Russian modernist manifestos: the genre characteristics

Abstract

The paper deals with the features and functions of Russian Modernist manifestos. It is shown that proletarian writers adopted, refined and used in a specific manner for their own purposes some of the techniques implemented in the Silver Age theoretical declarations. This may account in part for the active use of the originally political term “manifesto” in the Soviet literary studies. In critical works from recent years one can observe a departure from this tradition.