Vladimir Mayakovsky

In this article, the patronymic is Vladimirovich and the family name is Mayakovsky.

Vladimir Mayakovsky
Mayakovsky in 1920
Born	Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky 19 July [O.S. 7 July] 1893 Baghdati, Kutais, Russian Empire
Died	14 April 1930(1930-04-14) (aged 36) Moscow, Soviet Union
Alma mater	Stroganov Moscow State University of Arts and Industry, Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture
Genre	Poetry
Subject	New Soviet man
Literary movement	Russian Futurism Cubo-Futurism
Years active	1912–1930
Signature

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Маяко́вский, IPA: [məjɪˈkofskʲɪj] (listen); 19 July [O.S. 7 July] 1893 – 14 April 1930) was a Soviet Russian poet, playwright, artist, and actor. Before the Russian Revolution until 1917, Mayakovsky became an important part of the Russian Futurist movement. He signed the Futurist manifesto, A Slap in the Face of Public Taste (1913). He wrote poems. His famous poems are "A Cloud in Trousers" (1915) and "Backbone Flute" (1916). Mayakovsky made many works in his career. He wrote many poems, wrote and directed plays, was in many movies, edited the art journal LEF, and made agitprop posters for the Communist Party during the Russian Civil War.

Mayakovsky's work showed that he supported the Bolsheviks and supported Vladimir Lenin. However, he often had issues with the Soviet state. Mayakovsky did not like their cultural censorship and Socialist realism. He made some works that satirized or attacked the Soviet Union. These included the poem "Talking With the Taxman About Poetry" (1926), and the plays The Bedbug (1929) and The Bathhouse (1929). The Soviet state did not like this.

In 1930, Mayakovsky killed himself. After his death, Joseph Stalin said that Mayakovsky was one of the most important poets in the Soviet Union.

Famous works

Poems

• A Cloud in Trousers (Облако в штанах, 1915)
• Backbone Flute (Флейта-позвоночник, 1915)
• The War and the World (Война и мир, 1917)
• The Man (Человек, 1918)
• 150 000 000 (1921)
• About That (Про это, Pro eto, 1923)
• Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Владимир Ильич Ленин, 1924)
• A Flying Proletarian (Летающий пролетарий, 1925)
• All Right! (Хорошо!, 1927)

Poem cycles and collections

• The Early Ones (Первое, 1912–1924, 22 poems)
• I (Я, 1914, 4 poems)
• Satires. 1913–1927 (23 poems, including "Take That!", 1914)
• The War (Война, 1914–1916, 8 poems)
• Lyrics (Лирика, 1916, Лирика, 1916, 3 poems)
• Revolution (Революция, 1917–1928, 22 poems, including "Ode to Revolution", 1918; "The Left March", 1919)
• Everyday Life (Быт, 1921–1924, 11 poems, including "On Rubbish", 1921, "Re Conferences", 1922)
• The Art of the Commune (Искусство коммуны, 1918–1923, 11 poems, including "An Order to the Army of Arts", 1918)
• Agitpoems (Агитпоэмы, 1923, 6 poems, including "The Mayakovsky Gallery")
• The West (Запад, 1922–1925, 10 poems, including "How Does the Democratic Republic Work?", and the 8-poem Paris cycle)
• The American Poems (Стихи об Америке, 1925–1926, 21 poems, including "The Brooklyn Bridge")
• On Poetry (О поэзии, 1926, 7 poems, including "Talking with the Taxman About Poetry", "For Sergey Yesenin")
• The Satires. 1926 (Сатира, 1926. 14 poems)
• Lyrics. 1918–1924 (Лирика. 12 poems, including "I Love", 1922)
• Publicism (Публицистика, 1926, 12 poems, including "To Comrade Nette, a Steamboat and a Man", 1926)
• The Children's Room (Детская, 1925–1929. 9 poems for children, including "What Is Good and What Is Bad")
• Poems. 1927–1928 (56 poems, including "Lenin With Us!")
• Satires. 1928 (Сатира. 1928, 9 poems)
• Cultural Revolution (Культурная революция, 1927–1928, 20 poems, including "Beer and Socialism")
• Agit…(Агит…, 1928, 44 poems, including "'Yid'")
• Roads (Дороги, 1928, 11 poems)
• The First of Five (Первый из пяти, 1925, 26 poems)
• Back and Forth (Туда и обратно, 1928–1930, 19 poems, including "The Poem of the Soviet Passport")
• Formidable Laughter (Грозный смех, 1922–1930; more than 100 poems, published posthumously, 1932–1936)
• Poems, 1924–1930 (Стихотворения. 1924–1930, including "A Letter to Comrade Kostrov on the Essence of Love", 1929)
• Whom Shall I Become? (Кем Быть, Kem byt'?, published posthumously 1931, poem for children, illustrated by N. A. Shifrin)

Plays

• Vladimir Mayakovsky (Владимир Маяковский. Subtitled: Tragedy, 1914)
• Mystery-Bouffe (Мистерия-Буфф, 1918)
• The Bedbug (Клоп, 1929)
• The Bathhouse (Баня. 1930)
• Moscow Burns. 1905 (Москва горит. 1905, 1930)

