Ivan Aksenov (1884–1935), critic, poet, and translator, was a brilliant representative of the genre-crossing and internationalist spirit of the Russian avant-garde. For different reasons, however, his life and works have until recently remained largely ignored outside a small circle of initiated readers (Farsetti 2015; Kleberg 2015). Aksenov belonged to the so-called right-wing futurists of the Centrifuge, a short-lived group that included the young Boris Pasternak. He was an ardent anti-Symbolist, a polyglot, and a master of all techniques, who insisted on the importance of rhythm and texture rather than ideas and harmonic structures. His early poetry was original and provocative, thematically as well as formally. The same is true for his controversial translation practices.