Who was Vladimir Mayakovsky? A genius or a simple poet? A lot is known about this great man, but at the same time practically nothing can be said clearly about him. He was and will remain a mystery even to the most sincere admirers of his work. As for his biography, there are practically no empty spaces in it, but the spiritual make-up and personality of the poet are shrouded in mystery. In order to understand at least a little the views and feelings of this great artist of words, it is necessary to know some interesting facts from the life of Mayakovsky.
Brief biography
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was born on July 7, 1893 in the Kutaisi province, the village of Baghdadi. Both parents were direct descendants of Zaporozhye Cossacks. The father of the great poet, Vladimir Konstantinovich, was a hereditary nobleman and worked as a forester. Mother, Pavlenko A.A., was involved in raising children; besides Vladimir, there were two more children in the family.
Studies
In the period from 1902 to 1906, the future poet studied at the Kutaisi gymnasium, where, probably, he managed to get acquainted with the liberal democratic intelligentsia. In 1905, he even took part in a major demonstration of Russian and Georgian youth.
Interesting facts from Mayakovsky’s life confirm that his father actually died from a needle prick, which resulted in blood poisoning. After the death of the head of the family, the Mayakovsky family moved to Moscow in 1906.
The financial situation was quite difficult, so in 1908 Vladimir Mayakovsky was expelled from the Moscow gymnasium because his mother did not have the funds to further pay for his studies. However, thanks to his talent fine arts, he was accepted to study in But even here the future poet’s studies did not go smoothly because of his political views.
Prison sentences
In 1908, many facts from Mayakovsky's life concerning his political beliefs led to his being imprisoned. The poet's arrest was caused by the revolutionary agitation that he carried out among representatives of the working class. But this was not in last time, Mayakovsky was later imprisoned twice more. After the next imprisonment ended, Mayakovsky stopped taking an active part in the work of the party.
Despite the complexity of Mayakovsky’s situation at that time, it was during this period that his situation finally took shape and he mastered the tenets of Marxism and the Bolsheviks on the class struggle. Most likely, the views young poet were partly romantic, and he was not fully aware of everything that was happening in the political arena during that period, but at this time he decided to try on the mask of the “leader”. It was then that some interesting facts from the life of Mayakovsky took place, because it was here that he began to write his first poems, which were later selected by prison servants.
Lilya Brik in the life of a poet
Lilya Brik occupied a special place in Mayakovsky's life. She was his muse, his lover, his icon. Like any creator, the poet and his inspiration had a very complex relationship.
The love triangle between Mayakovsky and the Brikovs was nonsense even in Moscow in the 1920s, which at that time could hardly boast of the purity of personal relationships. Mayakovsky and Lilya Brik did not hide their feelings at all, and what is most surprising is that Osip Brik, Lily’s legal husband, was also not against this state of affairs.
The muse helped Mayakovsky in creating new works, because it was she who managed to understand what the poet needed in order to create, and he needed suffering and sadness. It cannot be said that Brik was absolutely sincere in her feelings for the poet, but the fact that she influenced his work cannot be ignored.
Tatiana Yakovleva
Another woman played an important role in Mayakovsky’s life; she was a Russian emigrant who lived in Paris. Despite the fact that she rejected the great poet, he committed an incredibly romantic act. Mayakovsky deposited an impressive amount into the flower shop’s account with one condition: that Yakovleva be brought flowers “from Mayakovsky” several times a week.
Even after the poet’s death, his muse continued to receive flowers, which saved her from starvation during the war. Although it has not been proven that the poet and Yakovleva had a romantic relationship, he still dedicated more than one poem to her.
- Few people know, but great poet He was extremely generous and often gave money to elderly people. He himself found the elderly and supported them financially, wanting to remain anonymous.
- Mayakovsky worked diligently to find the most suitable, ideal rhyme that would fit into the poem in all respects. He could walk 15-20 km until he found exactly what he needed.
- The story connecting the poet with the famous artist Repin remains noteworthy. During their first meeting, the painter was quite surprised by Mayakovsky’s chestnut curls and offered to paint his portrait. When Mayakovsky again came to Repin, he was incredibly surprised, because as soon as the poet took off his headdress, the painter saw that his chestnut curls were now shaved to zero.
- Mayakovsky and Lilya Brik, whose relationship was complex to the extreme, were, in essence, an excellent tandem of creator and muse. The Swedish Brik family created with Mayakovsky favorable conditions not only for communicating with Lilya. He also took part in the poet’s life personally. He corrected the punctuation and spelling of the poems of the brilliant creator. These three people had such a strange relationship.
- It was Mayakovsky who became the creator of the famous “ladder”. This was an obvious trick on the part of the writer, since at that time poets were paid for the number of lines in written poems, and the “ladder” led to the fact that he received 2-3 times more than his colleagues in the workshop.
So many years have passed since the death of the great poet, but they still remember him, he is still studied in schools, his poems are quoted by young men in love to their ladies, he still remains alive in the souls of his fans. Creativity that calls for active activity, creativity in which you want to dissolve - this is exactly the kind of poetry that the brilliant poet created, who will be remembered for centuries.
The famous and beloved futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky in Russia was born in the town of Baghdadi, which is located in the Kutaisi province, on July 19, 1893. He is widely known as an excellent playwright, a talented journalist, a wonderful screenwriter and director, and an excellent artist. Creative biography Mayakovsky made him a symbol of his era. Vladimir Vladimirovich is one of the most famous artists of the Soviet period.
Brief biography Mayakovsky
The poet comes from a noble family. His father served as a forester in the Transcaucasian Erivan province. In 1902, Vladimir was sent to study at the city gymnasium. However, four years later, the poet’s father suddenly dies. After this tragic event, the family moved to live in Moscow.
In the capital, Mayakovsky, having passed the exams, becomes a student at the fifth classical gymnasium. But already in 1908 he was expelled from educational institution due to non-payment.