Essays and sketches

• My Discovery of America (Мое открытие Америки, 1926), in four parts
• How to Make Verses (Как делать стихи, 1926)

Movies

• Not Born for Money (Не для денег родившийся, 1918)
• Fettered by Film (Закованная фильмой, 1918)
• Lady and the Hooligan (Барышня и хулиган, 1918)

Translations

• Mayakovsky, Vladimir. The Bedbug and selected poetry. Ed. with introd. by Patricia Blake. Trans. by Max Hayward and George Reavey. New York: Meridian Books, 1960. Reprint: Indiana University Press, 1975.
• Mayakovsky, Vladimir. Mayakovsky: Plays. Trans. Guy Daniels. (Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Il, 1995). ISBN 0-8101-1339-2.
• Mayakovsky, Vladimir. For the voice (The British Library, London, 2000).
• Mayakovsky, Vladimir (ed. Bengt Jangfeldt, trans. Julian Graffy). Love is the heart of everything : correspondence between Vladimir Mayakovsky and Lili Brik 1915–1930 (Polygon Books, Edinburgh, 1986).
• Mayakovsky, Vladimir (comp. and trans. Herbert Marshall). Mayakovsky and his poetry (Current Book House, Bombay, 1955).
• Mayakovsky, Vladimir. Selected works in three volumes (Raduga, Moscow, 1985).
• Mayakovsky, Vladimir. Selected poetry. (Foreign Languages, Moscow, 1975).
• Mayakovsky, Vladimir (ed. Bengt Jangfeldt and Nils Ake Nilsson). Vladimir Majakovsky: Memoirs and essays (Almqvist & Wiksell Int., Stockholm 1975).

Books

• Aizlewood, Robin. Verse form and meaning in the poetry of Vladimir Maiakovsky: Tragediia, Oblako v shtanakh, Fleita-pozvonochnik, Chelovek, Liubliu, Pro eto (Modern Humanities Research Association, London, 1989).
• Brown, E. J. Mayakovsky: a poet in the revolution (Princeton Univ. Press, 1973).
• Charters, Ann & Samuel. I love : the story of Vladimir Mayakovsky and Lili Brik (Farrar Straus Giroux, NY, 1979).
• Humesky, Assya. Majakovskiy and his neologisms (Rausen Publishers, NY, 1964).
• Jangfeldt, Bengt. Majakovsky and futurism 1917–1921 (Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stockholm, 1976).
• Lavrin, Janko. From Pushkin to Mayakovsky, a study in the evolution of a literature. (Sylvan Press, London, 1948).
• Novatorskoe iskusstvo Vladimira Maiakovskogo (trans. Alex Miller). Vladimir Mayakovsky: Innovator (Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1976).
• Noyes, George Rapall (ed.). Masterpieces of the Russian drama. Vol. 2 (Dover Pub., NY, 1961 [1933]).
• Nyka-Niliūnas, Alfonsas. Keturi vėjai ir keturvėjinikai (The Four Winds literary movement and its members), Aidai, 1949, No. 24. (in Lithuanian)
• Rougle, Charles. Three Russians consider America : America in the works of Maksim Gorkij, Aleksandr Blok, and Vladimir Majakovsky (Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stockholm, 1976).
• Shklovskii, Viktor Borisovich. (ed. and trans. Lily Feiler). Mayakovsky and his circle (Dodd, Mead, NY, 1972).
• Stapanian, Juliette. Mayakovsky's cubo-futurist vision (Rice University Press, 1986).
• Terras, Victor. Vladimir Mayakovsky (Twayne, Boston, 1983).
• Vallejo, César (trans. Richard Schaaf) The Mayakovsky case (Curbstone Press, Willimantic, CT, 1982).
• Volk, Craig, "Mayakovsky Takes The Stage" (full-length stage drama), 2006 and "At The Top Of My Voice" (feature-length screenplay), 2002.
• Wachtel, Michael. The development of Russian verse : meter and its meanings (Cambridge University Press, 1998).

Other websites

• Works by or about Vladimir Mayakovsky at Internet Archive
• Works by Vladimir Mayakovsky at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Vladimir Mayakovsky Archive at marxists.org
• English translations of three early poems
• English translation of two poems, "So This is How I Turned Into a Dog” and “Hey!”
• English translation of “To His Beloved Self….”
• Rhymed English translation of "Backbone Flute"
• Includes English translations of two poems, 127–128
• A recording of Mayakovsky reading "An Extraordinary Adventure..." in Russian, English translation provided
• "A Show-Trial," an excerpt from Mayakovsky: A Biography by Bengt Jangfeldt, 2014.
• Isaac Deutscher, The Poet and the Revolution, 1943.
• Chapter on Russian Futurists incl Mayakovsky in Trotsky's Literature and Revolution
• The 'raging bull' of Russian poetry article by Dalia Karpel at Haaretz.com, 5 July 2007
• Vladimir Mayakovsky on IMDb
• The State Museum of V.V. Mayakovsky at Google Cultural Institute
• Newspaper clippings about Vladimir Mayakovsky in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
• The Motherland will Notice her Terrible Mistake: Paradox of Futurism in Jasienski, Mayakovsky and Shklovsky