Unknown Soldiers and Time in Mandelstam, Filonov, and Khlebnikov

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Walking from the subway on a bright day, a passerby notices a small child moving through the crowd. The child looks preschool age, perhaps four or five, and travels alone as adults bustle past. After a moment the child stops completely.

A short distance ahead, among the hurried pedestrians, a young mother moves along while talking on a phone, followed by another distant figure pushing a detached tugboat-like stroller, about a meter behind. A second child trails closely behind the aunt, who remains on the phone or absorbed in a screen.

Within this scene, the speaker feels a wave of old-fashioned concern. The observer hurries up to the mother and can barely restrain the impulse to criticize: the child appears to be lagging behind, and that worry spills out in a sharp remark about the child’s pace.

The child turns toward the speaker, seemingly puzzled by the message, and the observer intensifies the warning in a harsh, almost feral tone: the child is clearly behind. A gesture is made to point back into the crowd as proof.

Watching the second aunt hurry forward, the observer confesses astonishment, while an older relative follows with sympathy and asks how such a thing could be forgotten, noting the many dangers that could follow.

The image of the child left behind remains, standing in the crowd like a young, offended soldier. In this moment, all seem to be soldiers in their own private wars.

On December 3, which marks the Day of the Unknown Soldiers in Russia, the reflection turns to Mandelstam, whose dark, intricate poetry is built from pockets of silence and meaning. His lines about the unknown soldier are described as the most transparent in their starkness.

One stanza from this collection is translated in a simple, stark way: a tribute to Mikhail Lermontov, noting how the grave teaches the deformed and how air pockets form in the space between lines.

The most famous verses speak of a quiet, breathlike exchange among rows, and a birth year repeated in the crowd, a chorus of unreliable years that swirl with fire around the speaker.

Time in Mandelstam’s poetry, as in thought, moves in strange cycles. The meaning sometimes slips away, with too many colors and shapes mixing with figures of speech.

It is noted that Pavel Filonov also spoke of a strange flow of time, a reverse time akin to reverse perspective in art. This reverse time seems to move from future to present in a way that unsettles conventional experience.

What does it look like when time reverses? Grapes swing, worlds threaten, abandoned cities hang overhead, gold plugs appear, and convalescent berries emit a poison that coldly gnaws at the edges of thought. Constellations are drawn and redrawn, and heavy oils rise in new forms.

A friend once proposed that life may fold in on itself, moving toward a person in middle age, perhaps even meeting the younger self among the crowd. The question arises whether the speaker has already passed the midpoint of life and whether the angry boy previously known has reappeared in adult form.

In a directive about artistic practice, one is urged to draw each atom with persistence and precision, to infuse every particle with the chosen color so that it absorbs heat within the form, much like a flower’s fiber woven into nature. Filonov is described as painting large canvases with a fine brush, stretching from edge to edge, a process that reads as embroidered living tissue. He believed that the living world grows, and so should the artwork, becoming more than a static image.

That sense of growth mirrors how Mandelstam’s Unknown Soldier seems to unfold: much darkness and mystery remains, yet the sound stays alive, compelling and captivating. Two solitary figures stand in the frame, fragile yet monumental, fighting their own battles and achieving something beyond the crowd’s normal reach.

Khlebnikov spoke of Filonov’s early military stance, not just for space but for time, sitting in a trench and stealing moments from the past. The mission feels weighty, comparable to the stamina of space troops, as if time itself is a battlefield worth fighting for.

Meanwhile, a mother’s life carries on, the child in a hat and fur coat remaining a still, offended figure amid the stream of smartphones, television, and newspapers. The boy stands as a pillar among the crowd, expressing outrage at the world’s oblivion, labeled as an insulted child caught between Mandelstam’s voice and Filonov’s lines.

Ultimately, the artist is imagined to perish from exhaustion in besieged Leningrad on December 3, 1941. A sister recalls a scene of hardship, describing a master who found a quiet breath after a lifetime without peace. They are imagined sharing a moment in the realm of shadows, with Mandelstam, Filonov, and Khlebnikov drawn toward each other in memory and discussion.

In this imagined gathering, Mandelstam challenges the others again, while Filonov asserts a stubborn stance about what matters. He remembers a promise that he once refused to fulfill: to paint a picture that would hang on a wall without nails. When questioned how such a thing might be possible, the reply is stark: fallen. He speaks of hunger and endurance, of a past that collapses under the weight of time.

In the end, other shadows and angels drift into the scene, trying to separate the voices. The passage closes with the author presenting a personal view that may not align with the editors and their stance, leaving readers with a sense of unresolved tension and ambiguity about memory, art, and history.

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