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ROMAN JAKOBSON
Language in Literature
EDITED BY KRYSTYNA POMORSKA
AND STEPHEN RUDY
THE BELKNAP PRESS OF
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
LONDON, ENGLAND
1987
CHAPTER 16
On a Generation That Squandered.
Its Poets
Killed;-
Little matter
Whether I or he
Killed them.
Majakovskij's poetry-his imagery, his lyrical con1position-I
have written about these things and published some of my remarks.
The idea of writing a monograph has never left me. Majakovskij's po-
etry is qualitatively different from everything in Russian verse before
him, however intent one may be on establishing genetic links. TIllS is
what makes the subject particularly intriguing. The stlucture of ills
poetry is profoundly original and revolutionary. But how it is possible
to write about Majakovskij's poetry now; when the paramount subject
is not the rhythm but the death of the poet, when (if I may resort to
Majakovskij's own poetic phrase) "sudden grief" is not yet ready to
give in to "a dearly realized pain"?
During one of our meetings, Majakovskij, as was his custom, read
me ills latest poen1s. Considering his creative potential I could not help
comparing them with what he nlight have produced. "Very good," I
said, "but not as good as Majakovskij." Yet now the creative powers
are canceled out, the inimitable stanzas can no longer be cOlnpared to
anything else, the words "Majakovskij's last poems" have suddenly
taken on a tragic Ineaning. Sheer grief at ills absence has overshadowed
the absent one. Now it is more painful, but s ~ easier, to write not
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WRITER, BIOGRAPHY, MYTH
bout the one we have lost but rather about our awn loss and' those of
IS who have suffered it.
It is our generation that has suffered dle loss. Roughly, those of us
who are now between thirty and forty-five years old. Those who, al-
ready fully matured, entered into the years ofdle Revolution not as
unnlolded clay but still not hardened, still capable of adapting to ex-
perience and change, still capable of taking a dynamic rather dlan a
static view of our lives.
It has been said more dun once dlat the first poetic love of our
generation was Aleksandr Blok. Velimir Xlebnikov gave us a new epos,
dle first genuinely epic creations after many decades of drought. Even
his briefer verses create the inlpression of epic fragnlents, and Xlebni-
kov easily conlbined thenl into narrative poenls. Xlebnikov is epic in
spite of our antiepic times, and therein lies one of dle reasons he is
somewhat alien to the average reader. Other poets brought his poetry
closer to dle reader; they drew upon Xlebnikov, pouring out his "word
ocean" into nlany lyrical streanl1ets. In contrast to Xlebnikov, Maja-
kovskij embodie'd the lyrical urges of dlis generation. "The broad epic
canvas" is deeply alien to him and unacceptable. Even when he at-
tempts "a bloody Iliad of the Revolution," or "an Odyssey of dle fa-
mine years," what appears is not an epic but a heroic lyric on a gral1.d
scale, ofFered "at dle top of his voice." There was a point when sym-
bolist poetry was in its decline al1.d it was still not clear which of the
two new l1lutually al1.tagonistic trends, Acmeism or Futurism, would
prevail. Xlebnikov alld Majakovskij gave to contenlporary literal)' art
its leitmotif The nallle Gumilev mal,ks a collateral branch of modern
Russiall poetry-its characteristic overtone. For Xlebnikov alld tor
Majakovskij "d1.e honlelalld of creative poetry is the future"; in con-
trast, Esenin is a lyrical glance backward. His verse expresses the wea-
riness of a generation.
Modern Russiall poetry after 1910 is largely defined by these names.
The verse of Aseev and Sel /vinskij is bright indeed, but it is a reflected
light. They do not allnOUl1Ce but reflect the spirit of dle times. Their
Inagnitude is a derivative qUalltity. Pasternak's ~ o o k s alld perhaps
those of Mandel/stam are renlarkable, but theirs is chamber verse:
l
new creation will not be kindled by it.. The heart of a generation can-
not take fire widl such verses because dley do not shatter the bounda-
ries of the present.
G1IDlilev (1886-1921) was shot, after prolonged mental agony and in
274
great pain; Blok (1880- 1921) died, amid cruel privations and under
circUlllstantes of inhuman suffering; Xlebnikov (1885-1922) passed
away; after careful planning Esenin (1895-1925) and Majakovskij (1894-
1930) killed themselves. And so it happened that during the third dec-
ade of this century, those who inspired a generation perished between
the ages of thirty and forty; each of them sharing a sense of doom so
vivid and sustained that it became unbearable.
This is true not only of those who were killed or killed themselves.
Blok and Xlebnikov, when they took to their beds with disease, had
also perished. Zamjatin wrote in his reminiscences: "We are all to
blame for this . . . I remember that I could not stand it and I phoned
Gorkij: Blok is dead. We can't be forgiven for that." Sklovskij wrote in
a tribute to Xlebnikov:
Forgive us for yourself and for others whom we will kill. The state
is not responsible for the destruction ofpeople. When Christ lived
and spoke the state did not understand his Aramaic, and it has
never understood simple human speech. The Roman soldiers who
pierced Chrises hands are no more to blame than the nails. Never-
theless, it is very painful for those whom they crucifY.
2
Blok the poet fell silent and died long before the man, but his younger
contemporaries snatched verses even from death. ("Wherever I die I'll
die singing," wrote Majakovskij.) Xlebnikov knew he was dying. His
body decomposed while he lived. He asked for flowers in his room so .
that the stench would not be noticed, and he kept writing to the end.
A day before his suicide Esenin wrote a masterful poem about his im-
pending death. Majakovskij's farewell letter is full of poetry: we find
the professional writer in every line of that document. He wrote it two
nights before his death and in the interval there were to be conversa-
tions .and conferences about the everyday business of literature; but in
that letter we read: "Please don't gossip. The deceased hated gossip."
We remember that Majakovskij's long-standing demand upon himself
was that the post must "hurry time forward." And here he is, already
looking at his suicide note through the eyes of someone reading it the
day after tomorrow: The letter, with its several literary motifs and with
Majakovskij's own death in it, is so closely interrelated with his poetry
that it can be understood oilly in the context of that poetry.
The poetry of Majakovskij from his first ;erses, in "A Slap in the
Face of Public Taste;' to his last lines is one and indivisible. It repre-
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WRITER, BIOGRAPHY, MYTH
sents the dialectical development of a single theme. It is an extraordi-
narily unified symbolic systeni. A symbol once thrown out only as a
kind of hint will later be developed and presented in a totally new
perspective. He himself underlines these links in his verse by alluding
to earlier works. In the poem "About That" ("Pro ero"), for instance,
he recalls certain lines from the poem "Man" ("Celovek"), written sev-
eral years earlier, and in the latter poen1 he refers to lyrics of an even
earlier period. An image at first offered humorously may later and in a
different context lose its comic effect, or conversely, a motif developed
solemnly may be repeatedin a parodistic vein. Yet this does not mean
that the beliefs of yesterday are necessarily held up to scorn; rather, we
have here two levels, the tragic and the comic, of a single symbolic
system, as in the medieval theater. A single clear purpose directs the
system of symbols. "We shall thunder out a new myth upon the
world."
A mythology of Majakovskij?
His first collection of poems was entitled 1. Vladimir Majalcovskij is
not only the hero of his first play, but his name is the; title of that
tragedy, as well as of his last collection of pOelTIs. The author dedicates
his verse "to his beloved self." When Majalcovskij was working on the
poen1 " M ~ " he said, "I want to depict simply Inan, man in general,
not an abstraction, ala Andreev, but a genuine 'Ivan' who waves his
arms, eats cabbage soup, and can be directly felt." But Majalcovskij
could directly feel only himself. This is said very well in Trotsky's ar-
ticle on him (an intelligent -article, tlie poet said): "In order to raise
man he elevates him to the level of Majakovskij. The Greeks were an-
thropomorphists, naively likening the forces of nature to then1selves;
our poet is a Majakomorphist, and. he populates the squares, the
sneets, and dle fields of the Revolution only with himself." Even when
the hero ofMajakovskij's poem appears as the 150-million-member col-
lective, realized in one Ivan-a fantastic epic hero-the latter in turn
assumes the familiar features of-the poet's "ego." This ego asserts itself
even more franldy in the rough drafts of the poem.
3
Empirical reality neither exhausts nor fully takes in the various
shapes of the poet's ego. Majakovskij passes before us in one of his
"innmnerable souls." "The unbending spirit of eternal rebellion" has
poured itself into the poet's muscles, the irresponsible spirit without
nanle or patronymic, "from future days, just a man." ''And I feel that I
am too small for myself. Someone obstinately bursts out of me." Wea-
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On a Generation That Squandered Its Poets
riness with fixed and narrow confines, tl].e urge to transcend static
boundaries-such is Majakovskij's infinitely varied theme. No lair in
the world can contain the poet and the unruly horde of his desires.
