The Diaries of Nikolay Punin

by Punin, Nikolay; Monas, Sidney; Krupala, Jennifer Greene; Krupala, Jennifer Greene

• ISBN13: 9780292765894
• ISBN10: 0292765894
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

"Punin was an extraordinary figure, both as a man and as a thinker. . . . His relations with such schools as Constructivism, Acmeism, and Formalism make him a key figure in understanding the fate of theory in Russia."--J. Michael Holquist, Yale University, editor of the works of M. M. BakhtinNikolay Punin (1888-1953) was the most articulate Russian/Soviet art critic of the 1920s. He strongly advocated Constructivism, an avant-garde impulse that favored mechanomorphic abstraction and proclaimed a movement to bring art into the center of popular life. In the United States, he is perhaps best remembered for his love affair with Anna Akhmatova, one of the great poets of the twentieth century.This volume presents the first English translation of ten diary notebooks that Punin wrote between 1915 and 1936, as well as selections from his earlier (1904-1910) and later (1941-1946) diaries and some thirty notes and letters relating to his affair with Anna Akhmatova. These materials offer a rare glimpse into the life of art and artists in Russia. They also present vivid scenes from the 1905 Revolution, World War I, the 1917 Revolutions, World War II, and Stalinist oppression through the reflections of a talented man, who, unlike many of his generation, lived to tell the tale.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introductory Essay: Nikolay Punin and Russian Futurism	xi
Sidney Monas
Introductory Essay: Punin and Akhmatova	xxxiii
Jennifer Greene Krupala
Note on the Translation	xliii
Early Materials from the Punin Diaries, 1904--1910	1	(24)
Notebook One, 1915--1917	25	(30)
Notebook Two, 1919--1920	55	(12)
Notebook Three, 1920	67	(4)
Notebook Four, 1921--1922	71	(16)
Notebook Five, 1922--1923	87	(10)
Notebook Six, 1923--1924	97	(28)
Notebook Seven, 1924	125	(10)
Notebook Eight, 1924--1925	135	(16)
Notebook Nine, 1925--1926	151	(26)
Notebook Ten, 1936	177	(4)
Late Materials from the Punin Diaries, 1941--1952	181	(48)
Glossary	229	(28)
Index	257