Home > Vladimir Mayakovsky

He was born the third child in Bagdadi , Georgia where his father worked as a forest ranger. Both parents were descendants of Cossacks. At the age of 14 Mayakovsky took part in socialist demonstrations at the town of Kutaisi, where he attended the local Grammar School. After the sudden and premature death of his father in 1906, the family — Mayakovsky, his mother, and his two sisters — moved to Moscow, where he attended the school No. 5.

In Moscow Mayakovsky developed a passion for Marxist literature and took part in numerous activities of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party; he was to later become an RSDLP (Bolshevik) member. In 1908, he was dismissed from the Grammar School due to his mother's inability to afford tuition.

Around that time, Mayakovsky was imprisoned on three occasions for subversive political activities, but being underage, he avoided deportation. During a period of solitary confinement in Butyrka prison in 1909Events January 5 Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama. January 16 Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole. January 28 United States troops leave Cuba after being there since the Spanish-American War. February 12 The National, he commenced writing poetry, but his poems were confiscated. On his release from prison, he continued working within the socialist movement, and in 1911 he joined the Moscow Art School where he became acquainted with members of the Russia's FuturistThis article is about the art movement, futurism. Futurist is also another word for Futurologist. Futurism was a 20th century art movement. Although a nascent Futurism can been seen surfacing throughout the very early years of that century, the 1907 essay movement. He became a leading spokesman for the group Gileas (Гилея), and a close friend to David Burlyuk , whom he saw as his mentor.

The 1912 Futurist publication, A Slap in the Face of Public Taste (Пощечина общественному вкусу) printed Mayakovsky's first published poems: "Night" (Ночь), and "Morning" (Утро). Because of their political activities, Burlyuk and Mayakovsky were expelled from the Moscow Art School in 1914.

His work continued in the Futurist vein until 1914. His artistic development then shifted increasingly towards narrative-based directions and it is this work, published during the period immediately preceding the Russian RevolutionThe phrase Russian Revolution can refer to two specific events in the history of Imperial Russia: The Russian Revolution of 1905 which was a series of riots and anti-government violence against Czar Nicholas II, leading to the creation of the Duma, but re, which was to establish his reputation as a poet in Russia and abroad.

A Cloud in Trousers (1915) was Mayakovsky's first major poem of appreciable length and it depicted the heated subjects of love, revolution, religion, and art written from the vantage point of a spurned lover. The language of the work was the language of the streets, and Mayakovsky went on to considerable lengths to deconstruct the idealistic and romaticised notions of poetry and poets.

(From the prologue of A Cloud in Trousers. source: [1])

In the summer of 1915, Mayakovsky fell in love with a married woman, Lilya BrikLilya Urevna Brik ( 1893 August 4, 1978) was married to Osip Brik. She was the obsessive theme of most of Vladimir Mayakovsky's poetry, especially in Pro Eto''. The main subject of this epic poem was love in itself. After a brief separation, at a Christma, and it is to her that the poem "The Backbone Flute" (1916) is dedicated. Unfortunately for Mayakovsky, she was the wife of his publisher, Osip BrikRodchenko, protrait titled "The Critic Osip Brik" Osip Maksimovich Brik ( January 16, 1888 February 22, 1945), avant garde Russian writer, was one of the most important members of the " Russian formalists" school, though he also identified himself as one. The love affair, as well as his impressions of warWorld War I (also known as the First World War , the Great War the War of the Nations and the "War to End All Wars") was a world conflict occurring from 1914 to 1918. No previous conflict had mobilized so many soldiers, or involved so many in the field of and revolutionThe phrase Russian Revolution can refer to two specific events in the history of Imperial Russia: The Russian Revolution of 1905 which was a series of riots and anti-government violence against Czar Nicholas II, leading to the creation of the Duma, but re, strongly influenced his works of these years. The poem "War and the World" (1916) addressed the horrors of WWI and "Man" (1917) is a poem dealing with the anguish of love.

Mayakovsky was rejected as a volunteer at the beginning of WWI, and during 1915Events January 12 The Rocky Mountain National Park is established by an act of Congress. January 12 United States House of Representatives rejects proposal to give women the right to vote. January 13 An earthquake (6. 8 in Richter scale) in Avezzano, Ital- 1917Events January 2 The Royal Bank of Canada takes over Quebec Bank. January 22 World War I: President Woodrow Wilson calls for "peace without victory" in Europe. January 25 The Danish West Indies is sold to the United States for $25 million January 25 Anti- worked at the Petrograd Military Automobile School as a draftsman. At the onset of the Russian Revolution, Mayakovsky was in Smolny, Petrograd. There he was to witness the October Revolution. He started reciting poems such as "Left March! For the Red Marines: 1918" (Левый марш (Матросам), 1918) at naval theatres, with sailors as an audience.

As one of the few writers who were allowed to travel freely, his voyages to Latvia, Britain, Germany, the United States, Mexico and Cuba influenced works like My Discovery of America (Мое открытие Америки, 1925). He also travelled extensively throughout the Soviet Union.

On a lecture tour in the United States, Mayakovsky met Elli Jones, who later gave birth to his daughter, an event which Mayakovsky only came to know in 1929, when the couple met clandestinely in the south of France, as the relationship was kept secret. In the late 1920s, Mayakovsky fell in love with Tatiana Yakovleva and to her he dedicated the poem "A Letter to Tatiana Yakovleva" (Письмо Татьяне Яковлевой, 1928).

The relevance of Mayakovsky cannot be limited to Soviet poetry. While over years, he was considered the Soviet poet par excellence, he also changed the perceptions of poetry in wider 20th Century culture. His political activism as a propagandistic agitator was rarely understood, sometimes disfavored by contemporaries and also by close friends like Boris Pasternak. Near the end of the 1920s, Mayakovsky became increasingly disillusioned with Bolshevism and propaganda; his satirical play The Bedbug (клоп, 1929), dealing with the soviet philistinism and bureaucratism, shows this development. Malady and political as well as private disappointment were the main influences of his last month.

On the evening of April 4, 1930, Mayakovsky shot himself. An unfinished poem in his suicide note read:

The love boat has crashed against the everyday. You and I, we are quits, and there is no point in listing mutual pains, sorrows, and hurts.

Mayakovsky was interred at the Moscow Novodevichy Cemetery. In 1930, his birthplace of Bagdadi in Georgia was renamed to Mayakovsky in his honour. Following Stalin's death, rumours arose that Mayakovsky did not commit suicide but was, in fact, murdered at the behest of Stalin. During the 1990s, while KGB files were being declassified, there was hope that new evidence will come to light on this question, but none has been found and the hypothesis remains unproven.