The Complete Plays of Vladimir Mayakovsky

by Vladimir Mayakovsky, Guy Daniels (Translator)

Rarely have the innate qualities of a man's temperament and the times in which he lived meshed so well as in the life of Vladimir Mayakovsky. In 1912, he collaborated with the artist Burlyuk on the poem, "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste," that was to become the manifesto of the young Futurist movement in Russia - a movement Trotsky was later to characterize as "the presentment in art of the impending blast that was to discharge the social electricity accumulated in the air of the old pre-revolutionary society." By the time the Revolution came, Mayakovsky was already a mature poet. Many artists and writers sensed the inevitable approach of the Revolution, but no one was closer to it in spirit, no one welcomed it with more jubilant impatience, no one believed in it more dynamically than Mayakovsky. The impact of his vision and impassioned pleas for the protection of the revolutionary ideals was enormous. More than twenty-three million copies of his works have been sold in the fifty-one languages of the U.S.S.R. Today Mayakovsky is regarded throughout Russia as the most significant poet and playwright of the Revolution. The four plays in this volume - all in new and definitive translations - are prime materials for the understanding of Russia, its culture and its people.

274 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 1971

About the author

Vladimir Mayakovsky (Владимир Владимирович Маяковский) 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 — Mayakovsky, his mother, and his two sisters — 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 (Гилея), 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 (Пощёчина общественному вкусу) contained Mayakovsky's first published poems: Night (Ночь) and Morning (Утро). 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 — both graphic and text — satirical Agitprop posters. In 1919, he published his first collection of poems Collected Works 1909-1919 (Все сочиненное Владимиром Маяковским). 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 (Мое открытие Америки, 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 (Клоп, 1929) and The Bathhouse (Баня, 1930), which deal with the Soviet philistinism and bureaucracy, illustrate this development.

On the evening of April 14, 1930, Mayakovsky shot himself.

Reviews

[Sinan Öner]

Soviet Russian Poet, Painter, Playwright, Bolshevik Politician, Journalist Vladimir Mayakovsky's "The Complete Plays of Vladimir Mayakovsky" is the very useful source for the reading pre-Soviet, Soviet playwriting. Vladimir Mayakovsky was one of the best leaders of his generation, not only in poetry, but also in playwriting - it is possible to see that in his plays. Vladimir Mayakovsky worked with the Great Russian Theatre Director, Writer Konstantin Stanislavski in Moscow Art Theatre, Vladimir Mayakovsky intended to write plays with the new methodological principles, the new playwriting aesthetics. Vladimir Mayakovsky was playing on the stages not only writing, he was reading his poetical works in the saloons, meetings, in the different cities of Russia. Vladimir Mayakovsky's "The Complete Plays of Vladimir Mayakovsky" must be read by the students of playwriting who want to produce the new theatre works in the world.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vladimir Mayakovsky – *** This short play is the most interesting, yet most baffling, work in this set. Mayakovsky creates evocative lines:

- Bridges wringing their iron hands
- Because the nooses of noon were too tight
- Dark caverns of eyes

And some quite memorable lines:

All you people here
are mere
bells in the duncecap of God. (p. 26)

If you have loved as I have loved
You would murder love. (p. 29)

What this all means, I don’t know.

The Bedbug – ** This is also a strange play. It’s about a dystopian future, but it takes a long time to get there. And as a 21st century American I can’t get my head around Prysipkin. Is he a hero or a fool? He isn’t really developed enough for me to make much of him.


Overall, I think this is a very good translation by Guy Daniels. The rhymes are handled deftly in the English. Many – if not most – translators warp the language with too many and too forced rhymes.

[Mary Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting work, and I can see how he influenced a number of other playwrights. But a lot of this stuff feels overwritten. Would love to see analysis of how this work shaped Soviet culture and society.