Even in the Caucasus, Vladimir takes part in student demonstrations. After he ended up in Moscow, fate brings him together with young people involved in the dissemination of revolutionary ideas. He becomes one of the members of the RSDLP and conducts propaganda work among the workers, for which he is arrested several times.
Mayakovsky's biography indicates that it was this circumstance that influenced the formation of the poet as a revolutionary. During 1908-09, Vladimir Vladimirovich managed to go to jail three times and was released due to lack of evidence. However, he had to remain in custody for eleven months. It was during this time that the first poems that Mayakovsky wrote appeared.
The biography and work of Vladimir Vladimirovich are closely interconnected. His stay in prison marked the beginning of his development as a poet.
After being released from prison, Mayakovsky entered a preparatory class where he studied with artists S. Zhukov and P. Kelin. After some time, the young poet’s poems are already published in almanacs. But soon he was expelled from this educational institution for participating in unauthorized futurists.
In 1912, in one of the almanacs of the Gileya group, a manifesto was published under the authorship of V. Mayakovsky and V. Khlebnikov, etc. It stated the importance of creating a new literary language, corresponding to the modern era, not subject to traditional literary canons. The embodiment of these ideas was the production of the tragedy “Vladimir Mayakovsky” in 1913 in St. Petersburg, where the author acts as a performer leading role and director. At the same time, a collection of poems entitled “I” was published.
During the First World War, he created works exposing the senselessness and cruelty of military operations. One of them is "Cloud in Pants", which predicts the coming revolution.
Mayakovsky's biography indicates an active social activities poet. In 1918, he created the Komfut association, which translated means communist futurism, published in the weekly Art of the Commune.
In 1920, Vladimir Vladimirovich entered into creative association LEF, where he met S. Tretyakov and B. Pasternak and other figures from various fields of art.
In the twenties, Mayakovsky worked simultaneously in several directions. He is a correspondent for a number of Soviet newspapers. In order to promote new values, he writes ditties, poetry and topical satire. During this period, the poems “Good!” were created. and "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin".
The poet often visits foreign countries, where he gets ideas for creating “anti-bourgeois” poems. He travels around the country a lot, reading his stories from the stage. best works. Vladimir Vladimirovich's speeches, intended for a simple listener, were accompanied by jokes and improvisations.
Mayakovsky's biography indicates that the 30s were a turning point in the poet's life. In addition to failures in his personal life and constant conflict with the outside world, he is in danger of losing his voice. The last straw was the disastrous production of the play “Bathhouse”. These and other factors provoked Mayakovsky to commit suicide.
After the death of the poet, his works fell under the ban, which was lifted by I. Stalin only in 1939, at the request of L. Brik.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky is a truly outstanding personality. A talented poet, playwright, screenwriter and actor. One of the brightest and most odious figures of his time.
Born on July 19, 1893 in the Georgian village of Bagdati. There were five children in the family: two daughters and three sons, but of all the boys, only Vladimir survived. The boy studied at a local gymnasium, and then at a school in Moscow, where he moved with his mother and sister. By that time, my father was no longer alive: he died of blood poisoning.
During the revolution, the family suffered hard times, there was not enough money, and Volodya had nothing to pay for his education. He did not finish his studies, and later joined the Social Democratic Party. Mayakovsky was arrested more than once for his political beliefs and participation in mass riots. It was in prison that the first lines of the great poet were born.
In 1911, the young man decided to continue his studies at the art school, however, his teachers did not appreciate his work: they were too original. During his studies, Mayakovsky became close to the futurists, whose work was close to him, and in 1912 he published his first poem, “Night.”
In 1915, one of the most famous poems, “A Cloud in Pants,” was written, which he first read at a reception at Lily Brik’s house. This woman became his main love and his curse. All his life he loved and hated her, they broke up and renewed their relationship countless times. The poem dedicated to her, “Lilichka,” is one of the most powerful and touching declarations of love in modern literature. In addition to Lily, there were many other women in the poet’s life, but not one of them was able to touch those strings of the soul that Lilichka so skillfully played with.
In general, Mayakovsky’s love lyrics were not attractive; his main attention was occupied by politics and satire on topical topics. The poem “The Sitting Ones” is perhaps one of the most striking demonstrations of Mayakovsky’s satirical talent. What is important is that the plot of the poem is relevant to this day. In addition, he writes many scripts for films and stars in them himself. The most famous film that has survived to this day is “The Young Lady and the Hooligan.”
The theme of revolution occupies a huge place in the poet’s creative heritage. The poet was enthusiastic about what was happening, although at that time he was having a very difficult time financially. At this time he wrote “Mystery-bouffe”. Almost until his death, Mayakovsky glorifies Soviet power, and for her 10th anniversary he writes the poem “Good.”
(Painting by Vladimir Mayakovsky "Roulette")
With his works glorifying the revolution and Comrade Lenin, Mayakovsky tours quite a bit throughout Europe and America. He draws satirical and propaganda posters, works for several publishing houses, including ROSTA Satire Windows. In 1923, he and several associates created the creative studio LEF. Two famous plays by the author, “The Bedbug” and “Bathhouse,” were published one after another in 1928 and 1929.
Mayakovsky's calling card was the unusual style he invented and the poetic meter in the form of a ladder, as well as many neologisms. He is also credited with the fame of the first advertiser in the USSR, because he was at the origins of this trend, creating masterpiece posters calling for the purchase of this or that product. Each drawing was accompanied by simple but sonorous verses.
(G. Egoshin "V. Mayakovsky")
Children's poems occupy a large place in the poet's lyrics. Big Uncle Mayakovsky, as he called himself, writes surprisingly touching lines for the younger generation and personally speaks with them to young listeners. The poem “Who to be” or “What is good and what is bad” was known by heart by every Soviet, and after that Russian schoolboy. Many critics noted the author’s amazing artistic style and his ability to simply and clearly express far from childish thoughts in a language accessible to children.
