Also known as Vladimir Mayakovsky. Born: Bagdadi, Kutais region, now Maiakovskii, Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire), 7 July 1893. Education: Educated at gymnasium, Kutais, 1902-06; school in Moscow, 1906-08; Stroganov School of Industrial Arts, Moscow, 1908-09; Moscow Institute of Painting and Sculpture and Architecture, 1911-14. Career: Political activities led to his being jailed, 1909-10; in Futurists’ circle after 1912; editor, Seized and New Satyricon, Petrograd; served in the army, 1917; reader at Poets Cafe, Moscow, 1918; editor, Futurist Gazette, 1918; film actor and writer; associated with the magazine Art of the Commune, 1918-19, and Art, Petrograd; designed posters and wrote short propaganda plays and texts for Russian Telegraph Agency (Rosta), Moscow, 1919-21; co-founder, with Osip Brik, LEF [Left Front], 1923-25, and Novyi LEF [New Left Front], 1927-28. Died: (suicide) 14 April 1930.
Publications
Collections
Polnoe sobranie sochinenii [Complete Works], edited by N.N. Aseev. 12 vols., 1939-49.
Polnoe sobranie sochinenii [Complete Works], edited by V.A. Katanian. 13 vols., 1955-61.
Complete Plays, translated by Guy Daniels. 1968.
Sobranie sochinenii [Collected Works], edited by L.B. Maiakovskaia. 6 vols., 1973.
Sobranie sochinenii [Collected Works], edited by F.F. Kuznetsov. 12 vols., 1978-79.
Selected Works, edited by Alexander Ushakov, translated by Dorian Rottenberg and others. 3 vols., 1985-87.
1. Poetry. 1985.
2. Longer Poems. 1986.
3. Plays, Articles, Essays. 1987.
Sochineniia [Works], edited by G.P. Berdnikov. 2 vols., 1987.
Verse
Oblako v shtanakh. 1915; revised edition, 1918; as Cloud in Trousers, in Mayakovsky, 1965; as Cloud in Pants, translated by Dorian Rottenberg, in Selected Works, 2, 1986.
Fleitapozvonochnik [The Backbone Flute]. 1916.
Prostoe kak mychanie [Simple as Mooing]. 1916.
Voina i mir. 1916; as War and the World, translated by Dorian Rottenberg, in Selected Works, 2, 1986.
Chelovek [Man]. 1917.
Vse sochinennoe Vladimirom Maiakovskim [Everything Written by Vladimir Maiakovskii]. 1919.
150,000,000. 1921.
Pro eto [About This]. 1923; as It, translated by Dorian Rottenberg, in Selected Works, 2, 1986.
Lirika [Lyrics]. 1923.
Vladimir Il’ich Lenin. 1924; as Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, translated by Dorian Rottenberg, in Selected Works, 2, 1986.
Khorosho!. 1927; as Fine, translated by Dorian Rottenberg, in Selected Works, 2, 1986.
Maiakovskii and His Poetry, edited by Herbert Marshall. 1942; revised edition, 1945, 1955.
Mayakovsky (selection), edited and translated by Herbert Marshall. 1965.
Stikhotvoreniia—poemy [Poetry and Narrative Verse]. 1968.
Wi the Haill Voice (in Scottish), translated by Edwin Morgan. 1972.
Poems, translated by Dorian Rottenberg. 1972.
Stikhotvoreniia ipoemy [Poetry and Narrative Verse]. 1973.
Stikhi [Poems]. 1981.
Poslushaite! [Listen]. 1983.
Poemy [Narrative Verse]. 1983.
Sila klassa, slova klassa [The Strength of the Class, the Words of the Class]. 1983.
Stikhotvoreniia [Poetry]. 1983.
Stikhi i poemy [Poems and Narrative Verse]. 1984.
Stihkotvoreniia: Poemy [Poetry: Narrative Verse]. 1986.
Listen!: Early Poems 1913-1918, translated by Maria Enzensberger. 1987.
Poemy. Stikhotvoreniia [Narrative Verse: Poetry]. 1989.