"Driven into the earthly pen I drag a daily yoke." "The accursed earth
has me chained." The grief of Peter the Great is that of a "prisoner,
held in chains in his own city." Hulks. of districts wriggle out of the
"zones marked off by the governor." The cage of the blockade in Ma-
jakovskij's verses turns into the world prison destroyed by a cosmic
gust directed "beyond the radiant slits of sunsets." The poet's revolu-
tionary call is directed at all of those "for whom life is cramped and
unbearable," "who cry out because the nooses of noon are too tight."
The ego of the poet is a battering ram, thudding into a forbidden
Future; it is a mighty will "hurled over the last limit" toward the incar-
nation of the Future, toward an absolute fullness of being: "one must
rip joy from the days yet to come."
Opposed to this creative urge toward a transformed future is. the
stabilizing force of an inlffiutable present, overlaid, as this present is,
by a stagnating slime, which stifles life in its tight, hard mold. The
Russian name for this element is byt. It is curious that this word and
its derivatives should have such a prominent place in the Russian lan-
guage (from which it spread even to the KonJi), while West European
languages have no word that corresponds to it. Perhaps the reason is
that in the European collective consciousness there is no concept of
such a force as might oppose and break down the established nonns of
life. The revolt of the individual against the fixed forms of social con-
vention presupposes the existence of such a f o r c e ~ The real antithesis
of byt is a slippage of social norms that is immediately sensed by those
involved in social life. In Russia this sense of an unstable foundation
has been present for a very long time, and not just as a historical gen-
eralization but as a direct experience. We recall that in the early nine-
teenth century, during the time of Caadaev, there was the sense of a
"dead and stagnant life:'. but at the same' time a feeling of instability
and uncertainty: ''Everything is slipping away, everything is passing:'
wrote Caadaev. "In our own homes we are as it were in temporary
quarters. In our family life we seem foreigners. In our cities we look
like nomads." And as Majakovskij put it:
. . . laws/ concepts/ faiths
The granite blocks of cities
And even the very sun's reliable glow-
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WRITER, BIOGRAPHY, MYTH
Everything had become as it were fluid,
Seemed to be sliding a little-
A little bit thilmed and watered down.
But all these shifts, all this "leaking of the poet's room," are only a
"hardly audible draft, which is probably only felt by the very tip of the
soul." Inertia continues to reign. It is the poet's primordial enemy, and
he never tires of returning to this theme. "Motionless byt." "Every-
thing stands as it has been for ages. Byt is like a horse that can't be
spurred and stands still." "Slits of byt are filled with fat and coagulate,
quiet and wide." "The swamp of byt is covered over with slime and
weeds." "Old little byt is moldy." "The giant byt crawls everywhere
through the holes." "Force booming byt to sing!" "Put the question of
byt on the agenda." "In fall,/ winter,/ spring,! summer/ During the day/
during sleep/ I don't accept! I hate this/ all.! AllJ that in us/ is ham-
nlered in by past slavisluless/ all! that like the swarm of trifles/ was
covering/ and covered with byt/ even our red-flagged ranks." Only in
the poem "About That" is the poet's desperate struggle with byt fully
laid bare. There it is not personified as it is elsewhere in his work. On
the contrary, the poet hammers his verbal attack directly into tllat mor-
ibund byt which he despises. And byt reacts by executing the rebel
"with all rifles and batteries, fronl every Mauser and Browning." Else-
where in Majakovskij this phenOlnenon is, as we have said, personi-
fied-not however as a living person but rather, in the poet's own
phrase, as an animated tendency. In "Man" the poet's enemy is very
broadly generalized as "Ruler of all, my rival, my invincible enemy."
But it is also possible to localize this enemy and give him a particular
shape. One may call him "Wilson," donllcile him in Chicago, and, in
the language of. fairytale hyperbole, outline his very portrait (as in
"150,000,000"). But tllen the poet offers a "little footnote": "Those
who draw the Wilsons, Lloyd Georges, and Clemenceaus sometimes
show their mugs with moustaches, sometimes not; but that's beside
the point since they're all one and the same thing." The enemy is a
universal image. The forces 'of nature, people, metaphysical substances,
are only its incidental aspects and disguises: "The same old bald fellow
directs us lillseen, tlle Inaster of the earthly cancan. Sometimes in the
shape of an idea, SOlnetllnes a kind of devil, or then again he glows as
God, hidden behind a cloud." If we should try to translate the Maja-
kovskian mytll010gy into the language of speculative philosophy, the
exact equivalent for this enmity would be the antlll0my "I" versus
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On a Generation That Squandered Its Poets
"not-I." A better designation for Majakovskij's enemy could hardly be
found.
Just as the creative ego of the poet is not coextensive with his actu-
ally existing self, so conversely the latter does not take in all of the
former. In the faceless regiment of his acquaintances, all tangled in the
"apartment-house spider web,"
Oneof them! I recognized
As like as a twin
Myself/ my very own self.
This terrible "double" of the poet is lUs conventional and common-
place "self:' the purchaser and owner whomXlebnikov once contrasted
with the inventor and discoverer. That self has an emotional attach-
ment to a securely selfish and stable life, to "my little place, and a
household that's mine) with my little picture on the wall." The poet is
oppressed by the specter of an unchangeable world order, a Ulllversal
apartment-house byt: ''No sound, the universe is asleep."
Revolutions shake up violently the bodies of kingdoms,
The human herd changes its herdsmen.
But youl uncrowned ruler of our hearts
No rebellion ever touches.
Against tllls unbearable might of byt an uprising as yet unheard of
and nameless must be contrived. The terms used in speaking of the
class struggle are only conventional figures, only approximate symbols,
only one of the levels: the part for the whole. Majakovskij, who has
witnessed "the sudden reversals of fortune in battles not yet fought:'
must give new meaning to the habitual terminology. In the rough draft
of the poem "15
0
,000,000" we find the following definitions:
To be a bourgeois does not mean to own capital or squander gold.
It means to be the heel of a corpse on the. throat of the young. It
means a mouth stopped up with fat. To be a proletarian doesn't
mean to have a dirty face and work in a factory: it means to be in
love with the future that's going to explode the filth of the cel-
lars-believe me.
The basic fusion of Majakovskij's poetry with the theme of the rev-
olution has often been pointed out. But another indissoluble combi-
nation of motifs in the poet's work has not so far been noticed: revo-
lution and the destruction of the poet. This idea is suggested even as
early as the Tragedy (1913), and later this fact that the linkage ofthe two
279
WRITER, BIOGRAPHY, MYTH
is not accidental becomes "clear to the point of hallucination." No
mercy will be shown to the army of zealots, or to the doomed volun-
teers in the struggle. The poet himself is an expiatory offering in the
name of that universal and real resurrection that is to come; that was
the theme of the poem "War: and the Universe" ("Vojna i rnir"). And
in thepoem "A Cloud in Trousers" ("Oblako v stanax") the poet prom-
ises that when a certain year comes "in the thorny crown" of revolu-
tions, "For youl I will tear out my soull and trample on it till it spreads
out,/ and I'll give it to you,! a bloody banner." In the poems written
after the revolution the same idea is there, but in the past tense. The
poet, Inobilized by the revolution, has "stamped on the throat of his
own song." (This line occurs in the last poen1 he published, an address
to his "comrade-descendants" of the future, written in clear awareness
of the COining end.) In the poem "About That" the poet is destroyed
by byt. "The bloodletting is over. . .. Only high above the Kremlin the
tatters of the poet shine in the wind-a little red flag." This image is
plainly an echo of ''A Cloud in Trousers."