However, like many poets of the 20th century, Mayakovsky did not hide the fact that he was disappointed in his chosen direction. Towards the end of his life he moved away from the circle of futurists. The new government led by Stalin did not inspire his creativity, and he was subjected to increasingly harsh censorship and criticism over and over again. His exhibition “20 years of work” was ignored politicians and even friends and colleagues. This noticeably crippled Mayakovsky, and the subsequent failure of his plays only worsened the situation. Failures on the love front, in creative activity, refusal to travel abroad - all this affected the emotional state of the writer.
On April 14, 1930, the poet shot himself in his room, contrary to the lines he once wrote: “And I won’t go out into the air, and I won’t drink poison, and I won’t be able to pull the trigger above my temple...”
Russian poet. In pre-revolutionary works, the confession of a poet, forced to the point of screaming, perceives reality as an apocalypse (tragedy "Vladimir Mayakovsky", 1913, poems "Cloud in Pants", 1915, "Spine Flute", 1916, "War and Peace", 1917). After 1917 - the creation of the myth of the socialist world order (the play "Mystery-Bouffe", 1918, the poems "150,000,000", 1921, "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin", 1924, "Good!", 1927) and the tragically growing sense of its depravity (from verse "The Sitting", 1922, before the play "Bath", 1929). In the poem "At the top of my voice" (1930), there is an affirmation of the sincerity of his path and the hope of being understood in the "communist distance." A reformer of poetic language, he had a great influence on the poetry of the 20th century. Committed suicide.
Biography
Vladimir Vladimirovich (1893-1930), poet.
Born on July 7 (19 NS) in the village of Baghdadi, near Kutaisi, in the family of a forester, a man of progressive views, humane and generous. He studied at the Kutaisi gymnasium (1902 - 06). It was then that I read revolutionary poems and proclamations for the first time. “Poems and revolution somehow came together in my head,” the poet later wrote.
In the turbulent year of 1905, a twelve-year-old high school student took part in demonstrations and a high school strike.
In 1906, after the sudden death of his father, the family moved to Moscow, where Mayakovsky continued his education. However, he soon took up serious revolutionary work and was arrested three times (in 1909 he was imprisoned in Butyrka prison). Released from prison due to his minority in 1910, he decided to devote himself to art, entered the studio of the artist P. Kelin to prepare for exams at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he began studying in 1911. Here he met D. Burdyuk, the organizer of a group of Russians futurists. In 1912 he began publishing his poems, becoming professional poet. Published in futuristic almanacs. For participation in public speaking was expelled from the school in 1914.
In the same year, he travels with a group of futurists to seventeen cities of RUSSIA, promoting new art among the masses. However, in his work Mayakovsky was already independent and original in these years. In 1915 he created his best pre-revolutionary poem, “A Cloud in Pants,” about the belief in the inevitability of an imminent revolution, which he expected as a solution to the country’s most important problems and the determination of personal destiny. The poet even tries to predict the timing of its arrival (“In the crown of thorns of revolutions // The sixteenth year is coming”).
The poems of 1916, which formed a special cycle, sound gloomy and hopeless (“Fed up”, “Sale”, “Gloom”, “Russia”, etc.).
Gorky invited Mayakovsky to collaborate in the journal Letopis and the newspaper Novaya Zhizn, and helped in the publication of the second collection of poems, Simple as Mooing. During these years, Mayakovsky created the poems “War and Peace” and “Man,” which seem to present an anti-war panorama.
He called the October Revolution “My Revolution” and was one of the first cultural and artistic figures who responded to the call of the Soviet government to cooperate with it; participated in the first meetings and gatherings of cultural representatives. At this time, he published “Our March”, “Ode to the Revolution”, “Left March”. The play “Mystery-bouffe” was written and staged. During 1919 he worked on the poem “150,000 LLC.”
In October 1919 he produced the first posters in "Windows of ROSTA", which marked the beginning of his work as an artist and poet (until 1921).
In 1922 - 1924 he made his first trips abroad (Riga, Berlin, Paris, etc.), the impressions of which he described in essays and poems.
In 1925, he went on his longest trip—overseas: he visited Havana, Mexico City, and for three months performed in various cities in the United States, reading poetry and reports. Later, poems were written (the collection “Spain. - Ocean. - Havana. - Mexico. - America.”) and the essay “My Discovery of America.”
Travels around his native country were of great importance in the poet’s life. In 1927 alone, he performed in 40 cities besides Moscow and Leningrad. In 1927 the poem “Good!” appeared.
Drama plays an important place in his work. He created the satirical plays “The Bedbug” (1928) and “Bathhouse” (1929). In February, Mayakovsky joined RAPP ( Russian Association proletarian writers), for which many of his literary associates broke off relations with him. On the same days, the exhibition “20 Years of Mayakovsky’s Work” opened, which was not successful due to the deliberate isolation of the poet. His personal life. Mayakovsky's health and mood in the spring of 1930 deteriorated sharply.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was born in the village. Baghdadi in Georgia. The poet's father, Vladimir Konstantinovich, is a nobleman, a titular councilor who served as a third-class forester. By family legend, the surname was founded by a native of Zaporozhye Sich. The genealogy includes relatives of the writer G.P. Danilevsky, who in turn had common family roots with the families of A.S. Pushkin and N.V. Gogol. Mother, Alexandra Alekseevna, came from a family of Kuban Cossacks.
