A University of Sussex PhD thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details Vladimir Mayakovsky: The Language of Revolution By Rosy Patience Carrick PhD The University of Sussex September 2016 I hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be, submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Signature: R. Carrick UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX ROSY PATIENCE CARRICK PhD CRITICAL THEORY VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY: THE LANGUAGE OF REVOLUTION My thesis addresses two significant misrepresentations in western criticism and translation of Mayakovsky that have developed since his death in 1930: his diminished status as a Marxist poet; and his negative attitude towards everyday life (byt). Part One (‘Mayakovsky and Marxism’) contests the consistent refusal in the west to acknowledge Mayakovsky as a Marxist poet and demonstrates instead, through a close examination of the specific terminology used in certain essays and poems by Mayakovsky in relation to that used by Karl Marx in Capital, not only that the poet is keenly engaged with and influenced by Marxist theory, but that he uses that theory explicitly to describe and imagine the production of ideal communist writing. Part Two (‘Mayakovsky and Byt’) contests the widespread western characterisation of Mayakovsky as a misogynist whose hatred of domesticity in all its forms has long been accepted as fact. At the heart of this characterisation is the Russian concept of byt (everyday life), which has been systematically misunderstood and mistranslated in relation to Mayakovsky. Through a study of the complex cultural, political and social developments of this concept in early Soviet Russia, alongside the collation of my own translations of twenty-nine never-before-translated poems by Mayakovsky on the subject of byt, this part of the thesis presents a radical and feminist perspective of the poet as a vocal proponent of equality and revolution in everyday life. Both contestations represent the first sustained studies of their kind in English, and – in the case of Part Two in particular, which is the first of its kind in any language – constitute significant and challenging contributions to Mayakovsky scholarship. 1 Contents 2 Acknowledgements 3 A Note on Editions and Translations 4 A Note on Transliteration 5 Introduction 13 Part 1: Mayakovsky and Marxism 14 Introduction 28 I: Reserves 28 i. Terminology 37 ii. The Problem of Invisible Reserves – ‘About This’ 50 iii. Political Application – How Are Verses Made? 61 II: Production 75 III: Circulation 86 Final Thoughts 95 Part 2: Mayakovsky and Byt 96 Introduction 99 I: What is Byt? 114 II: Current Representations of Mayakovsky and Byt 165 III: Mayakovsky’s Representation of Byt 203 Moving Forwards 210 Afterword 213 Bibliography 2 Acknowledgements This thesis has been written over the course of six years, and I am enormously grateful to the many people who have helped me in one way or another during that time. Most significantly I am indebted to my friend and supervisor Keston Sutherland, for his rigorous feedback on my work, his many insightful and interesting contributions, and his enthusiam, kindness and care. The director of the Mayakovsky museum, Alexei Lobov, has been very supportive of my work, as have his colleagues Daniel Mukhametov and, in particular, Adolf Aksyonkin. Yelena Vladimirovna Mayakovskaya (aka Patricia Thompson), was instrumental in the direction my work has taken – the many conversations we shared over the last few years of her life opened my eyes to a new way of thinking about Mayakovsky, and I shall forever be grateful for her intelligence and wit, and for the deep generosity of spirit she showed me throughout our friendship. George Hyde’s magnificent translations of Mayakovsky were the first I ever read, and represent the explosive starting point of my interest in the poet, as well as the beginning of our own friendship, which I greatly appreciate. In 2014 Peter Target at Enitharmon invited me to put together my book Volodya: Selected Works and, in doing so, provided a space for me to share my new perspective of Mayakovsky in advance of the completion of my PhD. Throughout the final year of my research I received financial support from Andy Benn. Without it I would have been doomed many times over and I cannot thank him enough for his generosity and his faith in my work. Likewise, Cleria Humphries made me dinner once a week for the whole of my final year (and long may it continue!), and James Burt has supported me in more ways than I know how to count. Rocky Balboa’s consistent motivational force, meanwhile, is no less important for being fictional. There are many other friends besides, who are, happily, too numerous to name but whose support has nevertheless been invaluable – thank you. Finally, I would like to address my thanks directly to my family: in particular to my dad, Norman Leaver, for being so proud of my work and for always helping me in whatever ways you can, and to my extraordinary, intelligent, powerful daughter, Olive. 