VELIMIR KHLEBNIKOV’S EARLY WORD CREATION

Khlebnikov’s early poetic work is characterised by intensive creation of neologisms. At the end of 1913 David Burlyuk assembled the first collection of his works, Creations 1906–1908, aiming to build the myth of Khlebnikov as the founder of Russian Futurism and the liberator of the Word and Poetry. In spite of the fact that this edition is far from philologically reliable, it exerted a significant influence on the reception of Khlebnikov as, above all, a prolific creator of neologisms. These have been studied by Vroon [1983], Grigor’ev [1986], Pertsova [1995] and other scholars. It is, however, interesting to analyse them in the context of this first collection of Khlebnikov’s works in order to better understand its impact on the readers of the time.