The formation of the poet's worldview was especially influenced by the democratic atmosphere that reigned in the family and the first Russian revolution. Mayakovsky became imbued with a deep dislike for the system that existed at that time and decided to devote himself to the fight against it. Future poet joins the RSDLP, receives the party nickname Comrade Konstantin and campaigns among the workers. The defeat of the revolution and the tragic death of their father force the Mayakovskys to leave Georgia and move to Moscow. The future poet continues to study political activity. For his participation in preparing the escape of political prisoners, Mayakovsky ended up in Butyrka prison for almost a year. The prison authorities reported: “Vladimir Vladimirov Mayakovsky, with his behavior, outrages political prisoners to disobey the ranks of the police house... On August 16th... Mayakovsky, calling the sentry a “toady,” began shouting along the corridor so that all those arrested could hear, expressing: “Comrades, the headman is being driven into the cell by a lackey,” which outraged all those arrested, who, in turn, began to make noise.” The obstinate 16-year-old boy is transferred to solitary confinement. There for the first time he begins to write poetry. Subsequently, he assessed the results of his poetic experiments as follows: “It turned out stilted and tearful.” The poems were selected by the jailers and lost in the archives, but the poet himself considered the autumn of 1909, spent in prison, to be the beginning of his creative activity. Upon leaving prison, Mayakovsky faced a difficult dilemma - to continue studying revolutionary activity or devote yourself to art. He chooses the second.
In 1911 he entered the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. It is here that he meets people who influenced the development of his poetry. These are V. Khlebnikov, A. Kruchenykh and D. Burliuk. They jointly create one of the literary groups of Russian futurists and call themselves “Cubo-Futurists.” It was under the sign of futurism that Mayakovsky’s pre-revolutionary creativity developed. Futurism as a literary method and movement originated in Italy at the very beginning of the 10s. XX century However, in Russia only the manifesto of the Italian futurists was known, but their poems had not yet been translated, so the Russian futurists were largely formed independently. Futurism (from Latin futurum - future) was perceived as a school of art of the future, and Mayakovsky carried this focus on the future throughout his entire life. The Cubo-Futurists were distinguished, first of all, by their sharp rejection of the entire previous culture, they denied the modern structure of society and sharply, to the point of scandalousness, denounced it in their work (the names of their collections: “Dead Moon”, “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste” - speak for themselves). Social themes dominated their works, especially the theme of the city. The city was perceived as something hostile to man (“Hell of the city” - by Mayakovsky). It was in the collection “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste” (1912) that the poet’s first two works were published - the poems “Night” and “Morning”. At this time, it was very difficult for the poet to find an audience who would understand him. Hence the image of the “rude Hun”, the barbarian, that Mayakovsky chose for himself during this period. The confrontation between him and the listeners sometimes reached the point where people from the crowd shouted: “Mayakovsky, when will you shoot yourself?” To which the poet, having finished his speech, replied: “And now those who want to get punched in the face can get in line.” And yet, despite the chosen image, Mayakovsky was an easily vulnerable person, acutely feeling the pain of others. This was reflected in his article “About the different Mayakovskys.”
Started in 1914. First world war deeply shocked the poet. The poems “War Declared”, “Mom and the Evening Killed by the Germans” (both 1914) are clearly anti-war in nature. However, life in the rear was even more unbearable: the indifference and idle curiosity of the townsfolk, to whose exposure the poem “To You!” is dedicated, was outraged. (1915). Mayakovsky strives to volunteer to go to the front, but due to political unreliability, he was denied this too.
Before the revolution, Mayakovsky tried himself in different genres. He wrote lyrics, poems (“Spine Flute”, 1916; “War and Peace”, 1916; “Man”, 1917), created the tragedy “Vladimir Mayakovsky” (1914) and a whole series satirical poems. The key work of this period was the poem (“tetraptych”) “Cloud in Pants” (1915), consisting of a prologue and four parts or, as Mayakovsky himself wrote, of four cries “Down!”: “Down with your love!”, “Down with your art!”, “Down with your system!”, “Down with your religion!” The poet himself wanted to call his work “The Thirteenth Apostle,” showing himself as a herald of the new teaching. However, the censorship committee threatened him with hard labor and excluded six pages, i.e. one quarter of the text, and demanded that the title be changed. In addition, the censors stated that the lyrics could not be combined with rudeness. Then he included ironic lines in the poem: “If you want - ... I will be impeccably gentle, not a man, but a cloud in my pants!” - and this image became the title of the work. The worldview of pre-revolutionary Mayakovsky is predominantly tragic; the lyrical hero of his poetry is alone in a world where everything is bought and sold: love, God, and conscience.
The poet received the October Revolution enthusiastically. He came to Smolny, wrote slogans, drew posters. In 1918, Mayakovsky created “Mystery-bouffe”, in 1919-1920. - poem “150,000,000”. If he shouted “Down with” four times to the old world, then he exclaimed to the revolution: “Four times glory, blessed one!” Instead of a tragic attitude, the dominant pathos of his poetry becomes optimism and heroism. The main method of his work in the first post-revolutionary years was revolutionary romanticism, the main theme being the struggle for the establishment of a new society. Communism and the future became practically synonymous for him. The new system turned out to be his credo, a symbol of faith, to which the poet dedicated his work and his life. The poet fuses poetry and journalism, his language is compressed, succinct, and aphoristic. The plots of his works are often conventional and fantastic, the images tend to be satirical or heroic grotesque.
In 1922, the poems “I Love”, “IV International”, “Fifth International” were created, in 1923 - the poems “About This” and “To the workers of Kursk who mined the first ore, a temporary monument to the work of Vladimir Mayakovsky.” Gradually, by 1924, a new artistic method was emerging, which Mayakovsky called “tendentious realism.” The language of Mayakovsky's poems is becoming more and more clear and understandable, the poet limits the use of hyperboles and complex, detailed metaphors. In 1924 he wrote the poem “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin”. 1925-1926 years spent traveling: America, Mexico, Cuba, Spain, Novocherkassk, Vinnitsa, Kharkov, Paris, Rostov, Tiflis, Berlin, Kazan, Sverdlovsk, Tula, Prague, Leningrad, Moscow, Voronezh, Yalta, Evpatoria, Vyatka etc...” - this is the geography of performances given in the autobiographical essay with the characteristic title “I Myself.” In 1925, the poem “The Flying Proletarian” was published. In 1927, Mayakovsky wrote the poem “Good!”, dedicated to the tenth anniversary of Soviet power. However, he was not a “court poet”; he saw too well the social shortcomings to which he planned to devote the poem “Bad”. It was not possible to realize this plan, nevertheless, the two main dangers that, according to the poet’s thoughts, threatened the creation of a new society - philistinism and bureaucracy - were clearly manifested in the plays “The Bedbug” (1928), “Bathhouse” (1929). Mayakovsky was uncompromising, and therefore inconvenient. In his works of the late 20s. Tragic motives began to emerge more and more often. He was called only a “fellow traveler,” and not a “proletarian writer.” He was prevented in every possible way from holding an exhibition dedicated to the 20th anniversary of his creative activity. His personal life also became extremely strained. All this led to the death of the poet. He committed suicide in 1930 without finishing the poem “At the Top of His Voice.”
