Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (1893 - 1930) - famous Soviet poet of the 20th century, publicist, playwright, artist. In addition, he is a talented film actor, director and screenwriter.
Parents
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was born in Georgia on July 7 (19), 1893 in the village of Baghdadi, Kutaisi province.
- His father, forester Vladimir Konstantinovich Mayakovsky (1857–1906) came from Zaporozhye Cossacks. He knew countless cases and anecdotes and conveyed them in Russian, Georgian, Armenian, Tatar, which he knew perfectly.
- The poet’s mother, Alexandra Alekseevna Mayakovskaya (1867–1954), is the daughter of captain of the Kuban Infantry Regiment Alexei Ivanovich Pavlenko, a participant in the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878, holder of the St. George Medal “For Service and Bravery,” as well as other military awards.
- My father's great-grandfather Kirill Mayakovsky was a regimental captain of the Black Sea troops, which gave him the right to receive the title of nobleman. Subsequently, the poet wrote in the poem “To Our Youth”: “Stolbovoy’s father is my nobleman.”
- On the paternal side, grandmother Efrosinya Osipovna was a cousin of the famous writer and historian G.P. Danilevsky.
Children of Mayakovsky
While working at Windows of ROST (1920), Vladimir Mayakovsky met the artist Lilia (Elizaveta) Lavinskaya. And although at that time she was a married young lady, this did not stop her from being carried away by the stately and charismatic poet. The fruit of this relationship was their son, who received a double name Gleb-Nikita. He was born on August 21, 1921 and was recorded in documents under the name of Anton Lavinsky, his mother’s official husband. The boy Gleb-Nikita himself always knew who his biological father was. Moreover, despite the lack of fatherly attention (Vladimir Mayakovsky’s children did not interest him, he was even afraid of them), he deeply loved the poet and read his poems from a young age.
Mayakovsky's son received a double name due to parental disagreements in choosing a name for the boy. He received the first part - Gleb - from his stepfather, the second part - Nikita - from his mother. Mayakovsky himself did not take part in raising his son, although he was a frequent guest of the family in the first few years.
Nikita-Gleb's life was not easy. With living parents, the boy grew up in an orphanage until he was three years old. According to those social views, this was the most suitable place to raise children and accustom them to the team. Gleb-Nikita has few memories of his own father. Much later, he would tell his youngest daughter Elizaveta about one special meeting they had, when Mayakovsky took him on his shoulders, went out onto the balcony and read his poems to him.
Mayakovsky's son had a subtle artistic taste and an absolute ear for music. At the age of 20, Gleb-Nikita was called up to the front. He spent the entire Great Patriotic War as an ordinary soldier. Then he got married for the first time.
American daughter
In the mid-1920s, a radical change occurred in the relationship between Mayakovsky and Liliya Brik, and the political situation in Russia at that time was difficult for the revolutionary poet. This became the reason for his trip to the USA, where he actively toured and visited his friend David Burliuk. There he met Russian emigrant Ellie Jones (real name Elizaveta Siebert). She was a reliable comrade, a charming companion and translator for him in a foreign country.
This novel became very significant for the poet. He even seriously wanted to get married and create a calm family haven. However, his old love (Lilia Brik) did not let him go, all impulses quickly cooled down. And on June 15, 1926, Ellie Jones gave birth to a daughter from the poet - Patricia Thompson.
At birth, the girl received the name Helen-Patricia Jones. The surname came from the emigrant mother's husband, George Jones. This was necessary so that the child could be considered legitimate and remain in the United States. In addition, the secret of birth saved the girl. Possible children of Mayakovsky could then come under persecution by the NKVD and Liliya Brik herself.
Childhood
From the age of four, Volodya loved to be read to, especially poetry. And his mother read to him Krylov, Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov. And when she could not respond to his request, he cried. He easily remembered what he liked and then recited it expressively from memory. When he grew up, he began to climb into empty churi (large clay jugs for wine) and read poetry from there. The jugs resonated and the voice sounded loud and booming.
In 1898, for his birthday, which coincided with his father’s birthday, he learned Lermontov’s poem “Dispute” and performed in front of numerous guests. His first impromptu statement related to the purchase of a camera dates back to this time: “Mom is glad, dad is glad that we bought the camera.”
At the age of six, Mayakovsky learned to read on his own, without the help of adults. I didn’t like the first book “Agafya the Birdkeeper” by children’s writer Klavdia Lukashevich. “Fortunately, the second one is Don Quixote.” What a book! He made a wooden sword and armor, smashed the surroundings” (V. Mayakovsky. “I Myself”). Usually the boy took a book, filled his pockets with fruit, grabbed something for his dog friends and went into the garden. There he lay down on his stomach under a tree, and two or three dogs lovingly guarded him. And I read it for so long.
Volodya Mayakovsky - 1st grade student
Fun games and a wide range of children's imagination were facilitated by the fact that Ananov's house, into which the Mayakovsky family moved in the fall of 1899, was located on the site of an ancient Georgian fortress. The poet’s first artistic and visual impressions also date back to the Baghdad period. In the summer, many guests came to the Mayakovskys, including young people. Among those who came was a student of St. Petersburg University B.P. Glushkovsky, the son of Yulia Feliksovna Glushkovskaya, a Kutaisi acquaintance of the Mayakovskys, who also studied at the school for “encouragement of the arts.” The future poet watched as he sketched the figure of the main character of Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” into an album. In 1900, when Volodya was seven years old, Alexandra Alekseevna took him to the city of Kutais to prepare him for entering the gymnasium. Mother and son settled in the house of Yulia Feliksovna Glushkovskaya, who began to give Volodya lessons.
