We Are Tired of Using “You” to the Stars, We Have Learned the Sweetness of Roaring

The programme of the Futurists in two lines of Khlebnikov, written around 1908.

We wish to say “thou” to the stars
We are tired of saying “you” to the stars
We have learned the sweetness of roaring
Be fearsome, like Ostranitsa,
Platov and Baklanov,
Enough of your bowing
To the face of the infidels.
Let the ringleaders shout,
Spit in their eyes!
Be firm in faith
Like the Morozenkos.
O be like Svyatoslav,
Who said to his foes: “I am coming at you!”
Make the faded glory
Anew, northern lions.
With a throng of forefathers behind us
Are Yermak and Oslyabya.
Fly, fly, Russian banner,
Lead us over dry land and through the depths!
To where the spirit of the fatherland has died
And where the desert of unbelief lies,
Go fearsomely, like Vladimir
Or Dobrynya with his retinue.

Literal translation

The pure formula of twentieth-century freedom of speech nevertheless comes to rest on the pan-Slavist roar of Yermak and Vladimir.

The lines found a second life as a signboard and a slogan. At the end of 1913 Alexei Kruchenykh brought out, from his own publishing house with the zaum name “EUY”, Khlebnikov’s collection of verse “Roar! Gauntlets”, and in place of the imprint the title page bore this very couplet. And what of the gauntlet? Thrown in the face of public taste, of course, soon after “A Slap in the Face”.

The book was illustrated by Kazimir Malevich and David Burliuk