Velimir Khlebnikov’s poem “Vam”: context, intertext, ekphrasis
AbstractThe present study examines Velimir Khlebnikov’s early poem “Vam” (“To You”, 1909), addressed to Mikhail Kuzmin. Drawing on Kuzmin’s diary entries and Khlebnikov’s correspondence, it seeks to reconstruct the poets’ personal and creative relationship, clarify the dating of the young author’s letter to his mentor, and analyze the mechanisms of textual address within the poem. Particular attention is given to the poem’s intertextual dimensions. The first is literary, involving allusions to the works of Lord Byron (Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage), Alexander Pushkin (the ode Liberty, Eugene Onegin), Mikhail Lermontov (The Dying Gladiator), and several other authors. The second is visual, grounded in a network of ekphrastic references—most notably to the ancient sculpture The Dying Gaul (a copy of which is preserved in the Capitoline Museums in Rome) and to several funerary monuments located in the cemeteries of Gunib and Kargebil (Gergebil, Dagestan). The article demonstrates how the interplay of ekphrasis and intertextuality generates a metatextual framework that shapes the poem’s structure of address.
The study is based not only on an analysis of the poem “To You”, but also on a broader contextual reading of Khlebnikov’s works, along with documentary sources such as letters from his relatives (father, mother, and sister). The findings make it possible to trace Khlebnikov’s text to its connections with both Russian and world literature and art.