Направления, течения >> Эстетические концепции 1920-х гг. >> Классицизм >> Декларация неоклассиков >> The declaration of the neoclassics

1. The neoclassicism, which appeared in the end of 1918 as a group belonging to All-Russian union of poets, and at the present time it shows itself like a real literary school, exceeding the bounds of poetry and capturing other sphere of literary creative work.

2. The neoclassicism is a literary school, which builds creative work on the foundation of pure classicism, enriched with all achivements of new and newest literary schools without deviation leading to extremeness and abnormality.

3. Taking for an ideal top of the achievements of Pushkin in the sphere of creative work, neoclassicism for all other kinds of art – as aspects of a single whole – asserts the pathes, designed by the creative genius of the masters, who worked in the direction of classic simplicity and clarity.

4. Neoclassicism is a progressive literary school, which goes from classicism to the modernity, in contrast to some literary schools, which go from left-wing formal achievments (imagism, constructivism etc.) to pure classicism, that is regressively.

5. The neoclassicism accepts all other literary trends and schools if they aptitude for creative work, and we synthesize their achievements and use their experience in the sphere of teoretical and experimental investigations.

6. The neoclassicism accepts a great precept of Blok – «Hear the music of the epoch», believing sense of reality and harmony with the rhythm of life is necessary for a poet.

7. Arts are defined as primordial aspiration of human spirits for beauty, being realized in the forms, which affect directly on the emotions.

8. The neoclassicism defines as a main field of the creative work lyric, but does not deny other forms and does not limit sphere of creative work since it is impossible to limit all the possible  inclinations, demands and impulses of creative genious.

9. Arts are asserted as a creative power absolutely autonomous and denying utilitarianism.

10. The main factor of the creative work are announced an inspiration and creative intuition, regulated by the nature of mind, by the taste of an artist, by the inertness of word as a material and by the rules of a word creation, phrases, image, rhythm and melody.

11. The individual liberty of a creative person from the prejudgement and the conventionalities are announced as a necessary condition of creative work, determining its individuality and itself value.

12. The neoclassicism considers the content as the main inner moment of creative work, but the melody as a main external one. Other factors (an image, a form etc.) have only subservient secondary importance and are determined by content.

13. When we determine the content and the structure of a poetic text we claim as a principle an adequacy of the form the content. From this it follows that an image is necessary like an element, connected with logical idea for epic literature, but for another cases where emotional-lyric element is supplanted by representatively-logical one.

14. The self-sufficient value of artistic word is claimed as the main element of the highest kinds of Arts.

15. The content is interpreted like a general sum of emotional dynamics is containing in a work of art. For the work of art a plot is not obligatory. And a content too is a delicate net of elusive nuances of moods.

16. Making as a necessary condition for work of art a simplicity and a clarity , neoclassicism tolerates using of simple meters, rhymes and phrases, if it does not conflict with the indicated condition. Thus the artless elements of folk language are permissible but any commonplace pattern excludes at all.

17. The neoclassicism does not consider for itself imperative to use the traditional, frozen forms of verses, which were being created during the ages: sonnet, terza rima, triolet etc., –  thinking the one its  task is the further elaborating and modifying these forms.

18. Believing that music and theatre are the nearest arts to literature, the neoclassicism considers their centuries-old union inescapable and   desired and aims to consolidate this union.

19. The neoclassicism denies any exact copying of nature and phenomena, any pure naturalism – as the anti-artistic factors.

20. The taller the skill of the artist, the bigger his individual liberty in this sphere of creative work. So a poet had to be fully equipped with all technical achievments. However these achievements are not to overshadow with themselves the inner essence of work of art.

V. Butyagina, D. Varlygin, E. Volchaneckaya,
E. Gertzog, N. Ghilyarovskaya, L. Ghil’d, G. Deshkin,
V. Yestchin, N. Zakharov-Menskiy, I. Korobov, N. Livkin,
V. Lobanov, A. Luganskiy, Ya. Manukhina,
G. Popovskiy, P. Terskiy, E. Schwarzbuch-Molchanova, V. Stchurenkov.

«Neoclassics» Publishing House. Moscow, 1923.