Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930)

The collection is timed to coincide with 125th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Mayakovsky – one of the greatest poets-pioneers, who in many ways determined the style of the poetry of 20th century. Vladimir Mayakovsky was an outstanding and versatile figure: an artist, a playwright and a director.

Acquaintance and friendship with David Burliuk in his youth led him to the Cubo-Futurism union and marked the beginning of his poetic career. The first published poem by Mayakovsky was included in the futuristic collection “Slap in the Face to the Public Taste” and was characterized by very vivid metaphors, almost tangible images and an original style. This is a distinctive feature of the poet’s oeuvre.

Theories of industrial art, social order, factual literature, which the poet followed later, resulted in the birth of Mayakovsky’s peculiar, innovative style of writing - "ladder" writing. Reason for line breaks - a more precise shaping of the verse rhythm. The line is printed with breaks to indicate into which units it is necessary to divide while reading. The intonation of the verse is produced by typographical means.

The collection features digital copies of the poet’s first editions: the tragedy “Vladimir Mayakovsky” (1913), which came out in 1914, the first edition of the play “The Mystery-Bouffe”, written to mark the anniversary of the October Revolution, the poet’s collection of works – “All Writings of Vladimir Mayakovsky. 1909-1919”. The collection contains poet’s satirical works, in particular, an example of social advertising – the pamphlet "No more hooch!", "Mayakovsky mocks: the first book of satire", as well as a magazine edition of the faerie comedy "The Bedbug". Agitation and satirical posters ("ROSTA posters"), the result of cooperation between the poet and artist Mayakovsky and the Russian Telegraph Agency (1919-1921), are represented in the collection by a digital copy of the 1932 edition.

A total of 39 items make up the collection.

The collection is based on the documents, books and visual materials from the holdings of the Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University Fundamental Library, the Russian Institute of Art History, the Children's Postcard Museum, the Ural Federal University Regional Research Library and other sources.