![Илья Зданевич](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/%D0%98%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%8F_%D0%97%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87.jpg)
Ilia Mikhailovich Zdanevich ( ka, ილია ზდანევიჩი, russian: link=no, Илья́ Миха́йлович Здане́вич) (April 21, 1894 – December 25, 1975), known as Iliazd ( ka, ილიაზდ), was a
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
and
Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
writer, artist and publisher, and an active participant in such avant-garde movements as
Futurism
Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such ...
and
Dada
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
.
Early life
He was born in
Tbilisi
Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the Capital city, capital and the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia, lying on the ...
to a Polish father, Michał Zdaniewicz, who taught
French in a
gymnasium and a Georgian mother, Valentina Gamkrelidze, who was a pianist and student of
Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
. (His older brother Kiril Zdanevich also became an artist.) He studied in the Faculty of Law of
Saint Petersburg State University
Saint Petersburg State University (SPBU; russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the G ...
.
In 1912 he and his brother, along with their friend Mikhail Le-Dantyu, became enthusiastic about the Tbilisi painter
Niko Pirosmanashvili
Niko Pirosmani ( ka, ნიკო ფიროსმანი ''Nik’o Pirosmani''), simply referred to as Nikala (ნიკალა ''Nik’ala''; 1862–1918), was a Georgian painter who posthumously rose to prominence. Relatively poor for ...
; Ilya's article about him, "Khudozhnik-samorodok" ("A natural-born artist"), his first publication, appeared in the February 13, 1913, issue of ''Zakavkazskaia Rech. Later in 1913 he published a monograph ''
Natalia Goncharova
Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova (russian: Ната́лья Серге́евна Гончаро́ва, p=nɐˈtalʲjə sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvnə ɡənʲtɕɪˈrovə; 3 July 188117 October 1962) was a Russian avant-garde artist, painter, costume designe ...
,
Mikhail Larionov
Mikhail Fyodorovich Larionov (Russian: Михаи́л Фёдорович Ларио́нов; June 3, 1881 – May 10, 1964) was a Russian avant-garde painter who worked with radical exhibitors and pioneered the first approach to abstract Rus ...
'' under the pseudonym Eli Eganbyuri (russian: link=no, Эли Эганбюри). In June 1914 the journal ''Vostok'' published his article "Niko Pirosmanashvili," in which he mythologized the biography of the older artist, linking him with the
Silver Age and the Russian avant-garde. He became involved with the new
Futurist
Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...
movement, participating in their discussions and writing about them and
Marinetti
Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti (; 22 December 1876 – 2 December 1944) was an Italian poet, editor, art theorist, and founder of the Futurist movement. He was associated with the utopian and Symbolist artistic and literary community Abbaye d ...
in the Russian press, and was drawn to other avant-garde movements as well, such as
Zaum
Zaum (russian: зáумь) are the linguistic experiments in sound symbolism and language creation of Russian Futurist poets such as Velimir Khlebnikov and Aleksei Kruchenykh. Zaum is a non-referential phonetic entity with its own ontology. The ...
and dadaism.
During World War I Zdanevich returned to the Caucasus as a newspaper correspondent, and from 1917 to 1919 he lived in Tbilisi, where he published several collections of poetry in the ''zaum'' style (''Yanko Krul Albansky, Ostraf Paskhi'', and ''Zga Yakaby''). In 1918, he joined
Aleksei Kruchenykh
Aleksei Yeliseyevich Kruchyonykh (russian: Алексе́й Елисе́евич Кручёных; 9 February 1886 – 17 June 1968) was a Russian poet, artist, and theorist, perhaps one of the most radical poets of Russian Futurism, a mov ...
and others in the Futurist group "41°." Zdanevich in 1919 adopted the pseudonym Iliazd. He left Tiflis for
Batumi
Batumi (; ka, ბათუმი ) is the second largest city of Georgia and the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, located on the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia's southwest. It is situated in a subtropical zone at the foot of th ...
.
