Stanislav Krasovitsky about the 100th anniversary of “Dyr Bul Shchyl” by Alexei Kruchenykh

In February 1913, a collection of poetry by futurists, “Lipstick,” was published with a text by Alexei Kruchenykh, beginning with the words “hole bul schyl.” Anna Narinskaya talked with Stanislav Krasovitsky about one of the most famous poems in the history of Russian poetry

Anna Narinskaya: “Dyr bul schyl” - what was that? Or rather, what is it?

Stanislav Krasovitsky: “Dyr bul schyl / ubeshshchur” is exactly what “is.” These words have no meanings, and therefore their pure essence is visible. Here there is only what is. Because sound is a given. Kruchenykh understood this, and understood it very precisely, almost mathematically. He was generally very rational. And his poetic exercises, they were often not outpourings of the poetic soul, but illustrations of his theoretical reflections. He was a poetry theorist.

He believed that sound in poetry is more important than image, more important than anything else. And I think so. Because the image is self-expression, an expression of oneself. And sound is harmony, it exists objectively. In my youth I studied biology - among other things, we boiled shellfish in sulfuric acid. Each mollusk has an insoluble residue, a calcareous lattice - it is called a radula. This radula is always original for each species. Poetry also has a radula - the same “grid” that unites poetry along, let’s say, national grounds. Kruchenykh understood this. “Dyr-bul-schyl-ubeshshchur” is his formula for Russian poetry.

Stanislav Krasovitsky (b. 1935) - a legend of uncensored poetry of the 1950s; in the early 1960s he abandoned his poetry and destroyed half of what he wrote. Then he began to write poetry again: “I turned everything I had vertically, and they began to sound differently, the sounds were arranged differently.” Priest of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

A.N.: So all Russian poetry is in some sense “hole-bul-schyl”?

S.K.: Yes, they have the same radula, the same sound platform. A platform of Russian poetry in which the vertical prevails over the horizontal, or, more simply, in which the distances between sounds are short.

And if you look, or rather, listen carefully, it becomes clear that “dyr-bul-schyl-ubeshshchur” and “Sad time, the charm of the eyes” are related to each other. But “I’ll take a long rifle, / I’ll go out of the gate” - that’s different. Lermontov is, I think, a Celtic poet who, by the will of fate, had to write in Russian, the heir of his legendary ancestor Lermont, who went to the land of fairies. But Lermontov is the only genius who does not fit the rule of this vertical sound grid. And so all Russian poetry is “hole-bul-schyl-ubeshshchur”.

A.N.: That is, as a theorist of poetry, he is a genius. How about a poet?

S.K.: He is a poet. It's enough. Although it is quite difficult to figure out where the poems for him are confirmation of his theories, and where exactly the poems are. Sometimes his poems seem too heady, “from the mind.” So I’d rather, in order to show how the sounds are arranged in the poem, what meaning they have, how they themselves, how the distance between them is maintained by the poem, I’ll quote Khlebnikov’s lines:

This was when the gold
Three stars were lit on boats
And when the lonely thuja
She spread a branch over the grave.

Or this poem:

Don't sit down more comfortably
And tell madness:
Nothing like this,
Nothing like this

A.N.: Whose is this?

S.K.: This is mine. I just recently wrote. This is the same sound grid. And Kruchenykh understood everything about her. And even if his poems seem too precise and cold, one thing is for sure - there is nothing harmful in his poetry. But if poems cause harm, then this is very serious harm. If you put poison into the construction of a poem (and this can be done)... For example, there were ancient Scandinavian vises that give birth to death: a person reads it and dies.

A.N.: Do you believe this?

S.K.: I absolutely believe it. It can be done. Why did I, for example, destroy most of my poems? Because I saw poison in them. But there is no poison in his poems.

A.N.: You knew him, right?

S.K.: Yes, I met him, probably in 1962. My friend, the poet Valentin Khromov, and I came to him, introduced ourselves, and then began to visit him from time to time. He had a room in a communal apartment, tiny. There was about two and a half meters of free space there. There was a bed there and a bedside table next to it: we usually drank champagne on it - we always came to him with champagne. And the rest is all up to the ceiling! - was overwhelmed with copies of his hectograph-printed brochures.

When Burliuk arrived from America in 1965, a reception was held at Lily Brik's house. Burliuk was such an imposing, chic gentleman; he gave the poet Kirsanov a cowboy shirt in front of everyone. And I remember how Kruchenykh entered the hall and went to him. Kruchenykh was always very poorly dressed. He was generally demonstrably poor.

A.N.: Why did you decide to go to him? There were more famous figures - Pasternak, for example .

S.K.: He was very interesting to me, because I understood that he was a serious person. By the way, he was a friend of Malevich. Not by chance. Malevich’s painting is also philosophy. Malevich also longed to go beyond the boundaries of our world, where there is sun and stars and so on. The black square is also “hole-bul-schyl”. It means nothing and means everything. He just is.

All 1913

“This is the formula of Russian poetry”