Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was born in 1893 in Baghdati, Kutais Governorate, Georgia. His father worked as a local forester while his mother managed the household. The family spoke Russian at home but used Georgian with friends and at school. He had two sisters named Olga and Lyudmila plus a brother Konstantin who died young. The father pricked his finger on a rusty pin while filing papers and died of blood poisoning in 1906 when Vladimir was thirteen years old.
His widowed mother moved the family to Moscow after selling all their movable property. In July 1906 he joined the 4th form of Moscow's 5th Classic gymnasium where he developed a passion for Marxist literature. By 1907 he became a member of an underground Social Democrats' circle under the nickname Comrade Konstantin. In 1908 the boy was dismissed from the gymnasium because his mother could no longer afford tuition fees.
For two years he studied at the Stroganov School of Industrial Arts where his sister Lyudmila had started her studies earlier. As a young Bolshevik activist he distributed propaganda leaflets and possessed a pistol without a license. In 1909 he got involved in smuggling female political activists out of prison which resulted in arrests and finally an 11-month imprisonment. It was in solitary confinement in the Moscow Butyrka prison that Mayakovsky started writing verses for the first time.
On the 17th of November 1912 Mayakovsky made his first public performance at Stray Dog, the artistic basement in Saint Petersburg. In December of that year his first published poems Night and Morning appeared in the Futurists' Manifesto A Slap in the Face of Public Taste. The manifesto was signed by Mayakovsky along with Velemir Khlebnikov, David Burlyuk and Alexey Kruchenykh. They called among other things for throwing Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy off the steamboat of modernity.
In October 1913 Mayakovsky gave the performance at the Pink Lantern café reciting his new poem Take That! for the first time. The concert at the Petersburg's Luna-Park saw the premiere of the poetic monodrama Vladimir Mayakovsky with stage decorations designed by Pavel Filonov and Iosif Shkolnik. In 1913 his first poetry collection called I came out with its original limited edition of 300 copies lithographically printed.
In December 1913 Mayakovsky along with fellow Futurist group members embarked on a Russian tour which took them to 17 cities including Simferopol, Sevastopol, Kerch, Odessa and Kishinev. It was a riotous affair where audiences would go wild and often police stopped the readings. The poets dressed outlandishly and Mayakovsky used to appear on stage in a self-made yellow shirt which became the token of his early stage persona. The tour ended on the 13th of April 1914 in Kaluga and cost Mayakovsky and Burlyuk their education as both were expelled from the Art school.
Mayakovsky embraced the Bolshevik Russian Revolution wholeheartedly and for a while even worked in Smolny, Petrograd where he saw Vladimir Lenin. To accept or not to accept there was no such question that was my Revolution he wrote in his autobiography. In November 1917 he took part in the Communist Party's Central committee-sanctioned assembly of writers painters and theatre directors who expressed their allegiance to the new political regime.
In March 1919 Mayakovsky moved back to Moscow where Vladimir Mayakovsky's Collected Works 1909, 1919 was released. The same month he started working for the Russian State Telegraph Agency creating both graphic and text satirical Agitprop posters aimed mostly at informing the country's largely illiterate population of current events. His popularity grew rapidly even if among members of the first Bolshevik government only Anatoly Lunacharsky supported him while others treated Futurist art more skeptically.
From 1919 to 1921 Mayakovsky produced some 1100 pieces he called ROSTA Windows which mixed rhythm patterns different typesetting styles and used neologisms to describe currents events in dynamics. A vigorous spokesman for the Communist Party he contributed simultaneously to numerous Soviet newspapers pouring out topical propagandistic verses and writing didactic booklets for children while lecturing and reciting all over Russia.
Mayakovsky met husband and wife Osip and Lilya Brik in July 1915 at their dacha in Malakhovka nearby Moscow. Soon after that Lilya's sister Elsa Triolet invited him to the Briks' Petrograd flat. That evening Mayakovsky recited the yet unpublished poem A Cloud in Trousers and announced it as dedicated to the hostess. That was the happiest day in my life was how he referred to the episode in his autobiography years later.
According to Lilya Brik's memoirs her husband too fell in love with the poet whereas Volodya did not merely fall in love with me; he attacked me, it was an assault. For two and a half years I didn't have a moment's peace. She understood right away that Volodya was a genius but she didn't like him or clamorous people. Both Mayakovsky's persistent adoration and rough appearance irritated her until allegedly to please her he attended a dentist started to wear a bow tie and use a walking stick.
