Oberiu

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Oberiu" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

OBERIU (Russian: ОБЭРИУ - Объединение реального искусства; English: the Union of Real Art or the Association for Real Art) was a short-lived avant-garde collective of Russian Futurist writers, musicians, and artists in the 1920s and 1930s.^[1] The group coalesced in the context of the "intense centralization of Soviet Culture" and the decline of the avant garde culture of Leningrad, as "leftist" groups were becoming increasingly marginalized.^[2]

Founded in 1927 by Daniil Kharms and Alexander Vvedensky,^[1] OBERIU became notorious for provocative performances which included circus-like stunts, readings of what was perceived as nonsensical verse, and theatrical presentations, such as Kharms's Elizabeth Bam, that foreshadowed the European Theatre of the Absurd. The presentations took place in venues ranging from theaters and university auditoriums to dormitories and prisons. The group's actions were derided as "literary hooliganism" in the ever-more conservative press of the late 1920s. It was chastised even more in the early 1930s, and many of its associates were arrested. The OBERIU has often been called "the last Soviet avant-garde."^[3]