And already in 1902, Mayakovsky passed the exams for the senior preparatory class of the Kutaisi classical gymnasium, and began studying there in the fall. At this time, the older sister was preparing to enter the Moscow Stroganov School and took drawing lessons from the artist S.P. Rubella, who graduated from the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. She showed him her brother’s drawings, and he began to study with Mayakovsky for free.
In 1906, after the death of his father, the family moved to Moscow. Mayakovsky studied at the Moscow gymnasium. He communicated with Bolshevik students, joined the party, and was co-opted into the Moscow Committee of the RSDLP(b) (1908). He was arrested three times. And in 1909 he was imprisoned in solitary confinement in the Butyrka prison. After leaving prison, where he began writing poetry, Mayakovsky decides to “make socialist art”: “I interrupted party work. I sat down to study."
The beginning of a creative journey
In 1911, after several attempts to enter an art school, Mayakovsky became a student at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Moscow. Through David Burliuk, one of the leaders of the futurist group “Gilea,” who studied there, Mayakovsky became acquainted with the world of the Moscow literary and artistic avant-garde. Burliuk, whom Mayakovsky introduced to his poems, highly appreciated them and recommended continuing his studies in poetry. From the end of 1912 to the beginning of 1923, Mayakovsky took part in art exhibitions of contemporary art, performed readings of his poems, and participated in public performances together with Burliuk and other members of the Gileya group. Mayakovsky’s first publications (poems Night, Morning) appeared at the end of 1912 in the publication “Gilea”.
Mayakovsky also participated in the writing of the manifesto of the same name, from which the statement, often quoted by the artistic opponents of the Futurists, was taken - “throw Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin off the Steamboat of modernity.” The authors of numerous memoirs emphasize Mayakovsky’s love for the classics, brilliant knowledge of Pushkin’s poetry, etc., trying to balance declarations of this kind. They were typical of many leftist movements in art at the beginning of the 20th century. In May 1913, 300 copies of Mayakovsky's first collection with illustrations by the author and his comrades in the School of Painting were printed by lithographic method in the amount of 300 copies.
Features of poetry
In the first poems, Mayakovsky’s imagery is quite traditional compared to other futurists, and in them the anti-aestheticism common to the group of cubo-futurists, an appeal to shocking themes and, along with them, features of originality gradually appear: urban imagery; dynamism and sudden changes in intonation; widespread use of motifs, the source of which was fine art, primarily modernist painting. Somewhat later, features appeared that were preserved in Mayakovsky’s poetry into the 1920s: the use of occasionalisms (words associated with a specific occasion, occasion, and not registered as a linguistic norm) and the use of compound rhyme, common to most futurists.
Several examples of Mayakovsky’s occasionalisms:
- Yellow-eyed (from yellow-eyed)
- Capital (from capital)
- Sun-faced (sun, face)
- See you (had a chance to see)
- Sozvenenny (from link)
- Sklyan (from glass)
- Winged (from wing)
Mayakovsky, together with Burliuk, V. Kamensky and other members of the Cubo-Futurist group, actively participates in “futurist tours” around Russia - collective performances with lectures and poetry readings. The performances had strong elements of theatricality and shocking (provocative behavior, unusual clothes, makeup). In subsequent positive reviews, Mayakovsky was considered outside the context of the futurist group.
In 1914, in the St. Petersburg Luna Park Theater, with the participation of the author, Mayakovsky’s tragedy “Vladimir Mayakovsky” was staged, in which the poet played the main role - the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. According to Chukovsky’s recollections, “the play should have had a different title, but the censor, to whom Mayakovsky handed the play over, without having yet come up with the title, mistook the author’s name for it and subsequently did not allow it to be changed, but this only made the poet happy.” The original names of the tragedy are The Railway, The Rise of Things; the motif of the rebellion of things connects it with the poetics of other Russian futurists (Khlebnikov). The allegorical characters of the play (Old Man with Dry Black Cats, Man without an Eye and Leg, Man without a Head, etc.) are also comparable to the characters in Khlebnikov's plays. The play in verse is not well suited for stage production. Its first edition develops the traditions of the futuristic book in the field of playing with fonts of various styles and sizes.
Travel and social activities
In 1915, Mayakovsky’s famous poem “A Cloud in Pants” was completed. Further poetry of Mayakovsky, in addition to anti-war themes, also contains satirical ones. Film scripts occupy a due place in Mayakovsky's work. He starred in three of his films in 1918.
The great poet met the October Revolution at the headquarters of the uprising in Smolny. He immediately began to cooperate with the new government and participated in the first meetings of cultural figures. Let us note that Mayakovsky led a detachment of soldiers who arrested General P. Sekretev, who ran the automobile school, although he had previously received the medal “For Diligence” from his hands. The years 1917–1918 were marked by the release of several works by Mayakovsky dedicated to revolutionary events (for example, “Ode to the Revolution,” “Our March”). On the first anniversary of the revolution, the play “Mystery-bouffe” was presented.
Mayakovsky was also interested in filmmaking. In 1919, three films were released, in which Vladimir acted as an actor, screenwriter and director. At the same time, the poet began collaborating with ROSTA and worked on propaganda and satirical posters. At the same time, Mayakovsky worked for the newspaper “Art of the Commune”.
