the Polish speaking middle class, so to speak. It starts and it runs with a very pompous and loud type of advertisement and declarations. It’s very richly produced, on very good paper with expensive full color plaits and so forth. And a number of foreign authors that were rarely presented in the Polish language beforehand. So, here you have some of the names of people that are involved in the publication. You have Polish writers, such as Bruno Jasienski or Kornel Makuszynski, August Zamojski, very famous Formist sculptor and so forth. But from the foreign authors we have Guillaume Appolinaire, Awierczenko, Ilja Erenburg, Hanns Heinz Ewers and Claude Farrere. We have Pitigrilli and Siewierianin and so forth. The magazine is illustrated by the members of the “Ecole de Paris”: Alicja Halicka and Moise Kislig, but also by people connected with the Polish Avant-garde, such as Felix Kowarski or Felix Krasowski, but also by Malczewski, Tomorowicz, Weiss, Wyczolkowski and so forth.

So, we have this strange cocktail of traditional, modern, very gifted illustrators from Paris and so forth. And a lot of very famous names. Question is what connects all these names and authors? This turns out to be nakedness and eroticism. And Bruno Jasienski, the Futurist, appears suddenly in Lviv as the author, the editor of a soft erotic magazine for the middle class with Modernist edge to it, represented by Modernist authors. His partner, compatriot from Warsaw Anatol Stern is also writing for the magazine and artist such as Kislig and Weiss and others are adding nakedness in a modern garb to the magazine. Even Alicija Halicka, who is the wife of Louis Marcoussis, and is well doing artist in Paris at that time, is adding delicate drawings to the magazine. The role of Bruno Jasienski here is multifaceted. On the one hand, he is giving his name as the editor of the magazine. Secondly, he becomes an author of very different type of material in the magazine. For example, he draws a comic strip on the “Vampire”, a drama from the life of the courtesans. He is also using the typography elements and stylistic elements from the Futuristic vocabulary to produce erotic poetry illustrated by himself here, with this illustration of the futuristic “Venus”. Turns out that he is also the author of numerous illustrations in the magazine itself, typographic interventions and even translations. For example, here the poem by Ihor Siewiernianin, which is translated by Bruno Jasienski.

So, from the Futurist poet and revolutionary author suddenly in the mid-1920s Jasienski becomes publisher and editor of magazine with softcore contents addressed to the middle class and to the bourgeoisie with a number of authors, who are providing adequate content. Not only that the “Winnica” magazine, which is published on the Dudajewa 5 (before the war Zimorowicza 5) in this building to the left, is publishing a number of different things as it is part of a bigger publishers’ venture called “Ateneum”. And “Ateneum” apart from a number of very different types of publications, serious, legal, just pop-fiction and so forth, is also publishing a magazine, which is called “Torpeda”. And it seems that Bruno Jasienski is also responsible as a hidden editor in this venture in same years 1924-1925. We see in this magazine also the hand of Bruno Jasienski in a number of moments, such as, for example, this story called “Klucze” (Potestas Clavium) written by Bruno Jasienski, which is a long narrative in the magazine. As you can see the authors in the “Torpeda” represent as similar cocktail to what we’ve seen with “Winnica”. So we’ve got Appolinaire here and Erenburg, and Ewers, and Gustaw Meyrink and even Paul Verlaine etc. It seems also that Bruno Jasienski is exploited in his drawing talents also in this magazine. So, in fact, we are dealing with a magazine that is published with a very similar content under two different titles. Now this short episode of the editing activity of Bruno Jasienski in Lviv is over by 1925. And there is a number of interesting coincidences that are coming together in, I would say, a quite cohesive narrative about who was Bruno Jasienski in Lviv in those years, why did he choose to become the author of something quite contradictory to what he was doing before. By 1923 when he appears in Lviv, Tadeusz Peiper is publishing his last issue of a magazine published in Krakow called “Zwrotnicy”, where he is declaring in that magazine the death of Futurism.

