Kharms D. (1905-1942), writer

Categories / Literature. Book Publishing/Personalia
KHARMS Daniil (real name Yuvachev Daniil Ivanovich; also known under the pen-names Charms, Dandan, Shardam, Karl Ivanovich Shusterling) (1905, St. Petersburg - 1942, Leningrad), a poet, prose writer and playwright. He was educated at Peterschule gymnasia. From the mid-1920s he took an active part in the literary life of Leningrad. In 1925 he became a member of The Order of Zaumniki DSO (Nonsensical Writers DSO) (called the Left Wing from 1926), in 1926 he joined the All-Russian Union of Poets. He was one of the founders of OBERIU (Association of the Realistic Art) group. From 1928 he contributed to children's magazines Chizh and Ezh, and wrote poems for children. He was arrested in the end of 1931 and exiled to Kursk in 1932. However, he soon obtained the permission to return to Leningrad. The poetical language of Kharms is characterised by the tendency towards grotesque, phonetic, semantic and syntactic experiments. His plots, absurd and illogical at first sight, are often rooted in the fantastic world of Gogol' Petersburg Narratives or folklore. The theme of St. Petersburg - Petrograd - Leningrad permeates his Comedy of the City of Petersburg (1926-27), reminiscent of the paramount works of the Russian literature and combining various temporal schemes of St. Petersburg period of the Russian history. The traditions of the "St. Petersburg text", established in the works of A.S. Pushkin and F.M. Dostoevsky, are developed in his narrative the Old Woman (1939). Kharms was arrested for the second time in August 1941 for "defeatist propaganda" and died in the prison hospital, as some sources put it. He lived at 11 Nadezhdinskaya Street (present-day Mayakovskogo Street).

References: Жаккар Ж. Ф. Даниил Хармс и конец русского авангарда. СПб., 1995; Кукулин И. Рождение постмодернистского героя по дороге из Санкт-Петербурга через Ленинград и дальше: (Проблемы сюжета и жанра в повести Д. И. Хармса "Старуха") // Вопр. лит. 1997. №4. С. 62-90.

D. N. Akhapkin. Dostoevsky Fedor Mikhailovich
Kharms Daniil (real name Yuvachev Daniil Ivanovich)
Pushkin Alexander Sergeevich
Mayakovsky St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 11
Кукулин И. Рождение постмодернистского героя по дороге из Санкт-Петербурга через Ленинград и дальше: (Проблемы сюжета и жанра в повести Д. И. Хармса "Старуха") // Вопр. лит., 1997
Жаккар Ж. Ф. Даниил Хармс и конец русского авангарда. СПб., 1995 OBERIU
Chiz and Yezh (Siska and Hedgehog), journals