Vladimir Mayakovsky
Jack Mathis
(The Editors, 2017)
Biography
Vladimir Mayakovsky was born to Russian Parents in 1893 at Bagdadi in Georgia. He spent his early life in Moscow where he studied art, later to become a professional designer. He was a part of the Bolshevik party as a youth and spent a few months in prison on accusations of writing in a pro-Bolshevik way. After this in his early twenties, he worked with a few others to begin the futurist movement in Russia. During WWI, he published his first books that lent him to be known as one of the most exceptionally gifted young poets of his time. In 1917, he wrote propaganda posters for the Bolshevist party but also began to write new poetry that made him famous beyond just the world of the literary circle. He was known as the poet of the revolution. After the war, he became the leader of the Left Front of Art which combined Futurism and the political agenda of Communism. By 1928 in line with Marxism, he began to identify and write along with the proletarian writers. He wrote poems and works throughout this time of political and futurist writing that was personal to himself and was quite lyrical and emotional. On April 14, 1930, he committed suicide and it came as a shock to many. The speculated cause was the divide he felt of his old individualistic works and his new fight for Communism, drastically different styles and mindsets that could cause him much mental turmoil (Mirsky, 1930).
Theatermaker Attributes
From pictures, like above, Mayakovsky was a tall, fair skinned man that had a serious face with dark hair and eyebrows to outline his distinct features (The Editors, 2017). He was respected for his intensity in his work and appearance, suggesting that his demeanor was just that, serious. He was respected for his working capacity and his exceptional genius when it came to the vocal powers to recite his own plays (Mirsky, 1930). It was said his on air readings were so unique because he was gifted not only with the vocal skills, but also with the rhythm of understanding his own poetry. His social and cultural goals were to write to the masses, to “depoetize” poems, because of his discontent with the world he lived in (The Editors, 2017).
His political and social agenda aligned originally with the Bolshevik party, which he was arrested for many times, and stuck with them during the October Revolution (Ollie, 1979). He later then wrote in line with the now Communist party and eventually the proletarian writing of Marxism. His social attributes then aligned with the political ideas of communism and socialism, producing works in promotion of these ideologies. In line with this, his writing that promoted Marxist atheism illustrate his lack of religion and spiritual connection, unlike the orthodox masses of much of Russia (Ollie, 1979). His religious views aligned with his political and social views because the belief in a larger force somewhat contradicted his ideals that there was machine, youth, industry, and violence to praise, not some spiritual being. His psychological state was in question, however, due to the fact that he struggled with the ideas of the communist party of everyone being equal, and the individual nature and beauty of art as your own person. This divide put him in a divisive psychological state.
The Society of the Times
The society that Mayakovsky lived in was one that was divided. There was the current government in power and the opposition of the Bolshevik Party, later to become the Communist Party. This divide finally boiled over into the October Revolution in 1917, where Mayakovsky wrote in favor of the Bolshevik party. The reason for the want for communism was that the current society was highly stratified with the remnants of serfdom causing the masses to be poor and underrepresented, due to a large disparity in wealth (The Editors, 2017). In Russia, the poor lived like the serfs of past and the bourgeoisie ruled over them, even though they did not represent the wants of the masses. This gives rise to the famous ideas of Communism and Marxism, which laid out the idea of the proletariat of the working class. This proletariat was thought to overcome the subjugation and rise up against the “masters” as to make a society where everyone was equal. Once the revolution of 1917 concluded, there was a civil war among the revolutionary parties where finally the Bolsheviks prevailed. They renamed to the Communist Party and now was the ruling power of Russia, creating the USSR. The society of Mayakovsky was riddled with political turmoil and turnover in search of rights for the masses as to correct the wrongs of the current world (Lieven, 2018).
The Theatre of the Times
The theater before Mayakovsky was dominated by Romanticism and Realism, and then during his childhood, Symbolism was the main focus of the arts in Russia until 1910. After Symbolism, Mayakovsky and Khlebnikov took over with their new Futurist writings and his later life was the begin into the shift into modernism (Lieven, 2018). The theater was done mostly for the bourgeoisie during the symbolist era, which reflected the social tensions of the time with the class stratification. However, with the development of the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) in 1898, the arts started to explode and become entertainment for the masses (Lieven, 2018). The MAT was all for the experience of the audience and Mayakovsky followed along with this style.
The people that started to attend the theater was the lower classes, as theater became entertainment for all (Lieven, 2018). Mayakovsky wrote to give the audience an experience that was close to the real experience of the times and therefore connect with these people that were being oppressed (Mirsky, 1930). He was following in the path of fellow Futurist tendencies such as expressing direct confrontation and using technology or multimedia to split focus of the performance. These tendencies do contend with the typical conventions of theater that he followed, where symbolism was was not in your face like this, instead it was grounded in subtle gestures that give off meaning.
His Work
Mayakovsky produced a wide array of works including poems, plays, propaganda, paintings, cartoons, and even films. He was best known however though for his plays, such as The Bath House (1930), produced at the Meyerkhold Theater, and Mystery Bouffe (1919), produced at the Petrograd Musical Drama Theatre , and lyrical poems, such as Left March (1919), produced at the Navy Theater, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1925), which was read numerous times at rallies following the death of Lenin, that were revolutionary for Russian literature and culture (Ollie, 1979). His beginnings, however, were as a teenager where he was jailed multiple times for alleged works supporting the Bolsheviks.
Furthermore, some of his later main works, as well, were meant for propaganda purposes through the Russian Telegraph Agency (ROSTA), contributing to many Soviet newspapers and magazines. This included A Little Piece About Priests (1921), a satire which aligned with the agenda of Marxism and Communism being against orthodoxy (Ollie, 1979). These plays were specifically in support of the new Bolshevik/Communist party and therefore were in the theme of satirizing and degrading people or groups that opposed this new government. His plays were put on and his poems published by the companies and newspapers he worked with, such Lubok Today, Nov (Virginia Land), and New Satyrikon magazine. He later worked with Max Gorky and wrote for his journal, Letopis, and in some of his other magazine and publications (Lieven, 2018). However, his later plays, like The Bedbug (1929), also produced at the Meyerkhold Theater, were met with scorn by the state causing a rift.
Another side of Mayakovsky’s work beyond the politics was charged with love. This side is evident in two of his poems, Lyublyu (1922) and Pro eto (1923), which were dedicated to Lilya Brik, a wife of one his colleagues Osip Maksimovich (The Editors, 2016). He was quite frustrated with love and became at odds with the ROSTA when his play Banya( Also known as The Bath House, 1930) was not a success. These factors all stacked up on him near the time of his suicide.
References
JSTOR
Mirsky, D. (1930). Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-14 April, 1930). The Slavonic and East European Review, 9(25), 220-222. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.dartmouth.idm.oclc.org/stable/4202499
Oille, Jennifer; Vladimir Mayakovsky: Parody and Propaganda. Theater 1 May 1979; 10 (2): 63–67. doi: https://doi-org.dartmouth.idm.oclc.org/10.1215/00440167-10-2-63
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. (2017). (April 24, 2018). Vladimir Mayakovsky. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vladimir-Vladimirovich-Mayakovsky
Lieven, D. Martin, M. (2018). Russia: 20th Century. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrived from https://www.britannica.com/place/Russia/Daily-life-and-social-customs