Mayakovsky's Biography

Born: 19 July (7 July Old Style) 1893

Died: 14 April 1930

Mayakovsky was born in Bagdadi, Kutais region, Georgia. His father, Vladimir Konstantinovich, who was of noble ancestry, was a forest ranger. In 1906, Vladimir Konstantinovich died of blood poisoning, leaving the family with little money. Mayakovsky’s mother, Aleksandra Alekseevna, moved the family to Moscow. When Mayakovsky got to Moscow, he entered into politics. In 1908, Mayakovsky joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic party, and was elected to its Moscow Committee. Mayakovsky was expelled from school on 1 March, 1908 for non-payment of fees. Mayakovsky was arrested several times, with his arrest in the summer of 1909 resulting in his imprisonment for six months.

After this experience, Mayakovsky dropped out of politics, and entered the Moscow Institute for the Study of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. Here he met David Burlyuk, an avant-garde painter who was the organizer of the Futurist movement. Burlyuk became Mayakovsky’s mentor, and Mayakovsky said in his autobiography that Burlyuk was "my real teacher." In 1912, Mayakovsky wrote a poem which he read to Burlyuk. Burlyuk complimented Mayakovsky on the poem, and Mayakovsky claims that from then on he decided to dedicate himself to just poetry.

In December of 1912, Mayakovsky, Burlyuk, Khlebnikov, and Kruchonykh published the Futurist manifesto "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste." In this manifesto, the Futurists attack the art of the past, and suggest that it is time for a new art, one which does not attempt to appeal to the public taste, an art which is revolutionary in form and structure. They demand that the public recognize the rights of poets:
1. the right to enrich the volume of vocabulary available by the invention of new words at will (the Word is innovation);
2. the right to hate pre-existing language;
3. the right to cast off from our proud brows the cheap wreath that you have made for yourselves, a wreath constructed not from laurels but from the bristles of scrubbing-brushes;
4. the right to stand proud on the rock of ‘We’ amidst the ocean of cat-calls and shouts of ‘disgusting!’

Also published in this year by the Futurists was a collection of poetry and prose under the same name. In this collection were Mayakovsky’s first two poems, Night and Morning. To advertise this new movement, Mayakovsky and others engaged in stunts, such as Mayakovsky’s famous yellow blouse and Burlyuk appearing with a tree branch and bird painted on his cheek. These stunts resulted in Mayakovsky and Burlyuk getting expelled from the Institute.

In 1913, Mayakovsky and some of the other Futurists went on a tour of the provinces to further call attention to their new style. Mayakovsky was the star of these shows due to his booming voice and exciting style of reading, as well as due to his ability to debate and engage in witty repartee. This tour had some success in calling attention to Futurism.
Also in 1913, Mayakovsky published his first collection of poetry, entitled I. This contained four lyric poems deboted to aspects of the poets life. He also wrote Vladimir Mayakovsky: A Tragedy, which was staged in 1913 with Mayakovsky starring in the title role. This play presented the poet as a Christ figure who was worshiped for suffering for the city dwellers. The play was generally viewed with derision.

Mayakovsky was at first exempt from the draft for World War I, as he was the only son of a widow. He was eventually drafted, but never really performed any military duty. In 1915, Mayakovsky’s first major long poem, A Cloud in Trousers was published. Mayakovsky also met the love of his life, Lily Brik, Osip Brik’s wife. Apparently Osip did not mind, as he and Mayakovsky became friends and Osip even became Mayakovsky’s publisher.

Mayakovsky dedicated The Backbone Flute to Lily in 1916. His two other most important poems of the pre-revolutionary period were War and the World and Man. Man, which is regarded as the high point of his pre-revolutionary poetry, is set first in the present on earth, then in heaven, and finally back on earth but in the future, where the greedy philistine still controls the planet.

When the October Revolution took place, Mayakovsky helped the new government by producing many slogans, posters, and placards, using again his painting skills which he had until then abandoned. For the first aniversary of the Revolution, Mayakovsky’s play, Mystery Bouffe, was produced by director Vsevolod Meyerhold. Mayakovsky next wrote a scenario for and starred in Not for Money Born, an adaptation of Jack London’s novel Martin Eden. This and Mayakovsky’s second film Fettered by Film were successes with the Soviet public. In all, Mayakovsky wrote thirteen scenarios for film, most of which were never produced. Only bits and pieces of those films which were produced have survived to this day.

In 1919, Mayakovsky wrote 150,000,000, telling of the battle between the 150 million Soviet workers and the forces of capitalism, symbolized by such persons as Wilson, Lincoln, Edison, and Whitman. This was Mayakovsky’s first attempt at a major poem for the revolution, but it pleased neither the artistic community, especially Pasternak, nor the political reader. Lenin called the poem ‘‘stupid, monstrously stupid, and pretentious.’’
In 1923, Mayakovsky formed Left Front of the Art (LEF), a magazine designed to find Communist paths for all types of art, free left art from individualistic tendencies and developing its Communist aspects, and to attempt to forward newer forms of art at the expense of older and outdated forms. From LEF came the idea of ‘the social command,’ a command based on the needs of whatever audience was present at the time of the formation of the art. Only seven issues were published by the time LEF folded in 1925. Mayakovsky tried to revive LEF as New LEF in 1927, but this folded only a year later. New LEF emphasized even more that art was socially useful and could be learned.

In 1928, Mayakovsky wrote The Bedbug, another play, which was actually a reworking of a screenplay which had been earlier rejected by the film studio Sovkino. Mayakovsky also travelled around the Soviet Union visiting construction sites and new factories to excite the workers about the luxuries which the newly begun Five Year Plan was sure to bring about.

In 1929, Mayakovsky tried to organize Revolutionary Front (REF), designed to be a workshop to go along with RAPP, but it didn’t get off the ground. In 1930, Mayakovsky joined RAPP, despite the fact that nearly all of his previous organizations had been in direct competition with RAPP. Mayakovsky’s final produced play, The Bathhouse, failed miserably. There was no laughter or applause through two acts at the opening in Leningrad. It did slightly better when it opened in Moscow, but the general public reaction was overwhelmingly negative.

Mayakovsky’s final exhibition opened with his reading of At the Top of My Voice, his final poem which was a way of summing up his career. On 14 April, 1930, Mayakovsky shot and killed himself in his Moscow apartment.