At this time, several bright and memorable works of the brilliant poet were created: “About This” (1923), “Sevastopol - Yalta” (1924), “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin” (1924). We emphasize that during the reading of the last poem at the Bolshoi Theater, I. Stalin himself was present. No less important and eventful was the period of frequent travel for Mayakovsky. During 1922 - 1924 he visited France, Latvia and Germany, to which he dedicated several works. In 1925, Vladimir went to America, visiting Mexico City, Havana and many US cities. The beginning of the 20s was marked by heated controversy between Vladimir Mayakovsky and Sergei Yesenin. The latter at that time joined the Imagists - irreconcilable opponents of the Futurists. In addition, Mayakovsky was a poet of the revolution and the city, and Yesenin extolled the countryside in his work.
During 1926-1927, Mayakovsky created 9 film scripts. In addition, in 1927, the poet resumed the activities of the LEF magazine. But a year later he left the magazine and the corresponding organization, completely disillusioned with them. In 1929, Vladimir founded the REF group, but the following year he left it and became a member of RAPP. At the end of the 20s, Mayakovsky again turned to drama. He is preparing two plays: “The Bedbug” (1928) and “Bathhouse” (1929), intended specifically for Meyerhold’s theater stage. They thoughtfully combine a satirical presentation of the reality of the 20s with a look into the future.
Meyerhold compared Mayakovsky's talent with the genius of Moliere, but critics greeted his new works with devastating comments. In “The Bedbug” they found only artistic shortcomings, but even accusations of an ideological nature were brought against “Bath”. Many newspapers carried extremely offensive articles, and some of them had the headlines “Down with Mayakovism!”
Lilia Brik
Brik was two years older than Mayakovsky, and this, albeit formal, difference was noticeably felt: in their relationship it was she who led, while the poet played the role of a follower, a subordinate. Brik and Mayakovsky met in the summer of 1915; the poet’s future muse had already been married to Osip Brik for three years at that time. Lilya “stole” Mayakovsky from her sister Elsa, with whom he was dating at the time. Actually, it was Elsa who brought Mayakovsky to the Brikovs’ St. Petersburg apartment on Zhukovsky Street. The poet read the latest poem “A Cloud in Pants”, received an enthusiastic reception, was charmed by the hostess, the feeling turned out to be mutual. Osip helped publish “The Cloud,” all three became friends, and Mayakovsky, not wanting to part with his new hobby, stayed in Petrograd. Gradually, the Briks' house turned into a fashionable literary salon, and soon a romance began between the poet and the new muse, which was calmly accepted by Lily's husband.
“Elzochka, don’t make such scary eyes. I told Osya that my feelings for Volodya were verified, strong, and that I was now his wife. And Osya agrees,” these words, which struck Elsa to the core, turned out to be true. In 1918, Briki and Mayakovsky began to live together, and in the spring of the following year they moved to Moscow, where they did not hide their progressive relationship at all. Lilya worked with the poet at Windows of ROSTA, Osip worked at the Cheka.
Mayakovsky's love for Brik (to whom he dedicated all his poems) was emotional; his character required constant shocks, which increasingly tired Lilya. Regular scenes, departures and returns - the relationship in the couple was not cloudless. Brik allowed herself to speak disparagingly about Mayakovsky, calling him boring, and eventually stopped being faithful to him. This, however, did not stop Lila from keeping the poet on a short leash, making sure that Mayakovsky did not leave her anywhere. In his will, he indicated Brik as one of the heirs, and she received half of the rights to his works.
Veronica Polonskaya
Mayakovsky's last strong passion, the Moscow Art Theater actress Veronika Polonskaya, was 15 years younger than the poet. Polonskaya, a married woman (her husband was the actor Mikhail Yanshin), could hardly stand the scenes that Mayakovsky arranged for her. He demanded that Veronica leave her husband and became furious when he did not get what he wanted. The relationship was constantly in a state of rupture, and in the end it all ended on April 14, 1930, when the poet committed suicide.
Death and legacy
The fateful year of 1930 began for the greatest poet with numerous accusations from his colleagues. Mayakovsky was told that he was not a true “proletarian writer”, but only a “fellow traveler”. But, despite the criticism, in the spring of that year Vladimir decided to take stock of his activities, for which he organized an exhibition called “20 years of work.” The exhibition reflected all of Mayakovsky's many-sided achievements, but brought complete disappointment. Neither the poet’s former colleagues at LEF nor the top party leadership visited her. It was a cruel blow, after which a deep wound remained in the poet’s soul.
There was talk in literary circles that Mayakovsky had written himself off. The poet was denied a visa to travel abroad. Two days before his suicide, on April 12, Mayakovsky had a meeting with readers at the Polytechnic Institute, which was attended mainly by Komsomol members; There were a lot of boorish shouts from the seats. The poet was haunted by quarrels and scandals everywhere. His state of mind became more and more alarming and depressing.
Since the spring of 1919, Mayakovsky, despite the fact that he constantly lived with the Briks, had a small boat room for work on the fourth floor of a communal apartment on Lubyanka. The suicide took place in this room.
