Writing Non-Objectivity: A Re-reading of Andrei Belyi's Novels through the Prism of Kazimir Malevich's Concept of Bespredmetnost'

Abstract

This thesis offers a new interpretation of the fictional prose of Andrei Belyi, one of the most renowned experimental writers of the Modernist period. By re-reading his major novels through the prism of Kazimir Malevich's painterly notion of non-objectivity, a concept drastically transforming existing notions of how artistic representation works in relation to its object, I offer a new perspective on Belyi's relationship with Modernism and his creative principles and techniques. I focus on the unconventional narrative structures of three of Belyi's most influential novels to reveal how they generate radically non-objective meaning that, like Malevich's pictorially inspired non-objectivity, defies logical interpretation -but that, grounded in works consisting of arbitrary verbal signs not visual icons, potentially exceeds Malevich's efforts to sever the links between art and external reality. My analysis thus deepens our understanding of how the Avant-Garde's core principles of representation traversed different media. Belyi and Malevich have hitherto not been properly compared from this perspective, with existing studies linking them at the philosophical level. Symbolism, to which Beyi's work is habitually assigned, is framed within the context of Russian Modernism, and, on several levels in opposition to the Avant-Garde: the Avant-Garde typically dismissed Symbolism's aspirations to reach higher forms of spirituality via artistic representation as a retrograde negation of the revolutionary value of aesthetic form itself. My study addresses this omission. The analysis deals with three Belyi novels written between 1913 and 1921 - the rough timeframe in which Malevich developed his non-objective theory and practice. Through these novels - Petersburg, Kotik Letaev and The Christened Chinaman - the thesis identifies three different stages in the evolution of non-objectivity: inception, manifestation, and retreat. Thus, Petersburg begins the process of undermining and deconstructing established, obsolete narrative patterns, anticipating the more fully articulated non-objective forms of narration of Kotik Letaev, where narrative elements are reconfigured into unpredictable, unique and autonomous narrative structures. In The Christened Chinaman, contrary to standard readings of the novel as primarily an abandonment of innovation, I argue that the search for non-objective narrative patterns continued, albeit in a less overtly radical form. I show that here Belyi exposes the limitations of conventional narrative models that seek to reproduce an objective reality through a deliberately hyperbolized attention to the detailed minutiae of everyday life. The analysis is guided throughout by Malevich's thinking on non-objectivity and by examples from his non-objective practice provided to illuminate key aspects of Belyi's novels, but with due attention to the implications of the shift from visual to verbal contexts. In understanding these implications, I draw on Roland Barthes' theories of realist conventions and writerly texts. The thesis contributes primarily to the existing body of research on Belyi, but it also intervenes in debates about the specificities of the Russian Modernist and Avant-Garde movements, and about the nature of non-objective artistic representation.

Date of Award	1 Aug 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Stephen Hutchings (Supervisor) & Vladimir Kapor (Supervisor)