The death of Futurism is also countersigned by Futurist authors, such as Tytus Czyzewski and others. So, the year of the proclaimed death of Futurism is the year, when Bruno Jasienski appears in Lviv anyway, I would say, already with this nimbus of Futurism significantly broken. By 1925 in Lviv Tadeusz Peiper, who is declared by then the pope od the Polish Avant-garde, is publishing his first very significant manifest of new literature called “Nowe usta” (“The new mouth”) in the same publishing house “Ateneum”, where he is pointing to the constructivist approach in literature as the desired one, “Poezja Jako Budowa” (“Poetry as building”). And the book of poetry is illustrated by Fernand Leger. So, Peiper anyway is responsible both for the closing of the Polish Futurist coffin in 1923 and also for the start of the new Avant-garde chapter in the city of Lviv in the same publishing house. So, Jasienski. I would say, and I am becoming soon to the conclusion, is so to speak, caught between two vectors. On the one hand, is out of the Futuristic stage, because the Futurists’ theatre has been declared closed. On the other, as a newly declared, self-declared Proletarian author, he finds himself in a bourgeois city, probably the most well to do city on the Polish territory in the mid-1920s. So, in a way he is selling out his Futuristic symbolic luggage and wealth to the society, which he so much despised. One thing we are not sure of and there to be question here: who is actually responsible for that Avant-gardistic episode in Lviv in the mid-1920s with the presence of very important figures of the Polish Avant-garde, such as Bruno Jasienski and Tadeusz Peiper. And with Tadeusz Peiper I have to add he was an importer of the Spanish Avant-garde into Polish culture and literature in the early 1920s. And in “Winnica” also one of these Ultraist poets that was basically unknown in our territory, Ramon Gomez de la Serna has been published in a translation, I would assume, by Tadeusz Peiper. So, one big question here is who was responsible for these strange appearances in Lviv involving Polish Avant-garde. Second thing is related very much to the very persona of Bruno Jasienski. We know and it has been said and presented foe years, that Bruno Jasienski in Lviv was one of the main collaborators of Proletarian theatre in the city. There is not that much documentation about it, but it’s very difficult to connect this to, I would say, faces of the Bruno Jasienski, the erotic literature and culture editor and the Proletarian writer for the vocal theatre.

This is an interesting question in context of the future of Bruno Jasienski, who leaves Lviv in 1925 to Paris. He basically maintains that he is kicked out of Poland. He writes in Paris very famous novel “I burn Paris” and he’s expelled from France and finally finds himself in Moscow in the Soviet Union as a very cherished Proletarian poet. And the third thing, which I find very interesting is the gender issue that we see here within the Futurist framework. The production of “Winnica” and “Torpeda” are representing extremely sexist type of attitude towards women as such. And it would be very interesting to analyze how that falls within the context of a general Futurist framework. Thank you very much.

Ihor Oksametnyi: Thank you, Pjotr. And we have some questions coming from the audience for you. But we also have some questions to Hanna as well. So, if I may, I will first voice out the question to you, Hanna, and then we will get back to you, Pjotr. So, Hanna, can you please, tell us, what was the most successful play at that time, I guess the Futuristic play at that time?

Hanna Veselovska: Thank you very much for this question. I think that were the works of Marko Tereschenko. That’s what I’ve mentioned, “The carnival” and we also had another play that was titled “The universal Necropolis” based on Illia’s Erenburg play. And I think that was very relevant and very highly acclaimed play.

Ihor Oksametnyi: Thank you. We have questions for you, Pjotr. Could you tell us why in Europe the Polish Formism has decreased its existence? So, whether it is connected that it has been only focusing on the shape, on the form of it with no additional content and it creates the emptiness? So do you believe whether only highlighting the form, but not the content, limits the artists in some way?

