Customer Reviews

Oberiu: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism (European Classics)

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2 star:		(1)
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The OBERIU anthology, put together with great care and sound scholarship by Eugene Ostashevsky, is an important publication, if only because much of the materials translated therein are published for the English reader for the very first time. As one of the co-translators of this anthology, I won't speak to the quality of the translations, though I think they are at least a sincere and valiant effort to bring into English a most complicated group of Russian writings from the early Soviet period.

Some important information about the anthology is missing from the general Amazon description:

First of all, the anthology is EDITED by Eugene Ostashevsky. But the authors of the works included in Northwestern Univ. Press's "OBERIU" Anthology are:
1. Daniil Kharms (poet, playwright, prose-miniaturist)
2. Alexander Vvedensky (considered the most radical poet of the group)
3. Nikolai Zabolotsky (poet)
4. Leonid Lipavsky (philosopher)
5. Nikolai Oleinikov (poet)
6. Iakov Druskin (philosopher, music theorist, theologian)

Some of the original members of the Oberiu group (founded in 1928) whose texts were not included in the anthology are:
1. the poet and revered prose-modernist Konstantin Vaginov
2. and the poet Igor Bakhterev (the youngest member of the group)

I hope this short comment will help those who are interested in the works of the so-called OBERIU writers (or Russian Absurdists as they are sometimes referred to), find out more about these audacious artists, unique thinkers, and innovative writers.

I used this to introduce Russian absurdism to my creative writing class, and they loved it. The variety of styles here--poetry, play, prose, short-short, dialogue--make it great for teaching form, as well as introducing any literarure or creative class to the genre of Russian absurdism. The introduction, written by NYU Lit. professor Eugene Ostashevsky, is a very clear (but not dumbed down) explanation of the Oberiu movement, their purpose and place in Russian history--if, like me, you're not qualified to explain it to students yourself. Also, the selection and pieces here are great. The Kharms especially. I'd never read Alexander Vvedensky before and now he's one of my favorite writers. (Check out "A Certain Quantity of Conversations," which is a brilliant play, of sorts, in ten mini-acts). I'd rec. this book for anyone who's a writer (great for inspiration) or teacher. Or who just wants to read something different and hilarious.

I must admit, I'm baffled by the lack of publicity for this extraordinary book. I mean, not a peep. So I've taken it upon myself to copy the following quotes from its back cover:

"OBERIU, sometimes called Russia's last avant-garde, is one of the most intriguing and little-known movements of the years before World War II. The absurdist poets at its center--Alexander Vvedensky, Daniil Kharms, and Nikolai Zabolotsky--belonged to the first generation of writers to come of age after the October Revolution and hence stand apart from their futurist predecessors. Less interested in coining neologisms than in `destroying the protocols of semantic coherence and linguistic realism,' these poets have produced a series of inventive, freewheeling, and often hilarious poetic texts in a variety of forms and genres. This anthology, the first large-scale English translation of OBERIU poetry, has been superbly edited and translated by the Russo-American poet Eugene Ostashevsky and his colleagues. In avant-garde annals, this is a milestone."--Marjorie Perloff

"The OBERIU writers are a revelation, an aspect of Russian modernism in the early Soviet period that has been largely invisible to readers in English, and these translations are brilliant, as nervy and funny and demotic as if the work were written in an inspired English in the first place."--Robert Hass

I wish I could impute a more positive rating, but I cannot find the wherewithal. The content of this putatively "absurdist" collection was such as my twin three-year-olds could readily pen without a moment's preparation. Noting that Kharms was among the authors represented, I expect to at least see something of the quality of his "The Old Woman," but I did not. It seemed as if the anthologists sought high and low for the poorest, leanest possible representation of every participating author. Vvesensky (yes, that's the proper spelling) was a waste of paper. I didn't even bother to delve into the other three or four "writers."

I assigned two stars because the typography was clean and the grammar of the translation was excellent.