Daniil Ivanovich Kharms is often called the end of Russian avant-garde or the last Soviet avant-garde. As the central figure of OBERIU with A. Vvedensky, he continued his literary experiments from the mid-1920’s to the 1930’s. His influence in Russian literature had survived even until the era of Russian postmodernism, which makes us call him the bridge between Russian avant-garde and postmodernism.
Several researchers in Korea have paid their attention to this meaningful author. Almost of their studies, however, have concentrated on the similarity between Kharms’ world view and that of Russian avant-garde; “something absolute”, “the summit of nonobjectivity.” Although it has its own enough value, this point of view could consider Kharms just the arriere-garde or an imitator of Russian avant-garde. The study on Kharms needs not only his similarity with Russian avant-garde, but also the difference with it, because the latter makes Kharms an innovative, experimental author.
This study insists that Kharms deconstructed Russian avant-garde, as Derrida deconsstructed structuralism and Marixism, of which strategy was not to deny all principles of its object, but to read differently(or, differantly). The criteria to choose prose in this study also follows Derrida’s strategy. Kharms’ prose quoted in this article are not unfamiliar ones to Kharms researchers in Korea. This article aims to show that it is possible to prove the difference between Khrams and Russian avant-gardist with these well-known prose.
We have the primary questions to be answered; What is Russian avant-garde? What feature does it have? Many historical facts make hard to resolve these problems. However, we could examine several traits which constitute particularity of Russian experimental art between the 1910s and 1930s.
In the beginning of 20th century, huge anticipation for human progress was prevalent in European society. Modern science and technology threatened previous European world view. There were two large trends in European art: to seek the art based on objective universal rules like natural science and to make the innovative art. In other words, avant-garde tried to show a new life model, which connect individual and society, individual and environment, with the objective universal art. The fragments, pieces and outbreaks, the typical figures in avant-garde, were also a trial to seek their different art and to show the ideal world.
Russian avant-garde was similar to European avant-garde; however, there were also a difference between them. Ironically, the fragments of Russian avant-garde was seeking the integration. Inspired by P. Uspenky, who insisted that the art was the best method for human to transcend toward the ideal high-dimensional world, Russian avant-garde aimed to the transcendental world and the integration into that world. Unlike Russian symbolism, however, they considered that world not divine dimension made by God, but a historical ultimate stage that would be the utopia. The Russian avant-gardist consider themselves humans of the future, who has the right to reorganize the present world.
It is obvious that Kharms had influenced avant-garde predecessors. He once called himself ‘the gazer of zaum’, contacted K. Malevich and P. Filonov. The zero(0), one of his central concepts for high-dimensional world, was already used by Malevich and V. Kandinsky to represent the innocent world.
In his poem To-ring-to-Fly(Zvonit’letet’), however, Kharms shows the similarity and difference with his predecessors at the same time. In this poem, one can find the narrator is in the world in which all objects fly around freely, the world which is definitely Russian avant-garde represented as the ideal future. What is interesting is that the narrator of this poem is not satisfied with this situation; rather, he is scared and appalled.
The high-dimensional world was located beyond the timeline, of which form is X-axis, in the era of Russian avant-garde. When Malevich represented the ideal world with zero(0), it was located far beyond in the future. On the contrary, Kharms points out that zero is located in the middle of the number line, which is infinite nothing(nichto). He sets zero(0) as the creative post. He says that zero is a fracture to the infinite number line, at the same time, a null set which is also nothing. Then, the author identifies two nothings respectively; while the former is infinite nol’, the latter is vacant nul’; while the former is symbolized by the circle(O), the latter is symbolized by the zero(0). Hence, the number circle becomes the new model of the high-dimensional world for Kharms. However, the principle of circle does not allow humans to define the world and objects because the circle has neither the end nor the beginning. The objetcts remain as undefined and incomprehensible ones in Kharms’ new high-dimensional world. Therefore, Kharms, unlike his predecessors, cannot reorganize the present world. The problem is that high-dimensional world in Kharms’s period is located on now as like as zero in the middle of number line.
As an author and a successor of Russian avant-garde, Kharms does not stop to observe the high-dimensional world, for its infinity have a strong relationship with the creativity in his world view. In his essay On Existence, On Time, On Space(O sushchestvovanii, o vremeni, o pranstranstve), Kharms breaks number-circle world by interruption(prepyantstvie), distinguishes this(eto) from that(to). He insists that the interruption, being located in now and here, has a special ability to create something(nechto) that could be called the material or energy; eventually, it creates the Universal Knot(Uzel Vselennoi) where Kharms can exist as an author who observes the world, although he can no longer reorganize the present world, but only collect and sew momentary events.
This the reason why Kharms’ prose are fragmentary; they are similar to his predecessors’ works on the surface, their inner principle is quite different with that of Russian avant-garde. He deconstructed Russian avant-garde, as Derrida did to structuralism and Marxism, starting at a small difference. In the result of Kharms’ deconstruction, however, the perception of the high-dimensional world and the position of the artist in that world has experieced a huge change. The high-dimensional world is no longer the utopia, not allowing humans arbitrary comprehension; the author is no longer who reorganizes the world, but who collects and sews moments.