Vladimir Mayakovsky was one of the towering literary figures of pre- and post-revolutionary Russia, speaking as much to the working man as to other poets. His fascination with sound and form, linguistic metamorphosis and variation made him a sort of 'poet's poet', the doyen, if not the envy, of his contemporaries, (Pasternak among them). His poetry is strangely akin to modern rock poetry in its erotic thrust, bluesy complaints and cries of pain, not to mention its sardonic humour. It is often aggressive, mocking and yet tender, and can be fantastic or grotesque. That's What is a long love poem detailing the pain and suffering inflicted on the poet by his lover Maria and her final rejection of him. But as well as being an agonising parable of separation and betrayal, it is also a political work, highly critical of Lenin's reforms of Soviet Socialism. The publication of That's What is something of a landmark as this the first time that this seminal work has appeared in its entirety in translation. Included also are the 12 inspired photomontages that Rodchenko designed to interleave and illuminate the text, illustrations which inaugurate a world of new possibilities in combining verbal and visual forms of expression and which are reproduced in colour for the first time. "Arc have produced a handsome Russian-English edition of this personal epic of the early years of the Revolution, first published in the LEF journal (Left Front of the Arts) in 1923. George Hyde adds a lively note on 'Translating Mayakovsky's That's What'. His co-translator, Larisa Gureyeva, is the granddaughter of V.M. Molotov-Skryabin, co-signatory of the notorious pact with Germany of 1939. Hyde writes of the 'permissive' 1920s in the early Soviet Union. Following the recent splendid exhibition of Rodchenko and Popova at the Tate Modern, there are increasing signs of a growing interest in the early, tumultuous years of the Russian Revolution." The Spokesman Vladimir Mayakovsky was born in Georgia in
Vladimir Mayakovsky was one of the towering literary figures of pre- and post revolutionary Russia, speaking as much to the working man as to other poets. Part love poem, part political diatribe and the most autobiographical of Mayakovsky's works, this title confirms Mayakovsky as one of the towering figures of Russian literature.