The poet's hungry ear captures the music of the future, but he is not
destined to enter the Promised Land. A vision of the 'future is present
in all the most essential pages of Majakovskij's work. "And such a day
dawned-Andersen's fairytales crawled about like little pups at his
feet"; "You can't tell whether it's air, or a flower, or a bird. It sings,
and it's fragrant, and it's brightly colored all at once"; "Call us Cain or
call us Abel, it doesn't matter. The future is here." For Majakovskij the
future is a dialectical synthesis. The removal of all contradictions finds
its expression in the facetious image of Christ playing checkers with
Cain, in the myth of the universe permeated by love, and in the prop-
osition "The conIDlune is a place where bureaucrats will disappear and
there will be many poems and songs." The present disharmony, the
contradiction between poetry and building, "the delicate business of
the poet's place in the working ranks;' is one of Majakovskij's most
acute problems. "Why," he asked, "should literature occupy its own
special little corner? Either it should appear in every newspaper, every
day, on every page, or else it's totally useless. The kind of literature
tl1at's dished out as dessert can go to hell" (from the Reminiscences of
D. Lebedev).
Majakovskij always regarded ironically talk of the insignificance and
death of poetry (really nonsense, he would say, but useful for the pur-
pose of revolutionizing art). He planned to pose the question of the
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On a G e n e r a ~ i o n That Squandered Its Poets
future of art in the "Fifth International" ("Pjatyj internacional"), a
poelll that he worked on long and carefully but never" finished. Accord-
ing to the outline ofthe work, the first stage ofthe revolution, a world-
wide social transformation,has been completed, but humanity is
bored. Byt still survives. So a new revolutionary act of world-shaking
proportions is required: ''A revolution of the spirit" in the name of a
new organization of life, a new art, and a new science. The published
introduction to the poem is an order to abolish the beauties of verse
and to introduce into poetry the brevity and accuracy of mathematical
.fonnulas. He offers an example of a poetic structure built on the model
of a logical probleln. When I reacted skeptically to this poetic pro-
gram-the exhortation in verse against verse-Majakovskij smiled:
"But didn't you notice that the solution of my logical problem is a
transrational solution?"
The remarkable poeln "Homeward!" ("Domoj !") is devoted to the
contradiction between the rational and the irrational. It is a dream
about the fusion of the two elements, a kind of rationalization of the
irrational:
I teel/ like a Soviet factory
Manufacturing happiness.
I don't want! to be plucked
Like a flower/ after the day's work
I want! the heart to be paid
Its wage of love/ at the specialist's rate
I want! the factory committee
To put a lock on my lips
When the work is done
I want! the pen to be equal to the bayonet
And I want Stalin! to report iI;!. the name of the Politburo
About the production of verse
As he does about pig iron and steel:
Thus, and so it is/ we've reached
The topmost level! up from the worker's hovels
In the Union/ of Republics
The appreciation of verse/ has exceeded the prewar level.
The idea of the acceptance of the irrational appears in Majakovskij's
work in various guises, and each of the images he uses for this purpose
tends to reappear inhis poetry. The stars ("You know; if they light up
the stars,/ that means, somebody needs them!"). The madness of
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WRITER, BIOGRAPHY, MYTH
spring ("Everything is clear concerning bread! and concerning peace.!
But the prilne question;! the question of spring/ must bel elucidated").
And the heart that changes willter to spring and water to wille ("It's
that I'm! gOillg to raise my heart like a flag,/ a marvelous twentieth-
century miracle"). And that hostile answer of the enemy in the poem
"Man": "If the heart is everything/ then why,/ why have I been gath-
ering you, nlY dear money!/ How do they dare to sing?/ Who gave
them dle right?/ Who said the days could blossOln illtO July?/ Lock the
heavens in wires!! Twist dle earth into streets!"
But Majakovskij's central irrational dleme is the theme of love. It is
a theme that cruelly punishes those who dare to forget it, whose
storms toss us about violently and push everything else out of our ken.
And like poetry itself this theme is bodl illseparable fron1 and in dis-
harmony with our preseI1t lite; it is "closely mlllgled with our jobs, our
inconles, and all the rest." And love is Clushed by byt:
Omnipotent one
You thought up a pair of hands
Fixed it
So that everyone has a head.
Why couldn't you fix it
So that without torment
We could just kiss and kiss and kiss?
Efuninate the irrational? Majakovskij draws a bitterly satirical pic-
ture. On the one hand, the heavy boredOln of certain rational revela-
tions: the usefulness of the cooperative, the danger of liquor, political
education, and on the other hand, an unashamed hooligan ofplanetary
dimensions (ill the poem "A Type" ["Tip"]). Here we have a satirical
sharpenmg of the dialectical contradiction. Majakovskij says ''yes'' to
the rationalization of production, technology, and the planned econ-
omy if as a result of all this "the partially opened eye of the future
sparkles widl real earthly love." But he rejects it all if it means only a
selfish clutching at the preseilt. If that's. the case then grandiose tech-
nology beconles only a "highly perfected apparatus of parochialism
and gossip on dle worldwide scale" (from an essay "My Discovery of
America"). Just such a planetary narrowness and parochialism per-
meates life in dle year 1970, as shown in Majakovskij's play about the
future, The Bedbug (Klop), where we see a rational organization Witll-
out emotion, widl no superfluous expenditure of energy, without
dreams. A worldwide social revolution has been achieved, but the rev-
282
On a Generation That Squandered Its Poets
olution of the spirit is still in the future. The play is a quiet protest
against the spiritual inheritors of those languid judges who, in his early
satirical poenl "without knowing just why or wherefore, attacked
Peru." Some of the characters in The Bedbug have a close affinity with
the world of Zanljatin's liVe., although Majakovskij bitterly ridicules not
only the rational utopian cOlrununity but the rebellion against it in the
name of alcohol, the irrational and unregulated individual happiness.
Zamjatin, however, idealizes that rebellion.
Majakovskij has an unshalcable faith that, beyond the nlountain of
suffering, beyond each rising plateau of revolutions, there does exist .
the "real heaven on earth:' the only possible resolution of all contradic-
tions. Byt'is only a surrogate for the coming synthesis; it doesn't re-
move coiltradictions but only conceals dlein. The poet is lUlwilling to
compromise with the dialectic; he rejects any mechanical softening of
the contraditions. The objects of Majakovskij's unsparing sarcasm are
the "cOlnpromisers" (as in the play lYIystery-Boujfi). Among dle.gallery
of "bureaucrat-cOlnprOlnisers" portrayed ill his agitational pieces, we
have ill The Bathhouse (Banja) the Glavnacpups Pobedonosikov,. whose
very tide. is an acronynl for "ChiefAdmiIllstrator for the Organizing
of Compromises." Obstacles in the road to the future-such is the ttue
nature of dlese "artificial people." The time Inachine will surely spew
them out.
It seemed to hiIn a criminal illusion to suppose dlat the essential and
vital probiein of building a worldwide ''wonderful life" could be put
aside for the sake of devising some kind of personal happiness. "It's
early to rejoice:' he wrote. The opening scenes of The Bedbug develop
the idea that people are tiredofa life full of struggle, tired of front-
line equality, tired of Inilitary metaphors. "This is not 1919. People
want to live." They build fanlliy .nests for themselves: "Roses will
bloom and be fragrant. at the present juncture of time." "Such is the
elegant fulfillment of our comrade's life of struggle." Oleg Bajan, the
servant of beauty in The Bedbug., fonnulates this sentinlent ill dle fol-
lowing words: "We have managed to compromise and control class
and other contradictions, and in this a person armed with a Marxist
eye, so to speak, can't help seeing, as in a single drop of water, the
future happiness of nlankind, which the common people call social-
ism." (In an earlier, lyrical context the same idea took this form: "There
he is in a soft bed, fruit beside hiln and wine on the night table.")
Majakovskij's sharply chiseled lines express unfunited contempt for all
283
WRITER, BIOGRAPHY, MYTH
those who seek comfort and rest. All such people receive their answer
from the mechanic in The Bedbug: "We'll never crawl out of our
trenches with a white flag in our hands." And the poem ''About That"
develops the same theme in the form of an intinlate personal experi-
ence. In that work Majakovskij begs for the advent of love, his savior: '
"Confiscate my pain-take it away!" And Majalcovskij answers himself:
Leave oif/ Don't! not a word! no requests,
What's the point! that you/ alone/ should succeed?
I'll wait! and together with the whole unloved earth
With the whole/ human mass/ we'll win it.
Seven years I stood! and I'll stand two hundred
Nailed here/ waiting for it.
On the bridge of years/ derided! scorned
A redeemer of earthly love/ I must stand
Stand for all! for everyone I'll atone
For everyone I'll weep.
But Majakovskij knows very well that even if his youth should be
renewed four times and he should four tinles grow old again, that
would only mean a fourfold increase of his torment, a'four times mul-
tiplied horror at the senseless daily grind and at premature celebrations
of victory. In any case, he will never live to see the revelation all over
the world of an absolute fullness of life, and the final count still stands:
"I've not lived out my earthly lot; I've not lived through my earthly
love." His destiny is to be an expiatory victim who never knew joy:
A bullet tor the rest
For some a knife.
But what about me?
And when?
Maj akovskij has now given us the final answer to that question.
The Russian Funrrists believed in cutting themselves loose from the
"classic generals;' and yet they are vitally tied to the Russian literary
tradition. It is interesting to note that famous line ofMajakovskij's, so
full of bravado (and at the same time a tactical slogan): "But why don't
we attack Puskin?" It was followed not long after by those mournful
lines addressed to the SaIne Puskin: "You know I too will soon be dead
and mute'!And after my death! we two will be quite close together."
