Vladimir Majakovskij (1893–1930)

Eighty years later, it is astonishing and terrifying how much of what he saw still holds. If it's somewhat disconcerting (but interesting) to meet this poetic genius in the guise of a Communist haranguer, the three poems at the end alone are already worth the price of this beguiling, electric, neon-highlighted, righteous-minded, at times screamingly funny travelogue.

Mayakovsky has many of the elements that I find interesting in a writer: anguished as a man, challenging and controversial as a poet, and having lived in an era of turmoil. His short career spanned the Russian revolution, of which he was a staunch supporter, before he committed suicide at the age of 37.

Like Whitman, Mayakovsky wrote grandiosely, magnifying himself, e.g. “I am everywhere there is pain”, and comes across as messianic at times. As Whitman felt a connection to the common show more man and to the American ideal, Mayakovsky champions the proletarian and the Bolshevik revolution. Both men also challenged existing poetical forms and developed new ones.

Unfortunately for Mayakovsky, he was adored neither by the working man, who found his “futurism” odd and his braggadocio rude, nor Soviet leaders, at least until after his death. However, when Stalin decreed “Mayakovsky was and remains the best and most talented poet of our Soviet epoch. Indifference to his memory and his works is a crime“, public places were named after him (including one of the most beautiful subway stations in the world in Moscow), and schoolchildren were forced to memorize some of his more nationalistic poems, also earning a degree of hatred for him in the future. When perestroika arrived, he was quickly denounced.

And there are certainly things to dislike. In the aftermath of the revolution, Mayakovsky’s poetry often reads like propaganda; though that itself is of interest to me, it’s unfortunate he ended up on the wrong side of history. Worse yet, in promoting the future, he felt a need to tear down all aspects of the past, including other artists, and his scorn and derision extended to those around him. It seems fitting to me that Whitman died content in old age, revered by Americans, while the tortured Mayakovsky committed suicide after arguing with a lover.

However, with all that said, Mayakovsky held my interest. He was a revolutionary from an early age, and got sent to prison at the age of 14 for seditious activities. He was in unhappy love affairs, most notably with Lily Brik, a married woman, who returned his love briefly but then retreated, reducing Mayakovsky to a ‘family friend’, a relationship reminiscent of Turgenv and the Viardots that similarly raised eyebrows. He was a so-called ‘Futurist’ who sought to advance the world in all ways. He was truly idealistic, and in a naïve way, imagining a time when life would be much easier because of technology (his long poem The Flying Proletarian reminds one of the cartoon The Jetsons), and because wealth would be shared, the communist dream. While he glorified Russia and the Revolution, he traveled to America and was impressed with the technological achievements he found there, and he had fantastical and creative visions in his works, of riding comets, walking skyscrapers, and talking violins among other things.

Lastly, this edition is very well put together, both in the selection of material and in the 52 pages of very helpful notes on the poems and their references in the back. McGavran does an excellent job of helping the English reader understand portions of Mayakovsky’s inventive word play which are impossible to translate, including at times the original Russian to show unique rhyming patterns, palindromic soundplay, his inclusion of challenging proper names and English words and then finding rhymes in Russian, and in one case a staccato pattern that emphasized agitation and a martial drumbeat.

My favorites:
Lilichka! In Place of a Letter (1916)
The Brooklyn Bridge (1925)
The Cloud in Pants (1914-15)
The Backbone Flute (1915)
I Love (1922)

As for quotes, just this excerpt from The Backbone Flute, on love:
“you and I will be all
that remains,
and I
will chase you from city to city.

You’ll be given away in marriage across the sea,
trying to hide in night’s burrow –
I’ll kiss into you through the London fog
with the fiery lips of streetlamps.

In the heat of the desert you’ll stretch out your caravans,
with lions standing guard –
beneath you
under the windblown sand,
I’ll place my burning Sahara cheek.

You’ll deposit a smile in your lips
as you watch –
the toreador is so handsome!
And suddenly I’ll
fling my jealousy into the stands
through the dying eye of the bull.

If you should point your absentminded steps to a bridge
and think
how nice it would be to jump down –
It is I,
the Seine poured out underneath,
who will call to you,
baring my rotten teeth.

If, with another, you light up with horse-hoof fire
the Strelka or the Sokolniki,
then I, clambering way up above,
patient and naked, will torment you with moonlight.

I’m strong,
and soon they’ll need me –
they’ll command:
kill yourself in the war!
My last word will be
your name,
clotted on my shrapnel-shredded lips.

Will they give me a crown?
Or send me to Saint Helena?
I who have saddled the cloudbanks of life’s storm
am an equal candidate
for tsar of the universe
and
the shackles.

If it’s determined that I should be tsar,
then your dear little face
on the sunny gold of my coins
I’ll order my people
to stamp!
But if I wind up
where the world fades into tundra,
where the river trades with the north wind,
then I’ll scratch the name Lily onto my chains
and kiss them blind in the dark of my prison camp.” show less

L’edizione di questo libro l’ho trovata stupenda, a cominciare dalla copertina, dal formato delle pagine, dei caratteri e delle immagini. Il fuoco rivoluzionario di Majakovskij traspare chiaro e si avverte in maniera forte in ogni poesia, e talvolta esso diventa un tutt’uno con l’amore. E’ stato davvero interessante leggere le parole di uomo che ha dedicato la sua vita ad una causa, e il suo spirito rivoluzionario nei confronti di schemi già stabiliti è qualcosa da cui si può show more prendere esempio, anche in un contesto diverso e più ampio rispetto al pensiero comunista, non fosse altro per l’intensità con cui ha vissuto la sua vita e le sue convinzioni. show less

This delightful little book of three children's poems as collaborations with illustrators is a perfectly preserved snapshot of art & culture in early Soviet Russia. The poets' voices are as distinct and wonderful as the illustrators' inventions with which they are paired. Ostashevsky's translation is not to be discounted, as each poem reads aloud with liveliness and preserves the unique characteristics of the poet's style. This is a treasure to share with my children and NYRB has done an show more exemplary job in preserving this gorgeous slice of history. show less