Vladimir Mayakovsky (袙谢邪写懈屑懈褉 袙谢邪写懈屑懈褉芯胁懈褔 袦邪褟泻芯胁褋泻懈泄) was born the last of three children in Baghdati, Russian Empire (now in Georgia) where his father worked as a forest ranger. His father was of Ukrainian Cossack descent and his mother was of Ukrainian descent. Although Mayakovsky spoke Georgian at school and with friends, his family spoke primarily Russian at home. At the age of 14 Mayakovsky took part in socialist demonstrations at the town of Kutaisi, where he attended the local grammar school. After the sudden and premature death of his father in 1906, the family 鈥� Mayakovsky, his mother, and his two sisters 鈥� moved to Moscow, where he attended School No. 5.
In Moscow, Mayakovsky developed a passion for Marxist literature and took part in numerous activities of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party; he was to later become an RSDLP (Bolshevik) member. In 1908, he was dismissed from the grammar school because his mother was no longer able to afford the tuition fees.
Around this time, Mayakovsky was imprisoned on three occasions for subversive political activities but, being underage, he avoided transportation. During a period of solitary confinement in Butyrka prison in 1909, he began to write poetry, but his poems were confiscated. On his release from prison, he continued working within the socialist movement, and in 1911 he joined the Moscow Art School where he became acquainted with members of the Russian Futurist movement. He became a leading spokesman for the group Gileas (袚懈谢械褟), and a close friend of David Burlyuk, whom he saw as his mentor.
The 1912 Futurist publication A Slap in the Face of Public Taste (袩芯褖褢褔懈薪邪 芯斜褖械褋褌胁械薪薪芯屑褍 胁泻褍褋褍) contained Mayakovsky's first published poems: Night (袧芯褔褜) and Morning (校褌褉芯). Because of their political activities, Burlyuk and Mayakovsky were expelled from the Moscow Art School in 1914. His work continued in the Futurist vein until 1914. His artistic development then shifted increasingly in the direction of narrative and it was this work, published during the period immediately preceding the Russian Revolution, which was to establish his reputation as a poet in Russia and abroad.
Mayakovsky was rejected as a volunteer at the beginning of WWI, and during 1915-1917 worked at the Petrograd Military Automobile School as a draftsman. At the onset of the Russian Revolution, Mayakovsky was in Smolny, Petrograd. There he witnessed the October Revolution.
After moving back to Moscow, Mayakovsky worked for the Russian State Telegraph Agency (ROSTA) creating 鈥� both graphic and text 鈥� satirical Agitprop posters. In 1919, he published his first collection of poems Collected Works 1909-1919 (袙褋械 褋芯褔懈薪械薪薪芯械 袙谢邪写懈屑懈褉芯屑 袦邪褟泻芯胁褋泻懈屑). In the cultural climate of the early Soviet Union, his popularity grew rapidly. As one of the few Soviet writers who were allowed to travel freely, his voyages to Latvia, Britain, Germany, the United States, Mexico and Cuba influenced works like My Discovery of America (袦芯械 芯褌泻褉褘褌懈械 袗屑械褉懈泻懈, 1925). He also travelled extensively throughout the Soviet Union.
The relevance of Mayakovsky's influence cannot be limited to Soviet poetry. While for years he was considered the Soviet poet par excellence, he also changed the perceptions of poetry in wider 20th century culture. His political activism as a propagandistic agitator was rarely understood and often looked upon unfavourably by contemporaries, even close friends like Boris Pasternak. Near the end of the 1920s, Mayakovsky became increasingly disillusioned with the course the Soviet Union was taking under Joseph Stalin: his satirical plays The Bedbug (袣谢芯锌, 1929) and The Bathhouse (袘邪薪褟, 1930), which deal with the Soviet philistinism and bureaucracy, illustrate this development.
On the evening of April 14, 1930, Mayakovsky shot himself.
And I feel "I" is too small for me Some other body is bursting out
I am wherever there is pain, I nail myself to every tear
Maria! I'm scared I'll forget your name like a poet's scared he'll forget a word born at night in pain, equal to god
I have read Vladimir Mayakovsky back when I was 16 and I recall disliking his poems. I was young and naive.
A cloud in trousers is a long poem which includes themes like revolution, religion, love.. I honestly have no idea what am I supposed to write. I am speechless and this doesn't happen often. Mayakovsky grabbed me by the neck and shook the hell out of me. Read it and you'll understand what I mean. Words to describe this poem are useless.
Penned in 1914 and unveiled to the world in 1915, Mayakovsky's avant-garde poem is a fervent and tempestuous odyssey through the realms of unrequited love, revolution, and the repudiation of conventional mores. This work was born from the poet's ardent, yet unreciprocated, passion for Maria Denisova, whom he encountered during a Futurist tour. The poem is meticulously structured into four segments, each delineating a distinct facet of the poet's emotional and ideological voyage.
In the inaugural segment, Mayakovsky addresses his beloved with impassioned declarations of love, interwoven with his scorn for societal norms and conventions. His diction is raw and visceral, mirroring the fervor of his emotions and his revolutionary zeal. He poignantly declares, "If you like, I'll be extraordinary gentle, not a man but - a cloud in trousers." The second segment transitions to a broader critique of art and its societal role, wherein Mayakovsky decries the superficiality and hypocrisy he discerns within the artistic milieu. His employment of irregular lines and unexpected rhymes epitomizes the Futurist movement's departure from traditional poetic forms - "Art must not be concentrated in dead shrines called museums. It must be spread everywhere 鈥� on the streets, in the trams, factories, workshops, and in the workers' homes."
The third and fourth segments explore themes of political and religious upheaval. Mayakovsky's protagonist, a self-proclaimed new apostle, confronts the extant political regime and religious orthodoxy, advocating for a new order founded on personal and collective revolution - "But I, from poetry's skies, plunge into communism, because without it I feel no love." The poem's denouement is both a personal lament and a clarion call to action, encapsulating Mayakovsky's vision of a world metamorphosed by love and defiance. He concludes with the evocative image, "On the pavement of my trampled soul the steps of madmen weave the prints of rude crude words."
The poem's influence extended beyond Russian borders, with a notable Hebrew translation by Avraham Shlonsky in 1929. Mayakovsky actually mentions the Zionist poet Bialik in one of the lines as a model of literary genius envying his revolutionary influence upon the movement to return the indigenous Jews to their colonized homeland. Shlonsky's translation preserved the poem's fervent spirit and revolutionary zeal, introducing Mayakovsky's avant-garde vision to a new audience and enriching the Hebrew literary canon. This version 注谞谉 讘诪讻谞住讬讬诐 is the one I've read and it is incredible. It also includes notes and an introduction that help immensely in understanding this remarkable work, in addition to the virtousity of the Hebrew by the amazing poet Shlonsky. Sadly, there is no entry for this edition on GR.
L盲st under pendling f枚r jag vet inte vilken g氓ng i ordningen. Ibland 盲r det enda man 盲r sugen p氓 att l盲sa Ett moln i byxor. Men jag f枚redrar verkligen Aspenstr枚ms 枚vers盲ttning, den 盲r 5/5 (ocks氓 den jag f枚rst l盲ste).
Un libriccino agevole, si legge in un'oretta al massimo, che racchiude l'ardore e la spregiudicatezza di una voce che si rivolge al popolo incitandolo al cambiamento. Un poemetto emblema dello spirito rivoluzionario di Majakovskij e della corrente letteraria futurista.