Majakovskij's dreams of the future that repeat the utopian visions of
Dostoevskij's Versilov in A Raw Youth) the poet's frequent hymns to
the "man-god;' the "thirteenth apostle's" fight against God, the ethical
284
. On a Generation That Squandered Its Poets
rejection of Hun-all this is Inuch closer to Russian literature of all
earlier day thaIl it is to official and regimented Soviet "godlessness."
And Majakovskij's belief in personal uTIffiortality has nothulg to do
with the official catechisln of Jaroslavskij's "godless" movement. The
poet's vision of the coming resurrection of the dead is vitally lul1ced
with the materialistic nlysticism of the Russian philosopher Fedorov.
When in the spring of1920 I returned to Moscow; which was tightly
blockaded, I brought with me recent books and information about
scientific developlnents Ul the West. Majalcovskij made me repeat sev-
eral times my somewhat confused remarks on the general theory of
relativity and about the growing interest in that concept in Western
Europe. The idea of the liberation of energy, the problem of the time
dimension, and the idea that movenlent at the speed of light may ac-
tually be a reverse movement in time-all these things fascinated Ma-
jakovskij. I'd seldom seen him so ulterested and attentive. "Don't you
thill1c;' he suddenly asked, "that we'll at last achieve immortality?" I
was astonished, and I mumbled a skeptical comment. He thrust his jaw
forward with that hypnotic insistence so falTIiliar to anyone who knew
Majakovskij well: "I'm absolutely convinced;'. he said, "that one day
there will be no more death. And the dead will be resurrected. I've got
to find some scientist who'll give me a precise account of what's in
Einstein's books. It's out of the question that I shouldn't understand
it. I'll see to it that this scientist receives an aca<;iemician's ration." At
that point I became aware of a Majakovskij that I'd never known be-
fore. The demand for victory over death had taken hold of him. He
told me later that he was writing a poem called "The Fourth Interna-
tional" (he afterward changed it to "The Fifth International") that
would deal with such things. ''Einstein will be a member of that Inter-
national. The poem will be much more important than '150,000,000.'"
Majakovskij was at the time obsessed with the idea of sending Einstein
a congratulatory telegram "from the art of the future to the science of
the future." We never again returned to this matter in our conversa-
tions, and he never finished "The Fifth International." But in the epi-
logue to ''About That" we find the lines: "I see it, I see it clearly to the
last sharp detail ... On the bright eminence oftime, impervious to rot
or destruction, the workshop ofhuman resurrection."
The epilogue to ''About That" carries the following heading: ''A
request addressed to ... (Please, comrade chemist, fill in the name
yourself)." I haven't the slightest doubt that for Majakovskij this was
285
WRITER, BIOGRAPHY, MYTH
not just a literary device but a genuine an.d seriously offered request to
some "quiet chemist with a domed forehead" living in the thirtieth
century:
Resurrect me!
Even if only because I was a poet
And waited for you.
And put behind me prosaic nonsense.
Resurrect me-
Just for that!
Do resurrect me-
l want to live it all out.
The very same "Institute for Human Resurrections" reappears in the
play The Bedbug but in a comic context. It is the insistent them.e of
Majakovskij's last writin.gs. Consider the situation in The Bathhouse: "A
phosphorescent woman out of the future, empowered to select the
best people for the future age appears in the time machine: At the first
signal we blast off, andsnlash through old decrepit time ... Winged
time will sweep away and cut loose the ballast, heavy }Vith rubbish and
ruined by lack of faith." Once again we see that the pledge ofresurrec-
tion is faith. Moreover, dle people of the future must transform not
only their own future, but also dle past: "The fence of titnel our feet
will trample.... As it has been written by uS,/ so will dle world bel on
Wednesday,/ in the past! an.d now/ and tonlorrow/ and forever" (from
"15
0
,000,000"). The poem written in memory ofLenin offers dle same
idea, yet in disguised form:
Death will never dare
To touch him.
He stands
In the total sum of what's to be!
The young attend
to these verses on his death
But their hearts know
That he's deathless.
In Majakovskij's earliest writings personal inlmortality is achieved in
spite of science. "You students;' he says, "all the stuff we know and
sUldy is rubbish. Physics, astronomy, and chemistry are all nonsense"
(from the poem "Man"). At that time he regarded science as an idle
occupation involving only the extraction of square roots or a kind of
inhuman collection of fossilized fragments of the summer before last.
286
On a Generation That Squandered Its Poets
His satirical "Hymn to the Scholar" became a genuine and fervent
hymn only when he thought he had found the nuraculous instrument
of human resurrection in Einstein's "futuristic brain" and in dle phys-
ics and chemistry of the future. "Like logs thrown into a boom we are
thown at birth into the Volga ofhuman tinle; we toss about as we float
downstreanl. But trOlu now on that great river shall be submissive to
us. I'll make time stand still, move in anodler direction and at a new
rate of speed. People will be able to get out of the day like passengers
gettitlg out ofa bus." .
Whatever the means of achieving immortality, the vision of it in
Majakovskij's verse is unchangeable: there can be no resurrection of
the spirit without the body, without dle flesh itself. In1l11ortality has
nothing to with any odler world; it is indissolubly tied to this one.
"I'm all for the heart;' he wrote in "Man," "but how call bodiless
beings have a heart?/ ... My eyes fixed earthward ... / Tlus herd of
the bodiless,! how they/ bore me!" "We want to live here on eardl-/
no higher and no lower" (Mystery-Boutfe). "With the last measure of
myheartl I believe/ in this life,/ in this world,! in all of it" ("About
That"). Majalcovskij's dream is of an everlasting earth, and this eardl is
placed in sharp opposition to all superterrestrial, fleshless abstractions.
In his poetry and in Xlebnikov's dle dleme of earthly life is presented
in a coarse, physical incarnation (they even talle about the "flesh" rather
than the body). An extreme expression of dlis is the cult of tender
feeling tor the beast with ills beasdy wisdom.
"They will arise from the nloWlds of graves/ and their buried bones
will grow flesh" ("War and dle Universe"), wrote Majakovskij. And
those lines are not just present simply as a poetic device that motivates
the whimsical interweaving of two separate narrative levels. On the
contrary-that vision is Majakovskij's most cherished poetic myth.
This constant infatuation with a wonderful future is linked in Ma-
jakovskij with a pronounced dislike of children, a fact dlat would seem
at first sight to be hardly consonant widl ills fanatical belief in tomor-
row: But just as we find in Dostoevskij an obtrusive and neurotic "fa-
ther hatred" linked with great veneration for ancestors and reverence
for tradition, so in Majakovskij's spiritual world an abstract faith in the
coming transformation of the world is joined quite properly with ha-
tred for the evil continuum of specific tonlorrows dlat only prolong
today ("dle calendar is nothing but the calendarl") and with undying
hostility to that "brood-hen" love dlat serves only to reproduce the
287
WRITER, BIOGRAPHY, MYTH
present way of life. Majakovskij was indeed capable of giving full due
to the creative mission of those "kids of the collective" in their unend'-
ing quarrel with the old world, but at the same time he bristled when-
ever an actual "kid" ran into the room. Majakovskij never recognized
his own lnyth of the future in any concrete child; these he regarded
simply as new oflshoots of the hydraheaded enemy. That is why we
find in the nlarvelous movie scenario How Are You? (I(ak poiivaete?)
childlike grotesques, which are the legitimate offspring of the Manilov
pair Alcides and Themistoclus in Gogol"s Dead Souls. We recall that
his youthful poem ''A FewWords about Myself" ("Neskol/ko slov obo
mne samom") begins with the line "I love to watch children dying."
And in the same poem child-murder is elevated to a cosmic theme:
"Sun!! My father!/ At least you have pity and torment me not!/ That's
my blood you shed flowing along this low road." And surrounded by
that very aura of sunshine, the same "child complex" appears as both
an immemorial and personal motif in the poem "War and the Uni-
verse":
Listen-
The sun just shed his first rays
not yet knowing
where he'll go when he's done his day's work;
and that's me
Maj akovskij.
Bringing as sacrifice to the idol's pedestal
a beheaded infant.
There's no doubt that in Majakovskij the theIne of child-murder and
suicide are closely linked: these are simply two different ways of de-
priving the present of its immediate succession, of "tearing through
decrepit time."
