The Modern Novel

Biography

Iliazd was born Ilia Mikhailovich Zdanevich in Tbilisi in 1894. His father was Polish and taught French and his mother was Georgian and was a pianist and student of Tchaikovsky. He studied law in St Petersburg. He and his brother and a friend became enthusiastic about the painter Niko Pirosmani and Iliazd wrote an article about him in a magazine, his first published work. He later published a separate work on the painter Natalia Goncharova.

In 1914 he became acquainted with Marinetti and took an interest in futurism, During World War I, he returned to Tblilisi, where he worked as a journalist for the newspaper Речь (=Speech) and for the British, and published poetry. In1920 he left the country to go to France, though spent a year in Constantinople, waiting for his French visa. In Paris he and a group of other Soviet émigrés, set up a group called Через (=Through) and they were linked with the French Surrealists and Dadaists.

He worked at various jobs, eventually becoming director of the Chanel factory and then a director of Chanel (Coco Chanel was the godmother of one of his children.) He continued writing, publishing poetry, drama and prose fiction. He worked closely with Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Chagall, Giacometti and other noted artists, producing artists’ books and is also known for his typographic and design work. He died in 1975.

Other links

Ilia Zdanevich
Ilya Zdanevich
The “Everyfeelingism” of Iliazd

Ilia Zdanevich (in Russian)