The fate of the poet was difficult, and the fate of his creative heritage was also difficult. They forget about it and stop publishing it. And only after Stalin’s phrase: “Mayakovsky was and remains the best, most talented poet of our Soviet era,” Mayakovsky’s works again appear in print, he is published in huge editions, he is recited from all kinds of platforms, he is made an official poet. “Glavnachpupsy” uses Mayakovsky’s sincerity, his deep conviction in the eventual triumph of the new society and new relationships between people. At the same time, the same sincerity in exposing bureaucracy and tragic doubts in the poet’s poems were inconvenient. And then something is done that he himself deeply hated: the “textbook gloss” is applied, the “marble slime” is smeared. They don't print or say anything about awkward lines. Even such a famous thing as the poem “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin” was published until the early 70s. without that part of the introduction in which Mayakovsky protests against the deification of the leader.
How should we now treat such works - the poems “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin”, “Good!”? Is it possible and necessary to talk about them at all and should I express my point of view? They should be discussed if they are relevant to the chosen topic of the essay. Of course, no one can deprive the writer of the right to give his point of view on the events described. However, one should avoid an extra-aesthetic approach, attempts, abandoning analysis artistic features poems, to see in them only a document that fully or distortedly reflects reality. Reproaches to the poet who did not write then (60-odd years ago) about what we only learn about today will also be meaningless. In this regard, it is appropriate to recall the statement of A.S. Pushkin that a poet must be judged first of all according to the laws that he recognized over himself.
BASIC CREATIVE PRINCIPLES AND FEATURES OF THE POETIC SYSTEM. Mayakovsky’s artistic principles, formed during the futuristic period of his creativity, largely retained their relevance later. What distinguished the Cubo-Futurists most from an aesthetic point of view was their desire for a synthesis of painting and poetry, on the one hand, and the concept of the “self-contained” word, on the other. Being not only poets, but also artists, they sought to create bright, colorful, contrasting colors in their poems. They reflected the world and especially the city using geometric shapes - cubes, triangles, parallel lines. This brought their poetry closer to the painting of the “Jack of Diamonds,” a well-known group of artists in Russia. As for the “self-contained” word, this meant the word as such, purified, according to the futurists, from later semantic layers or created by the poet himself. Word creation became one of the main tasks in the literature of futurism. Mayakovsky widely introduced street language into his works, various onomatopoeia, and created new words with the help of prefixes and suffixes, for example the famous: giraffe - “long-necked animal.” At the same time, his words were understandable to the listeners (in contrast to the “abstruse” neologisms of A. Kruchenykh, which were often understandable only to one author). The negative attitude towards the previous culture, which Mayakovsky initially shared, was his in the early 20s. strongly revised.
After the revolution, Mayakovsky became one of the organizers and leaders of a new literary group - LEF (Left Front). The Lefovites put forward three new principles of art: 1) the principle of social order; 2) the principle of literature of fact; 3) the principle of art-life-building. By social order, Mayakovsky meant that the artist himself must internally understand and feel the need to write precisely on the topic that is especially relevant and of social significance at the moment. When a country is at war, the artist's theme is war. When a country builds, the theme of poetry is construction. The second principle is the principle of selecting material for creativity. Fact and only fact, and not fiction, should become the subject of art. Therefore, Mayakovsky and the Lefovites devote poems to the Genoa Conference, potholes on the street, the launch of Kuznetskstroy, the creation of a new garden city, the opening of a new workers' canteen - all these facts are socially significant for them. Even such a seemingly absolutely fantastic event as a meeting and conversation with the Sun, the poet paints it as a real incident, accurately indicating its place and time.
The third principle is decisive for Mayakovsky's poetry. The overwhelming majority of Russian writers, while depicting life, also sought to influence it. The author of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” called for the unity of the Russian princes, Pushkin sang and brought freedom closer, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky sought to revive spiritual Christian values. Mayakovsky saw his main task as bringing the future closer with the help of his poems. To directly interfere with life in order to change it for the better is the task of art, according to Mayakovsky. Therefore, when a country is at war, the poet is a soldier. He feels no difference between himself and the Red Army soldier, no difference between his pen and bayonet. When a country builds, the poet is the builder. He does not hesitate to be a “sewage man and water carrier.” He mines radium and builds cities. These three principles finally shaped Mayakovsky’s poetic system. He sought to conduct a conversation with people not so much through a book, but directly through live communication. Therefore, his verse is primarily an oratorical verse, oriented towards speaking in front of large masses of people. This is, as a rule, non-classical verse. Mayakovsky wrote a lot in accented (tonic) verse. The line is divided not into feet, but into rhythmic and semantic parts. Each beat is highlighted intonationally and logically. Of particular importance is the pause separating the beats from each other. At first, this emphasis on writing was indicated by writing “in a column.” Often one verse was divided into two or three, sometimes four lines, written one above the other. If the poems were long, then sometimes it was difficult to notice the rhymes, as in the poem “Listen!” (1914), in which it is not easy to recognize the traditional cross quatrains with the rhymes necessary - were - pearl - dust, late - hand - star - flour, externally - yes - necessary - star. In 1923, Mayakovsky switched to a assembled “ladder”, which highlighted accentual beats and at the same time emphasized the unity of the verse. The “ladder” finally took shape while working on the lyrical poem “About This”. This arrangement of accent beats provided new possibilities for rhyming. Mayakovsky rhymes not only the ends of lines, but also the middles, middles and ends, etc. Mayakovsky's rhyme is often imprecise, but rich: several sounds coincide in it. Sometimes one long word rhymes with several short ones.