3 A Note on Editions and Translations There are three major Russian editions of Mayakovsky’s collected works. These are: Полное собрание сочинений [Complete Collected Works] (12 volumes), edited by L.Y. Brik and I. Bespolav, ГОСЛИТИЗДАТ, Moscow, 1934-8. Полное собрание сочинений (12 volumes), edited by N. Aseyev, L.V. Mayakovskaya, V.O. Pertsov and M.N. Serebryansky, ГОСЛИТИЗДАТ, Moscow, 1939-49. Полное собрание сочинений (13 volumes), edited by V.A. Katanyan and A.V. Fevralsky, Gos. Izd. Khud. Lit., Moscow, 1955-61. Not all English translations state from which Russian text their source material came. However, of those that do, the 1955-1961 edition is credited most frequently in My Discovery of America, Listen! and The Bedbug (with the exception of one poem, ‘Past One O’Clock’, which comes from the 1939-1949 version). How Are Verses Made also uses this earlier edition of 1939-1949. Hyde and Gureyeva have taken the Russian text of Pro Eto from the site of its first publication in Vol. 1 of Lef magazine, published in Moscow in 1923, and Love is the Heart of Everything is the English language edition of В. В. Маяковский и Л. Ю. Брик: Переписка 1915-1930 which, like its English counterpart, is edited by Jangfeldt. In his preface to the English translation, Jangdeldt clarifies his sources for this collection of correspondence: All Lili Brik’s letters, postcards and telegrams are published in this book [the Russian version] for the first time, as are the telegrams from Osip Brik […]. Of Mayakovsky’s letters and telegrams, 129 (125 to Lili and four to Osip Brik) were published in the USSR in 1958 (Literaturnoye nasledstvo, No. 65), though some passages were deleted. [… The other] letters and telegrams […] are published for the first time.1 Unless specified otherwise, I will use the most recent Russian edition of Mayakovsky’s collected works (1955-61), which is also the most comprehensive of the three, as my primary source of his works. 4 A Note on Transliteration I have transliterated all Russian text from Cyrillic into Latin script, with the exception of titles of Russian poems, articles and books, and in cases where I directly quote English language excerpts that use Cyrillic in the originals. Soft signs (ь) are represented in transliteration with a comma. For example, on page 99 when I note the difference between the Russian words Быт [daily life] and Быть [to be], the only lexical difference between which is the soft sign, I distinguish between them in transliteration thus: byt and byt’. The difference in pronunciation is minor – the soft sign simply indicates the palatisation of its preceeding consonant. 1 Bengt Jangfeldt, Love Is The Heart Of Everything: Correspondence Between Vladimir Mayakovsky and Lili Brik 1915-1930, trans. Julian Graffy (New York: Grove Press, 1987), p. 1. 5 Introduction If the Mayakovsky who has, since his death, been constructed by generations of critics and translators in the western world were to rise up off the pages of their books and stand before us today, what kind of a man would we be faced with? This Mayakovsky, though he may have lived through the politically and culturally tumultuous years of the revolution and the early Soviet period, would nevertheless be politically immature, a man whose ‘understanding of Marx was elementary’2, useful only insofar as it offered him an explosive context for his own ego-centric interests – ‘a way out of his personal dilemma’3. Creatively, he would stand for the most part a lone rebel, spurning Soviet demands for a collective ‘proletarian’ poetry in favour of highly individualistic, romantically passionate, avant-garde love poems such as ‘The Backbone Flute’, and would consider his concessions to agitprop work something akin to self-harm, of ‘setting his heel on the throat of his own song.’4 His ‘glowering’ face would reveal his ‘proto- punk ferocity, a still-burning aura of tough-guy tenderness [and] soulful defiance.’5 He would be machismo personified – a womaniser,6 a misogynist7 and a hater of children,8 whose poetry makes frequent reference to his unwavering opinion that domesticity in all its incarnations is disgusting and antithetical to the thrusting force of revolution.9 He would be characterised largely by his numerous love affairs, his gambling addiction and his obsessive and brooding nature, and we would speak of his suicide as one performed 2 Edward Brown, Russian Literature Since the Revolution, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: Harvard University Press, 1982), p.