Ilya (Karl) Selvinsky - biography

Ilya Selvinsky (Russian: Илья Сельвинский, 1899-1968) was a Russian poet, and known leader of the Constructivist movement; as such, he implemented "a scientific approach into the realm of poetry."

In fact, many of Selvinsky's poems are very far from constructivism, showing a fine lyric approach, sometimes of an ecstatic-gloomy character ("Call me, call me" and some other verses from World War II- and the post-War periods, for instance.) As with many Soviet poets, he was first enthusiastic about Communism ideology, and as happened with some of them, he later became disillusioned with it. This "transition" was reflected in his poetry's contents and vocabulary, which, in its turn, was enriched by his multifarious professions: he was an actor, circus fighter, dock worker, fur-processing instructor; he graduated from the department of Social Sciences of Moscow State University.