Pjotr Ripson: Well, my answer to that will be that Formism just as a number of other “isms” was a moment that tried to catch up very much with a European mainstream, which was, I mean, the beginning of Cubism and Futurist art go well decade earlier. So, this is one thing is that we have to produce work just as the other artists in Western Europe or in Southern Europe. On the other hand, when they started to look for the original, for the natural, for the also national, for the own info card, it kind of became obvious that these researches are not leading very far or otherwise, they are pushing the Formist art towards sort of a national art. And Formism became opposed to Expressionism, for example, which was identified with Germany and with the German influence, Formists started to be understood as a kind of, you know, foxy version of the Avant-garde. But I think, the main reason for the decline of Formism was that with Tadeuscz Piper, who comes from Spain and Wladyslaw Strzeminski, who comes from Vitebsk after working with Kazimir Malevych and Katarzyna Kobro, who comes along with him, the constructivism movement becomes very strongly manifested. And in a postwar Eastern Europe, empowered, destroyed, in ruins, I think the Futurists’ dynamics meant much more less to the young audience, than the ideas of the Constructivist movement. And so basically, I would say, it was the new Avant-garde wave that finished the Polish Futurist and Formist experience.

Ihor Oksametnyi: Thank you. And we have another question. Speaking of geography, what was the city in Poland is considered to be the city of Futurists? Is it Warsaw or Krakow or any other city?

Pjotr Ripson: Well, this is a very interesting question. When we were doing an exhibition in the National Museum on the centenary of the Avant-garde in Poland, which we were able to convince our rightwing government to proclaim this as a kind of the national year. It was a very funny thing. So, a number of institutions did something about the Avant-garde at the national level. I asked a curator at the National Museum to do an exhibition about cities, not about movements. So, we had Avant-garde in Lviv, Avant-garde in Posnan, we had Avant-garde in Warsaw and in Krakow. Because in each of these cities the Avant-gardistic mixture was very different. Posnan was within this fear, I would say, of the influence of Berlin. So, it was an Expressionist city, Expressionists were very present there. Lodz, which I didn’t mention, was the city, where the Jewish Avant-garde was extremely present. And it was influence both by artists such as Mark Chagall or also by the “Kultur-liha” from Kyiv actually – there were a lot of connections there. Warsaw and Krakow would be the Formists’ cities and Lviv would fall, because it was in the Galicia together with Krakow in that region, it was Formists’ as well. It’s very interesting to look from the city’s prospective, because Poland was divided into three, so basically in 1918 we had three different culturally different regions. And it took quite a long time for those regions to start to talk to each other same language.

Ihor Oksametnyi: Thank you. And we have another question coming up to you. Do you plan to continue researching the sexist concept, that you have mentioned by the end of your report?

Pjotr Ripson: I would love to ask someone else to do that. One practical reason is, I think, the research should be done in the art. You know, I think, why this story is practically little known or unknown is that the magazine is absolutely obscure. I don’t think one library in Poland has full range of a very richly produced thick magazine. So, I think, not only the magazine itself, which we have now, you know, in digital versions etc. But the archival material about the publishing house “Ateneum” etc. And all circumstances around that are very crucial and need definitely Ukrainian archives to be consulted. So, hopefully, maybe, with my Ukrainian colleagues we can think of something that would bring more light on this phenomenon.

Ihor Oksametnyi: Thank you. And we have Yaryna Tsymbal coming to us as well. So, Yaryna, we would like to pass the floor to you, because you are going to tell us a little bit about the Ukrainian Futurism in the multeity of arts. As far as I understand, you are going to be discussing the issues of the synthesis of the arts.

Yaryna Tsymbal: Yes, good evening, dear colleagues and dear audience. I am really happy that finally we are in this way acknowledging many years ago centenary of Ukrainian Futurism, that happened in 2014 actually. But we know that the events of the 2014 in Ukraine have definitely taken our attention of the historical dates. Right now being in 2021 – it is finally moment, when we can speak about centenary and 106 years of Ukrainian futurism.