The declamatory principle of accented verse extends to other verse forms. Thus, a significant part of “Letter to Comrade Kostrov...” (1928) is written in multi-foot trochee, but also broken up by a “ladder” and intonationally not different, but, on the contrary, organically combined with the accented beats. “An extraordinary adventure that happened with Vladimir Mayakovsky in the summer at the dacha” (1920) is written in a combination of iambic 4- and 3-foot, broken by a “column”, and two verses among the iambics are trochaic: “slowly and surely”, “there are two of us, comrade!” ”
In general, Mayakovsky’s poetic system was innovative and had a huge influence on all poetry of the 20th century.
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF ANALYSIS OF POETIC TEXT. Since the subject and method of depiction in lyric poetry is fundamentally different from the subject and method of depiction in drama, it is impossible to analyze lyric poetry in the same way as epic and drama. There are generally accepted techniques and rules for analyzing a poem. The stereotypical algorithm is something like this: date, history of creation, theme, genre, language features (epithets, metaphors, comparisons, etc.). However, the use of a template often does not produce results if the writer is unable to convey the meaning of the experience underlying the poem. But the experience is often complicated and modified many times within the framework of one work. Experience is always built through comparison or opposition of some phenomena, facts, ideas, states (love and hate, life and death, real and desired). The result of this is the state of anxiety, pity, hope, sadness, optimism, confidence, strength that is transmitted to the reader.
In Mayakovsky's lyrics it is necessary to highlight and comprehend the key words. They will contain a hidden or obvious antithesis or a hidden or obvious analogy. This is clearly seen in the example of the poem “Listen!” The main, initial phrase that defines the state lyrical hero, of course, is the question: “If the stars light up, does that mean someone needs it?” Why did this question suddenly arise in the poet’s soul? The answer to it is hidden in the antithesis that the poet gives in the fifth line (third verse). To ordinary people don’t give a damn about all lofty matters, including the stars; stars, according to Mayakovsky, are just spit for most people (that’s the key word). However, there is someone who, against all odds, calls the star a pearl (the second keyword of the antithesis). This someone is not like the others. He understands what light means to people. And he is the mediator between God and Humanity. This is revealed in subsequent lines when this someone asks God to light the stars, and then asks some person: “...now... are you not afraid?” This is the meaning and significance of starlight. Light drives away the fear that takes hold of people on a dark, gloomy, hopeless night. This poem ends with the statement again that in this world there are still those who strive to bring the light of the stars to humanity. The ending returns the reader to the beginning, but on a new level: the answer to the question has already been given.
This is how, with the help of understanding the key words, the “nerve endings” of the entire work, you can approach its idea and theme.
The poem “Listen!” is certainly an example philosophical lyrics. It reveals questions about the meaning of life and the purpose of creativity. And although this poem was written in early period literary activity poet, in 1914, Mayakovsky carried the desire to bring light to people throughout his life.
Changes in experiences and situations are clearly reflected in the composition of the poem. Any changes in time, space, the introduction of new characters, a new antithesis can serve as the basis for highlighting parts of the composition. In this case, the composition is three-part, circular, since it opens and ends with the same question.
In addition to key words and features of the composition, when analyzing a poem, it is necessary to determine the personality qualities and state of the lyrical hero (not to be confused with the image of the author!), although in Mayakovsky’s work it can be difficult to distinguish between the subject of experience in any poem and the author’s personality. In this case we can say that main feature the lyrical hero - humanism, the desire to help people, internal anxiety for them with external, apparent calm. As for the language of the poem, it is very simple and at the same time sublime, except for the word spitting, which reflects the state not of the lyrical hero, but of the people around him. The poem is written as a direct appeal, a direct message to people. Highlighting keywords, among other things, greatly helps solve the citation problem. It is far from necessary to memorize entire stanzas or the location of accent beats in the “ladder”. Quoting keywords may be sufficient.
In connection with the problem of citation, another question arises: is it necessary to observe the author's punctuation marks? It would not be a mistake if the writer, not remembering the author’s punctuation, places the signs in accordance with the rules of the modern Russian language.
There is another very important question, arising in connection with essays on lyrics: which poems must be analyzed in order to reveal the topic? The answer is clear: it is imperative to analyze those poems that are related to the topic and included in the program. Extra-curricular poems can be included in the analysis at will.
MAIN THEMES OF POETRY. Along with the theme of revolution, the theme of the purpose of poetry in Mayakovsky is presented in almost all program works. Poetry and life are one and the same for him. Mayakovsky does not accept the pre-revolutionary attitude towards art as a way of entertaining the well-fed and rich. His assessment is similar to those expressed by Lermontov and Nekrasov, but he expresses it in his own way: “How dare you call yourself a poet and, little gray one, tweet like a quail! Today we need to cut the world into the skull with brass knuckles” (“Cloud in Pants”). His poet prophesies (“...the sixteenth year is coming in the crown of thorns of revolutions”), returns to the people of the streets the right and opportunity to speak in literature that was taken from them, rebels against God, proclaims faith in Man (“We - each one - hold in our five worlds drive belts!”) and calls on people to fight against the unjust world order, since “nothing can be forgiven”: “You walkers, take your hands out of your trousers - take a stone, a knife or a bomb, and if someone has no hands, come and fight forehead!” The poet, according to Mayakovsky, must give everything to people: “I will take out your soul, trample it so that it’s big!” - and I will give the bloody one as a banner.” This is a sacrifice in the name of a new life. This is the meaning and purpose of his poetry (“..I tell you: the smallest speck of living dust is more valuable than everything that I will do and have done!”). Only the ability to give all of yourself to people allows you to challenge the universe: “Hey, you! Sky! Hats off! I'm coming!