Majakovskij's conception of the poet's role is clearly bound up with
his belief in the possibility of conquering time and breaking its steady,
slow step. He did not regard poetry as a mechanical superstructure
added to the ready-made base of existence (it is no accident that he was
so dose to the Formalist literary critics). A genuine poet is not one
"who feeds in the calm pastures of everyday life; his mug is not pointed
at the ground." "The wealc ones simply beat time and wait for some-
thing to happen that they can echo; but the powerful rush far enough
ahead so as to drag time along behind them!" Majakovslcij's recurrent
image of the poet is one who overtakes time, and we may say that this
288
On a Generation That Squandered Its Poets
is the actual likeness of Majakovskij himself. Xlebnikov and Majakov-
skij accurately torecast the Revolution (including the date); that is only
a detail, but a rather important one. It would seem that never until our
day has the writer's fate been laid bare widl such pitiless candor in his
own words. Impatient to know life, he recognizes it in his own story.
The "God-seeker" Blok and the Marxist Majakovskij both understood
clearly that verses are dictated to the poet by some primordial, myste-
rious force. "We know not whence comes the basic. beat of rhythm."
We don't even know where this rhythm is located: "outside of me or
within nle? But most likely within me." The poet himself senses the
necessity of his own verse, and his contemporaries feel that the poet's
destiny is no accident. Is there anyone of us who doesn't share the
impression that the poet's volumes are a kind of scenario in which he
plays out the story of his life? The poet is the principal character, and
subordinate parts are also incluC;ied; but the performers for these later
roles are recruited as the action develops and to the extent that the plot
requites them. The plot has been laid out ahead of time right down to
the details of the denouement.
The motif of suicide, so alien to the thenlatics of the Futurist and
"Left Front" groups, continually recurs in the work of Majakovskij,
from his earliest writings, where madmen hang themselves in an un-
equal struggle with byt (the director, the "man with two kisses" in the
Tragedy), to the scenario How Are You? in which a newspaper article
about a girl's suicide induces horror in the poet. And when he tells
about a young communist who committed suicide he adds, "How like
me that is. Horrors!" He tries on, so to speak, all possible varieties of
suicide: "Rejoice now! He'll execute himself ... The locomotive's
wheel will embrace my neck;" "I'll run to the canal and dlere stick my
head in the water's grinning mug ..." "The heart bursts for a bullet,
the throat raves for a razor ... Beckons to the water, leads to the roof's
slope ... Druggist, give me the means to send my soul without any
pain into the spacious beyond."
A simple resume of Majakovskij's poetic autobiography would be
the following: the poet nurtured in his heart the unparalleled anguish
of the present generation. That is why his verseis charged with hatred
for the strongholds of the established order, and in his own work he
finds "the alphabet of coming ages." Majakovskij's earliest and most
characteristic image is one in which he "goes out through the city leav-
ing his soul on the spears of houses, shred by shred." The hopelessness
289
WRITER, BIOGRAPHY, MYTH
present way of life. Majakovskij was indeed capable of giving full due
to the creative mission of those "kids of the collective" in their unend-
ing quarrel with the old world, but at the same time he brisded when-
ever an actual "kid" ran into the room. Majakovskij never recognized
his own lnyth of the future in any concrete child; these he regarded
simply as new offshoots of the hydraheaded enemy. That is why we
find in the marvelous movie scenario How Are You? (l(ak poiivaete?)
childlike grotesques, which are the legitimate offspring of the Manilov
pair Alcides and Thelnistoclus in Gogol"s Dead Souls. We recall that
his youthful poem ''A FewWords about Myself" ("Neskol'ko slov obo
mne sanl0m") begins with the line "I love to watch children dying."
And in the same poem child-murder is elevated to a cosmic theme:
"Sun!! My father!/ At least you h ~ l V e pity and torment me not!/ That's
my blood you shed flowing along this low road." And surrounded by
that very aura of sunshine, the same "child complex" appears as both
an immemorial and personal motif in the poem "War and the Uni-
verse":
Listen-
The sun just shed his first rays
not yet knowing .
where he'll go when he's done his day's work;
and that's me
Majakovskij.
Bringing as sacrifice to the idol's pedestal
a beheaded infant.
There's no doubt that in Majakovskij the theIne of child-murder and
suicide are closely linked:. these are simply two different ways of de-
priving the present of its immediate succession, of "tearing through
decrepit time."
Majakovskij's conception of the poet's role is clearly bound up with
his belief in the possibility of conquering time and breaking its steady,
slow step. He did not regard poetry as a mechanical superstructure
added to the ready-made base of existence (it is no accident that he was
so close to the Formalist literary critics). A genuine poet is not one
''who feeds in the calm pasulres ofeveryday life; his mug is not pointed
at the ground." "The weak ones simply beat time and wait for SOlne-
thing to happen that they can echo; but the powerful rush far enough
ahead so as to drag time along behind them!" Majakovskij's recurrent
image of the poet is one who overtakes time, and we may say that this
288 .
On a Gene'ration That Squandered I ts Poets
is the actual likeness of Majakovskij hinlself Xlebnikov and Majakov-
skij accurately forecast the Revolution (including the date); that is only
a detail, but a rather important one. It would seem that never until our
day has the writer's fate been laid bare with such pitiless candor in his
own words. Impatient to know life, he recognizes it in his own story.
The "God-seeker" Blok and the Marxist Majakovskijboth understood
clearly that verses are dictated to the poet by SOlne primordial, myste-
rious force. "We know not whence comes the basic beat of rhythm."
We don't even know where this rhythIn is located: "outside of me or
within ll1e? But most lilcely within me." The poet himself senses the
necessity of his own verse, and his contemporaries feel that the poet's
destiny is no accident. Is there anyone of us who doesn't share the
impression that the poet's volumes are a kind of scenario in which he
plays out the story of his life? The poet is the principal character, and
subordinate parts are also included; but the performers for these later
roles are recruited as the action develops and to the extent that the plot
requires them. The plot has been laid out ahead of time right down to
the details of the denouement.
The motif of suicide, so alien to the thematics of the Futurist and
"Left Front" groups, continually recurs in the work of Majakovskij,
from his earliest writings, where madmen hang themselves in an un-
equal struggle with byt (the director, the "lnan with two kisses" in the
Tragedy), to the scenario How Are You? in which a newspaper article
about a girl's suicide induces horror in the poet. And when he .tells
about a young communist who committed suicide he adds, "How like
me that is. Horrors!" He tries on, so to speak, all possible varieties of
suicide: "Rejoice now! He'll execute himself ... The locomotive's
wheel will enlbrace my neck." "I'll run to the canal and there stick my
head in the water's grilming mug ..." "The heart bursts for a bullet,
the throat raves for a razor ... Beckons to the water, leads to the roof's
slope . . . Druggist, give me the nleans to send my soul without any
pain into the spacious beyond."
A simple resume of Majakovskij's poetic autobiography would be
the following: the poet nurtured in his heart the unparalleled anguish
of the present generation. That is why his verse is charged with hatred
for the strongholds of the established order, and in his own work he
finds "the alphabet of coming ages." Majakovskij's earliest and most
characteristic image is one in which he "goes out through the city leav-
ing his soul on the spears of houses, shred by shred." The hopelessness
289
WRITER, BIOGRAPHY, MYTH
of his lonely struggle with the daily routine became clearer to him at
every turn. The brand of martyrdOl1l is burned into him. There's no
way to win an early victory. The poet is the domned "outcast of the
present."
Mama!
Tell my sisters, Ljuda and Olja,
That there's no way out.
Gradually the idea that "dlere's no way out" lost its plU"ely literary
character. From the poetic passage it tound its way into prose, and
"there's no way out" turned up as an author's remark in the margin of
dle manuscript for "About That." And from that prose context the
same idea lnadeits way into the poet's life: in his suicide note he said:
"Manu, sisters, cOlnra.des, forgive me. This is not a good method (I
don't recommend it to others), but for me there's no other way out."
The act was long in preparation. Fifteen years earlier in a prologue
to a collection of poems, he wrote:
Often I think
Hadn't I better just
Let a bullet mark the period of my sentence.
Anyway, today
I'm giving my farewell concert.
As time went on the thelne of suicide became more and more press-
ing. Majakovskij'smost intense poems, "Man" (1916) and "About
That" (1923), are dedicated to it. Each of these works is an ominous
song of the victory of byt over dle poet: their leitmotif is "Love's boat
has smashed against dle daily grind" (a line from his suicide note). The
first poemis a detailed depiction of Majakovskij's suicide. In the sec-
ond there is already a clear sense that dle suicide theme transcends
literature and is in the realm of "literature of fact." Once again-but
even nlore disturbingly-dle images of the first poenl file past, the
keenly observed stages of eXistence: the "half-death" in the vortex of
the horrifyingly trivial, then the "final death"-"The lead in my heart!
