Fontanka River Embankment, 21, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 191023
The history of the OBERIU poets' fellowship began in 1922–1923, when three school friends — Yakov Druskin, Leonid Lipavsky, and Alexander Vvedensky — started meeting in a home setting to discuss questions of science, art, theology, and problems of existence. In 1925, Daniil Kharms, who signed as “chinar-vziralnik,” and Nikolai Oleinikov joined them. Members of this peculiar poetic-philosophical circle sometimes called themselves “chinars.” At the same time, Kharms tried to unite the “left” poets, writers, filmmakers, and artists of Leningrad. At first, it was the “Left Flank,” then the “Academy of Left Classics,” and in 1927 the creation of OBERIU (Association of Real Art) was announced. The circle closest to OBERIU included their chinar friends, Yevgeny Shvarts, as well as Alisa Poret and Tatyana Glebova, who illustrated OBERIU publications for children. In 1927, Kazimir Malevich gifted Kharms his book “God Is Not Overthrown” with the inscription: “Go and stop progress.”
The OBERIU declaration was published in the first issue of “Afisha Doma Pechati” in 1928, and the most famous OBERIU evening called “Three Left Hours” took place on January 24, 1928, at the House of Printing on the Fontanka (in the Shuvalov Palace building).
The evening lasted three hours. The first hour was occupied by performances of poets Vvedensky, Kharms, Zabolotsky, Vaginov, and Bakhterev, accompanied by a theatricalization specially designed not to correspond to the content of the poems. For example, Kharms read his “phonetic poems” while sitting on a black lacquered cabinet that assistants moved around; Vvedensky rode in on a tricycle; Vaginov’s performance was accompanied by a ballerina. The second hour featured a play based on Kharms’s absurdist piece “Elizaveta Bam,” with all roles played by non-professional actors. The third hour began with a lecture on contemporary cinematic art and continued with the screening of the experimental anti-war film “Meat Grinder” by Alexander Razumovsky and Klimenty Mints, which has since been lost. Most of the film consisted of footage of a moving freight train with soldiers. The evening ended with dancing and discussion of what had taken place. Reviews that appeared the next day called the event nonsense and chaos, while the OBERIU members themselves were confident of absolute success.
Over the next three years, several more “creative evenings” took place, which were performances involving poets, circus artists, and musicians. However, the prevailing situation in the country did not favor the publication of OBERIU’s experimental poetry and prose or the staging of their dramatic works. The only opportunity for publication they had was works for children. Most OBERIU members contributed to the magazines “Yozh” and later “Chizh.” In December 1931, the main OBERIU members — Kharms and Vvedensky — were arrested for the first time. The exile that followed the arrests led to the effective dissolution of the creative group.
