Vasily Kamensky - Kamensky's Waning Years

Kamensky's Waning Years

That was the peak of Kamensky's career. In the 1920s he played a minor role in Mayakovsky's LEF group; in the 1930s he wrote his memoir, Put' entuziasta (The path of an enthusiast, 1931), and two more historical dramas, Emelyan Pugachev (1931) and Ivan Bolotnikov (1934). On April 19, 1948, he suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed until his death in 1961; the house in which he lived in the village of Troitsa in the Perm Krai from 1932 to 1951 is now a museum.

The Dictionary of Literary Biography sums up his career in these words:

Kamensky was involved in significant literary events throughout his career and knew many people who were central to the Russian avant-garde. His zhelezobetonnye poemy (ferroconcrete poems) were among the boldest and most distinctive experiments in Russian Futurism, and he freely adapted other Futurist techniques to his own impressionist style. Although his greatest contribution to literature was most likely his discovery of Velimir Khlebnikov, Kamensky was a creative poet in his own right and an active participant in the artistic life of Russia in the first third of the twentieth century.