Not even a shudderJ" This theme of suicide had become so real that it
was out of the question to sketch the scene anylnore; It had to be
exorcised. Propaganda pieces were necessary in order to slow down
the inexorable lnovement of that theme. ''About That" already initiates
this long cycle of exorcism. "I won't give them the satisfaction of
seeing me dead of a bullet." "I want to live on and on, moving through
290
On a Generation That Squandered Its Poets
dle years." The lines to Sergej Esenin are the hIgh point of this cycle.
According to Majakovskij, the salubrious aim of t h ~ lines addressed to
Esenin was to neutralize dle impact of Esenin's death poenl. But when
you read them now; they sound even more sepulchral than Esenin's
last lines. Esenin's lines equate life and deadl,but Majakovskij in his
poem can only say about lite that it's harder than death. This is the
same sort of doubtful propaganda for life found in Majakovskij's ear-
lier lines to dle effect dlat only disquiet about the afterlife is a restraint
upon the bullet. Such, too, are dle farewell words in his suicide letter:
"Stay happy here."
In spite of all this the obituary writers vie with one another: "One
could expect anything of Majakovskij, but not that he would kill him-
self." (E. Adamovic). And Llmacarskij: "The idea of suicide is simply
incompatible with our image of the poet." And Malkin: "His death
cannot be reconciled with his whole life, which was. that of a poet
completely dedicated to the Revolution." And the newspaper Pravda:
"His death is just as inconsistent with the life he led, as it is unmoti-
vated by his poetry." And A. Xalatov: "Such a death was hardly proper
for the Majakovskij we knew;" Or Kol'cov: "It is not right for him.
Can it be that none of us knew Majakovskij?" Petr Pil'skij: "He did
not, of course, reveal any reason for us to expect such an end." And
finally, the poet Demjan Bednyj: ''Incredible! What could he have
lacked?"
Could these nlen of letters have forgotten or so misunderstood All
That Majakovskij Composed? Or was there a general conviction that all
of it was only "composed;' only invented? Sound literary criticism re-
jects any direct or inunediate conclusions about the biography of a
poet when these are based merely on the evidence of his works, but it
does not at all follow from this that there is no connection whatsoever
between the artist's biography and his art. Such an "antibiographical"
position woUld be the equivalent, in reverse, of the simplistic bio-
graphical approach. Have we forgotten Majakovskij's admiration for
the "genuine heroisln and martyrdom" ofXlebnikov, his teacher? "His
life," wrote Majakovskij, "matched his brilliant verbal constructs. That
life: is an example for poets and a reproach to poetizers." And it was
Majakovskij who wrote that even a poet's style of dress, even his inti-
mate conversations with his wife, should be determined by the whole
of his poetic production. He understood very. well the close connec-
tion between poetry and life.
291
WRITER, BIOGRAPHY, MYTH
of his lonely struggle with the daily routine becaine clearer to him at
every turn. The brand of Inartyrdom is burned into hinl. There's no
way to win an early victory. The poet is the dool11.ed "outcast of the
present."
Mama!
Tell mysisters, Ljuda and Olja,
That there's no way out.
Gradually the idea that "there's no way out" lost its purely literary
character. From the poetic passage it tound its way into prose, and
"there's no way out" turned up as an author's remark in the l11.argin of
the' manuscript for "About That." And from that prose context the
same idea made its way into the poet's life: in his suicide note he said:
"Manu, sisters, comrades, forgive me. This is not a good method (I
don't reconllnend it to others), but for me there's no other way out."
The act was long in preparation. Fifteen years earlier in a prologue
to a collection of poems, he wrote:
Often I think
Hadn't I better just
Let a bullet mark the period of my sentence;
Anyway, today
I'm giving my tarewell concert.
As time went on the theme of suicide became more and more press-
ing. Majakovskij's most intense poel11.s, "Man" (1916) and "About
That" (1923), are dedicated to it. Each of these works is an ominous
song of the victory of byt over the poet: their leinnotif is "Love's boat
has smashed against the daily grind" (a line from his suicide note). The
first poem is a detailed depiction of Majakovskij's suicide. In the sec-
ond there is already a clear sense that the suicide. theme transcends
literature and is in the realm of "literature of fact." Once again-but
even nl0re disturbingly-the images of the first poem file past, the
keenly observed stages of eXistence: the "half-death" in the vortex of
the horrifyingly trivial, then the "final death"-"The lead in nlY heart!
Not even a shudder!" This theme of suicide had become so real that it
was out of the question to sketch the scene anymore; It had to be
exorcised. Propaganda pieces were necessary in order to slow down
the.inexorable movement of that theme. "About That" already initiates
this long cycle of exorcism. "I won't give them the satisfaction of
seeing Ine dead of a bullet." "I want to live on and on, moving through
290
On a Generation That Squ.andered Its Poets
the years." The lines to Sergej Esenin are the high point of this cycle.
According to Majakovskij, the salubrious aim of the lines addressed to
Esenin was to neutralize the impact of Esenin's death poeln. But when
you read them now, they sound even more sepulchral than Esenin's
last lines. Esenin's lines equate life and death, but Majakovskij in his
poem can only say about life that it's harder than death. This is the
same sort of doubtful propaganda for life found in Majakovskij's ear-
lier lines to the effect that only disquiet about the afterlife is a-restraint
upon the bullet. Such, too, are the farewell words in his suicide letter:
"Stay happy here."
In spite orall this the obituary writers vie with one another: "One
could expect anything of Majakovskij, but not that he would kill him-
self" (E. Adamovic). And Lunacarskij: "The idea of suicide is simply
incompatible with our image of the poet." And Malkin: "His death
cannot be reconciled with his whole life, which was that of a poet
completely dedicated to the Revolution." And the newspaper Pravda:
"His death is just as inconsistent with the life he led, as it is unmoti-
vated by his poetry." And A. Xalatov: "Such a death was h;.lrdly proper
for the Majakovskij we knew:" Or Kol' cov: "It is not right for him.
Can it be that none of us knew Majalcovskij?" Petr Pil'skij: "He did
not, of course, reveal any reason for us to expect such an end." And
finally, the poet Denljan Bednyj: "Incredible! What could he have
lacked?"
Could these men of letters have forgotten or so misunderstooq All
That Majakovsk&" Composed? Or was there a general conviction that all
of it wa,s only "composed," only invented? Sound literary criticism re-
jects any direct or inunediate conclusions about the biography of a
poet when these are based merely on the evidence of his works, but it
does not at all follow from this that there is no connection whatsoever
between the artist's biography and his art. Such an "antibiographical"
position would be the equivalent, in reverse, of the simplistic bio-
graphical approach. Have we forgotten Majakovskij's admiration for
the "genuine heroism and martyrdom" ofXlebnikov, his teacher? ''His
life," wrote Majakovskij, "matched his brilliant verbal constructs. That
life is an example for poets and a reproach to poetizers." And it was
Majakovskij who wrote that even a poet's style of dress, even his inti-
mate conversations with his wife, should be determined by the whole
of his poetic production. He understood very well the close connec-
tion between poetry and life.
291
WRITER, BIOGRAPHY, MYTH
After Esenin's suicide: poem, said Majakovskij, his death became a
literary fact. "It was clear at once that those powerful verses, just those
verses, would bring to the bullet or the noose many who had been
hesitating." And when he approached the writing of his own autobi-
ography, Majakovskij remarked that the facts of a poet's life are inter-
esting "only if they became fixed in the word." Who would dare assert
that Majakovskij's suicide was not fixed in the word? "Don't gossip!"
Majakovskij adjured us just before his death. Yet those who stubbornly
mark out a strict boundary between the "purely personal" fate of the
poet and his literary biography create an atmosphere of low-grade,
highly personal gossip by means of those significant silences.
It is a historical fact that the people around Majakovskij simply did
not believe in his lyrical monologues. "They listened, all smiling, to
the eminent clown." They took his various masquerades tor the true
face of the man: first the pose of the fop ("It's good when the soul is
shielded from inspection by a yellow blouse"); then the performance
. of an overeager journalist and agitator: "It's good when you're in the
teeth of the gallows, to cry out: 'Drink Van Houtep's cocoa'" (''A
Cloud in Trousers"). But then when he carried out that slogan in prac-
tice in his advertising jingles ("Use the tea with the gold label!" "Ifyou
want good luck and good fortune buy a goverrunent lottery ticket!")
his audience saw the rhYlned advertisement but missed the teeth of the
gallows. As it turns out, it was easier to believe in the benefits of a
lottery loan or the excellent quality of the pacifiers sold in the state
stores than it was to believe that the poet had reached an extreme of
despair, that he was in a state of misery and near-death. "About That"
is a long and hopeless cry to the ages, but Moscow doesn't believe in
tears. They stamped and whistled at this routine Majakovskian artistic
stunt, the latest of his "magnificent absurdities;' but when the theatri-
cal cranberry juice of the puppet show became real, genuine, thick
blood, they were taken aback: Incredible! Inconsistent!