Today I would like to talk to you about one of the key and the most important Futuristic ideas for us that was the Ukrainian Futurism in multitude of arts. The main tryouts of the Ukrainian Panfuturism try to combine the different arts into one art and what has happened due to that? Because as far as I am speaking about the synthesis of the arts and it’s really hard to understand that without illustration. That is why I would like to also show you a short presentation. So, I would like to offer you a presentation that will have many illustrations for this material that I am about to tell you. So, the main tryouts to practically synthesize different types of art, they have been based in the Ukrainian Panfuturism. According to Mykhailo’s Semenko theory of cults that he has created in 1924 the art is the cult in his terminology, so that is the system of the culture, literature, art and sculpture – they have to be the subcult or the subsystem…So, all of the cults have to be under the dialectical law – construction and destruction. The differentiation in the framework of the subsystem, for example, the origins of the new directions that is going to destroy the subcults it only gives us the understanding for the destruction of this cult system overall. The art as a cult as Semenko has considered, with permanent and the temporary construction and destruction cycles, is already in the destructive type in our times. The destruction of culture and potential construction in this now leaves the final stage of the structure on its own in this overall scale. That has been a very complex theory, that Semenko has voiced out, but the main sense of it is about the connection between the construction and destruction in the framework of arts. By denouncing the death of arts, they proclaimed the start of it… The art should not decrease in one moment in all of these subcults. I would like to quote Semenko on that: “The art is not liquidated straight away in all of that’s components. The roads will follow one after another after whole of this system is going to decline. There is a sub change for the culture… one elements so far, apprising of the new type so far, the joint struggle and the collaboration between cultural phenomena inside of the arts as it is. The Panfuturism has proclaimed that the parody of the destruction of the old art that has been stylistically close and that is why the framework of the destructive process in the poetry and prose no longer exist. And this is most important, the high time for Panfuturistic construction”.

Semenko has explained his construction in this way. The materialization of words is only possible and dynamic… The dynamic essence of the word is tightly connected with action. The static essence of word is about the graphic and the artistic point of… The first is based in time, the other based in space. It’s quite obvious that the poetry is either connected with theatre or the other way it is connected with arts. Arts and painting, now we see how we can pare it in the Panfuturistic construction. In the clearest form we might have this clear element of structure. So, we can synthesize sculpture and arts. But it is not enough for us. I do believe that there is opportunity to integrate poetry, painting, sculpture and architecture. The easiest way is going to be combining the poetry plus artistry. At this moment I am providing it together. The sculpture –prose-architecture with the painting plus sculpture as the intermediary. A poetry and painting has been considered as the visual poetry. The technique requires additional materialization of complexes that is going to be seen in the form of it, – as Semenko has explained. Both of the articles that I am quoting has been published in the “Semafor of the future”, magazine that you can see in front of you right now. This pamphlet of the Futurism has been published in 1928. And in this very magazine he has introduced his first tryout of this visual poetry. The poetry that was sent by the ocean… It has been published…, but it has been only published as a separate text. He has said that this publication has been made without his agreement, without his approval. It can only be published in this… It is made of the cards, that have been illogically based. Each card is divided into two vertical panels that exist separately from one another and can be read separately as well. One of the columns is divided into two horizontal panels, that contain the lines. This is a telegram that should have gone all over the world. This part has been created in the telegraphic style. Maybe, the horizontal layout should also reconnect us to the telegraphic stripe. But we cannot only read it horizontally, but we can read it vertically and we can really read it out perimeter twice. The second vertical column includes the text of the poem itself. The titles are made in red and black, there are numbers written in the frame and they give the overall name of the author. That gives us opportunity to call them paintings as well.

