We are made of material meant for geniuses or The Circle of Illiterate Scientists

Starting as early as 1932, there could be no question of any publications or public appearances. Moreover, it was necessary to hide one’s work from outsiders: Kharms could not forget that, besides Nilvich’s article, there was also a denunciation written by representatives of the proletarian student body of Leningrad State University, which directly asked how the Union of Poets could tolerate such literary hooligans in its ranks… They usually gathered on Sundays — Kharms, Vvedensky, Lipavsky, Druskin, Zabolotsky, Oleynikov — and held fascinating conversations on literary, philosophical, and other topics. In 1933–1934, Leonid Lipavsky recorded the conversations that the elders and their friends held in a close circle. Later, his notes were published under the title “Conversations.” Judging by everything, he was the one who most fully understood the significance of these conversations, which still took place in his home at 8 Gatchinskaya Street, where he lived with his wife Tamara Alexandrovna (née Meyer).

Below is an excerpt from them.

Kharms: Would you like to go to Nikolai Alekseevich’s? Nikolai Makarovich is already there, and besides, there’s also pie.

Lipavsky: Shall we commit a crime on the way, in other words, a betrayal?

Kharms: I have already committed it once today, but I’m ready to do it again.

Lipavsky’s notes help to understand the very nature of the process of communication among writers and philosophers in a close circle of friends, which they themselves called the “Circle of Illiterate Scientists.” The activity of this circle continued for several years. Vladimirov and Vagin were no longer alive — they died of tuberculosis. I. Bakhterev distanced himself from his former comrades, and soon Zabolotsky did as well. But life went on. It was Lipavsky who coined the phrase that Kharms recorded in the most difficult times for himself — in November 1937: “We are made of material intended for geniuses.”

Source: http://www.d-harms.ru/friends/lipavskiy.html

https://arzamas.academy/materials/1492