For the Voice, with El Lissitzky. 2000.
Plays
Vladimir Maiakovskii (produced 1913). 1914; as Vladimir Mayakovsky: A Tragedy, translated by Guy Daniels, in Complete Plays, 1968.
Misteriia-Buff (produced 1918; revised version, produced 1921). 1919; as Mystery-Bouffe, translated by G.R. Noyes and A. Kaun, in Masterpieces of the Russian Drama, 2, 1933; also translated by Guy Daniels, in Complete Plays, 1968; Dorian Rottenberg, in Selected Works, 3, 1987.
Klop (produced 1929). 1929; as The Bedbug, edited by Robert Russell, 1985; translated by Max Hayward, in The Bedbug and Selected Poetry, 1960; also translated by Guy Daniels, in Complete Plays, 1968; Kathleen Cook-Horujy, in Selected Works, 3, 1987.
Bania (produced 1930). 1930; as The Bathhouse, translated by Guy Daniels, in Complete Plays, 1968; as The Big Clean-Up, translated by Kathleen Cook-Horujy, in Selected Works, 3, 1987.
Other
Ia: Futur-almanakh vselenskoi samosti [Me: Futuro-Miscellany of Universal Selfhood]. 1913.
Sobranie sochinenii [Collected Works]. 4 vols., 1925.
Moe otkrytie Ameriki [My Discovery of America]. 1926.
Kino. 1937.
Pis’ma [Letters], edited by Lili Brik. 1956.
The Bedbug and Selected Poetry, edited by Patricia Blake, translated by Max Hayward and George Reavey. 1960.
How Are Verses Made? 1970; as How Make Verse, 1985.
Essays on Paris. 1975.
Memoirs and Essays, edited by Bengt Jangfeldt and N.A. Nilsson. 1975.
Sploshnoe serdtse [Solid Heart]. 1983.
Poemy. P’esy [Narrative Verse. Plays]. 1985.
Love Is the Heart of Everything: Love Letters of Mayakovsky To Lili Brik, edited by Bengt Jangfeldt, translated by Julian Graffy. 1985.
Proza. Dramaturgiia [Prose. Drama]. 1986.
Stikhi, poemy, materialy o zhizni i tvorchestve [Poems, Narrative Verse, Material about Life and Work]. 1988.
Nashemu iunoshestvu [To Our Youth]. 1989.
Critical Studies:
The Symbolic System of Mayakovsky by Lawrence Leo Stahlberger, 1964; The Life of Mayakovsky by Wiktor Woroszylski, 1971; Mayakovsky and His Circle by Viktor Shklovsky, 1972; Mayakovsky, A Poet in the Revolution by Edward J. Brown, 1973; Maiakovskij and Futurism 1917-1921 by Bengt Jangfeldt, 1976; Brik and Mayakovsky by Vahan D. Barooshian, 1978; Vladimir Mayakovsky: A Tragedy by A.D.P. Briggs, 1979; I Love: The Story of Mayakovsky and Lili Brik by Ann and Samuel Charters, 1979; Vladimir Mayakovksy by Victor Terras, 1983; Voskresenie Maiakovskogo [The Resurrection of Maiakovskii] by Iury Karabchevskii, 1985; Mayakovsky’s Cubo-Futurist Vision by J. Stapanian, 1986; Verse Form and Meaning in the Poetry of Vladimir Maiakovskii by Robin Aizlewood, 1989; Mayakovsky in Manhattan: A Love Story with Excerpts from the Memoir of Elly Jones by Patricia J. Thompson, 1993; The Ode and the Odic: Essays on Mandelstam, Pasternak, Tsvetaeva and Mayakovsky by Ilya Kutik, 1994.
