Valentin Parnakh and the Dadaist Search for a 'Universal Language'

• In Event: Embodied Practices as Sites of Interpretation and Recreation

Abstract

The Tower of Babel, a traditional symbol of universal language and its loss, was symbolically linked by the Dadaists to a different tower that embodied the quintessence of modernity, The Eiffel Tower. After a time of stark violence in which language appeared to lose its intrinsic value, Dada created poetry without meaning where language ceased to perform its main communicative function, becoming replaced by sounds and symbols. This issue was also crucial for the art of Soviet-Jewish poet, dancer, jazzman and translator Valentin Parnakh, who performed at Dadaist events in Paris during the 1910s. Parnakh struggled with the fact that he was limited to the use of Russian as a poetic medium, which he cognized as a language used by anti-Semitic persecutors: this forced him to seek alternative means of expression, including translation. Drawing on Benjamin’s theory about the unique space of universal language between the original text and the final translation, this paper discusses Parnakh’s hitherto unpublished translations of French Dadaist poetry. I argue that for Parnakh translation, like dance, becomes a possible source of linguistic universality. In light of these issues, I focus on tracing the symbolic evolution of the Eiffel Tower, as it traverses Parnakh’s translations, original poems, and choreographic pieces.

Author

• Lana Belenkaia, New York U