The twentieth-century Russian poet Velimir Khlebnikov helped set the course of literature in the Silver Age by compelling readers to look at literary art in a new way. A sensitive lyric poet, an author of broad epics, a tireless seeker of new possibilities in language, and the creator of a grandiose historical utopia, to this day Khlebnikov is admired by some readers and completely rejected by others. His work has been the subject of many volumes of research; yet, they can all be seen as just the first steps toward a complete picture of the poet.

Khlebnikov was born Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov on 28 October 1885 in an exotic corner of the Russian provinces, the chief winter headquarters of the Maloderbetovskii ulus in Astrakhan' province (now Kalmykiia). One of three children, he had a brother, Aleksandr, and a sister, Vera. His father, Vladimir Alekseevich Khlebnikov, was at that time a...