Everything in Vladimir Maiakovskii evokes either admiration or indignation: his appearance, his behaviour, his poetry. He began as a subverter of authority in life and in literature. As a Futurist he revolted against all established artistic practice. The titles of many of his works reveal his individualistic self-assertion: from ”I” (1913) and ”I and Napoleon” (1913) to the very last unfinished poem ”Vo ves” golos’ (”At the Top of My Voice,” 1930). Outrageous metaphors, eccentric rhymes, rough-textured phonetics, broken sentences, and heavy inversions are the mark of his poetic style. He expressed the essence of futuristic poetics when he said: ”The word, its outline, its phonetic property, myth, symbol are the concept of poetry.” He emphasized ”the word as such” by graphic, grammatical, and rhythmical means while creating myth out of his own ”I.” His whole poetry can be viewed as a huge metaphor of himself. ”The poet himself is the theme of his poetry,” said Pasternak about the tragedy Vladimir Maiakovskii. He also entertained the Futurists’ cult of big industrial cities. He said: ”The city must take the place of nature.” He never tired of militating against all established habits of living, feeling, and thinking that is called ”byt”—a short untranslatable Russian word. This is especially apparent in two of his best long poems Oblako v shtanakh (Cloud in Trousers) and Fleitapozvonochnik [The Backbone Flute]. Describing himself as the Thirteenth Apostle, the poet denies the old society, culture, art, religion, and declares his faith in the coming revolution: ”I, / mocked by my contemporaries like a prolonged dirty joke, / I perceive what no one sees / crossing the mountains of time.”
Maiakovskii is often seen as a revolutionary par excellence for his innovation in poetic language and for subordinating his talent to the ”social command.” ”To accept or not to accept [the Revolution]— for me is no question. It is my Revolution,” stated Maiakovskii in 1917. To be accepted himself took a little longer. After the revolution his great ambition was to become a poet of the masses. He considerably changed his poetic manner by introducing ordinary speech, street slang, and political slogans. But he was never able to avoid wild, emotional diction, eccentric rhymes, outrageous metaphors or to resist clashing the sublime with the ridiculous in his attempt to create ”a poetry for all.” His poetry remains too intricate for the masses to understand. He complained: ”I must confess with some pain, that even advanced revolutionary comrades, even they . . . showered us with bewildered questions: ‘But what the devil is this?’ ‘Please explain!’.” Being his own most severe censor, he ”democratized” his style even further in two of his most inferior poems, Vladimir Il’ich Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Lenin) and Khorosho! (Fine). But they help to set up Lenin as a ”mythical hero.” In order to strengthen the new revolutionary art he founded the highly controversial journal LEF [Left Front], loudly declaring its Communist and anti-aesthetic intent. Maiakovskii had always been a kind of ”anti-poet”; now with LEF he declared a war against poetry. In a way, his practice contradicted his theories: the irrational theme—love—was his deepest concern. As Shklovsky put it, ”Maiakovskii was prisoner of his theme—revolution and love—and love apologizing for having come at the time of the Revolution.” The tragic end was inevitable. Marina Tsvetaeva explained his suicide as his last revolutionary act: ”For 12 years on end Maiakovskii the man killed in himself Maiakovskii the poet, in the 13 th the poet arose and killed the man.”
Maiakovskii’s ”I” dominates over all his principal themes: Love, God, Art, and Revolution. He demanded the impossible from these. He ”blasphemed and screamed that there is no God” in order to take His place. He assigned his art to serve the Revolution by ”stepping on the throat of his own song.” Disillusioned with its outcome he called for ”the third Revolution of spirit.” Many times a rejected lover, he shouted out in every direction and blamed God and ”byt” for love’s madness and pain. This ”man from the future” projected a huge image of himself in his writing: ”From the tail of the years I must resemble a long-tailed monster.” He strikes us, however, as a sad and lonely figure: ”I am lonely as the last eye left to a man on his way to join the blind.” ”He inflated his talent and tortured it until it burst,” wrote Isaiah Berlin. His art was forcibly propagated ”like potatoes in the reign of Catherine the Great” after Stalin’s pronouncement in 1935: ”Maiakovskii was and remains the most talented poet of our Soviet epoch. Indifference to his memory and words is a crime.” As Pasternak remarked: ”That was his second death and for that he is not to blame.”
