ИСТИНА

The paper deals with the problem of representing avant-garde visions of future (visually or poetically) on the basis of mythical narrative structures, visions of the past, recollections of primeval symbols – real or imaginable. Comparative analysis of the most representative texts, such as Mafarka le Futurist and Victory over the Sun, shows that the futurist rhetoric intentionally uses traditional or quasi-traditional topoi, thus building up new canons, functionally similar to established ones. Relying on Kurt Hübner and Georges Bataille interpretations of myth, the paper raises the question why and to what extent futurist temporality is rooted in past, as well as differentiates between attitudes to past and future of Russian and Italian Futurists.