The conference Le degré 41 sinapisé was handwritten by Ilya Zdanevich on thirty-three large ruled sheets of paper, progressively numbered. On the final sheet, at the end of the manuscript, there is the author's signature transliterated into French as Ilia Zdanévitch.
Together with the text of the conference there are four further sheets, unnumbered, with lists of words and drawings.
On the first sheet of the manuscript, high on the left-hand side, there is the date 5-3-22; on the fifth sheet, the date 6-3-22; on the seventh, the date 7-3-22; on the seventeenth sheet, the date 8-3-22; on the eighteenth sheet, the date 9-3-22; on the twenty-sixth sheet, respectively in the higher and lower part, the dates 10-3-22 and 11-3-22; in one of the attached sheets, bearing the title 'Maladie perlière' there is the date 31-3-22. These dates most likely refer to the revisions made by danevich on the text of the conference, shortly after it was held on the 22d February 1922.
The manuscript indeed reveals two different corrective interventions evidencing that he deeply modified, before eventually rewriting some portions of the text. The first intervention was made shortly after the lecture, while the second was apparently made much later, when the manuscript was sent for revision, together with the manuscripts of other lectures, as made clear by a series of correspondences.
The corrections are aimed towards a more concise form of writing, as well as one more consistent with the main concept of the text: the idea of the pearl sickness, and the system of images determined by it.
Thus Zdanevich removes the "opuchol" (tumour), found in the original version, substituting it with "zerno" (wheat, grain), "tverdoe zerno" (durum wheat, hard grain), and "zemug" (pearl), in accordance with the context. Where there was "slovesnaja kletka" (verbal cell) he writes "zerno", and instead of "zvukuvoe zerno" he writes "zvukovaya kletka". With these revisions, he intended for a more precise delineation between the two levels of language, the one of sound and the one of meaning, which were not kept so clearly distinct in the first version of the work.
The stylistic consistency is matched with the quest for a stronger terminological precision, within the system of a metaphorical discourse.
The sheets accompanying the manuscript contain lists of words that are mostly French translations of Russian words, like: "sens touffu = orkestrovvj smys/", "sens cossu = zaumnyi smys". On one sheet there is the graphic representation of the "grain de mot", with two concentric circles: in the inner circle is written "noyau sens", while on the outer one we can read "écorce son". On the same sheet, a horizontal line separates the two levels: the one of "langage = mot + mot + mot" from the one of "langue = grain + grain + grain".
The text of the conference, that you will find here below in its integral version, is a faithful reproduction of the final version of the manuscript, including all the original French, and even some anacoluthon examples. The names of Khlebnikov, Kruchenykh and Terentiev, transliterated in some cases by Zdanevich, are provided always in their Russian form. In all other cases, we have maintained the transliteration adopted by Zdanevich.