Paris
In October 1920 left the country to investigate the new artistic currents of France. After a year spent in
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
acquiring a French visa, he arrived in Paris in October 1921, where together with other artists he organized the group Cherez ("Across"), whose aim was to bring Russian
émigré
An ''émigré'' () is a person who has emigrated, often with a connotation of political or social self-exile. The word is the past participle of the French ''émigrer'', "to emigrate".
French Huguenots
Many French Huguenots fled France followi ...
s together with representatives of French culture.
In 1923 he began his novel ''Parizhachi'', about four couples who agree to dine together in the
Bois de Boulogne
The Bois de Boulogne (, "Boulogne woodland") is a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. The land was ceded to the city of Paris by t ...
; in the course of two and a half hours (each chapter has an exact time for a title, from 11.51 to 14.09) they all manage to betray each other, and the novel itself breaks all manner of orthographic, punctuational, and compositional rules. Zdanevich continued working on this "hyperformalist" novel (which he described as an ''opis, or "inventory") until 1926, but it was not published until 1994.
His second novel, ''Voskhishchenie'' ("Rapture"), was published in a small edition in 1930 and was ignored at the time. Set in a mythical Georgia among mountaineers, on the surface a crime novel, it is actually a fictionalized history of the Russian avant-garde, full of allusions to world literature; it could be said to anticipate
magic realism. The language of the novel is innovative and poetic, and the Slavist Milivoje Jovanović called it "undoubtedly the summit toward which the Russian avant-garde was striving."
Zdanevich's 1923 poster for his and
Tristan Tzara
Tristan Tzara (; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, comp ...
's ''Soirée du
coeur à barbe''
vening of the bearded heartis a widely known example of
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), and ...
and
graphic design
Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscipli ...
. During the last forty years of his life in Paris, Zdanevich was active in a variety of areas. He did analyses of church elevations, created fabrics for Chanel, and above all dedicated himself to the creation of artist's books with the collaboration of Picasso, Max Ernst, Miro, and others, and which he published under the imprint "Le Degré 41", or "Le Degré Quarante et Un" (English, "The 41st Degree"). His innovative typographic and design work has been exhibited at the New York Public Library, MOMA, in Montreal, in Tbilisi in 1989 in a joint exhibition with his brother Kiril, and in many other venues. Catalogs for many of these exhibitions exist and contain considerably more detailed information about his life and works.
Ilia Zdanevich died on Christmas Day 1975 in Paris. He was buried at the
Georgian émigré cemetery at
Leuville-sur-Orge
Leuville-sur-Orge (, literally ''Leuville on Orge'') is a commune south of Paris, France. It is situated in the Essonne department in the Île-de-France region.
Inhabitants of Leuville-sur-Orge are known as ''Leuvillois''.
Geography
Situated ...
.
References
Further reading
* ''Iliazd and the Illustrated Book''. Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1987.
* ''Iliazd, Maître d'œuvre du livre moderne''. Catalog of the exhibition at The University of Quebec at Montreal, 1984.
* John Russell,
'Iliazd and the Illustrated Book' at the Modern" ''New York Times'', July 17, 1987.
* Iliazd, ''Rapture: A Novel'', Columbia University Press, 2017 (The Russian Library). Translated by Thomas J. Kitson.
*
Johanna Drucker
Johanna Drucker (born May 30, 1952) is an American author, book artist, visual theorist, and cultural critic. Her scholarly writing documents and critiques visual language: letterforms, typography, visual poetry, art, and lately, digital art ae ...
, ''Iliazd: A Meta-Biography of a Modernist'',
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
Press, 2020.
External links
Iliazdat The International Dada Archive, hosted by the University of Iowa.
available for download (in Russian)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zdanevich, Ilia
1894 births
1975 deaths
Dada
20th-century Russian writers
20th-century Russian artists
Russian book publishers (people)
French poster artists
Artists from Tbilisi
Georgian people of Polish descent
Russian people of Georgian descent
Russian people of Polish descent
Russian emigrants to France
Russian dadaists