Daniil Kharms - Definition and Overview

Daniil Kharms, also Даниил Хармс in Russian (1905 - 1942), early Soviet-era satirist who used a surrealist or absurdist style. Born Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachev (also Даниил Иванович Ювачев), he came up with the Kharms pseudonym while in high school. He also used pseudonyms of Khorms, Charms, Shardam etc.

His stories are typically brief vignettes, often only a few paragraphs long, in which scenes of poverty and deprivation alternate with fantastic, dreamlike occurrences and broad comedy. Occasionally they incorporate incongruous appearances by famous authors.

Kharms' world is unpredictable and disordered; characters repeat the same actions many times in succession or otherwise behave irrationally; linear stories start to develop but are interrupted in midstream by inexplicable catastrophes that send them in completely different directions.

Kharms was not well known during his life and most of his work was published in the underground as samizdat. He was convicted of anti-Soviet activity and spent a year in prison in Kursk. During the siege of Leningrad in 1941, Kharms was arrested for the second time on charge of being a defeatist. Kharms starved to death in prison in 1942.

External links

• Biography, selected stories (http://lib.ru/HARMS/xarms_engl.txt)
• Selected short stories in English (http://www.sevaj.dk/kharms/kharmseng.htm)
• Selected short stories, poems, letters, biography and other information in Russian (some information in English as well) (http://www.kulichki.com/~yegor/kharms/)
• A comprehesive collection of works in Russian, also translations in English and German (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8926/Kharms/)