Futurism

Futurism is an avant-garde movement of the early twentieth century that proclaimed a decisive break with the classical tradition and the cult of the future, of technology, speed, urbanism, and 'the word as such'. The Futurists destroyed established syntax, orthography, and versification, experimented with the sound and graphic form of the poem, and shocked the public with manifestos. The movement was founded by the Italian Filippo Marinetti. In Ukrainian literature Futurism was developed by Mykhail Semenko, who in 1914 inaugurated Ukrainian Futurism ('quero-futurism'), rejected the cult of the Kobzar for the sake of modern art, and founded groupings (Aspanfut, Nova Generatsiia). Ukrainian Futurism was distinguished by urban imagery, formal experiment, and the search for a 'dynamic' word. Semenko became one of the tragic figures of the Executed Renaissance — he was shot in 1937.