Modernist & 20Th Century Poets Codexery

Vladimir Mayakovsky

Russian Futurist poet and playwright who navigated revolution, censorship, and acclaim.

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Vladimir Mayakovsky

via Wikipedia: Vladimir Mayakovsky · see source

Vladimir Mayakovsky was a Russian poet and playwright born in 1893 in Baghdati, Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire.[1][2] In 1930, Mayakovsky died by suicide, and his handwritten note included the request: "please do not gossip."[3][4]

Life and work

Mayakovsky's father died of blood poisoning in 1906, prompting the family to move to Moscow.[5][6] As a teenager, he joined the Social Democratic Labour Party and was arrested for revolutionary activities, spending 11 months in solitary confinement where he began writing poetry.[7][2] In 1911, he met David Burlyuk, who declared him a genius poet and helped turn him into a Futurist poet.[8][9][10] His first published poems appeared in the Futurist manifesto "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste" in 1912.[11]

He worked for the Russian State Telegraph Agency creating propaganda posters and later edited the journal LEF.[12][13][2] His relationship with the Soviet state was complex and tumultuous, and he faced harsh criticism from the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers.[14][15] Mayakovsky fully supported the Bolshevik Russian Revolution, writing in his autobiography that for him there was no question of accepting it—it was "my Revolution".[12]

What the cited sources add

The poets.org account states that Mayakovsky was the youngest child of Ukrainian parents and that he began studying painting in 1910 before realizing his talent for poetry.[2] The same account reports that Mayakovsky witnessed the early Bolshevik insurrections of the Russian Revolution while living in Smolny, Petrograd in 1917.[2] According to poets.org, his popularity granted him unusual freedoms relative to other Soviets.[2] Mayakovsky's early poetry rejected traditional metrical structures and employed street language that literary circles of the time deemed unpoetic.[2]

The officer who investigated Mayakovsky's suicide was killed ten days after the poet's death.[2]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Vladimir Mayakovsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Iskrzhitskaya, I.Y., "Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky", Russian Writers. Biobibliographical dictionary. Vol.2., 1990; Mikhaylov, Al., "Mayakovsky", Lives of Distinguished People. Molodaya Gvardiya, 1988 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. "Vladimir Mayakovsky", www.poets.org. facts only, no text reused. poets.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Vladimir Mayakovsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Sundaram, "Manufacturing Culture: The Soviet State and the Mayakovsky Legend 1930–1993", National Library of Canada: Acquisitions and Bibliographical Services, 2000, p. 71, 85 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Vladimir Mayakovsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Belyayeva Dina, "B. Маяковский-Любовная лодка разбилась о быт... En", poetic translations; Sundaram, "Manufacturing Culture: The Soviet State and the Mayakovsky Legend 1930–1993", National Library of Canada: Acquisitions and Bibliographical Services, 2000, p. 71, 85; Kotkin, "Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928", Penguin, 6 November 2014; "Vladimir Mayakovsky", www.poets.org (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Vladimir Mayakovsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Mikhaylov, Al., "Mayakovsky", Lives of Distinguished People. Molodaya Gvardiya, 1988 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Vladimir Mayakovsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Iskrzhitskaya, I.Y., "Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky", Russian Writers. Biobibliographical dictionary. Vol.2., 1990; Liukkonen, "Vladimir Mayakovsky", Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Vladimir Mayakovsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Raging Bull of Russian Poetry", Haaretz; "Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky"; Iskrzhitskaya, I.Y., "Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky", Russian Writers. Biobibliographical dictionary. Vol.2., 1990; "Vladimir mayakovsky. Biography", The New Literary net (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Vladimir Mayakovsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "V.V. Mayakovsky biography. Timeline", The Lives of the Distinguished People series. Issue No.700. Molodaya Gvardiya, Moscow, 1988; "Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky"; Liukkonen, "Vladimir Mayakovsky", Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Vladimir Mayakovsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Vladimir mayakovsky. Biography", The New Literary net; "Vladimir Mayakovsky biography. Timeline", max.mmlc.northwestern.edu (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Vladimir Mayakovsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Raging Bull of Russian Poetry", Haaretz (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Wikipedia, "Vladimir Mayakovsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "V.V. Mayakovsky biography. Timeline", The Lives of the Distinguished People series. Issue No.700. Molodaya Gvardiya, Moscow, 1988; Lawton, "Russian Futurism Through Its Manifestoes, 1912 – 1928", Cornell University Press, 1988, p. 51–52; "V.V. Mayakovsky biography. Timeline", The Lives of the Distinguished People series. Issue No.700. Molodaya Gvardiya, Moscow, 1988; "Vladimir mayakovsky. Biography", The New Literary net (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  12. Wikipedia, "Vladimir Mayakovsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "V.V. Mayakovsky biography. Timeline", The Lives of the Distinguished People series. Issue No.700. Molodaya Gvardiya, Moscow, 1988 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  13. Wikipedia, "Vladimir Mayakovsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Vladimir mayakovsky. Biography", The New Literary net; "Vladimir Mayakovsky", www.poets.org; "V.V. Mayakovsky biography. Timeline", The Lives of the Distinguished People series. Issue No.700. Molodaya Gvardiya, Moscow, 1988; Arutcheva, V., Paperny, Z., "Commentaries to About That", The Complete V.V.Mayakovsky in 13 volumes. Khudozhestvennaya Literatura. Moscow, 1958. Vol. 4 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  14. Wikipedia, "Vladimir Mayakovsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Mayakovsky, "Selected Works in Three Volumes", Raduga Publishers, 1985, p. 238; Mayakovsky, "The Bedbug and Selected Poetry", Meridian Books, 1960, p. 231–235 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  15. Wikipedia, "Vladimir Mayakovsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Vladimir Mayakovsky", www.poets.org; McSmith, "Fear and the Muse Kept Watch, The Russian Masters - from Akhmativa and Pasternak to Shostakovich and Eisenstein - Under Stalin", New Press, 2015, p. 49; Woroszylsk, "The Life of Mayakovsky", The Orion Press, 1971, p. 438–84 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Vladimir Mayakovsky (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Test yourself

Three questions drawn from this entry’s sources. Pick an answer to check it.

1. In which place was Vladimir Mayakovsky born?

Correct.

Not quite. The answer is Baghdati, Russian Empire.

2. In what year was Vladimir Mayakovsky born?

Correct.

Not quite. The answer is 1893.

From the source: “Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was born in 1893 in Baghdati, Kutais Governorate, Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire, to Alexandra Alexeyevna (née Pavlenko), a housewife, and Vladimir Mayakovsky, a local forester.”

3. In what year did Vladimir Mayakovsky die?

Correct.

Not quite. The answer is 1930.

From the source: “Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky ( – 14 April 1930) was a Russian poet, playwright, artist, and actor. During his early, pre-Revolution period leading into 1917, Mayakovsky became renowned as a prominent figure of the Russian Futurist move”

Answers checked against the source article

Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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