“Mourning Hurray”: a Historical and Poetic Commentary on the Literary Page of the Futurists in the Newspaper Nov’

Abstract

This work is a detailed commentary to the futurists’ literary page “Mourning Hurray” (“Traurnoe Ura”), which was published in November 1914 in the Nov’ newspaper. Newspaper versions of texts are compared with later versions from collected works and poetic features are revealed. The historical background of the publication is restored and the poets’ attitude to military service during the First World War are clarified. Critical responses given by Nov’ publicists are considered and the discussion between V. Mayakovsky, N. Raevsky and A. A. Suvorin is described. The commentary makes it possible to look at the page “Mourning Hurray” as a complete artistic statement.