Nikolai Nikolaevich Aseev
Nikolai Nikolaevich Aseev was a Russian poet born in 1889, known for his involvement with both the Futurist and Symbolist movements in early 20th-century literature. He began publishing poems in 1911 and displayed a unique blend of influences, drawing from verbal abstractionism and folk poetry, which led to a shift in his style toward assonance and consonance rather than traditional rhyme. Aseev spent significant time during World War I and the Russian Civil War in the Far East but returned to Moscow in 1922, where he became part of the LEF movement, advocating for Bolshevik ideals through art. He collaborated closely with renowned poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, creating works that often served as propaganda. Following Mayakovsky's death in 1930, Aseev dedicated much of his writing to memorializing his friend while also producing popular songs. He navigated the challenges of the Great Terror and continued to write, adopting both Mayakovsky's style and more traditional forms in his later years. Aseev's literary career spanned several decades until his death in 1963, marking him as a significant figure in Russian poetry.
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Nikolai Nikolaevich Aseev
Poet
- Born: June 28, 1889
- Birthplace: L'gov, Kursk district, Russia
- Died: July 16, 1963
- Place of death: Moscow, Russia
Biography
Nikolai Nikolaevich Aseev was born to middle-class family in 1889, and studied at Moscow and Kharkov Universities. In 1911, his first poems were published in the literary journal Vesna (spring). Although he considered himself to belong to the Futurist movement, his early works also showed a strong Symbolist influence, particularly his first collection of poems. He became interested in the verbal abstractionism of the Cubo- Futurist movement, in which poems were composed as much for the sounds as the semantic content of the words. Although he retreated from the extreme positions of Aleksei Kruchenykh and Velimir Khlebnikov, he continued to explore many of the areas of interest to the movement as late as 1920.
Aseev became increasingly interested in incorporating elements of folk poetry, such as idiomatic expressions, into his verse, and moved away from rhyme to assonance and consonance. He spent the latter part of World War I and during the Russian Civil War in the Far East, but in 1922 he returned to Moscow to become part of the LEF movement of pro-Bolshevik avant-garde artists who were exploring ways to realize the ideals of Bolshevism through art. He was a dedicated collaborator of Vladimir Mayakovsky, and much of his work in this period was little more than versified propaganda. After Mayakovsky’s suicide in 1929, his works became increasingly devoted to the preservation of Mayakovsky’s memory.
A number of his works became popular songs, including one about Red cavalry leader Semyon Budyonny. Aseev survived the purges of the Great Terror, and continued to write poems deliberately in the style of Mayakovsky to his death in 1963. However, in the last few years of his life he also wrote a number of occasional verses in a more traditional style without the deliberate imitations of Mayakovsky.