In summer 1918 soon after Lilya and Vladimir starred in the film Encased in a Film all three came to Moscow and in 1920 settled in a flat at the Gondrikov Lane Taganka. In 1926 Mayakovsky was granted a state-owned flat at the Gendrikov Lane where all three moved in and lived there until 1930 having turned the place into the LEF headquarters.
Two of Mayakovsky's satirical plays written specifically for Meyerkhold Theatre The Bedbug and The Bathhouse evoked stormy criticism from the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers. In February 1930 Mayakovsky joined RAPP but in Pravda on the 9th of March a leading member of RAPP named Vladimir Yermilov wrote with all the authority of a 23 year old who had not seen the play but had read part of the script categorised Mayakovsky as one of the petit bourgeois revolutionary intelligentsia.
Yermilov added that we hear a false leftist note in Mayakovsky a note which we know not only from literature. This was a potentially deadly political accusation implying an intellectual link between Mayakovsky and the Left Opposition led by Leon Trotsky whose supporters were in exile or prison. Mayakovsky retaliated by creating a huge poster mocking Yermilov but was ordered by RAPP to take it down.
In his suicide note Mayakovsky wrote Tell Yermilov we should have completed the argument. The smear campaign continued in the Soviet press sporting slogans like Down with Mayakovshchina! On the 9th of April 1930 Mayakovsky reading his new poem At the Top of My Voice was shouted down by the student audience for being too obscure.
On the 12th of April 1930 Mayakovsky was seen in public for the last time when he took part in a discussion at the Sovnarkom meeting concerning the proposed copyright law. On the 14th of April 1930 his current partner actress Veronika Polonskaya upon leaving his flat heard a shot behind the closed door. She rushed in and found the poet lying on the floor; he had apparently shot himself through the heart.
The handwritten death note read To all of you I die but don't blame anyone for it and please do not gossip. Mother sisters comrades forgive me this is not a good method I do not recommend it to others but there is no other way out for me. Lily love me Comrade Government my family consists of Lily Brik mama my sisters and Veronika Vitoldovna Polonskaya. If you can provide a decent life for them thank you. Give the poem I started to the Briks They'll sort them out.
Mayakovsky's funeral on the 17th of April 1930 was attended by around 150,000 people making it the third largest event of public mourning in Soviet history surpassed only by those of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. He was interred at the Moscow Novodevichy Cemetery.
After Mayakovsky's death the Association of the Proletarian Writers' leadership made sure publications of the poet's work were cancelled and his very name stopped being mentioned in the Soviet press. In her 1935 letter to Joseph Stalin Lilya Brik challenged her opponents asking personally the Soviet leader for help. Stalin's resolution inscribed upon this message read Comrade Yezhov please take charge of Brik's letter. Mayakovsky is the best and the most talented poet of our Soviet epoch.
Indifference to his cultural heritage amounts to a crime. Brik's complaints are in my opinion justified. The effect of this letter was startling as Mayakovsky was instantly hailed a Soviet classic proving to be the only member of the artistic avant-garde of the early 20th century to enter the Soviet mainstream. His birthplace of Baghdati in Georgia was renamed Mayakovsky in his honour.
In 1937 the Mayakovsky Museum and library were opened in Moscow while Triumphal Square became Mayakovsky Square. In 1938 the Mayakovskaya Metro Station was opened to the public. For the Soviet readership Mayakovsky became just the poet of the Revolution with his legacy censored more intimate or controversial pieces ignored lines taken out of contexts and turned into slogans like Lenin lived Lenin lives Lenin shall live forever.
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Common questions
When and where was Vladimir Mayakovsky born?
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was born in 1893 in Baghdati, Kutais Governorate, Georgia. His father worked as a local forester while his mother managed the household.
What caused Vladimir Mayakovsky to start writing verses for the first time?
Mayakovsky started writing verses for the first time during an 11-month imprisonment in solitary confinement at the Moscow Butyrka prison after being arrested for smuggling female political activists out of prison in 1909.
Who were the co-signers of the Futurists' Manifesto A Slap in the Face of Public Taste published by Vladimir Mayakovsky?
The manifesto signed on the 2nd of December 1912 included Vladimir Mayakovsky along with Velemir Khlebnikov, David Burlyuk, and Alexey Kruchenykh.
How did Vladimir Mayakovsky die and when did this event occur?
On the 14th of April 1930 Vladimir Mayakovsky shot himself through the heart inside his flat in Moscow. His partner Veronika Polonskaya found him lying on the floor after hearing a shot behind the closed door.
Why was Vladimir Mayakovsky's work initially cancelled after his death in 1930?
The Association of the Proletarian Writers leadership ensured publications of the poet's work were cancelled and his name stopped being mentioned in the Soviet press following his suicide note which criticized their campaign against him.