Ever since the "Lay of Igor's Campaign" and the period of the byliny, real word-art had fallen into disuse and
- everything was done to muffle the primeval feeling for the native language...[1]
The word had become an automatic, mechanical, repetitive instrument of thought, while
- everything which connects it with its kinsmen and the springs of existence—is unnoticed.[2]
It was in a revolt against the reign of byt in language that Kruchenykh made such exaggerated statements as
- the more disorder we introduce into the construction of sentences—the better.[3]
*****
We have noted that Khlebnikov championed Russia's "singers" as opposed to her "writers".[4] He believed that "the song" and "the book" in Russia belonged in "different camps".[5] He yearned for a "bonfire of books"[6]—and also for a "second language of songs."[7] He described his word-creation technique as "the enemy of the bookish fossilization of language."[8] Livshits praised Khlebnikov for "a discovery of language in its liquid state."[9] Khlebnikov condemned "language borrowed from dusty libraries" as "alien, not one's own language".[10] And he curiously associated the overthrow of this "bookish-fossilized" language—with the unification of mankind and the overthrow of all "states of space."[11]
