Traces of Italian Futurism in Russian Experimental Prose. The Case of V. Šeršenevič and L. Zak

At the end of 1913, the Moscow-based Futurist group Mezzanine of Poetry (Mezonin Poėzii) published the almanac Krematorij Zdravomysli-ja [The Crematorium of the Common Sense]. The almanac came out right before the group separated and thus represents its legacy. Gathering the works of fourteen poets of the Mezza-nine, this voluminous publication stands out for its attempt – set down by the two theoretical leaders of the group: Vadim Šeršenevič (1893-1942) and Lev Zak (1892-1980, who signed his works as Chrisanf and as M. Rossi-janskij) – to shape a genre of experi-mental prose that would reflect the vividness and innovation of the poet-ic language of Russian Futurism. The present paper analyses the stylistic features of three prose works in the almanac: two excerpts from Šeršene-vič’s unfinished novel Introdukcija samoubijcy [The Suicide’s Prelude] and L. Zak’s short story Knjažna Karakaticeva [Princess Cuttlefish]. It does so in reference to Marinetti’s statements and to Šeršenevič and Zak’s theoretical writings on prose, included in the same almanac. Prose is one of the least investigated liter-ary forms in Futurism Studies. Thus, the analysis deals mostly with prima-ry sources and with the documents collected by V. Markov and V.P. Lapšin. The aim is to shed light on the continuity in the development of Ital-ian and Russian Futurist experimental prose and, specifically, to read the works of Šeršenevič and Zak from a new comparative perspective, inves-tigating the extent to which they used the theoretical principles set down by Italian Futurism.