On the morning of April 14, Mayakovsky had an appointment with Veronica (Nora) Polonskaya. The poet had been dating Polonskaya for the second year, insisted on her divorce, and even signed up for a writers’ cooperative in the passage of the Art Theater, where he planned to move to live with Nora. In 1990, 82-year-old Polonskaya recalled in an interview with Soviet Screen magazine:
“I couldn’t be late, it angered Vladimir Vladimirovich. He locked the doors, hid the key in his pocket, began to demand that I not go to the theater, and generally left there. I cried... I asked if he would accompany me. “No,” he said, but promised to call. And he also asked if I had money for a taxi. I didn’t have any money, he gave me twenty rubles... I managed to get to the front door and heard a shot. I rushed about, afraid to return. Then she walked in and saw the smoke from the shot that had not yet cleared. There was a small bloody stain on Mayakovsky's chest. I rushed to him, I repeated: “What did you do?..” He tried to raise his head. Then his head fell, and he began to turn terribly pale... People appeared, someone said to me: “Run, meet the ambulance... I ran out and met him. I returned, and on the stairs someone said to me: “It’s late. Died…"
The suicide letter, prepared two days earlier, is clear and detailed (which, according to the researchers, excludes the version of the spontaneity of the shot), begins with the words: “Don’t blame anyone for the fact that I’m dying, and please don’t gossip, the dead man doesn’t do that terribly.” I loved…". The poet calls Lilya Brik (as well as Veronica Polonskaya), mother and sisters members of his family and asks to transfer all the poems and archives to the Briks. The Briks managed to arrive at the funeral, urgently interrupting their European tour; Polonskaya, on the contrary, did not dare to attend, since Mayakovsky’s mother and sisters considered her to be the culprit in the death of the poet. For three days, with an endless stream of people, farewell took place in the House of Writers. Tens of thousands of admirers of his talent escorted the poet to the Donskoye Cemetery in an iron coffin, accompanied by the singing of the Internationale.
The poet was cremated in the first Moscow crematorium opened three years earlier near the Donskoy Monastery. The brain was removed for research by the Brain Institute. Initially, the ashes were located there, in the columbarium of the New Donskoye Cemetery, but as a result of the persistent actions of Lilia Brik and the poet’s elder sister Lyudmila, the urn with Mayakovsky’s ashes was moved on May 22, 1952 and buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.
- The greatest love in the poet’s life and his muse was Lilya Yuryevna Brik. Mayakovsky became friends with her and her husband, Osip, and then moved to live in their apartment. Lily and Vladimir began a whirlwind romance, and her husband actually gave in to her friend.
- Mayakovsky was popular with women. However, the poet did not officially register any of his relationships. It is known that in addition to his daughter Patricia, Mayakovsky also has a son from his relationship with the artist Lilya Lavinskaya - Gleb-Nikita, a Soviet sculptor.
- After his father’s death from blood poisoning (he injected himself while stitching papers), Mayakovsky was haunted throughout his life by the phobia of dying from infection.
- The poetic “ladder”, invented by Mayakovsky and which became his calling card, caused indignation among his colleagues. After all, editors at that time paid not for the number of characters in a work, but for the number of lines.
- After Mayakovsky read a poem about Lenin at the Bolshoi Theater, the audience applauded for 20 minutes; Stalin was present at this performance.
- Mayakovsky stood at the origins of Soviet advertising; the poet was criticized by some of his contemporaries for his advertising activities.
Video
Sources
- https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayakovsky,_Vladimir_Vladimirovich http://v-mayakovsky.com/biography.html
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was born into the family of a forester. In 1906, after the death of his father, the family moved to Moscow. Mayakovsky studied at the Moscow gymnasium. He communicated with Bolshevik students, joined the party, and was co-opted into the Moscow Committee of the RSDLP(b) (1908). He was arrested three times, and in 1909 he was imprisoned in solitary confinement in the Butyrka prison. Having left prison, where he began to write poetry, Mayakovsky decides to “make socialist art”: “I interrupted party work. I sat down to study.” In 1911 Mayakovsky entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. By 1912, he had his first poetic experiments related to the theory and practice of the Cubo-Futurist group, who attracted him with their protest against the foundations of bourgeois society. But if the anti-aestheticism of the Futurists manifested itself primarily in the field of “pure” form, then Mayakovsky perceived it in his own way, as an approach to solving the problem of creating a new democratic poetic language. He will say about this in the revolutionary poem “A Cloud in Pants” (1915): “...The street is writhing, tongueless - it has nothing to shout or talk with.”
Mayakovsky's work in its social sound did not fit into the framework of futurism, which was especially evident in the tragedy "Vladimir Mayakovsky" (staged in 1913). The pathos of the tragedy is in protest against the institutions of bourgeois society, against the power of “soulless things.” The tragedy ultimately goes back to the sentiments of the masses, outraged by the injustice of the world, but not yet aware of their power. The pathos of denial of bourgeois reality is also palpable in the poet’s early poems (“Hell of the City,” “Here!”). For participating in public literary performances of the futurists, Mayakovsky was expelled from the school (1914). The beginning of the First World War of 1914-18 was reflected in his work in a non-linear way: in the article “State Shrapnel” (November 1914) he wrote that “today we need hymns...”, but in the poem “War has been declared” (July 1914 g.) and “Mom and the evening killed by the Germans” (November 1914) showed his disgust for the war, for its bloody nonsense. In poems published in the magazine "New Satyricon" ("Hymn to the Judge", "Hymn to the Scientist", "Hymn to the Bribe"), Mayakovsky gives sarcastic "praise" to the abominations of life, in which honest work, a clear conscience and high art become the subject of blasphemy.
