Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky. Biography
Shine always,
shine everywhere,
until the last days of the Don,
shine –
and no nails!
Here is my slogan
and the sun!
Vladimir Mayakovsky
The poet, playwright and publicist Vladimir Mayakovsky is often called the most controversial of the Russian writers of the twentieth century. The loud-voiced sang and the gentle lyric poet, exalted and humiliated by the power of the “stands of the revolution”, defiantly daring, categorical and extremely vulnerable and impressionable. In its contradiction is a reflection of the complex and tragic spirit of the era in which the great writer happened to live. The light of his poetry is not subject to time, the power and brilliance of his talent Mayakovsky amazed fans of the literature of the last century and continues to amaze readers of the 21st century.
The future poet was born July 7, 1893 in the Georgian village of Bagdadi, located near the city of Kutaisi, in the family
The poet’s childhood passed among the majestic mountains and magnificent forests that surrounded Baghdadi from all sides. The beauty of the wild nature of the Caucasus, communication with the Georgian children, which absorbed the proud spirit of their ancestors, contributed
From 1902 to 1906 years. the future poet studied at the Kutaisi High School. He wrote about this time in his autobiography, “I myself”: “I’m going first, all in five.” I read Zhulya Verna. “Generally fantastic.” Some bearded man began to discern in me the artist’s ability. In 1905, a revolution broke out in Russia, its wave is dipping to the Caucasus. Twelve-year-old Volodya is keenly interested in these turbulent events, he gets acquainted with underground literature and even participates in the revolutionary rallies of schoolboys.
The happy Georgian life of the Mayakovsky family was interrupted by a terrible grief. In 1906, the father suddenly dies of contracting blood. Trying to arrange the fate of three children after the loss of the breadwinner, the mother decides to go to Moscow. Here Mayakovsky plunged headlong into revolutionary activity: he spoke at meetings, distributed proclamations. At the age of fifteen he joined the Bolshevik Party. At the same time, the maturing young man had to earn his living independently. Studies in the Moscow gymnasium had to be abandoned. The political activism of the young revolutionary was arrested three times. He wrote about the last prison confinement: “The most important time for me, after three years of theory and practice, I rushed to fiction, I recited all the latest, Symbolists – White, Balmont.” Formal novelty was disassembled, but it was alien. images are not my life. I tried to write myself as well, but about something else. It turned out the same about the other – you can not. <…> I wrote such a whole notebook. Thank you overseers – at the exit selected. And then b still typed! After reading the present, he attacked the classics. Byron, Shakespeare, Tolstoy. The last book – “Anna Karenina” … From this prison notebook of poems, literary creativity of Mayakovsky actually began.
In 1911 he entered the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he met David Burliuk, who played an important role in his life. In particular, under his influence, Mayakovsky was fascinated by Futurism. November 17, 1912 was the first public appearance of a budding poet in a cafe with the extravagant title “Stray Dog”. And already in December 1912, together with other ideologists of this trend, he signed under the famous manifesto of the futurists, opening almanac “Slap in the face of public taste.” In the same almanac, two poems by Mayakovsky, “Night” and “Morning”, which bear witness to the birth of this poet, were first published.
1913 biographers Mayakovsky called “the year of his poetic baptism.” He leads an active creative life: he publishes his first collection of poems “I”, along with other futurists he performs in the cities of Russia and Ukraine, participates in discussions and exhibitions, makes reports “On the latest Russian literature”, “On the achievements of Futurism.” In addition, the poet writes articles, puts in Petersburg the tragedy “Vladimir Mayakovsky”. Many of his speeches, like the other futurists, are accompanied by grandiose scandals. Here is how A. Mikhailov, a well-known researcher of his work, writes about this period of the poet’s life: “The yellow jacket and Mayakovsky’s cylinder, his wit, hammering replicas, replies to” tricky “questions from the audience, and finally poems that stand out with powerful poetic energy and bright,
The main theme of Mayakovsky’s creative work of this period is his lyrical “I”, the poet’s worldview in the city, the relationship with the world. It vividly sounds in the poems “Nate!”, “Listen!”, “Violin and a little nervously” and, of course, in a lyrical miniature entitled “And could you?”:
I immediately smeared the card of everyday life, splashing
ink from the glass;
I showed on the jelly dish the
oblique cheekbones of the ocean.
On the scales of a tin fish
I read the calls of new lips.
And you could
play a nocturne on a flute of downpipes?
This poem will become a landmark for the poet, who opposed himself to the world of everyday life and boredom. An amazing combination of the incongruous could not but attract the attention of the public, someone it caused bewilderment and rejection, others – surprise and delight.
First World War, Mayakovsky first met with a patriotic attitude, like many Russian people, clouded by official propaganda. He even wanted to go to the front, but because of political unreliability he was not taken into the active army. However, very soon the poet clearly realized the inhuman essence of this massacre, which was reflected in his antiwar works, in particular in the poem “Mom and the Germans killed by the evening”.