We know that this poem has been mostly targeted to take a look at and only then to read it. With a use of the graphic form and you can see the different words and different telegrams there, and that’s we know the implementing the main tasks of the visual poetry Semenko has put. Making it a shape that has been free in the whole opinion, the opinion that holds up the synthesize notions and terms. These words cannot be identified by the weak human voice, it can only be seen only by the big painting, so you can use the synthetic notions with. This is the main idea and the visual poetry – the new arts that will help us… that will only develop right now only in this… This poem illustrates the ideas of the visual poetry by Semenko as a big upholstery when you are working with different synthetic notions. In your imagination you can broaden this card from the picture, from the printed page up to the big artistic painting, then you can use it. You have seen the geographical titles, technical notions, the different ideologies that have been depicted there. It also gives us the principles of crosswords or the acropoem as you can see. On this page, for example, at this card you can see “Dynamo”, “Terror” and the “Metro” that combine it, and the neighboring card that you can see the word “Sturm” and “Oil”, “England” and “Japan”, which were created out of this as the crossword.

There is another “My mosaic” cycle. Cycle of 1922. The cycle is made only of ten cards that have been also printed out. It has been printed out first in this “Kobsar” title in 1924. The publication that has happened to celebrate a ten years of Futurism and has included his main works throughout these ten years. So, “My mosaic” cycle is made of ten cards, that I have already said. It has been dated and signed as well. It also contains the main card that is told to make a title page for the publication. It’s not like the cable form, it is a separate card, it is a separate poem, so they have been divided into rectangles and have been filled directically and horizontally with words, numbers and mathematical signs. The three cards are the word constructions with no frames. One frame is an intermediary moment. It has been framed, but it hasn’t been divided into rectangles and geometrical figures. The graphical design has a very different role, then a poem. Letters and the words are made in different font and typefaces – bold or cursive and they have a semantic moment as well. First poem, that is called “Avant-garde”, and you can see it on the left, it provides space characteristics – the metal form and the background. But you can see that the semantic meaning to that is deeper than we might say. With the help of the different typefaces and fonts that he has offered aside the difference between Avant-gardes and… So, you can see that the picture itself is also providing information to the readers. In the other cases with the help of the graphical elements you can also provide the main emphasize, the emotional connections and the characters. One of the points the card that you can see on the right “Iren-Irochka-irokez”, where you can see that in the last line, when she is grown up and she has become the little … Iryna Semenko. And by analyzing the first collections, even before he started to do the visual poetry, she released outline that he has doubts whether the picture depicting was important to him to depict the right words even to make it live. “My mosaic” has been divided by Oleh Illnytskyi into two categories. The one that are graphically beautiful poems and poems that are specifically fragmented and they are violating the grammatical rules. Eccentric that are following the main visual poetry lines has the Panfuturism subsystems, that you can see the text is much more important than the picture of itself.

The second category, the graphic, the image dominated poems, that doesn’t follow the main rules of grammar. The most important that has been the cycles of poetry that have been also written under the influence of Kazemir Malevych and you can see that there were four rectangles and they have been filled in with nouns, the verbs and numbers. The overall simplicity of geometrical shape, the way it has been based and the title of it give us the opportunity to speak about this type of poetry as the opportunity to use the ideas of Kazemir Malevych in literature. The last category of the visual poetry is appealing to overall synonymy, that you can see on the right. We can also see the connection with Geo Shkurupii, “The autoportret”. And Shkurupii is writing “The autoportret” right to define his name “Geo” and “I” in different words like “geographi” and “geometri” and “ego” in other words as well. And he fulfills the space with the word “Australia”, “America” with his name again. “The pshycotosis” publication has been published in 1922 and even though the subtitle to that was the third publication, that was the first publication by Geo Shkurupii. This publication has included 23 poems and 3 posters. That we might call the posters with motoric style. Although the researchers believe those posters should also be considered the artistic text and should also be included in “The psychotosis” publications together with the other poems as well. Understanding that there was a lot of practice of creating the poster poetry later on. Overall on the left you can see most of the poems have been published in the Caps, that is why the titles are sometimes the first letters in the lines and it all looks like the acropoem, but it’s not like that.