The poet's task is to bring light to all humanity. The light of the stars (as in the poem “Listen!”) and the light of the Sun. “An Extraordinary Adventure...” is constructed precisely as a description of the poet’s meeting and conversation with the Sun, but even using a fantastic technique, Mayakovsky constructs the poem as if what is written there is a real fact. Constant work on the topic of the day, fulfilling social orders is a very difficult matter. Heat, scorching heat and hard work - this is the initial state, followed by an explosion: the poet challenges the Sun, and the Sun comes to him, but it looks condescendingly on insolence, and then a heart-to-heart conversation ensues. It’s hard for a poet to write posters for GROWTH all the time, and it’s hard for the Sun to bring light to people. And here the main thing is revealed: poetry and the sun are similar in that both resist darkness. As soon as the sun goes below the horizon, poetry shines. This work is not easy, but people cannot live without light. Therefore, according to V. Mayakovsky, it doesn’t matter whether you feel good or bad, whether you are cheerful and fresh or tired - you have taken on this burden, and you must bear it. Hence the uncompromising poetic slogan that ends the poem.
Another meeting forms the basis of “Conversation with the Financial Inspector about Poetry” (1926). This meeting is very real. A financial inspector came to the poet to collect his taxes. The poet perceives it as unfair that taxes are taken from him in the same way as from “those who have warehouses and land.” He believes that poetry is the same work as the work of a worker. Poetry is both “a journey into the unknown” and “radium mining”, hard and dangerous work. “The poet’s rhyme is / and a caress, and a slogan, and a bayonet, and a whip.” The poet is both “the people’s leader” and “the people’s servant.” He completely gives himself to people - soul, strength, nerves. “The most terrible of depreciations is taking place - / depreciation of the heart and soul.” But there is not enough time for what I would like to write a poem about. Burning his strength and nerves, the poet approaches death, and with his poems he gives immortality to everyone around him, including the financial inspector. And the poet is full of resentment towards bureaucrats and clerks, who believe that “the only thing to do is / is to use other people’s words,” and challenges them - he offers to write some kind of poem themselves.
Mayakovsky sums up his work in the introduction to the poem “At the top of my voice.” The poet needs a direct conversation with his descendant readers. He wants to explain to the people of the future, including us, why he wrote exactly this way - ugly, unaesthetic, harsh, why so many of his poems are devoted to the topic of the day. Was it in vain that so much effort was devoted to small things? Was it necessary to step “on the throat of our own song”? Wouldn't it be easier to write beautiful lyrics? These are painful questions for the poet. But his answer to them is clear. He wrote about it because it happened, he wrote so because the people of his time said so, and he wrote in order to rid the world of its vices and ulcers and to bring closer the future, “communist far away,” in which he deeply believed. The poet feels like he is fighting for the happiness of people, for the revolution, and this feeling is embodied in an extended metaphor. Mayakovsky imagines himself as a commander receiving a parade of troops. The troops are his whole poetry. “The poems stand leaden-heavy, / ready for both death and immortal glory.” The poet does not know whether his poems will be alive in the future, whether they will be read, or whether they will be perceived only as a fact of history, reflecting the realities of a long-gone era. But he knows that with his poems he is bringing this very future closer, fighting rudeness, rudeness, hooliganism, disease, and the enemies of the new society. He gives all his poems “down to the very last leaf” to the new world. He renounces fame, the “multiple bronze” and “marble slime”, renounces material assets. Here, not only the similarity, but also the difference in views on posthumous glory between Pushkin and Mayakovsky is clearly visible: the latter is ready to consider not even artistic creativity, and “socialism built in battles” is the society of healthy, strong, beautiful people in which he believed. For Mayakovsky, poetry is “life-building.” And if a new life is built, it means that everything was not written in vain, it means that the poet will outlive himself and overcome death, if not in glory, then in a new one, have a wonderful life. For this purpose, he, who had a global sense of his own “I,” is ready to dissolve even himself in the process of creating life, if only this dream becomes a reality.
The feeling of love is perceived and reflected by the poet differently from the way it was perceived and reflected in the classical tradition of the 19th century. Even in the poem “Cloud in Pants,” Mayakovsky depicts the feeling of love with the help of an expanded metaphor - a giant fire: “Mom! Your son is beautifully sick! Mother! His heart is on fire.” But the poet’s feelings turn out to be of no use to anyone, his beloved marries someone else: “So, again, I will take a dark and dejected heart, drenched in tears, and carry it like a dog that carries a paw that has been run over by a train into a kennel.” The poet perceives the breakup with his beloved not as a personal defeat, but as a result of the disfiguring influence of society on human relationships: women prefer to sell themselves to the rich. This is yet another confirmation that society needs to change.
After the revolution, at a time when polemics were unfolding: can and should a modern writer turn to intimate experiences, to the theme of love? Mayakovsky dedicated the poem “I Love” to her. These are not only deeply personal experiences. This is even further from what ordinary people mean by love. “Ordinary” (“Usually like this” is the title of the first part of the work), the ordinary perception of feeling is contrasted with the perception formed in the soul of the poet. This is the main conflict of the poem, which is lyrical in its genre dominant. Love, given, according to Mayakovsky, to any person from birth, in the hearts of ordinary people “between services, income and other things” “... will bloom, bloom - and shrivel” (cf. Lermontov’s “for a while - not worth labor, but forever it is impossible to love” or Tyutchev’s “we most certainly destroy what is dear to our hearts”). Loss of love is a law of life against which the poet rebels. His feeling is constant and true. How it arose, developed and grew stronger is described in the next four chapters. The poet’s heart, capable of containing the entire universe since childhood, in his youth is tested for strength by imprisonment (“I was taught to love in Butyrki”), the well-fed security of those in power is contrasted with lack of money and loneliness (“I have been accustomed to hating fat people since childhood, always for myself selling lunch"). But, unlike the “fat” ones, the poet cannot trade the feeling of love. His feelings are limitless - “the vastness of love, the vastness of hatred.” Love overwhelms the poet, he is ready to give it to people, but no one needs it - it is too huge. And finally a woman appears, “who saw just a boy” in this strong giant, who “took and simply took away the heart.” This is how the conflict develops in the three subsequent chapters of the poem. The contradiction caused by the unrequited feeling of love reaches its highest tension in the chapter “You,” and here it is resolved: having given his heart to his beloved, the poet is happy. The three final chapters reveal the reason for his happiness. It is not about keeping the treasure of the heart, as bankers keep their capital, but about giving the heart to the one you love. According to Mayakovsky, the ability to give love without wanting anything in return is the secret of its immutability and eternity.
