ILIAZD (Ilya Zdanevich); BOYNIK, Sezgin (ed.)
Bloodless Murder – “The Albanian Issue,” 1916

The seventh volume of the series dedicated to the life and work of Ilya Zdanevich - Iliazd presents the first English translation of the “Albanian” issue of Bloodless Murder magazine, published in Petrograd in 1916. It was the Albanian issue of this obscure magazine that inspired Zdanevich to experiment with zaum. After reading it, Zdanevich performed a zaum play based on the theme and published his most revered book Yanko, King of Albania.

Almost completely unknown to avant-garde scholars and curators, the Bloodless Murder group of 1915-16 included artists such as Vera Ermolaeva, Olga Leshkova, Nikolay Lapshin, and Mikhail Le Dentu. Their “anarchist” publications and actions were intended to “insult and offend” liberal values.

Rab-Rab Press publishes the entire Albanian issue with extensive commentary by the researcher and curator Alexandra Strukova, who unearthed these documents from the RGALI archives. The volume also includes a brief retrospective and two letters from Olga Leshkova, one of the magazine’s editors, to Zdanevich in 1924. As with all the other volumes in the bie-bao series, there are extensive notes and supplementary essays. Renowned scholar and librarian Andrei Krusanov reconstructs the background and atmosphere of Zdanevich’s Dadaist performance inspired by the magazine, while poet and art historian Miklavž Komelj’s essay and illustrations offer an unusual insight into the Balkan legacy of the project. [publishers’ note]

Published by Rab-Rab Press, 2025
Design by Bardhi Haliti
Artists' Writings / Poetry / Art History