The opportunity to first make a public use the poetry as the visual component it never limited to poetry. “The new generation” magazine that has started to be published in October 1925, they have published “The bear hunting the sun” by Andrii Chuzhyi. The form has no connection to the sense of the novel. It’s only just a game. It has been published in different shapes, sometimes they are making letters and lines and sometimes they are making just a breakthrough. And space in this two pictures that you might see, these types of publications, the figures – they have no connection to the content, to the sense of what is being written. Even the most expressive moment of the intermediality in the Panfuturistic creativity wasn’t the synthesis of the literature and film. The film has been highly depending on photos and theatre and then from literature it has become a more important part of life and has been providing the lost to the other subcults of arts. The film should be the matter of art that Panfuturism wanted create. That something that has been mentioned by Oleksandr Perehuda in the “Bumerang” that has been created half a year before “The new generation” in 1927. Finally, film has become the essence of our life, has now included into our life and now wants to take the money of our life, because there is no part in our activities, where the film could not reach its hunger hands. This habit, that we have spoken a lot, has now been created on its own.

The combination is unexpected, but it’s very organic and now it has lots of dialectic power to that. A lot of Panfuturists have already tried out themselves in the young films sector at that moment. But in 1924 and the end of the “Kommunkult” publication “The gong” of “Kommunkult” magazine, Mykhailo Semenko in 1925 has moved to Odessa, where he has become an editor and chief of the main film factory. At that point he has also engaged Mykola Bazhan into film working, that has been the editor of the film magazine, Yurii Yanovkyi, that has been an editor in the Odessa film factory, Geo Shkurupii that used to be editor in the “Wufku”, in all Ukrainian film and photo directory. And in the pages of the “Gong”, the commune-cult, they have been sharing futuristic articles by Lazar Frenkl. And Lazar Frenkl in the “Golfstrom” publication he was going to publish two of his playwrights “The hands of China” and… Oleksii Kappler has also been introduced by couple of shorts stories in this magazine as well. Later on the people joined “The new generation”, the one that has been connected to film as well: Dmytro Buzko, whose the first novel has become a film hit and then Buzko has become the author of the book and film factory, Oleksandr Perehoda, the film director, Lopatynskyi, the director of the theatre, the theorist of film, Oleksii Poltaratskyi, and Hanna has mentioned some of them in her speech as well. The film has turned out from just an attraction to the real artistic form. The literature has borrowed of it the very précised gesture and the editorial principles, the cut-outs and the editing, that has provided lots of opportunities for experiments, has gained the Futuristic attention. And in the same publication “Gong” of “Kommunkult” Geo Shkurupii has already used the editorial points. The believe that this is something that can show best of the emotions and the main life of the Proletarians.

The poster approach has raised even before in the October edition of 1923 of the Panfuturism edition. You can see both front and back covers of it. The two poems by Yakiv Savchenko and Volodymyr Yavchenko have been titled just like this “The October poster A”, “The October poster B”. Both of them have been worked on the Proleterian motto of the country “Unite!”. Then you can see how it’s written around the perimeter of the first page and it has been multiple times repeated in the text. The poster B is titled “Proletar, be aware”, but there were other mottos that had been also identified in bolds. The main importance was that you first of all see the main motto and then with your desire you can read out the full text, that also plays role of the paintings in the poster poetry. The most important is for the poster that it has impact. Except for the literature, in poster poetry in the October edition of the Panfuturism, you can see that most mottos that have been created by Mykhailo Semenko and the graphical design of it was by Mykola Bazhan and Geo Shkurupii. And at the same time Mykola Bazhan has been designing and illustrating the books of Oleh Slisarenko. And you will able to see that. I do hope you will be able to see that exhibition in “Mystetskyi Arsenal”. The editing and the cut has been used by Vadym Meller and Mike Hohanssen in a very original way. Both Meller and Hohannsen has been using that in their novel. Willy Wetzelius is fake name of Mike Hohanssen. They combine the text and illustration with editing cut principals. Meller has not only made illustration for the book, but he actually intertwined the illustration in text as one.

