Mitki

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The Mit`ki(Митьки́) are an art group in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The Mitki is a group of Petersburg artists well-known in wide and diverse circles. It this good? I'm not very sure about it because in all centuries the number of those who could appreciate genuine art has been rather small, and the Mitki art is genuine.

THE MITKI BOOK by V.Shinkarev and A.Florenskiy.Leningrad 1985 year.

                             "An unknown horde appeared; and                                 
                          nobody knows who they are, where 
                           they are from, what is their language, 
                           their tribe, their religion..."

(From the modern rendition of the thirteenth century Novgorod manuscript referring to the Tartar-Mongolians)

The words of the epigraph exactly reflect the unfortunate situation accompanying the Mitki movement. Society absorbs fragmentary and unverified information about the movement so avidly as a desert absorbs a trickle of water and can never be sated, naturally.

Recently much has been said about the Mitki culture, but where can one actually partake of its fruits?

The flood of superfluous information covers the world, yet the golden thread of the Mitki culture barely glows (small wonder that even the persons like A.Florensky and Phil, very remote from literature, resort to the pen clenching their teeth - with the only aim of not allowing this thread to tear).

Dmitri Shagin who, upon first publications about the Mitki, was so exultant as to promise to buy me a bottle every day, has now grown very gloomy. The Mitki culture, wagging right and left, has lost touch with its leader and wanders in the dark. There appeared young Mitki who have never heard about the founder of the movement.

On a warm "white" night a group of young people walked close to Dmitri Shagin, waving the Mitki quotation-books and shouting, "We're Mitki! We're Mitki!" You can imagine what bitter feelings the founder of the movement experienced when he saw Walkman players plugged to the ears of those so-called "Mitki" and fashionable jogging shoes on their feet!

Not every Neophyte can easily part with fashionable clothes he acquired during his pre-Mitki period.<...> This is not so important, really, since a true Mitki-man is able to wear a David Bowie costume as if it were a threadbare quilted jacket.<...>

Let us, however, return to the sore subject of culture.

I shall not dwell on the particulars of the Mitki tastes and affinities. This has been done in A.Florensky's article to be discussed later. I shall simply try to establish some basic notions of the Mitki culture and outline the directions of further research.

THE MITKI QUOTATION-BOOKS

I was very pleased to learn about the appearance of the first, probably handwritten, Mitki quotation-books.

Time demands that we give some thought to the general principles of publication of such quotation-books.

To fulfil its main function of being the object that is easy to wave, the quotation-book should be nicely designed in a small format. Its volume should not exceed one or two thousand pages; that is why it is advisable to use fine print and rice paper.

The quotation-book, as it is evident from the name, is a collection of quotations used by the Mitki. These are the quotations from TV serials, films, novels, variety shows, operas, ballets, etc. <...>

NEW TRENDS IN THE MITKI SPEECH CULTURE

Little can be said about new trends in the Mitki vocabulary since it develops so fast that it is impossible to make any predictions.

As we know, the Mitki speech is characterized with extensive usage of diminutive, hypocoristic suffixes in combination with powerful emotional dramatics. The first factor allows to avoid dryness and severity. The second precludes the hypocritical unctuous intonations of an Uriah Heep. <...>

Hypocoristic suffixes appeared in verbs (in ALL verbs, which is unprecedented in any language). It may be easily predicted that soon these suffixes will appear in pronouns, adverbial modifiers and gerunds.

The powerful dramatics of the Mitki speech is achieved by using permanently hysterical intonation, recurrent telling of abstractly pitiful tales and the specific idea of duty -- transcendental rather than real.

A Mitki-man never fulfils the obligations he gave, which no one expects from him, anyway. Yet, he thinks it is necessary to fulfil the unexpressed desires (love require it - and the Mitki love everybody). Since it is very difficult for other people not only to gratify these desires but merely to figure them out, the resentment of a Mitki-man increases, and so does the dramatics of his speech.

For example, a Mitki-man wakes up with a strong hangover. He feels hot and awful. He wants someone to come and entertain him. But nobody comes, nobody brings him beer. Losing all patience, the Mitki-man calls his friend whom he has chosen as his would-be guest:

"Why are you treating me so? What have I done to you?!"

"What?" A friend is frightened.

"What..." The Mitki-man smiles bitterly. "Oh, well... No, just tell me one thing - what have I done to you? All right, I'm a bastard, a filthy no-good! But why, why do you treat me in such a way? Have I killed or robbed somebody, or what?"

"Mitya? What happened?"

"As if you didn't know..."

"I didn't!"

"So why couldn't you just once - just once in you whole lifetime! -- come to my place and see me?!"

Why The Mitki Culture Doesn't Yet Progress...

Because there is no time for that. During the Mitki meetings and congresses there is too little time to develop the distinctive culture.

The Mitki are very kind. They would part with their last shirt for a friend. But there is one antagonistic contradiction that tears them apart. They grudge each other alcoholic drinks.

Every Mitki-man is so sure of his right to drink more than his companions that he doesn't even notice this Mitki feature and ardently denies it. (It is appropriate to note here that the formula describing this phenomenon was coined by a foreign observer rather than among the Mitki themselves; "A Mitki-man doesn't like to drink in solitude. He likes to drink alone in the presence of many spectators.")

Imagine the meeting of three Mitki-men: A, B and C. (All names and events described here are the product of imagination, and any coincidence with reality is indeed coincidental).

Each of these three Mitki has brought a bottle of log-juice; each is worthy of an equal share. Yet each of them hopes for more. Due to that they have unanimously decided to drink straight from the bottleneck instead of using glasses; each of them considers his gulp to be the biggest. The Mitki sit at the table ready for a long and fruitful discussion which is to provide a powerful forward push to the Mitki culture.

A (opening the bottle): Now, for starters, I'll read you some Pushkin. (Gulps from the bottle).

B: Stop it! Are you nuts?

C: What a bastard!

A: What's the matter? There was little of it to begin with! (Draws a line with his finger to show how much there was in the full bottle in his opinion)

C: So they sold us half a bottle, didn't they?

B takes a bottle from A and drinks

C: Hey! And what about me?

B hands C the bottle with an offended look; bitterly watches C and the bottle.

A: See how much he drank? And I just barely sipped it.

C goes on drinking. A snatches the bottle and, breaking C's teeth pulls it toward himself.

C: Hey! What are you doing? I only made one sip! <...>

And so on, until the end of the meeting.

This is, of course, an abstract example. It merely outlines the theme of the struggle. Actually none of my Mitki friends is so rude and straightforward in achieving his aim. Each of them has his own techniques, polished and elaborated in the course of competition. Among the three Mitki the one who managed to drink more is the winner who deserved his victory in honest and equal struggle.

The methods of tins struggle form the organic part of the Mitki culture.