En
Ru
Birth of Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky, Soviet Poet, Playwright, Painter, Graphic Artist
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was born on July 7 (19), 1893 in the village of Baghdati, Kutaisi Governorate, in the family of Vladimir Konstantinovich Mayakovsky (1857-1906), an impoverished nobleman who served as a forester, and Alexandra Alexeevna Pavlenko, née Afanasyeva (1867-1954), from a family of Kuban Cossacks.
He studied at the gymnasium in Kutaisi. In 1906, after the death of his father, the family moved to Moscow. Vladimir Mayakovsky became close to Bolshevik students and developed an interest in Marxist literature. In early 1908, he joined the RSDLP (b). He was arrested several times, spent 11 months in Butyrskaya prison, where he began composing poetry. In 1911-1914, he studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He took part in left-wing radical modernist exhibitions and debates of the Jack of Diamonds and the Union of Youth artist associations, joined the cubo-futurists.
The first publication of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poems took place in December 1912 in the futuristic almanac A Slap in the Face of Public Taste with the poems Night and Morning. In May 1913, the poetry collection I was published in a separate edition – the book was written by hand and reproduced lithographically. In December 1913, the production of Mayakovsky’s own tragedy Vladimir Mayakovsky – a protest against the institutions of bourgeois society and the power of “soulless things” – took place at the St. Petersburg Luna Park Theatre. This topic is also touched upon in other early works of the poet: We, Take That! (1913), Listen! (1914), etc.
World War I initially caused a patriotic upsurge in Vladimir Mayakovsky (War is Declared (1914), Me and Napoleon (1915)), which soon gave way to perceptions of war as the greatest crime against man (To You! (1915)). In 1915, the first poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky was published – A Cloud in Trousers, where the theme of the lyrical hero’s rebellion against the universe and its creator comes to the fore. It was followed by poems: Backbone Flute (1916), The War and the World (1917), The Man (1918). The opposition of the future to the hostile “petty-bourgeois” past was reflected in the play Mystery-Bouffe, first staged in 1918 by director Vsevolod E. Meyerhold.
The work of Vladimir Mayakovsky in the early 1920s is characterized by an optimistic tone and reflects the emotional rise of the poet, who aspired together with his people to build a society of social justice: the poems I Love (1922), About That (1923), Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1924), All Right! (1927). Since the second half of the 1920s, satirical works began to prevail in his work: the plays The Bedbug (1928-1929) and The Bathhouse (1929-1930), staged by Vsevolod E. Meyerhold. Reflections on creativity were expressed in the poem At the Top of My Voice (1930).
In 1919-1921, Vladimir Mayakovsky was one of the authors of the satirical propaganda posters of ROSTA Windows, which are often called the first Soviet social advertising. In 1922-1928, he headed the literary and artistic association Left Art Front, in 1923-1925 – headed the futurist magazine LEF. He often performed in cities of the USSR and abroad (USA, Latvia, Germany, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia). His impressions of visiting America were described in the essay My Discovery of America (1925).
In recent years, Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky has been painfully experiencing the divergence of revolutionary ideals with Soviet reality. In February 1930, he resigned from the REF (the Revolutionary Art Front, into which LEF was reorganized), and joined the RAPP (the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers), which is why many of his literary associates broke off relations with the poet. According to the official version, he committed suicide on April 14, 1930. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.
Lit.: Большая советская энциклопедия. Т. 26: Магнитка–Медуза. М., 1954. С. 582–586; Катанян В.А. Маяковский: Хроника жизни и деятельности. М., 1985; Селезнёв Л.А. Маяковский В.В. // Большая российская энциклопедия.
Based on the Presidential Library's materials: