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Olga Rozanova (1886-1918)




Sound poem, ca. 1916-18, 0'43". MP3
Voice – Galina Musijina-Nikiforova
Recording – Miguel Molina, Audio Laboratory of the UPV Dpt. of Sculpture (Valencia, Spain)
Production Date – 2006

Olga Vladimirovna Rozanova (b. Melenki 1886 - d. Moscow 1918). Although she was mainly a painter, she also developed her activities in the field of design, fashion, book illustration and poetry, and was one of the leading representatives of the new typography. In her artistic life, she participated in the activities of cubo-futurist and suprematist artists. Her poetry is close to zaum language (her husband was Alexei Kruchenykh, creator of zaum), seeking through an "intuitive creation" of the phonetic of different languages, a universal intercommunication between them. In this poem called Spain she takes the sonority of some Spanish words -both real and fictional - and transforms them according to a rhythmic oral cadence, mixing them with other words from Russian: "Antiquary", "Phantom", "Grimaces", "The anthem", "Of death", generating a dramatic and poetic game of tones that portray a place; "the patterns of association are almost entirely paronomastic, and continuity is based on such paronomastic links"
(Gerald Janecek).



Sound poem, 1916, 0'14". MP3
Voice – Karina Vagradova
Recording – Miguel Molina, Audio Laboratory of the UPV Dpt. of Sculpture (Valencia, Spain)
Production Date – 2004

Olga Vladimirovna Rozanova (b. Melenki, 1886 - d. Moscow, 1918) was a poet and painter, cubo-futurist and suprematist. This poem is in a transrational language of Rozanova's in which she makes special emphasis on accent variation and rhythmical repetition. The poem, without a title, is dated 8 June, 1916 and exists as a manuscript in the Rodchenko-Stepanova Archive in Moscow. Her work as an artist was to extend the illustrations and typographical works of the poet (and her husband) Alexei Kruchenykh's cubo-futurist books.


Zbrsbest zdeban
zhbzmest etta
zhmuts dekhkha
umerets
ittera

[Transcription by Alexander Lavrentiev]


RELATED RESOURCES:
Russian Futurists from the GLM Collection (1920-1959)
Sound Experiments in The Russian Avant-Garde (1908-1942)