The poem “Cloud in Pants” was a new stage. ““Down with your love”, “Down with your art”, “Down with your system”, “Down with your religion” - four cries of four parts,” - this is how the poet himself characterized the main social and aesthetic orientation of “The Cloud”. The poem reflected the growing strength of millions spontaneously rising against capitalism and realizing their path in the struggle. The main pathos of Mayakovsky's pre-October poems - "The Spine Flute" (1916), "War and Peace" (separate edition - 1917), "Man" (1916-17, published in 1918) - was protest against bourgeois relations that crippled the true nature of Man. This brought the poet closer to M. Gorky, who, distinguishing him from the futurists, attracted him to participate in the journal "Chronicle".
Having joyfully greeted the October Revolution, Mayakovsky defined his position: “My revolution. I went to Smolny. I worked. Whatever I had to do.” The poet sought to aesthetically comprehend the “stunning facts” of the new socialist reality. Before October, Mayakovsky did not have a clear social perspective. Some dogmas of the futurist group left their mark on the peculiarities of the form of his poems and on the system of social and aesthetic views. After the October Revolution, Mayakovsky’s work acquired a new social and aesthetic coloring, determined by the struggle for the ideals of communism (both in a positive and satirical sense). This was already reflected in the play “Mystery-bouffe” (1918, 2nd version, 1921) - “...a heroic, epic and satirical depiction of our era,” the first Soviet play on a modern theme. By asserting the greatness and heroism of ordinary people, Mayakovsky exposed the creative impotence of the bourgeoisie; Only the “unclean” with their moral purity and class solidarity can build the “ark” of the new world. In “The Left March” (1918), a kind of hymn to proletarian power and determination, the poet called for a fight against the enemies of the revolution. But Mayakovsky’s aesthetic palette was multicolored: in the poem “A Good Treatment for Horses” (1918), he advocated the richness of the emotions of the new person, who should have access to sympathy for all living things, all the defenseless.
The humanistic orientation of Mayakovsky's poetry acquired a new social quality. The poem "150,000,000" (1919-20, 1st edition without the author's name, 1921) asserted the leading role of the Russian people as the herald of the socialist revolution. V.I. Lenin negatively perceived the poem, seeing in it an example of futurism, which he had a negative attitude towards. During these years, Mayakovsky began to pave the way for truly democratic art, in tune with the mood of the masses. Having moved to Moscow in March 1919, he works in “Windows of ROSTA” - he draws posters with poetic texts of a propaganda nature (about 1,100 “windows” were created in 3 years). In these posters, as well as in Mayakovsky’s industrial and book graphics of the 1920s, his talent and experience as an artist, his catchy and laconic style were especially clearly demonstrated (Mayakovsky turned to fine art starting from the 10s; his numerous portrait sketches and sketches have been preserved lubkov, theatrical works). This activity of the “worker poet,” who gave his pen and brush to the needs of the revolution, was deeply organic for Mayakovsky and corresponded to his aesthetic concept of the invasion of art into reality.
In the poetry of Mayakovsky of the 20s, a lyrical hero of a new type appears: he does not separate his intimate world from the larger world of social storms, he does not think of the intimate outside the social - “I Love” (1922), “About This” (1923) , “Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva” (1928) and others. As a result of Mayakovsky's trips to capitalist countries (USA, Germany, France, Cuba and others), the cycles of poems "Paris" (1924-25) and "Poems about America" (1925-26) appeared. Mayakovsky acted as the plenipotentiary representative of the young socialist state, challenging the bourgeois system
The pathos of namelessness (“I sing millions”) in the poet’s work gave way to a more harmonious concept of personality. Like M. Gorky, Mayakovsky stands at the origins of Soviet Leninism. In the poem "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" (1924), the activities of the leader of the proletarian revolution are artistically recreated against a broad historical background. Mayakovsky realized the enormous importance of Lenin’s personality - “the most humane person”, the “organizer of victory” of the proletariat. The poem was a hymn to the “attacking class” - the proletariat and its party. Feeling like “... a soldier in a line of billions” (ibid., volume 7, 1958, p. 166), Mayakovsky considered aspiration towards a communist future as a criterion for all creative activity, including poetic. “...A great feeling called class” was the main driving force of Mayakovsky’s creativity during the Soviet era. The poem "Good!" (1927) A.V. Lunacharsky called it “the October Revolution cast in bronze”; Mayakovsky sang here the “spring of humanity” - his socialist fatherland. Along with Gorky, Mayakovsky becomes the founder of socialist realism in Soviet literature.
During these years, Mayakovsky created such lyrical masterpieces as “To Comrade Nette, the Ship and the Man”, “Sergei Yesenin” (both 1926), “Poems about the Soviet Passport” (1929) and others.
Mayakovsky's lyricism is comprehensive - it expressed the unprecedented spiritual growth of a person in a new society. Mayakovsky - lyricist, tribune, satirist - a poet of a huge, “solid heart.” Faith in the triumph of communist ideals is combined in his poems with irreconcilability towards everything that interferes with “rushing into tomorrow, forward.” Mayakovsky's speech against bureaucracy and the fuss of the bench in the poem "The Seated" (1922) caused Lenin great "pleasure". Inspired by the approval of the leader of the revolution, Mayakovsky later smashed all sorts of “pompadours” who clung to the party and covered their selfish, petty-bourgeois insides with a party card (“Pompadour”, 1928, “Conversation with Comrade Lenin”, 1929). In the poems of the late 20s, in the plays "The Bedbug" (1928, staged in 1929) and "Bathhouse" (1929, staged in 1930), a whole gallery of types appeared, dangerous for their social mimicry and empty demagoguery. Mayakovsky's satirical plays, innovative both in content and form, played a major role in the development of Soviet drama.
