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Lot 3138

5 December 2012, 10:00 EST
New York

US$2,500 - US$3,500

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MAYAKOVSKY, VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH. 1893-1930.

Literaturnaya gazeta/Komsomolskaya Pravda. [Literature Gazette/Komsomol Truth]. April 17, 1930.
Photographs by Aleksandr RODCHENKO and others. 4 pp. 680 x 500 mm. Discolored and folds as expected with a small hole in center and some tears at edges.

RARE SPECIAL NUMBER devoted to the Poet of the Russian Revolution after he committed suicide on April 14, 1930. With tributes by Vsevolod MEYERHOLD, A. RODCHENKO, Vavara STEPANOVA, Nikolai ASEEV, Semen KIRSANOV, Vasilii KAMENSKII, Sergei TEREYAKOV and others. Despite his international fame as the most important Russian avant-garde poet, Mayakovsky struggled after the triumph of the Marxist Revolution. Lenin never liked his work and Trotsky said of his poetry, "Strokes of genius are marred by trivial stanzas, even by loud vulgarity." Proletariat literary organizations ridiculed him in the press and from the platform; and despondent over a recent love affair, he shot himself in the head. However, Stalin deified Mayakovsky after his death and made reading his work compulsory throughout the Russian Empire.

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