OBERIU

Categories / Literature. Book Publishing/Salons, Circles, Creative Associations and Unions
OBERIU, the Association of Real Art, a literary-theatre group (1927 to the beginning of the 1930s), D. I. Kharms, A. I. Vvedensky, N. A. Zabolotsky, D. Levin, I. V. Bakhterev, A. V. Razumovsky, Y. D. Vladimirov, K. K. Vaginov et al. were its members. N. M. Oleinikov and E. L. Schwarz were drawn towards OBERIU and took part in a number of its actions. The main purpose of the group was expressed in its manifesto published in the journal Afisha Doma Pechati (the Bill of the House of Press, 1928) as "drawing language near reality, releasing it from stock phrases of the previous literary trends. Authors appealed for releasing things "from literary and everyday husk" in order to make them property of art. Literary soirees of OBERIU were held on the stage of the House of Press (21 Fontanka River Embankment) where on 24 January 1928 their most important literary soiree Three Leftist Hours was held. Members of OBERIU read their compositions at Leningrad State University, at the Institute of Art History, in clubs and hostels. Meetings were also arranged at the place of Kharms (11 Nadezhdinskaya Street, today Mayakovskogo Street), Y. S. Druskin (17 Bolshoy Avenue of Petrogradskaya Storona; 150 Nevsky Prospect), L. S. Lipavsky (8 Gatchinskaya Street), Vvedensky (37 Syezzhinskaya Street). In 1930, the group suffered harsh criticism in the newspaper Smena (New Generation) and in a number of other editions, and after the slashing speech of N. N. Aseev at the meeting of the Union of Writers in 1931 it in fact stopped existence. All the participants of the group were subjected to repressions in the 1930s, the majority of them perished.

References: Жаккар Ж. Ф. Даниил Хармс и конец русского авангарда. СПб., 1995.

D. N. Akhapkin. Aseev Nikolay Nikolaevich
Bakhterev Igor Vladimirovich
Druskin Yakov Semenovich
Kharms Daniil (real name Yuvachev Daniil Ivanovich)
Levin D.
Lipavsky Leonid Savelievich
Oleynikov Nikolay Makarovich
Razumovsky Alexander Vladimirovich
Schwarz Evgeny Lvovich
Vaginov (Vagenheim) Konstantin Konstantinovich
Vladimirov Yury Dmitrievich
Vvedensky Alexander Ivanovich
Zabolotsky Nikolay Alexeevich
Bolshoy Ave of Petrograskaya Storona/Saint Petersburg, city, house 17
Fontanka River Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 21
Gatchinskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 8
Mayakovsky St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 11
Nevsky prospect/Saint Petersburg, city, house 150
Syezzhinskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 37
Жаккар Ж. Ф. Даниил Хармс и конец русского авангарда. СПб., 1995 Smena (The New Generation), newspaper
Smena (The New Generation), newspaper
1928