Sometimes the picture substitutes the words. It was a very nice editing of the text and illustrations. Because this is one of the ten book series. They have been published with the principles of the Pinkerton literature at that point of time. Which means that every book has ended with the words “to be continued” and then the next chapter has been a continuation as a separate book. The problems of this series are neutralized by a very nice editing, which has been made in the best way as one of the reviewers has written. And that is continued considered to be an important notion for comprehending all of the text. And that has been an organic part of the overall facture of the text as an important part of the fabrics of the text. The writer and the illustrator has really used that in the right way to show the dynamics of the plot in an adventure novel. But the most risky tryouts to combine the visual and word images to create the new film language was the script by Lopatynskyi “The dynamo”, that has been inspired by Herbert Wells story. Lopatynskyi has been experimenting in theater and film. He has made multiple plays, that has caused a lot of discussion and disapproval of the audience due to many stunts that have been made on stage. What is Lopatynskyi offering in his script, and I would like to quote his preface to this script on this time. “I do believe that our critics even through the red glasses and red spectacles they will see that it’s not about the high qualification and the flexibility of the word, but in those unclear images for the film that I am trying to take to the screen, it is about the freshness of the topics that you use in the new structure of the script, that I use. And I am giving the opportunity to address the screenwriter’s emotions to the direct emotions of the director through this new rhythm of the scenes and using this rhythm with the help of notes, emphasizing the words, the opportunity to create a much stronger end for the films, that they are not just fadeouts of the diaphragm and other things.” The end of quote.

“The dynamo” playwright was based on the visual comprehension. It has lots of punctuation, signs, it has full stops commas, the arrows – all of the things. It has been written in the short lines, that remind you of a white poem, but not the prose. It is in the way how you create a really flexible rhythm of the film story. The title of itself “Dynamo” is not only connected to the story, but also gives overall character of the text. Lopatynskyi and his story has been bringing up towards the Futuristic ideas. It gives you the opportunity to use the different cinematic cards. For example, the caps cards are meaning that you are doing the master shows. In the increase of the typefaces this is overall the zooming or zoom-out of the camera. What is very interesting, that the different sizes of the typefaces have been used with a very same idea, that in “My mosaic” be Semenko. By doing this, he is trying to provide the opportunities for the authors to be freed also and to have influence of the dynamics of the math according to Semenko’s understanding of the poetry and arts.

The Panfuturism they believe that it’s one of the important stages for the liquidation of the arts. The opportunity to combine the literature and film, literature and painting, literature and photography, like, for example, the reports from Poltoratskyi and Dan Sotnyk “The Donbass have a way” that has been published in “New generation” and never has been published separately. But “The hero of our times” and you can see the title cover of this book, where the main text has been by Poltoratskyi and all of the photographs have been made by Dan Sotnyk. That was an idea to combine literature with other types of art and to build up a highly dialectic forth out of this connection with an idea to destruct the arts and to create the matter arts as Panfuturists wanted. It has given the birth to new artistic directions in the Panfuturistic arts: the poster poetry, the visual poetry, the photo reports, the film novel, screened novel. Right now all of those masterpieces are being studied at the literally legacy, but in 1925 Mykhailo Semenko has said there is a lot of perspectives to that and in the “Semafor of the future” he said that the idea of the painted poetry is now widespread.