Mayakovsky created an innovative poetic system that largely determined the development of both Soviet and world poetry; Nazim Hikmet, Louis Aragon, Pablo Neruda, I. Becher and others experienced its impact. Based on his ideological and artistic task, Mayakovsky significantly reformed Russian verse. A new type of lyrical hero with his revolutionary attitude to reality contributed to the formation of a new poetics of maximum expressiveness: the entire system of the poet’s artistic means is aimed at the extremely dramatized verbal expression of the thoughts and feelings of the lyrical hero. This is reflected in the system of graphic notations: increased expressiveness is conveyed through changes within traditional spelling and punctuation, and the introduction of new techniques for graphically fixing text - the “column”, and since 1923 - the “ladder”, reflecting pausing. The desire for maximum expressiveness of verse passes along different lines: vocabulary and phraseology, rhythm, intonation, rhyme.
Mayakovsky headed the literary group LEF (Left Front of the Arts) and later REF (Revolutionary Front of the Arts); edited the magazine "LEF" (1923-25) and "New LEF" (1927-28), but came to the conclusion that closed groups interfere with the normal creative communication of Soviet writers, and in February 1930 he joined the RAPP, which he considered as a mass literary organization. The difficult situation in the last years of his personal life and literary struggle led Mayakovsky to depression and suicide. The poem "At the top of my voice" (1930) is perceived as Mayakovsky's poetic testament, full of deep inner faith in the triumph of communism. Mayakovsky's work is widely studied both in the USSR, where a number of major monographic studies have been created, and abroad. However, his poetry was the object of subjectivist interpretation on the part of the so-called Sovietologists, trying to distort Mayakovsky’s poetic image and emasculate the revolutionary content of his poetry. Mayakovsky's works have been translated into all the main languages of the peoples of the Soviet Union and foreign countries.
In 1937, the Mayakovsky Library-Museum was opened in Moscow (formerly Gendrikov Lane, now Mayakovsky Lane); in January 1974, the State Mayakovsky Museum was opened in Moscow. In 1941, the Mayakovsky Museum was opened in the village of Mayakovsky (formerly the village of Baghdadi) of the Georgian SSR.
Vladimir Mayakovsky is the flame of the twentieth century. His poems are inseparable from his life. However, behind the cheerful Soviet slogans of Mayakovsky the revolutionary, one can discern another Mayakovsky - a romantic knight, a theurgist, a crazy genius in love.
Below is a short biography of Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.
Introduction
In 1893, the future great futurist, Vladimir Mayakovsky, was born in the village of Bagdati in Georgia. They said about him: a genius. They shouted about him: a charlatan. But no one could deny that he had an incredible influence on Russian poetry. He created a new style that was inseparable from the spirit of Soviet times, from the hopes of that era, from the people living, loving and suffering in the USSR.
He was a man of contradiction. They will say about him:
This is a complete mockery of beauty, tenderness and God.
They will say about him:
Mayakovsky has always been and remains the best and most talented poet of our Soviet era.
By the way, this beautiful photo is fake. Mayakovsky, unfortunately, never met Frida Kahlo, but the idea of their meeting is wonderful - they are both like riot and fire.
One thing is certain: whether a genius or a charlatan, Mayakovsky will forever remain in the hearts of the Russian people. Some like him for the glibness and impudence of his lines, others - for the tenderness and desperate love that hides in the depths of his style. His broken, crazy style, breaking from the shackles of writing, which is so similar to real life.
Life is a struggle
Mayakovsky's life was a struggle from beginning to end: in politics, in art and in love. His first poem is the result of struggle, the consequence of suffering: it was written in prison (1909), where he was sent for his Social Democratic beliefs. He began his creative journey, admiring the ideals of the revolution, and ended it, mortally disappointed in everything: everything in him is a tangle of contradictions, struggle.
He ran like a red thread through history and art and left his mark in subsequent works. It is impossible to write a modernist poem without referring to Mayakovsky.
The poet Vladimir Mayakovsky is, in his own words:
But there is something else behind this rough, militant façade.
short biography
When he was only 15 years old, he joined the RSDLP(b), and was enthusiastically engaged in propaganda.
Since 1911, he studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.
Major Poems (1915): "Cloud in Pants", "Spine Flute" and "War and Peace". These works are full of delight for the coming, and then the coming revolution. The poet is full of optimism.
1918-1919 - revolution, he actively participates. Produces posters "Windows of Satire ROSTA".
In 1923, he became the founder of the creative association LEF (Left Front of the Arts).
Mayakovsky’s later works “The Bedbug” (1928) and “Bathhouse” (1929) are a sharp satire on Soviet reality. Mayakovsky is disappointed. Perhaps this was one of the reasons for his tragic suicide.
In 1930, Mayakovsky committed suicide: he shot himself, leaving a suicide note in which he asked not to blame anyone. He is buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Art
Irina Odoevtseva wrote about Mayakovsky:
Huge, with a round, short-cropped head, he looked more like a strong hooker than a poet. He read poetry completely differently than was customary among us. Rather like an actor, although - which the actors never did - not only observing, but also emphasizing the rhythm. His voice - the voice of a meeting tribune - either thundered so loudly that the windows rattled, or cooed like a dove and babbled like a forest stream. Stretching out his huge hands to the stunned listeners in a theatrical gesture, he passionately suggested to them:
Do you want me to go mad from meat?
And, like the sky, changing colors,
Do you want me to become inexpressibly tender, -
Not a man, but a cloud in his pants?..