Majakovskij, as an act of self-preservation, often helped to spread
illusions about himself. The record of a conversation we had in 1927
demonstrates this. I said, "The total sum of possible experience has
been measured out to us. We might have predicted the early decline of
our generation. But the symptoms of this are rapidly increasing in
nunlber. Take Aseev's line 'What about us, what about us, can it be
we've lost our youth?' And consider Sklovskij's memorial service to
himselfl" Majakovskij answered: "Utter nonsense. Everything is ahead
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On a Generation That Squandered Its Poets
of me. If I ever thought that the best of me was in the past that would
be the end for me." I reminded him of a recent poem of his in which
the following lines occurred:
I was born! increased in size
fed from the bottIe-
I lived! worked! grew oldish
And life will pass
As the Azores Islands
Once passed into the distance.
"That's nothing," he said, "just a formal ending. An image only. I
can malce as many of them as you like. My poem 'Homeward' in the
first version ended with the lines:
I want my country to understand me
But if not-so what:
I'll just pass my country by
Like a slanting rain in summer.
But you kno\, Brik told me to strike those lines out because they
didn't go with the tone of the whole poem. So I struck them out."
The simplistic Formalist literary credo professed by the Russian Fu-
turists inevitably. propelled their poetry toward the antithesis of For-
malism---,-toward the cultivation of the heart's "raw cry" and uninhi-
bited frankness. Formalist literary theory placed the lyrical monologue
in quotes and disguised the "ego" ofthe lyric poet under a pseudonym.
But what unbounded. horror results when suddenly you see through
the pseUdonym, and the phantoms of art invade r e a l i ~ just as in Ma-
jakovskij's scenario Bound in Film a girl is kidnapped from a movie set
by a mad artist and lands in "real life."
Toward the end of his life, the Batire and the laudatory ode had
completely overshadowed his elegiac verse, which, by the way, he iden-
tified with the lyric in general. In the West the existence of this basic
core in Majakovskij's poetry was not even suspected. The West knew
only the "drummer ofthe October Revolution." There are many expla-
nations for this victory of agit-prop. In 1923 Majakovskij had reached
the end of the road as far as the elegiac nl0de was concerned. In an
artistic sense ''About That" was a "repetition of the past;' intensified
and raised to perfection. His journalistic verse was a search for some-
thing new; it was an experiment in the production of new materials
and in untested genres. To my skeptical comments about these poems
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WRITER, BIOGRAPHY, MYTH
Majakovskij replied: "Later on you'll understand them." And when
The Bedbug and The Bathhouse appeared it became clear that his lnost
recent poems had been a huge laboratory experiment in language and
theme, a labor masterfully exploited in his first eftorts in the. area of
prose and offering a rich potential for future growth.
Finally, in connection with its social setting, the journalistic verse of
Maj akovskij represented a shift from an unrestrained frontal attack in
the direction of an exhausting trench warfare. Byty with irs swarm of
heartbrealcing trivia, is still with him. And it is no longer "rubbish with
its own proper face:' but "petty, small, vulgar rubbish." You Calmot
resist the pressure of such rubbish by grandiloquent pronouncements
"in general and in toto:' or by theses on communism, or by pure poetic
devices. "Now you have to see the enemy and take aim at him." You
have to smash the "swarm of trivia" offered bybyt "in a small way" and
not grieve that the battle has been reduced to many minor engage-
ments. The invention of strategies for describing "trifles that may also
prove a sure step into the future"-this is howMajal<ovskij understood
the immediate task of the poet.
Just as one must not reduce Majakovskij the propagalldist to a single
dimension, so, too, one-sided interpretations of the poet's death are
shallow and opaque. "The preliminary investigation indicates that his
act was prompted by motives of a purely personal character." But the
poet had already provided an allSWer to that in the subtitle of "About .
That": "Fronl personallnotives, but about the general way of life."
Bela Kun preached to the late poet not to "subordinate the great
cause to our own petty personal feelings." Majakovskij had entered his
objection in good time:
With this petty/ and personal theme
That's been sung so many times
I've trod the poetical treadmill
And I'm going to tread it again.
This theme/right now
Is a prayer to Buddha
And sharpens a black man's knife for his master.
If there's life on Mars/ and on it just one
Human-hearted creature
Then he too is writing now
About that same thing.
The journalist Kol' cov hastened to explain: "Majakovskij himself
was wholly absorbed in the business affairs of various literary' groups
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On a Generation That Squandered Its Poets
alld in political matters. Someone else fired that shot, some outsider
who happened to be in control of a revolutionary mind and will.
It was the result ofthe temporary pressure ofcircumstallCes." And once
again we recall the rebuke Majakovskij delivered long before the fact:
Dreams are a harm
And it's useless to fantasize.
You've got to bear the burden of service.
But sometimes-
tife appears to you in a new light
And through the mess of trifles
You catch sight of something great and good.
"We condemn this senseless, untorgivable act. It was a sUlpid alld
cowardly death. We cannot but protest most vigorously against his
deparnrre from life, against his incongruous end." (Such was the pro-
nouncement of the Moscow Soviet alld others.) But Majakovskij had
already parodied these very funeral speeches in The Bedbug: "Zoja Ber-
ezkin's shot herself-Aha! She'll catch it for that at her party-section
meeting." Says a doctor in the future workl conunune: "What is sui-
cide? ... You shot at yourself? ... Was it an accident?" "No, it was
trom love." "Nonsense ... Love Inal<es you want to build bridges alld
have children ... But you ... Yes, yes, yes!"
In general life has been imitating Majakovskij's satirical lines with
horrifying regularity. Pobedonosikov, the comic figure in The Bath-
house) who has many features that remind us of Lunacarskij, brags that
"1 have no time for boat rides . . . Such petty entertainments are for
various secretaries: 'Float on, gondola mine!' I have no gondola but a
ship of state." And now Lunacarskij himself faithfully echoes his conlic
double. At a meeting called in' memory of the poet, the minister has-
tens to explain that the former's farewell lines about a "love-boat
smashed on daily grind" have a pathetic sOlmd: "We know very well
that it was not on any love-boat that he sailed our stormy seas. He was
the captain of a mighty ship of state." These efforts to forget the
"purely personal" tragedy of Majakovskij sometimes take the form of
conscious parody. A group of writers in a provincial town published a
resolution in which they assure Soviet society that they will tal<e very
seriously the advice qf the late poet not to follow his exanlple.
It is very strange that on this occasion such terms as "accidental:'
"personal:' and so forth are used precisely by those who always
preached a strict social determinism. But how Call one speak of a pri-
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WRITER,. BIOGRAPHY, MYTH
vate episode when the law of large numbers is at work, in view of the
fact that in a few years' time the whole bloom of Russian. poetry has
been swept away?
In one of Majakovskij's longer poems, each of the world's countries
brings its best gift to the man of the future; Russia brings him poetry.
"The power of their voices is most resoundingly woven into song."
Western Europe is enraptured with Russian art: the medieval icon and
the nlodern film, the classical ballet and the latest theatrical experi-
ment, yesterday's novel and the latest music. And yet that art which is
probably Russia's greatest achievement, her poetry, has never really.
been an export item. It is intimately Russian and closely linked to the
Russian language and would probably not survive the misfortunes of
translation. Russian poetry has witnessed two periods of high flower-
ing: the begimling of the nineteenth century and the present century.
And the earliei- period as well as the later had as its epilogue the un-
tinlely death of very nlany great poets. If you can imagine how slight
the contributions of Schiller, Hoffmann, Heine, and especially Goethe
would have been if they had all disappeared in their thirties, then you
will understand the significance ofthe following R u s s i ~ statistics: Ry-
leev was executed when he was thirty-one. Batjuskov went mad when
he was thirty. Venevitinov died at the age of twenty-two, Del/vig at
thirty-two. Griboedov was killed when he was thirty-four, Puskin
when he was thirty-seven, Lermontov when he was twenty-six. Their
fate has more than once been characterized as a form of suicide. Maja-
kovskij himself compared his duel with byt to the fatal duels of Puskin
and Lermontov. There is much in common in the reactions of society
in both periods to these untinlely losses. Once again, a feeling of sud-
den and profound emptiness overwhelms one, an oppressive sense of
an evil destiny lying heavily on Russian intellectual life. But now as
then other notes are louder and more insistent.
