OSIP M A K S I M O V I C BRIK

Among the young Russian investigators who in the second and third
decades of this century notably advanced the international development
of scientific poetics, Osip Maksimovic" Brik (1888-1945) holds one of the
paramount positions. His first pamphlet Vzjal (1915) was a defense and
extoiment of Russian avant-garde poetry, especially Majakovskij's
futurist verses. Next he edited two Sborniki po teorii poetifeskogo jazyka
(1916, 1917), to which the rising generation of Petersburg inquirers into
language and literature contributed pioneering essays. In one of these
papers, "Zvukovye povtory" (1917), Brik himself succinctly outlined a
systematic study of the sound texture of poetry; he termed, defined and
classified the repetitions of consonantal groups, rejected the naive ono-
matopoetic interpretation of them, but clearly perceived how the phonic
and semantic levels of language intersect in these devices.
Erik's creative initiative was instrumental in the formation of the Opojaz
(Petersburg Society for the Study of Poetic Language) in 1916-1917,
and the rise of the MLK (Moscow Linguistic Circle) in 1919-1920 also
owed a great deal to his efforts. Brik's lectures, both on the poetic
epithet and on verse rhythm, his neat analysis of Gogol's "Nos", and his
pointed rejoinders in the Circle's debates belong to the most effective
performances of this linguistic laboratory, which was a catalyst in the
development of the younger scholarly generation.
When in 1919 the young erudite medievalist of Moscow University,
B. I. Jarxo, was invited by the MLK and delivered there his paper "On the
so-called trochaic tetrameters in the Carolingian rhythms'% he called me
the next day to say how amazed he was by the unusual standard of the
discussion, and especially by Brik's astute observations: "How could it
happen that I have never met him before in our faculty; does he teach
or work there as a research fellow?" Professor Jarxo was reluctant to
believe that Brik, who actually was a graduate of the Law School and
had never studied in the faculty of arts and letters, nonetheless swiftly

557
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558 AND EXPLORERS

grasped the intricate matter and had keen observations to offer both on
medieval Latin versification and, to the great surprise of the classical
philologist O. B. Rumer, even on the cruxes of Ancient Greek prosody.
Brik's oral discourse, whether public or private, had a marked influence
on his auditors and interlocutors, as has been, for instance, acknowledged
in V. 2irmunskij's Kompozicija liriceskix stixoivorenij (1921) or in B.
Ejxenbaum's books Melodika russkogo iinceskogo stixa (1922) and
Literatura (1927). B. Tomasevskij's and my Moscow papers on Russian
verse carry noticeable traces of Brik's suggestive criticism.
Brik liked to cope with an intricate problem, then to recount the
results of his research, and felt quite happy if his listeners were ready to
utilize and develop them, while he himself could go over to a new,
unexplored domain. Paraphrasing Lev Tolstoj's words about his brother,
one could say that the only thing which hindered Brik from becoming a
professional scholar of renown was his total lack of personal ambition.
The need for articles to fill up his and Majakovskij's journal Novyj Lef
and the persistent request of his friends impelled Osip Brik to print at
least a brief summary of his thorough and lasting inquiry into the
fundamental questions of the relationship between rhythm and syntax
(1927). Yet a large number of painstaking studies loaded with new
ideas and with penetrating observations remained uncompleted and
unpublished, e.g., his essays on Puskin's epithets, on Russian trochaic
tetrameter with dactylic endings, on Benediktov's poetic mastery, its
success and failure, even on the two versions of Turgenev's Otcy i deti,
An ability for strict, consistent analysis with clear-cut definitions as
well as a constant propensity for steadfast, bold, sometimes paradoxical
schematization are the most striking features of his thought.
Brik's search was never confined to poetics and verbal art alone. His
leaning toward sociology, which goes back to his student years, never
left him. During the summer of 1919, spent in the village Puskino near
Moscow, Brik became greatly interested in the sociological aspect of
pictorial art. His main concern was the development of two simultaneous
trends, French impressionism and the Russian peredvizniki, Brik's
interpretation of Zola's U&uvre, of Perov's and Kramskoj's writings
and biographies, and of Russian art reviews published in the late nineteenth
century was indeed illuminating, and such problems as the production
and consumption of art, supply and demand, the art market and painters'
competition were cleverly sketched. These views, immediately picked up
and absorbed by V. Sklovskij, later underlay some of the laiter's rea-
sonings on literature, art and their social prerequisites after Sklovskij

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 OS1P MAKSIMOVIÖ BRIK 559

manifestly repudiated his so-called "formalist" creed.

Majakovskij pointed out at the beginning of 1930 that it was Brik, "the
prominent theoretician of art", who "had founded the theory of the social
demand" (social*nogo zakaza). Brik's tenet, which grew out of his concern
with the social foundations of art, became part of the ideological inven-
tory of the literary teams Z,e/and Ref and played an outstanding part in
the discussions of the late twenties.
From the first revolutionary years Brik was one of the protagonists in
the campaign for constructivism in art, especially in architecture. With
the international diffusion of this Russian current some of his apt slogans
also caught on in many countries.
The flowering of Russian cinematic art in the twenties stimulated Brik
not only to take part in theoretical arguments but also to write a masterly
scenario for one of the best silent films, Pudovkin's "Heir of Genghis
Khan" ("Storm over Asia").
The second and third decades of this century were the great pioneering
epoch of the Russian arts and of endeavors to subject art to rigorous
scientific analysis. It was an era when Russian artistic and scholarly life
had great repercussions throughout the world, repercussions which are
still in progress. It is to this epoch that the searching initiative of Osip
Brik belongs, and primarily his incentive activity as "an inquirer into the
theory of poetic language," if once more we may quote Majakovskij's
concise judgment.

Published as a postscript to Brik's Two Essays on Poetic Language (Ann Arbor, 1964).

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