Daniil Kharms

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Daniil Kharms
Daniil Kharms.jpg
Daniil Kharms
Born Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachov
(1905-12-30)30 December 1905
Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Leningrad, Soviet Union
Literary movement Surrealism
Spouse Esther Rusakova, Marina Malich
Relatives Ivan Yuvachev (father)

Daniil Kharms (Russian: Дании́л Ива́нович Хармс; 30 December [O.S. 17 December] 1905 – 2 February 1942) was an early Soviet-era surrealist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist.[1] He came to be known for his children's literature.

Early years[edit]

Daniil Ivánovich Yuvatchov (Даниил Иванович Ювачёв) was born in St. Petersburg, into the family of Ivan Yuvachev, a member of the revolutionary group The People's Will. By this time the elder Yuvachev had already been imprisoned for his involvement in subversive acts against tsar Alexander III and had become a philosopher.

Daniil invented the pseudonym Kharms while attending Saint Peter's School, there are some assumptions that it might be influenced by his fascination with Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes as the two words (Holmes and Harms) sound vaguely similar in Russian as well as number of other theories.[2] While at Saint Peter's, he learned the rudiments of both English and German, and it may have been the English "harm" and "charm" that he incorporated into "Kharms".[3] Throughout his career Kharms used variations on his name and the pseudonyms DanDan, Khorms, Charms, Shardam, and Kharms-Shardam, among others.

In 1924, he entered Leningrad Electrotechnicum, from which he was expelled for "lack of activity in social activities".[citation needed]



In 1926, his play "Elizabeth Bam" ("Елизавета Бам") premiered; it is said to have foreshadowed the Theatre of the Absurd.[citation needed]

In 1927, the Association of Writers of Children's Literature was formed, and Kharms was invited to be a member. From 1928 until 1941, Kharms continually produced children's works, to great success.[citation needed]


By the late 1920s, his antirational verse, nonlinear theatrical performances, and public displays of decadent and illogical behavior earned Kharms – who dressed like an English dandy with a calabash pipe – the reputation of being talented and highly eccentric.[citation needed]

In the late 1920s, despite rising criticism of the OBERIU performances and diatribes against the avant-garde in the press, Kharms sought to unite progressive artists and writers of the time (Malevich, Filonov, Terentiev, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Kaverin, Zamyatin) with leading Russian Formalist critics (Tynianov, Shklovsky, Eikhenbaum, Ginzburg, etc.,) and a younger generation of writers (all from the OBERIU crowd—Alexander Vvedensky, Konstantin Vaginov, Nikolai Zabolotsky, Igor Bakhterev), to form a cohesive cultural movement of Left Art.

Kharms was arrested in 1931 and forced to live in Kursk for most of a year. He was arrested as a member of "a group of anti-Soviet children's writers", and some of his works were used as an evidence. Soviet authorities, having become increasingly hostile toward the avant-garde in general, deemed Kharms' writing for children anti-Soviet because of its refusal to instill materialist and social Soviet values.[3] He continued to write for children's magazines when he returned from exile, though his name would appear in the credits less often. His plans for more performances and plays were curtailed, the OBERIU disbanded, and Kharms receded into a very private writing life.



His "adult" works were not published during his lifetime with the sole exception of two early poems. His work was saved from the war by loyal friends and hidden until the 1960s when his children's writing became widely published and scholars began the job of recovering his manuscripts and publishing them in the west and in samizdat.

His reputation in the 20th century in Russia was largely based on his popular work for children. His other writings (a vast assortment of stories, miniatures, plays, poems, and pseudo-scientific, philosophical investigations) were virtually unknown until the 1970s, and not published officially in Russia until "glasnost"





A complete collection of his works was published in Bremen in four volumes, in 1978–1988. In Russia, Kharms' works were widely published only from the late 1980s. Now several editions of Kharms's collected works and selected volumes have been published in Russia, and collections are now available in German, French and Italian. In 2004 a selection of his works appeared in Irish.


Personal life[edit]

Kharms was married twice, to Esther Rusakova and Marina Malich. His wives sometimes appear in some of his lyrical or erotic poems.

One of his pseudonyms, which was signed in Latin alphabet, was Daniel Charms.[2]:18

Kharms was arrested on suspicion of treason in the summer of 1941. He was imprisoned in the psychiatric ward at Leningrad Prison No. 1. and died in his cell in February 1942—most likely, from starvation, as the Nazi blockade of Leningrad had already begun.


Kharms on graffiti. Kharkov, 2008
  • Beginning in the 1970s many of Kharms' children's texts were set to music, and were often played on the radio.
  • The band Esthetic Education composed its poem Juravli I Korabli. It appeared on their debut album Face Reading, and on their live album Live at Ring.


  1. ^ Saunders, George (9 December 2007). "Soviet Deadpan". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-08-10. 
  2. ^ a b Kobrinski, Аlexander (2009). Daniil Kharms. Great People series (in Russian). Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya. ISBN 978-5-235-03258-3. 
  3. ^ a b Frazier, Ian (7 May 2015). "A Strangely Funny Russian Genius". The New York Review of Books 62 (8): 36–38.
  4. ^ "DANIIL HARMS, Poet/Writer/Dramatist" The Polyhymnion Foundation
  5. ^ Simon Nabatov. "Dusted Reviews". Dusted Magazine. Retrieved 13 January 2014. 
  6. ^ Gill, Andy (1 January 2010). "Album: Haflidi Hallgrimsson, Mini Stories (Signum Classics)". The Independent (London). Retrieved 1 May 2010. 


External links[edit]