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Vladimir Mayakovsky Twayne’s World Authors Series J Russian Literature Charles A. Moser, Editor George Washington University VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY (1918) Photograph reproduced from Mayakovsky’s Collected Works: Polnoe sobranie soebinenfy Vol. 2. Moscow. 1956 Vladimir Mayakovsky By Victor Terras Brown University Twayne Publishers • Boston Vladimir Mayakovsky Victor Terras Copyright © 1983 by G. K. Hall & Company All Rights Reserved Published by Twayne Publishers A Division of G. K. Hall & Company 70 Lincoln Street Boston, Massachusetts 02111 Book Production by Marne B. Sultz Book Design by Barbara Anderson Printed on permanent/durable acid-free paper and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Terras, Victor. Vladimir Mayakovsky. (Twayne's world authors series ; TWAS 706) Bibliography: p. 156 Includes index. 1. Mayakovsky, Vladimir, 1894-1930. 2. Poets, Russian—20th century — Biography. I. Title. II. Series. PG3476.M312T4 1983 891.71'42 83-6185 ISBN О-8О57-6553-О Contents About the Author Preface Chronology Chapter One A Biographical Survey 1 Chapter Two Poetry of the Prerevolutionary Period 39 Chapter Three Poetry of the Revolutionary Period 67 Chapter Four Poetry of the Postrevolutionary Period, Plays, and Work in Other Art Forms 85 Chapter Five Critical Assessment 117 Notes and References 153 Selected Bibliography 156 Index 167 About the Author Victor Terras was born and educated in Estonia. He came to this country in 1952 and received his Ph.D. in Russian literature from the University of Chicago in 1963. He has taught Russian language and literature at the University of Illinois (Urbana), the University of Wisconsin (Madison), and Brown University. He has published scholarly articles and reviews on several Russian poets and writers. Preface Vladimir Mayakovsky ( 1893—1930), more than perhaps any other 1 twentieth-century poet, has meant different things to different au diences. To the Western historian of literature, he is one of the most remarkable poets of the European avant-garde. To the literary his torian in the Soviet Union, he is the greatest Soviet poet. To the student of Russian versification, he is by far the greatest challenge in the field. To many Russian poets he has been a model. Mayakovsky made his mark not only as a poet and playwright, but also as a cartoonist and all-purpose propagandist. He wrote a number of film scenarios and played the lead in several films. His voice was often heard on Soviet radio. He was a tireless traveler who gave countless poetry recitals and talks in the Soviet Union as well as abroad, including the United States. But most of all, Mayakovsky was a “star.” Some of his contemporaries were almost certainly greater poets, but none of them remotely approached Mayakovsky’s broad public appeal. He was a legend from the outset of his career, and everything he did later enhanced his image, which was much more than life size while he was living and grew to heroic proportions after his sensational suicide. Mayakovsky’s was a life packed with events and achievements. His Collected Works fill thirteen volumes. The literature about his life and works is so large that a complete bibliography would fill a solid volume. The present study can only outline the most important facets of Mayakovsky’s life and manifold activities. It concentrates on Mayakovsky the poet, giving only cursory attention to his other achievements. Mayakovsky remains a controversial figure. A free spirit and ir repressible bohemian before the Revolution, he “stepped on the throat of his own songs” and transformed himself into a willing tool of the Soviet regime—a literary hack, that is, said many con temporaries. Western critics have tended to downgrade his post revolutionary work, while Soviet critics do the exact opposite. The fact is that the Soviet propaganda poet was at least as virtuosic as VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY the free spirit of the prerevolutionary years, and probably more so. Questions regarding the dependence of an artist’s greatness on the moral quality of his work and the connection between creative free dom and artistic excellence loom large in Mayakovsky’s case. In this short monograph I have tried to maintain a balance between Mayakovsky’s life and work, between description and analysis, be tween presentation of bare fact and suggestion of problems. I have also tried to provide enough background information so that the reader may see Mayakovsky and his work in their historical context. I hope to have left the impression throughout that my treatment is rudimentary and that anyone who really wants to get to know Mayakovsky will have to pursue the various angles which I have tried to point out in this book. Victor Terras Brown University Chronology Vladimir Mayakovsky born in Bagdadi, Georgia, on 19 July. Enters secondary school in Kutais. Vladimir Konstantinovich Mayakovsky, the poet’s fa ther, dies of an infection. Family moves to Moscow. 29 March, arrested as a runner for a revolutionary group, but is soon released. 30 August, admitted to the preparatory class of the Stroganov School of In dustrial Arts in Moscow. 21 January, arrested on suspicion of revolutionary activity, but soon released. 2 July, arrested for rev olutionary activities; 9 September, found guilty and released in the custody of his mother. Fall, admitted to the Moscow Institute for the Study of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, passing en trance examination on the second try. September, friendship with fellow student David Bur- lyuk (1882-1967). December, first poems in futurist miscellany entitled A Slap in the Face of Public Taste. Winter, public appearances of the futurist “circus” all over Russia. May, first collection of verse, entitled Z. 2 December, Vladimir Mayakovsky: A Tragedy per formed at the Luna Park Theater in St. Petersburg. March, First Journal of Russian Futurists and Vladimir Mayakovsky : A Tragedy. Summer, meets Osip and Lilya Brik. A Cloud in Trou sers and The Backbone Flute appear. Works on Man and War and the World. 15 March, Moscow futurists publish first and only issue of the Futurist Gazette, containing Mayakovsky’s