Osip Brik

Osip Brik Maximowitsch (Russian Осип Максимович Брик; * 4 Januarjul / January 16 1888greg in Moscow, .. † February 22, 1945 ) was a Russian- Soviet avant-garde writer and literary critic. He was one of the most important theorists of the schools of Russian Formalism and Futurism.

Life and work

Osip Brik studied law at Moscow University, but soon shifted his interest to the literature. Closely connected he was with the literary movement OPOJAS ( ОПОЯЗ, acronym for Society for the Study of poetic language ) and later, the artist group LEF ( ЛЕФ, abbreviation for Left Front of the Arts), whose main theorists Brik was.

In 1920 he joined the Department of the Petrograd Cheka secret police, in which he took over as head of the legal department. His ID card was number 25541st He was then suspected in literature circles to have been involved in the death sentence against the poet Nikolai Gumilev. The then well-known linguist Roman Jakobson with him, he reported on his activities you lose " any sentimentality ." Jakobson wrote in his memoirs: " For the first time he made a sickening impression on me. The work at the Cheka has spoiled him. " The poet Boris Pasternak, who was in the twenties repeated guest at Brik wrote in allusion to the to be found there guests from the security organs, his apartment was nothing more than a " Department of Moscow police ".

From 1923 to 1928 Brik was with his wife Lilja Brik and Vladimir Mayakovsky, the official organ of the group of artists also Lef (later New Lef, Новый Леф ) called out.

Together with Mayakovsky wrote Brik agitation pieces Radio October ( Радио - октябрь, 1926) and Moscow ( горит Москва, 1930) in flames. To Mayakovsky's works, he wrote theoretical papers and comments, so the essay Lenin in Mayakovsky's verse ( Ленин в стихах Маяковского, 1934). He also wrote screenplays, such as Vsevolod Pudovkin's 1928 Storm over Asia ( Потомок Чингис - Хана ).

As under Stalin's rule from 1932, the doctrine of Socialist Realism was determinative in the cultural life of the Soviet Union, Brik, previous publications, although criticized, but he was not subjected to any reprisals unlike many other former avant-garde artists during the Stalinist purges. He could continue to publish, but conformed to the aesthetic requirements of the official cultural policy. These works included the opera libretti ( Камаринский мужик, 1933; Именины, 1935) and the historical tragedy of Ivan the Terrible ( Иван Грозный, 1942).