In 1915, the poem “Cloud in Pants” was published. Its basis was the story of the poet’s unrequited love for Maria Denisova, whom he met in Odessa in 1914. Love drama leads the author to deny the entire existing world order. “Down with your love!”, “Down with your art!”, “Down with your system!”, “Down with your religion!” – so the poet himself determined the essence of his poem. Finishing the work, inspired by feelings for one woman, Mayakovsky decided to dedicate it to another – Lila Brik, who, as the wife of his friend, became the inspiration of the poet for life. She is the addressee and such a famous poem as “Lilichka! Instead of writing.”
The way the poet perceived the October Revolution of 1918 is evidenced by his entry: “To accept or not to accept?” There was no such question for me, my revolution. “He went to the Smolny, worked, everything he had to do.” It is interesting that according to Mayakovsky’s testimony, the sailors came to storm the Winter Palace with his verse:
Eat pineapples, grouse grouses,
Your last day comes, bourgeois.
Sincerely believing in the transforming role of the Bolshevik coup, the poet directs all his energy to the service of the revolution. Encouraged by her ideas, later he will write: “I want to equip the pen with a bayonet.” In 1923 he organized and headed the literary and artistic association Left Front of Arts, whose main task was “the conscious and organic creation of the future.”
In the post-revolutionary period, the poet creates such famous works as “The Left March”, “Ode to the Revolution”, the play “The Mystery-Buff”, the poem “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin”, “Good!”, “I Love”. The pathos of the construction of the new society is also imbued with a fantastic poem “Extraordinary adventure, which was with Vladimir Mayakovsky in the summer at the dacha”, the plot of which is the meeting of the lyric hero with the Sun. The lines that complete this poem are not accidentally made into an epigraph to our article. After all, they clearly reflect the creative aspirations of the author himself.
In the years 1919-1920. Mayakovsky actively cooperates with the Russian Telegraph Agency. He invests his talent as a writer and artist in the creation of the so-called “ROSTA Windows” – posters that combine a catchy drawing with a sharp signature, like a proverb, proverb, chastushka or slogan. The main theme of such posters is the assertion of revolutionary gains, the struggle against the enemies of the young Soviet Republic, the criticism of philistinism. Later, Mayakovsky wrote: “The” Windows of the Growth “is a fantastic thing, it is a service of a handful of artists, handmade, a hundred and a hundred million national people.” This project can be called the prototype of modern advertising billboards.
Glorifying revolutionary successes, Mayakovsky could not pass by the shortcomings of the new life. Against them he fought the sharp weapon of satire. So there were works that expose philistinism and bureaucracy. These are satirical poems, plays “Bedbug” and “Bath”. The poet who wrote the poem “Well!” Was born the idea to create a poem “Bad!”, Which remained unfulfilled. It should be noted that the satire of Mayakovsky was not liked by everyone. Those who, in her poetic mirror, recognized themselves, organized a real persecution of the poet. The above mentioned plays were subjected to a special defeat, in which official criticism saw anti-Soviet manifestations. Someone even tried to “stand the revolution”, who gave her his talent, expose her as an enemy. Mayakovsky, who sincerely believes in the fact,
In the years 1922-1929. Mayakovsky made nine foreign trips. Much of what has been seen has resulted in works in which the author, satirically describing the foreign bourgeois world, glorifies his native fatherland, as, for example, in the poem “Broadway”:
I’m excited
about New York City.
But
I
will not remove the cap from my temple.
The Soviet
own pride:
We
look down on the bourgeoisie.
Among the poems born from trips abroad, there is the famous masterpiece of love lyrics “Letter to Tatiana Yakovleva.” It is dedicated to the Russian emigrant, who saw it in Paris, Mayakovsky at first sight passionately fell in love. But this love did not bring the poet a family happiness.
Extremely vulnerable and impressionable, Mayakovsky was emotionally experiencing setbacks in his personal life. All this took place against the backdrop of serious troubles connected with creative activity. It seemed that the world was collapsing around him. The poet, whose voice not so long ago sounded confident and even defiant, lost his composure. S. Kormilov writes about this period of his life: “In the press he was poisoned, the comedies on the stage did not have success, nor did the personal exhibition” 20 years of work. “And the country was not at all approaching the ideal of a just and beautiful life. They tortured colds, they were not dangerous, but exhausted and annoyed. The trivialities exacerbated the disappointment in the vast. The belief in the harmony of everything: personality, creativity, love, state, people, humanity, planet, universe was destroyed.
In the autobiography “I myself” he wrote: “I am a poet, and this is interesting… The rest is only if it is settled by the word.” And in the poem “To All” as early as 1916, he turned to descendants with these words:
Coming people!
Who you are?
Here – I,
all the
pain and bruised;
you will I garden fruit of
my great soul!
Let’s build a path in the unfading garden of poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky.
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