Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (1893-1930), Russian poet and propagandist. His early political activity during the tsarist period led to his imprisonment; he then began writing poetry. Mayakovsky became a leading spokesperson for the Russian Revolution. He employed techniques geared to mass appeal, including the use of vernacular, even vulgar, language and new poetic forms. Poems such as “Oda revolutsi” (Ode to Revolution, 1918) were as popular as his passionate and lyrical love poems, such as “Lyublyu” (I Love, 1922). During the 1920s Mayakovsky provided propaganda for the Soviet government in a variety of forms such as poems, posters, plays, screenplays, and satiric travel sketches. In his play The Bedbug (1929; trans. 1960), he satirized the philistinism of the times. Disappointed in love and disillusioned with life in the Soviet Union, Mayakovsky took his own life in 1930.