These lines show Mayakovsky’s character: he is first of all a citizen, not a poet. He is first and foremost a tribune, an activist at rallies. He is an actor. His early poetry is, accordingly, not a description, but a call to action, not a statement, but a performative. Not so much art as real life. This applies at least to his social poems. They are expressive and metaphorical. Mayakovsky himself admitted that he was impressed by Andrei Bely’s poem “He launched a pineapple into the sky”:
low bass.
launched a pineapple.
And, having described the arc,
illuminating the surroundings,
the pineapple was falling,
beaming into the unknown.
But there is also a second Mayakovsky, who wrote without being impressed by either Bely or the revolution - he wrote from the inside, desperately in love, unhappy, tired - not the warrior Mayakovsky, but the gentle knight Mayakovsky, an admirer of Lilichka Brik. And the poetry of this second Mayakovsky is strikingly different from the first. The poems of Vladimir Mayakovsky are full of piercing, desperate tenderness, rather than healthy optimism. They are sharp and sad, in contrast to the positive cheerfulness of his Soviet poetic appeals.
Mayakovsky the warrior proclaimed:
Read! Envy! I am a citizen! Soviet Union!
Mayakovsky the knight rang with shackles and sword, vaguely reminiscent of the theurgist Blok, drowning in his purple worlds:
The fence of reason is broken by confusion,
I pile up despair, burning feverishly...
How did two such different people get along in one Mayakovsky? It is difficult to imagine and impossible not to imagine. If it were not for this internal struggle in him, there would not have been such a genius.
Love
These two Mayakovskys got along probably because they were both driven by passion: for one it was a passion for Justice, and for the second for a femme fatale.
Perhaps it is worth dividing the life of Vladimir Mayakovsky into two main periods: before and after Lilichka Brik. This happened in 1915.
She seemed like a monster to me.
This is how the famous poet Andrei Voznesensky wrote about her.
But Mayakovsky loved this one. With a whip...
He loved her - fatal, strong, “with a whip,” and she said about him that when she made love with Osya, she locked Volodya in the kitchen, and he “was eager, wanted to come to us, scratched at the door and cried...”
Only such madness, incredible, even perverted suffering could give rise to such powerful poetic lines:
Don’t do this, dear, good, let’s say goodbye now!
So the three of them lived, and eternal suffering spurred the poet on to new lines of genius. Besides this, there was, of course, something else. There were trips to Europe (1922-24) and America (1925), as a result of which the poet had a daughter, but Lilichka always remained the same, the only one, until April 14, 1930, when, having written “Lilya, love me,” the poet shot himself, leaving a ring with LOVE engraved on it - Liliya Yuryevna Brik. If you twirled the ring, you got the eternal “lovelovelove.” He shot himself in defiance of his own lines, his eternal declaration of love, which made him immortal:
And I won’t throw myself into the air, and I won’t drink poison, and I won’t be able to pull the trigger above my temple...
Creative heritage
The work of Vladimir Mayakovsky is not limited to his dual poetic heritage. He left behind slogans, posters, plays, performances and film scripts. He was actually at the origins of advertising - Mayakovsky made it what it is now. Mayakovsky came up with a new poetic meter - the ladder - although some argue that this meter was generated by the desire for money: editors paid for poems line by line. One way or another, it was an innovative step in art. Vladimir Mayakovsky was also an actor. He himself directed the film “The Young Lady and the Hooligan” and played the main role there.
However, in recent years he has been plagued by failure. His plays "The Bedbug" and "The Bathhouse" failed and he slowly fell into depression. An adept of cheerfulness, fortitude, and struggle, he scandalized, quarreled, and gave in to despair. And at the beginning of April 1930, the magazine “Print and Revolution” removed the greeting to the “Great Proletarian Poet” from print, and rumors spread: he had written himself off. This was one of the last blows. Mayakovsky took his failure hard.
Memory
Many streets in Russia, as well as metro stations, are named after Mayakovsky. There are Mayakovskaya metro stations in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In addition, theaters and cinemas are named after him. One of the largest libraries in St. Petersburg also bears his name. Also, a minor planet discovered in 1969 was named in his honor.
The biography of Vladimir Mayakovsky did not end after his death.
The son of a nobleman and a Cossack woman from the Kuban, who did not graduate from high school or college, a non-party “futurist with a communist bias” who dreamed of throwing the classics off the ship of modernity, a poet, playwright, artist - all this is Vladimir Mayakovsky.
He was born on July 7, 1893 in the Georgian village of Baghdadi, where his father served as a forester. In 1902, the family moved to Kutais, where Volodya entered the gymnasium. A cloudless childhood with books by Jules Verne quickly ends, developing into a rebellious adolescence: the future poet is captured by revolutionary ideas, and his studies fade into the background. He reads illegal literature, takes part in demonstrations, and almost flies out of the gymnasium. A sharp turn in the life of their family occurs in 1906, when their father dies. The Mayakovskys move to Moscow with virtually no means of subsistence. Vladimir enters the 4th grade of the gymnasium, studies poorly, and after a year he is expelled.
At the age of 15, he became a member of the RSDLP(b), throwing himself headlong into revolutionary agitation. A series of arrests begins, acquaintance with the Butyrka prison, where the “first notebook” of poetry was written. After being released “due to his minority,” Mayakovsky decides to continue his studies, entering the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1911. There he becomes an active participant in the Cubo-Futurist group of D. Burliuk, who immediately recognizes him as a very talented poet, and at the end of 1912, Mayakovsky’s first poems are published in the almanac “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste,” along with the scandalous Futurist manifesto. The year 1914 became significant in creative terms: his first collection was published under the sonorous title “I”, he debuted as a playwright with the tragedy “Vladimir Mayakovsky”. The poet takes an active part in public actions of the futurists, for which he was expelled from the school that same year.
