Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov, better known by the pen name Velimir Khlebnikov (Велими́р Хле́бников; – 28 June 1922), was a Russian poet and playwright, a central part of the Russian Futurist movement, but his work and influence stretch far beyond it. Influential linguist Roman Jakobson hailed Khlebnikov as "the greatest world poet of our century".
Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov was born in 1885 in Malye Derbety, Astrakhan Governorate, Russian Empire (in present-day Kalmykia). He was of Russian, Armenian and Zaporozhian Cossack descent. His younger sister, Vera Khlebnikova, was an artist. He moved to Kazan, where he attended school. He then attended school in Saint Petersburg. He eventually quit school to become a full-time writer. His earliest works are from 1908.
In 1909-10, he met the to-be Russian Futurists Vasily Kamensky, David Burliuk, and Vladimir Mayakovsky. Soon Khlebnikov would belong to Hylaea, the most significant Russian Futurist group (along with Mayakovsky, Aleksei Kruchenykh, David Burliuk and Benedikt Livshits). However, he had already written many significant poems before the Futurist movement in Russia had taken shape. Among his contemporaries, he was regarded as "a poet's poet" (Mayakovsky referred to him as a "poet for producers") and a maverick genius. Khlebnikov was involved in the publication of A Slap in the Face of Public Taste in 1912, which was a critical component of the Russian futurist poetry.
Khlebnikov is known for poems such as "Incantation by Laughter", "Bobeobi Sang The Lips", "The Grasshopper" (all 1908-1909), "Snake Train" (1910), the prologue to the Futurist opera Victory over the Sun (1913), dramatic works such as "Death's Mistake" (1915), prose works such as "Ka" (1915), and the so-called 'super-tale' (сверхповесть) "Zangezi", a drama written partly in zaum. He published Selected Poems with Postscript, 1907–1914 circa 1914. Kazimir Malevich and Pavel Filonov co-illustrated it.