"Grezofars" (Dream-Farce)
A reference to the work of Igor Severyanin (born Igor Vasilyevich Lotaryov, 1887-1941), one of the brightest poets of Russia's Silver Age and the founder of Ego-Futurism. Severyanin was known for his distinctive style, rich in neologisms, exoticisms, and unusual musicality. "Grezofars" is a typical Severyanin neologism, a portmanteau fusing the words "gryoza" (dream, reverie) and "fars" (farce).
Severyanin's best-known work is considered to be the poem "Pineapples in Champagne" (1915), which became a symbol of decadent luxury and bohemian life. The poem opens with its famous lines:
Pineapples in champagne! Pineapples in champagne!
Wonderfully tasty, sparkling, and sharp!
All of me is something Norwegian! All of me is something Spanish!
I'm seized by a rush of inspiration! And I take up my pen!
According to the writer Vadim Bayan's recollections, the poem was born after Vladimir Mayakovsky, while visiting, dipped a piece of pineapple in champagne and suggested Severyanin do the same. The poet immediately composed the first stanza of what would become the poem.
The line "Pineapples in champagne" became a cultural phenomenon of the era, symbolizing both bohemian life and the everyman's dream of luxury. Mayakovsky later polemicized against this image in his well-known couplet: "Eat your pineapples, chew your grouse, // your last day is coming, bourgeois."
Severyanin was an eccentric figure in the literary life of the early 20th century. In 1918, at a competition held at the Moscow Polytechnic Museum, he was crowned "King of Poets," beating out Vladimir Mayakovsky. After the revolution, the poet found himself in exile in Estonia, where he lived out the rest of his life.
Many of his contemporaries considered Severyanin's poetry pretentious, even tasteless, missing the subtle self-irony woven into his texts. For example, Pavel Antokolsky recalled being stunned when Severyanin, in his presence, ordered at a restaurant not the "pineapples in champagne" he'd immortalized, but a flask of vodka and a pickle.
Severyanin's legacy significantly influenced 20th-century Russian poetry, and his neologisms — "grezofars" (dream-farce), "sirenevaya mgla" (lilac haze), "barkhatistost" (velvetiness), "krylolyot" (wing-flight), and others — enriched the language of Russian poetry with new images and turns of phrase.
Pineapples in champagne! Pineapples in champagne!
Wonderfully tasty, sparkling, sharp!
All of me is something Norwegian! All of me is something Spanish!
I'm seized by a rush of inspiration! And I take up my pen!The chatter of aeroplanes! The rush of motorcars!
The wind-whistle of express trains! The wing-flight of ice yachts!
Someone here is smothered in kisses! Someone there gets beaten!
Pineapples in champagne – that's the pulse of evenings!Amid a group of nervous girls, in sharp feminine company,
I'll turn life's tragedy into a dream-farce...
Pineapples in champagne! Pineapples in champagne!
From Moscow – to Nagasaki! From New York – to Mars!January 1915