Gerald Janecek: Zaum: The Transrational Poetry of Russian Futurism (1996)

“This is the most comprehensive treatment of a significant episode of the historical avant-garde period to which many refer but with little concrete background. According to Charlotte Douglas (Russian and Slavic Studies, NYU), Zaum ‘is an encyclopedic account of zaum or ‘beyonsense,’ the most distinctive feature of Russian avant-garde art and poetry early in the 20th century. Janecek has mined a myriad of arcane and inaccessible sources, gathered the entire historical record in one place, and made it readable and comprehensible. His account of zaum theory and practice will be indispensable for anyone interested in modern poetry and art. Certainly it will become a standard text for all students of Russian Futurism.'”

Publisher San Diego State University Press, 1996
ISBN 1879691418, 9781879691414
xi+427 pages
via greatjob

Review: Walter Comins-Richmond (Slavic and East European J, 1997).

Publisher
Worldcat

PDF (removed on 2017-8-21 upon request of the publisher – read the Introduction)

See also Vladimir Markov’s Russian Futurism: A History

Vladimir Markov: Russian Futurism: A History (1968)

“Vladimir Markov’s Russian Futurism: A History is the classic in its field. Its learned account of Russian avant-garde poetics with respect to various forms and genres-poems, plays, artist’s books, manifestos-is still the first I turn to when I want to review the critical information about Futurist manifestos or Khlebnikov’s long poems and stories, or the collaborations of Goncharova and Kruchenykh.” – Marjorie Perloff

Publisher University of California Press, 1968
ISBN 9780520008113
467 pages
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Reviews: Helen Muchnic (Russian Review, 1969), Xenia Gasiorowska (Slavic and East European Journal, 1970), Maurice Friedberg (Problems of Communism, 1970), Edward Wasiolek (Modern Philology, 1972).

PDF

A Slap in the Face of Public Taste: In Defense of Free Art: Poems, Prose, Essays (1912) [Russian]

A famous Russian futurist book is bound in sackcloth and printed on wrapping paper. It opens with a manifesto signed by David Burliuk, Alexander Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Viktor Khlebnikov, followed by two essays by David Burliuk on cubism and on texture [both signed Nikolai Burliuk], verse by Khlebnikov and Benedikt Livshits, and four prose sketches by Wassily Kandinsky.

Poshechina obshestvennomu vkusu. V zashchitu svobodnogo iskusstva. Stikhi, proza, stat’i (Пощёчина общественному вкусу. В защиту свободного искусства: Стихи, проза, статьи)
Publisher Georgy L. Kuzmin, Moscow, Dec 1912
114 pages

Wikipedia (Russian)
Commentary (from a book on the aesthetics and ideology of speed in Russian avant-garde by Tim Harte)
Sound recording of Kandinsky’s poem To See
Russian avant-garde on Monoskop wiki

PDF
JPGs (added on 2014-1-17)