for all the apparent egotism just mentioned, D S Mirsky could write that the "I" never became a poetic theme with Khlebnikov.[1] The poet's peculiar impersonalism or collectivism was a point fervently insisted upon by the Cuba-Futurists, who distinguished themselves thereby from the so-called "Ego—Futurists“. Boris Lavrenyev writes how, at a meeting between the ego- and cubo-futurists in his apartment in 1913, David Burlyuk denounced the former because they
- were really not futurists at all and had no right to usurp that name... By the very prefix "ego", the ego-futurists underlined their narrow individualist horizon... "You are egoists, while we Khlebnikovians, we Hileans are universalists", David said.[2]
Khlebnikov's championship of the power of the "We" appears in a variety of forms throughout his work, from the sound of "thousands of voices" (accompanied by the rumblings of mountains) shouting "We can!" in "Zangezi" to a note in which, writing of himself, Khlebnikov explains:
- The iron sword of the "We" cut the "I"—sword of copper.[3]
The re-construction or re-unification of the archaic tribal “We” of humanity was of course, as we have seen, the ultimate aim of all Khlebnikov's linguistic efforts. The fragmentation of the ancient unity into separate "egos" is lamented in the following poetic lines:
Benn MN m Banana 3 Beunxofi seAthm um (He TLMH, a mu) Grams y sopor senmxoro Mm...
Bane um unpcxoe nenoe KGJEM ea 3, Ha unoxecrso a, Mr? H-
fiepeeo rocnonmsa Hapona Meaeu Ha a,
Cocronn ma unormx qacrefi.[4]
