Russian Literature LXIV (2008) III/IV

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PREFACE TO FRAGMENTS II/III OF DOSKI SUD’BY

ANDREA HACKER

This issue contains the second and third fragment of Velimir Chlebnikov’s Doski Sud’by (The Tables of Fate). As in the previous issue of RussianLiterature (LXIII-I, 1 January 2008), the Russian text faces the English translation and is followed by bilingual annotations that provide information on the numerous events, people, and natural phenomena that Chlebnikov mentions in his text. The contents of these two fragments build on the foundation that was laid in the first fragment wherein Chlebnikov introduced his idea of “fate-navigation”, the newly found discipline of deciphering the laws of time. The first fragment offers the genesis of Chlebnikov’s discoveries, from his 1905 vow to find the laws of history to the 1920 discovery of the main laws of periodic events; it lays out all the fundamentals of his theory: “I realised that the recurring multiplication by itself of twos and threes is the true nature of time”, writes Chlebnikov, before he introduces his understanding of the interrelation of time and space and illustrates his temporal laws with a plethora of examples from history. The second fragment continues in this vein: Chlebnikov introduces his findings as regards the repetitive patterns in mankind’s history by offering more data on related historical events in the past of various countries and nations, such as the Roman empire, England, Russia, Germany, India, and Korea. He mathematically juxtaposes or groups crucial historical events in

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the history of both East and West. One example, which returns in this fragment and will reappear throughout his cosmology, is his coordination of Alaric’s conquest of Rome with the Battle of Kulikovo and the election of the Romanovs, whose name, he argues, rings with the legacy of the Roman empire. What becomes clear in the second fragment is the central role that Russia plays in Chlebnikov’s otherwise global theory: he devotes a number of equations to his country, where he investigates not only Russia’s recent past in the First World War, the Revolutions and the Civil War, but also its more distant history, such as the founding of “the third Rome” and the expansion into Siberia. Indeed, the complexity of Russia’s placement be-tween “east” and “west” manifests itself in Chlebnikov’s inconsistent argu-mentation. For example, in a collection of formulas entitled “Shifts of the Russian People”, Chlebnikov explores Russia’s eastward expansion: The Battle of Mukden and Ermak’s push into Siberia are linked to the sea-battle at Naulochus in 36 B.C., which paved the way for Octavian to successfully contest Marc Antony’s military supremacy and, with consequent campaigns into Illyricum (Slovenia) and Dalmatia, to become Caesar Augustus. If both Russians and Romans (“two Rs”) are western, so Chlebnikov, then Mukden proves to be their shared counterpoint in time. Russia under the Romanovs is a continuation of the West and not the East, with which Chlebnikov asso-ciates the country in other circumstances. This fragment raises two significant points that can be traced through-out Doski Sud’by, and indeed through many of Chlebnikov’s late writings: Firstly, the concept of the transmigration of souls, particularly those of pro-phetic figures and philosophers: Chlebnikov explains how the appearances of such figures as Fu-Si, Hammurabi, Mohammad, Plato, Jesus, Luther, Ame-nophis IV and Pangu are temporarily predetermined. Secondly, Chlebnikov’s notion that the same exponential laws governing human history also govern sound finds its most poetic expression in the poem ‘Trata i trud i trenie’ (‘Trash and Toil and Tension’).1 By adding a further, third exponent, which turns 3n into

n

, so Chlebnikov, it is possible to transcend the world of small events (such as human history) and enter the world of sound.

n3

In the text “Po inka mozgov” (“Mending Brains”) Chlebnikov once again rephrases the periodical nature of time.2 Every civilisation, he argues, goes through the same development of upswing and downswing. In his view this “truth” about time leaves only two possibilities for understanding the universe: either to accept the laws he has postulated, or to adhere to the traditional understanding of time. The former grants access to past and future as though they were like three-dimensional space; the latter leads to mis-taking the small for the significant and vice versa. The third fragment, which is significantly shorter than the second, applies the same mathematical principles outlined in the first two to new realia. It departs from the law of related events in temporal units of 3n and 2n