In Kyiv we have lots of ideas to make the exhibition of the painted poetry and to show the painted poetry throughout films and paintings. It would be very interesting for us to see those masterpieces, the one that I’ve mentioned. They have been implemented as the paintings, for example, during exhibitions or as films. That would be very interesting to see them, to see those shifted structures the Futurists wanted to see not only on the printed press with the printed editions as we see them right now, but also to see them in the more expositional form, for example, at the exhibitions. And I do believe this is going to be a very good idea for the further exhibitions on Ukrainian Futurism, because I do hope they will have more futuristic exhibitions to come. And the final shot in my presentation is the photogram by Dan Sotnyk from his book “The heroes of our time”. Even though, those were reports from Kavkaz, when they made the trip with Poltoratskyi, but this photogram as has been said, is a combination between the frog and the cancer. This is the combination of those structures that the Futurists really wanted. This is a symbolical idea of their desire to create the matter art. Thank you very much for your attention.

Ihor Oksametnyi: Thank you, Yaryna, I can only say, that we have made a little bit of success, we have been slightly successful in this direction if we speak about visualizing the painted poetry. You have a chance to take a look at that.

Yaryna Tsymbal: Yes, it’s the first day of this exhibition, so we will be able to see what you’ve made and what are the ideas that will leave for the future.

Ihor Oksametnyi: Yes, thank you very much. I am going to read out the questions that we’ve had coming for you. Yaryna, could you please tell us, did you have the followers, did Ukrainian Futurists have their followers and the ones that have been inspired by Ukrainian Futurists? Have you researched that, for example, as it usually happens with painters? Not only painters. Did you have the followers of Ukrainian Futurists?

Yaryna Tsymbal: If we speak only about the Futurist writers, most of them they have been repressed throughout the time of the Big Terror in 1934-1937. So, those people who have stayed alive, they haven’t continued working in the Futurist direction after that. Later on, basically in the 90s already, because, for example, Mykhailo’s Semenko poetries have only been republished in 1988, the same for Mike Johanssen as well. So interest to them has not been restored in the 90s. For example, Serhiy Zhadan has had his thesis as well about Futurists.

Ihor Oksametnyi: Okay. And the second question is: Do you believe if the Futurists would have the modern technologies right now, so they would have had a better scale of planning?

Yaryna Tsymbal: Yes, I do believe. Actually, I do believe even if they had the digital technology in this access to information that we have, then I am sure the arts would have been on the bigger scale, than we can see it right now. And I do know if the aliens, Martians knew about Semenko, then I know that with our opportunities you would definitely be limited to that and aliens would definitely know about Semenko having our opportunities by now.

Ihor Oksametnyi: Okay. Thank you very much. You know, our time has already come to an end. And I would like to thank all of you, our dear panelists for your participation in the round table. Thank you for having us time. Thank you very much for your speeches that you presented to us. I would like to invite to our exhibitions anytime. Pjotr, if you have opportunity to join us in Kyiv, it would have been the greatest pleasure for us to see you in Kyiv in “Mystetskyi Arsenal”. At least Pshemyslav has told us that he is planning to visit us in January if everything will be okay.

Ihor Oksametnyi: Anyway, I do hope we will be able to have 3D tour as well and you will be able to see it, if you won’t be able to make it. And we have constant updates on our site and we have different visual information as well, so you can make some taste of this exhibition already. Thank you very much. We would like to thank the whole team that has been supporting us throughout this time, throughout this round table. I want to thank Yulia Olenina for her support. And we would like to thank our interpreters as well. And we would like to thank all of the people who have been listening to us, who have been watching us closely. Thank you for your attention. And before we closing I would also ask you to take a look at the site of “Mystetskyi Arsenal”. We already have the program of the parallel events that is going to take place starting from tomorrow. This program is going to be updated on a weekly basis. I am sure that something new and interesting is going to be happening for everyone of you and I am sure that by the end of October, on the 29th of October we are going to have a performance by Serhiy Zhadan, that has been already mentioned by Yaryna. We are going to have his musical performance coming in. So, please, I would like to invite you once again to “Futuromarennia” project in “Mystetskyi Arsenal” that has been supported by Ukrainian Cultural Fund. Thank you for your attention. Have a nice evening. Good bye.

The two-day roundtable took place within the framework of the Futuromarennia exhibition with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.