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Velimir Khlebnikov

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Velimir Khlebnikov was a famous Russian poet and playwright.

Velimir Khlebnikov by M. Larionov (1910)
Velimir Khlebnikov by M. Larionov (1910)

He was a central part of the Russian Futurist movement. This group of artists wanted to try very new things. Many people called him a maverick genius. One famous linguist even called him the greatest world poet of his century. He was known as a poet's poet by his friends. His work was very special and reached far beyond his own time.

Khlebnikov loved to play with the Russian language. He looked closely at the shapes and sounds of Cyrillic letters. He used these sounds to invent many new words. He also helped create a special language called zaum. Zaum is a language that is very hard to translate. He wrote many famous poems like "Incantation by Laughter" and "Snake Train." He even wrote a prologue for a Futurist opera called "Victory over the Sun." He used these new ways to make art feel fresh.

Khlebnikov was born in 1885 in a place called Malye Derbety. This was in the Astrakhan Governorate of the Russian Empire. He was of Russian and Zaporozhian Cossack descent. He went to school in Kazan and then in Saint Petersburg. He eventually left school to become a writer full-time. In 1909 and 1910, he met other famous Futurists. These included poets like Vladimir Mayakovsky and David Burliuk. They formed a group called Hylaea together.

He had many big ideas about the future of the world. He wrote essays about how people might travel and live. He imagined people living in mobile glass cubicles. These cubicles could attach to huge, skyscraper-like frameworks. He also thought radio would share all human knowledge. He imagined giant book-like displays on street corners. In 1912, he even wrote a method to predict historical events. He predicted the collapse of an empire in 1917.

In his final years, Khlebnikov studied many deep subjects. He became interested in Slavic mythology and the math of numbers. He traveled to Persia in 1921 to see new sights. He wrote poems about his time there and met dervishes. Sadly, he had to return to Russia in August 1921. He died in June 1922 while staying with a friend. We do not know the exact cause of his last illness. However, a small planet named 3112 Velimir was named after him in 1977.

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File:Velimir Khlebnikov by M. Larionov (1910).jpg
Velimir Khlebnikov by M. Larionov (1910).jpg
File:Velemir Khlebnikov 1913.jpg
Velemir Khlebnikov 1913.jpg
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