Preface to Fragments II/III of ‘Doski Sud’by’ 267

and applies it to astronomical phenomena. In other words, Chlebnikov sug-gests that exponential equations govern the movements of the stars just as they govern the battles of nations, births and fates of individuals, and patterns of sound. The fragment opens with “Azbuka neba” (“The Alphabet of the Sky”), which may be read as a brief exposition of the “pure law of the universe” based on exponential equations. In the next section, entitled “Kak stroitsja god?” (“How is a year constructed”), Chlebnikov offers one of his main find-ings: he shows how an earth year of 365 days can be arithmetically repre-sented as the following mathematical series: 365= 35+34+33+32+31+30+1. In the treatise following the table “God trojki na nebe” (“Year of Three in the Sky”) Chlebnikov applies his fundamental exponential laws of time to various temporal realms. He begins by showing that the orbit of planets in our solar system can be expressed similarly to the earth’s orbit in series built on 3n. These formulas become increasingly more complex, mixing exponential rows of 2n with those of 3n.3 Chlebnikov proceeds to demonstrate that the fate of peoples unfolds according to the same law. He relates planetary orbits to what he calls “downfall of empires”. The next step is to show how the laws of time work in similar ways for planets and individuals. The second half of the essay puts forth the thesis that the entire universe is “roughly made with the axe of raising to a power”. “All that exists is one”, writes Chlebnikov, and the cosmos is “our huge uncle”, whose skeleton is built of functions. In the remainder of the third fragment Chlebnikov offers a few more formulas, mainly regarding the planets’ orbital speed in our solar system. He also introduces other phenomena that occur in temporal intervals, such as light waves and what he refers to as the “day and night of thoughts”, all of which he then brings into mathematical relation to planetary movements. In the third fragment Chlebnikov attempts to illustrate his principal notion that not only events on earth, but all things in the universe are related. Using more mathematical information than the previous two fragments he sets out to prove that these relationships can be expressed in formulas based on exponential expressions of 2 and 3. It is here that his historical theory is complemented by a cosmic theory, which is at least partly based on Pytha-gorean ideas. That the extent of his theory was intended to span even more phenomena becomes clear from two details in the third fragment: the incorporation of the half-time of radium, and the allusion to the chemical properties of sugar. While the former is a relatively straight-forward measur-able interval (even though the number Chlebnikov worked with is incorrect), the latter anticipates one area that was to play an important role in DoskiSud’by: biochemistry. There is no major treatise on this subject in the seven fragments, but the recurrent calculations on the properties of organic sub-

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stances throughout the archival draft material suggest that Chlebnikov had planned to explore this realm of existence at greater length. Editing the translation of the two fragments has posed a few unfore-seeable challenges. While we attempted to be consistent with the renderings of terminology, this has not been possible in a few crucial instances. One example is the translation of the Russian term “nebo”, which we found impossible to render consistently as either “heaven” or “sky”. While in the second fragment Chlebnikov uses the word to describe the dwelling of the god(s) (“heaven”), he applies the word mainly to astronomical phenomena and expressions involving stars. “Starry heaven” sounded too forced to us, so we decided to apply “sky” in the latter context. The rendering of “sutki” also challenged us. We had to change our original decision of translating it as “day”, because it could undermine the calculations. We have decided on the bulkier “day and night” to convey the sense of complete rotation of the planet in question. The lesson learned from these challenges is that the dynamic, fragmentary character of the original has its effect on the text’s translation, which is, like its Russian original, a work in progress. I would like to express my thanks to Natalia Gadalova for her thorough assistance and to my colleagues at the Institute of Eastern European History and Area Studies at the University of Tübingen for their support and patience.

NOTES

1 Variants and drafts of the poem can be found in various files housed in the Russian State Archive for Literature and Art (RGALI), see font 527, opis’ 1, ed. chr. 73, l. 8; ed. chr. 77, l. 19, ob.l. 42, and ed. chr. 83, l. 29.

2 This relatively short treatise is reminiscent of Chlebnikov’s idea of the “Zakon Ka elej”, one of the first formulations of which can be found, as Barbara Lönnqvist points out, in his short 1914 poem, ‘Zakon Ka elej velit’. Barbara Lönnqvist, Mirozdanie v slove. Po tika Velimira Chlebnikova, 9, Sankt-Peterburg, 1999. An earlier draft of ‘Po inka mozgov’ has been published in Ronald Vroon, ‘Velimir Khlebnikov’s Otryvki iz dosok sud’by: Notes on the Publication History and Three Rough Drafts’, Themes and Variations. In Honor of Lazar Fleishman, Stanford Slavic Studies, 8, Stanford, 1994, p. 337.

3 However, Chlebnikov offers no explanation on the meaning of increased complexity. In some cases it appears that he mixes twos and threes at will. The manuscripts themselves are ambiguous. Some of what seems to be contradictory may be resolved by the position of the numbers within the formulas.