Poets

Originally named Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov, born on Oct. 28, 1885, in the Kalmyk Autonomous Republic in Russia. Khlebnikov grew up to be well-educated in the disciplines of science, nature, folklore, mythology, mathematics, literature, art, history, and languages.

A poet who became known as the founder of Russian Futurism and whose esoteric verses exerted a significant influence on Soviet poetry after his death. Khlebnikov is becoming recognized as one of the major Russian poets of the twentieth century, having for years been dismissed as a purveyor of unintelligible verbal trickery.

Velimir Khlebnikov died June 28, 1922.