The Western mind can hardly comprehend the stupid, unresu-ained
abuse of the dead poets. A certain Kikin expressed great disappoint-
ment that Martynov, the killer of that "cowardly scoundrel Lermon-
tov;' had been arrested. And Tsar Nicholas 1's final words on the sanle
poet were: "He was a dog and he died a dog's death." And in the same
spirit the emigre newspaper The Rudder (Rul') carried no obituary on
the occasion of Majakovskij's death, but instead a cluster of abusive
remarks leading up to the following conclusion: "Majakovskij's whole
life gave off a bad smell. Is it possible that his tragic end could set all
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On a Generation That Squandered Its Poets
that right?" (Ofrosllll0V). But what of the Kikins and Ofroslll10VS?
They're but illiterate zeros who will be mentioned in the history of
Russian culture, if at all, only for having defecated on the fresh graves
of poets. It is incomparably Inore distressing to see slops of slander
and lies poured on the dead poet by Xodasevic, who is privy to poetry.
He certainly knows the value of things; he knows he is slanderously
smearing one of the greatest Russian poets. When he caustically re-
marks that only some fifteen active years were allotted to Majakov-
skij-"the lifetime of a horse"-it is self-abuse, gallows humor, mock-
ery of the tragic balance sheet of his own generation. If Majakovskij's
final balance sheet was "life and I are quits," then XodaseviC's shabby
little fate is "the nlost terrible of amortizations, the amortization of
heart and soul."
The latter was written about emigre philistines. But the tradition of
Puskin's days is repeated by the same philistines ofMoscow stock who
immediately try at all costs to replace the live iInage of the poet by a
canonic saintlike mask. And even earlier ... But of what went on ear-
lier, Majakovskij himself related a few days before his death in a talk at
a literary gathering: "So many dogs snipe at me and I'm accused of so
many sins, both ones I have and ones I am innocent of, that at times it
seems to me as if all I want to do is go away sonlewhere and sit still for
a couple of years, if only to avoid listening to barking!" And this har-
rassment, framing the poet's demise, was precisely described in ad-
vance by Majakovskij:
Yellow rag after yellow rag
of curses be raised!
Gossip for your ears!
Gossip and bite!
I'm like a cripple in the throes of love.
Leave a tub of slops for your own.
I'm not a hindrance.
But why all these insults?
I'm only ; verse
I'm only a soul.
While below:
No!
You're our century-old foe.
One such turned up-
A hussar!
Have a sniff of powder,
a little pistol lead"
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WRITER, BIOGRAPHY, MYTH
Fling open your shirt!
Don't celebrate dle coward!
This is just another example of what they call the "incongnlity" be-
t\veen Majakovskij's end and his life of yesterday.
Cel1:ain questions are particularly intriguing to journalists. Who was
responsible for the war? Who was to blame for the poet's death? Biog-
raphers are amateur private detectives, and they will certainly take great
pains to establish the immediate reason tor the suicide. They will add
other nanles to that variegated assemblage of poet-killers, the "son of
a bitch D'Anthes" who killed Puskin, the "dashing Major Martynov"
who killed Lernlontov, and so forth. People who seek the explanation
of various phenonlena will, if they bear Russia a gludge, readily dem-
onstrate, citing chapter, verse, and historical precedent, that it is dan-
gerous to practice the trade of poet in Russia. And if their gludge is
only against contenlporary Russia, it will also be quite easy to defend
such a thesis with weighty arguments. But 1 am of another Inind. It
seems to me that the one nearest the truth was the young Slovak poet
Novomesk)T who said: "Do you imagine that such things happen only
there, in Russia? Why that's what our world is like nowadays." This is
in answer to those phrases, which have alas become truisms, concern-
ing the deadly absence of fresh air, certainly a fatal condition for poets.
There are SOlne countries where men kiss wonlen's hands, and others
where they only say "1 kiss your band." There are countries where
Marxist theory is answered by Leninist practice, and where the mad-
ness of the brave, the martyr's stake, and the poet's Golgotha are not
just figurative expressions.
In the last analysis, what distinguishes Russia is not so nluch the fact
that her great poets have ceased to be, but rather that not long ago she
had so nlany of thenl. Since the time of the first Symbolists, Western
Europe has had no great poetry.
The real question concerns not causes but consequences, however
tempting it Inay be to protect oneself from a painful realization of
what's happened by discussing the reasons tor it.
It's a small thing to build a locomotive:
Wind up its wheels and off it goes.
But if a song doesn't fill the railway station-
Thenwhy do we have alternating current?
Those lines are from Majakovskij's "Order to the Army of Art"
("Prikaz po armii iskusstv"). We are living in what is called the "recon-
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On a Generation That Squandered Its Poets
struction period:' and no doubt we will construct a great many loco-
motives and scientific hypotheses. But to our generation has been al-
lotted the niorose feat of building without song. And even if new
songs should ring out, they will belong to another generation and a
different curve of time. Yet it is unlikely that there will be new songs.
Russian poetry of our century is copying and it would seem outdoing
that of the nineteenth century: "the fateful forties -are approaching,"
the years, in other words, of lethargic inertia among poets.
The relationships between the biographies of a generation and the
march of history are curious. Each age has its own inventory of requi-
sitions upon private holdings. Suddenly history finds a use tor Beetho-
ven's deafness and Cezanne's astigmatism. The age at which a genera-
tion's call to service in history's conscription comes, as well as the
length of its service, are different for different periods. History mobi-
lizes the youthful ardor of some generations and the tempered matu-
rity or old wisdom of others. When their role is played out yesterday's
rulers of men's n1inds and hearts depart from the proscenium to the
backstage of history to live out their years in private, either on the
profits from their intellectual investments, or else as paupers.. But
sometimes it happens otherwise. Our generation emerged at an ex-
traordinarily young age: "We alone," as Majakovskij put it,- "are the
face of our time. The trumpet of time blows for us." But up to the
present moment there are not any replacements, nor even any partial
reinforcements. Meanwhile the voice and the enlotion of that genera-
tion have been cut short, and its allotted quota of feeling-joy and
sadness, sarcasm and rapture-have been used up. And yet, the par-
oxysm of an irreplaceable generation turned out to be no private fate,
but in fact the face of our time, the breathlessness of history.
We strained toward the future too impetuously and avidly to leave
any past b e h ~ d us. The connection of one period with another was
broken. We lived too much for the future, thought about it, believed
in it; the news of the day-sufficient unto itself-nolonger existed for
us. We lost a sense of the present. We were the witnesses of and partic-
ipants in great social, scientific, and other cataclysms. Byt fell behind
us, just as in the young Majakovskij's splendid hyperbole: "One foot
has not yet reached the next street." We knew that the plans of our
fathers were already out of harmony with the facts of their. lives. We
read harsh lines alleging that our fathers had taken the old and musty
way of life on a temporary lease. But our fathers still had left some
remnant of faith in the idea that that way of life was both comfortable
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WRITER, BIOGRAPHY, MYTH
and compulsory for all. Their children had only a single-minded, naked
hatred for the ever more threadbare, ever more alien rubbish offered
by the established order of things. And now the "efforts to organize a
personal life are like attempts to heat up ice creanl."
As for the future, it doesn't belong to us either. In a few decades we
shall be cruelly labeled as products of the past millennium. All we had
.were conlpelling songs of the future; and suddenly these songs are no
longer part of the dynamic of history, but have been transformed into
historico-literary facts. When singers have been killed and their song
has been dragged into a museum and pinned to the wall of the past,
the generation they r e p r e s ~ n t is even lllore desolate, orphaned, and
lost-impoverished in the most real sense of the word.
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\::rsternak
CHAPTER 17 1.cant
- - - - - - - ~ e
Marginal Notes on the Prose
of the Poet Pasternak
Textbook categories are comfortingly simple: prose is one thing,
poetry another. Nevertheless, the difference between a poet's prose and
that of a prose writer, or between the poems of a prose writer and
those of a poet, is very striking. A mountaineer walking in the plains
can find no foothold and stumbles over the level ground. He moves
either with touching avvkwardness or with overemphatic artistry; in
either case it is not his natural gait, but involves obvious effort and
looks too much like the steps of a dancer. It is easy to distinguish a
language that has been learnt, however perfect its command, from one
that has been naturally acquired. Cases of complete bilingualism are,
of course, undeniable, and when we read the prose of Puskin or Ma-
cha, of Lermontov or Heine, ofPasternak or Mallarme, we cannot help
being amazed at the command these writers have of the other lan-
guage; but at the same time we are bound to pick out a foreign note,
as it were, in the accent and inner form of their speech. Their achieve-
ll1ents in this second language are brilliant sallies from the mountains
of poetry into the plains of prose.
It is not only a poet's prose that has a particular stamp; there is also
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pJEAJEH
dEU)lI a9