Mayakovsky accepted the revolution of 1917 with all his heart, this delight permeates all his work of those years. In 1919, he devoted the power of his talent to collaboration with the Russian Telegraph Agency, and worked not only as a poet, but also as an artist (the famous posters “ROSTA Windows”). The 20s were the heyday of Mayakovsky’s creativity. He writes a lot, performs, he is known and loved, he becomes the idol of millions of people. The organizational talent is not inferior to the poetic, which is confirmed by the bright 6 years of leadership of the legendary Left Front of the Arts. Numerous trips abroad (1924-1926) inspired the poet to write a whole series of poems and verses, permeated not only with delight from what he saw, but also with great love for his Motherland.
However, Mayakovsky’s euphoria from the birth of a “new man” gradually begins to fade. It is not so easy for the communist elite to resist the temptations of an “aristocratic” life, and the poet, with all his inherent uncompromisingness, begins to fight these phenomena in his satirical works in 1928-1929, as a result of which he is subjected to severe criticism from proletarian writers (RAPP) . And his entry into this organization further aggravates the situation: the futurist brothers call the poet a “degenerate”, and the Rappovites call him a “fellow traveler”. Creative isolation and a very difficult personal life drove Mayakovsky into a dead end, the way out of which was a pistol shot. The son of a nobleman and a Cossack woman passed away into eternity at less than 37 years old, leaving behind a huge creative legacy.
Mayakovsky's literary world is a complex synthesis of tragedy, farce, and heroic drama. He wrote with equal talent large poems imbued with the pathos of the revolution (“Good!”, “V.I. Lenin”), and small propaganda poems (“Eat pineapples, chew hazel grouse,” “Left March”). In the theatrical plays “The Bedbug” and “Bathhouse” Mayakovsky showed remarkable dramatic talent. But in the first place is still the eternal theme of love, as he himself said: “I’m exhausted by the lyrics.” And for many generations, the main thing in Mayakovsky’s work will not be the “red-skinned passport”, but that final tenderness with which he wanted to “cover the departing step” of his beloved.
Mayakovsky's creative path.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (07/19/1893 – 04/14/1930) is one of the most famous Soviet poets who had a significant influence on the literature of the 20th century.
Vladimir Mayakovsky spent his childhood in Georgia; in 1906, the family of the future poet moved to Moscow, where young Mayakovsky entered the local classical gymnasium, from where he was expelled a few years later due to the inability to pay tuition. Then he was enrolled in the preparatory class of the school and became a member of the RSDLP.
In the period from 1909 to 1910, the future poet spent seven months in Butyrka prison, where he composed his first poems. It is this moment that can be considered the beginning of Mayakovsky’s literary activity.
After his release, Vladimir Mayakovsky became obsessed with the idea of creating “socialist art,” and therefore in 1911 he entered the school of painting, sculpture and architecture.
At the end of 1912, in the almanac “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste,” the poet made his debut with the poems “Morning” and “Night.” It was in this issue that the famous program manifesto of the Cubo-Futurists was presented to the public, which recorded the rejection of the country's literary heritage.
The first collection of poems by Vladimir Mayakovsky, “I,” was released in 1913. The poet's performances in different cities of Russia at the same time as part of a group of futurists became the reason for his expulsion.
In 1915-1917, the poet completed military service at the Automotive Training School. At the same time, he continued to engage in literary activities. During these years, such famous works as “Cloud in Pants” and “Man” were written, and the collection “Simple as a Moo” was published.
The year 1915 was marked by the acquaintance of Vladimir Mayakovsky with Lilia Brik, who became his muse for many years. The difficult relationship with this woman and her husband was the reason for the poet’s strong emotional experiences.
Mayakovsky greeted the October Revolution and the changes that inevitably followed with delight; his work at that time acquired a completely new sound.
Since 1918, Mayakovsky actively supported the new government and became the organizer of the Comfut group. In 1919-1921, the poet worked at Windows of ROSTA, during which time he produced more than one thousand propaganda and satiristic posters with poetic lines. Later, Vladimir Mayakovsky acted as the organizer of the “Left Front of the Arts” and publisher of the magazine “LEF”.
During these years, Vladimir Mayakovsky traveled around Europe, visited Germany and France, and in 1925 visited the USA, where he spoke to the public and introduced him to his work. The impressions from these trips were reflected in the poetic cycles “Paris” and “Poems about America.” In 1925-1928, the poet traveled around the USSR with his performances.
The end of the 20s became a time of deep internal crisis caused by general disappointment from the results of the revolution. These sentiments were embodied in the work of Vladimir Mayakovsky, which began to be increasingly criticized. Many of his works (for example, the comedies “The Bedbug” and “Bathhouse”) were created with the aim of exposing a society that, in the poet’s opinion, betrayed revolutionary values.
At the beginning of 1930, Mayakovsky joined the Russian Association of Proletarian Poets. However, this act did not find understanding among his friends and like-minded people. The poet experienced the alienation very hard, burdened by problems in his personal life.
The last time Vladimir Mayakovsky protested against all the imperfections of the post-revolutionary world was in April 1930, committing suicide. His ashes were buried at the New Donskoy Cemetery, and later transferred to the Novodevichy Cemetery.