Two poetic messages of Mayakovsky are mainly devoted to the same topic - “Letter to Comrade Kostrov from Paris about the essence of love” and “Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva” (both - 1928). In “Letter to Comrade Kostrov...” the poet rejects the game of love, its external surroundings, marriage, the passion of possession, and the traditional idea of jealousy. He talks about love as a huge feeling that gives strength to live, as driving force of your creativity. This power is love for people, for every person and for all of humanity. It has a universal scale. And all the work on the word is carried out so that it soars like a “golden-born comet” and illuminates human life, destroyed vices with a “tailed shining saber”, could “raise, lead and attract.” This is a feeling that no one and nothing can cope with.
“Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva” is in many ways similar in content to the previous message. Mayakovsky still does not accept passion, jealousy (“the feeling of the offspring of the nobility”), for him the bonds of marriage still do not matter. However, the emphasis in the depiction of the experience is placed on something else - on the fact that the revolutionary confrontation and civil war left their mark on everything, even on the relationship between a man and a woman. In this case, they became an insurmountable barrier between Yakovleva, an emigrant who suffered a lot during the war, and the poet. “I’m not myself, but I’m jealous for Soviet Russia" In his opinion, what happened to the nobility, although terrible, was natural: “...we are not to blame - hundreds of millions felt bad.” Now, 8 years after the end of the war, he calls on her to return, he tells her about his love. And even the fact that she can refuse does not discourage the poet. The ending of the poem (“I’ll still take you someday - alone or together with Paris”) testifies to Mayakovsky’s confidence both that his love will find a response in the heart of a woman, and that the ideas of the revolution will take possession of France.
At the same time, Mayakovsky's faith in the ultimate triumph of new relationships between people was subjected to serious tests. He clearly understood that the main thing is not only to change society, it is necessary to change people. He was one of the first to see the two most dangerous enemies of the future - philistinism and bureaucracy - and gave such a systematic criticism of the vices inherited by the new world from the old, which at that time even opponents of the Soviet regime did not always dare to give. The root of philistinism is well-fed stupidity, limitation to everyday boundaries, and insensitivity to the pain of others. This is what the poem says: Good attitude to horses” (1918). Even onomatopoeia, which conveys the sound of hooves on the pavement, carries meaning in Mayakovsky. "Mushroom. Rob. Coffin. Rough” - as if hooves are tapping. And before the reader - the realities of that time - robbery, rudeness, death. At the center of the plot and compositional organization of the work is a seemingly insignificant fact: onlookers, “who came to flare Kuznetsky’s pants,” laugh at a fallen horse. They do not feel the pain of a living being. Only the poet feels it. He sees the horse's eyes, sees tears. He understands that all living beings - both people and animals - are links in one chain, that everyone can be hurt and scared (“we are all a little bit of a horse, / each of us is a horse in our own way”). And the horse suddenly rises to his feet, walks and stands in the stall. This small victory of life over death, good over evil, inspires optimism in the poet’s soul: “It was worth living and it was worth working.” This is a conclusion that is unexpected for the reader, but very characteristic of Mayakovsky, giving an idea of the meaning of his life and the purpose of his work.
The poem “On Rubbish,” written at the end of the Civil War (1920-1921), already shows a new official who will very soon become the sovereign master of the country. The heroes who fought for Soviet power are contrasted with the philistines and bureaucrats. The poet is merciless in his assessments and calls the townspeople “rubbish”, “purr”, “scum”. These rude, anti-aesthetic words are the only worthy, according to Mayakovsky, assessment of this phenomenon in Soviet reality, which is new only in form, but in essence is as old as the world.
Who are these people holding responsible economic positions? Maybe these are the heroes who fought in Civil War? No, they sat out somewhere during the revolution, and now they flocked, “hastily changing their feathers, / and settled into all the institutions.” The only thing they care about is their own well-being. The poet objectively reflects the passion of such people for things: a piano, a samovar, “Pacific riding breeches,” a dress with a hammer and sickle. Even the portrait of Marx in a scarlet frame turned out to be one of the symbols of bourgeois life. And here Mayakovsky uses a fantastic technique. Marx in the portrait comes to life and shouts: “Quickly turn the heads of the canaries - / so that communism is not beaten by the canaries!” Of course, this slogan has nothing to do with a call for cruelty. The canary here is a symbol of bourgeois life. Hence, we're talking about about the fight against philistinism.
When a tradesman gets from a warm, cozy room into an office, he only imitates labor activity, creates the appearance of work. The poem “The Sitting Ones” (1922) speaks about this. Officials simply don’t have time to work - they sit. They disperse “some to the heads, some to whom, some to the water, some to the clearing”, some to the meeting “A-be-ve-ge-de-zhe-ze-koma”. And the essence of the meetings is a simple question like buying a bottle of ink. This contradiction deepens and is aggravated by the poet to the limit. He takes the common phrase of clerical officials “there is so much to do, even if you burst” and, with the help of fantastic grotesquery, he realizes this situation (“up to the waist - here, and the rest - there”). Seeing that paperwork ruins any living business, the poet exclaims: “Oh, at least one more meeting / regarding the eradication of all meetings!”
