Mayakovsky, Vladimir

Mayakovsky, Vladimir (Vladimirovich)

(born July 19, 1893, Bagdadi, Georgia, Russian Empire—died April 14, 1930, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.) Russian poet. Repeatedly jailed for subversive activity, he began writing poetry during solitary confinement in 1909. On his release he became the spokesman for Futurism in Russia, and his poetry became conspicuously self-assertive and defiant. He was the leading poet of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the early Soviet period, producing declamatory works saturated with politics and aimed at mass audiences, including “Ode to Revolution” (1918) and “Left March” (1919) and the drama Mystery Bouffe (performed 1921). Disappointed in love, increasingly alienated from Soviet reality, and denied a visa to travel abroad, he committed suicide at age 36.