PART I
THE LONELY BIRTH OF RUSSIAN FUTURISM
THEME
I am a poet. And through that I am interesting. And it's about that I am writing. About everything else - only if the word justifies it.
MEMORY
Burlyuk would say: Mayakovskiy has a memory like a road in Poltava, - everyone who passes through leaves behind a rainboot. But it's not faces or dates that I remember. I only remember that in the year 1100 some kind of "Dorians" were trying to resettle somewhere. Any further details of this matter I just don't remember, but it must've been a real serious thing. Meanwhile, to remember - "This was written on May second. Pavlovsk. Fountains" - is hardly a miniscule matter. Which is why I freely swim around my own chronology.
THE MOST IMPORTANT
Was born on July seventh of 1894 (or 93: the opinions of my mom and the official survey roll diverge. In any case, it wasn't any earlier than that). Native place - large village The Baghdads in the Kutaiskaya province, Georgia.
FAMILY COMPOSITION
Father: Vladimir Konstantinovich (a forester of Baghdad), died in 1906.
Mom: Aleksandra Alekseevna.
Sisters:
a) Lyuda.
b) Olya.
It appears there are no other Mayakovskiys around.
FIRST RECOLLECTION
Painterly terms. Place unknown. Winter. Father subscribed to the "Motherland" magazine. "Motherland" features a "humorous" supplement. The funny paper is discussed and awaited. Father walks around and sings his constant "all on zen fun de lia part tree yeah". "Motherland's" arrived. I open it and immediately (image) screa: "How funny! A mister and a lady are kissing." We were laughing. Later on, when the supplement also arrived and it really was a time for laughter, it turned out that earlier everyone was laughing only at me. Thus grew divergent our conceptions of images and of humor alike.
SECOND RECOLLECTION
Poetic terms. Summer. A mass arrives. A handsome young student: Boris P. Glushkovskiy. Huge leather notebook. Glossy paper. On the paper a long tall person without pants (or maybe skintight) in front of a mirror. The persona is named "Eugeneonegin". Borya was long and the drawn person was long too. It's obvious. So I reasoned that this certain "Eugeneonegin" and Borya were one and the same person. This opinion persisted for three years.
THIRD RECOLLECTION
Practical terms. Night. Through the wall mom and dad eternally whispering. About a piano. Couldn't sleep all night. One single phrases kept drilling into my brain. Come morning I literally ran out: "Papa, what's an installment plan?" The expanation was very much to my liking.
BAD HABITS
Summer. A staggering number of guests. Name days keep stacking up. Father is bragging about my memory. On every name days I am being forced to recite poetry by hearts. I remember - a special one for papa's name days:
Once upon a time before a crowd
Of co-tribal mountains...
"Co-tribal" and "cliffs" irritated me. Who they were, I had no idea, and they didn't deign to turn up in real life. Later on, I learned that this was poetic quality, and quietly began to despise it.
THE ROOTS OF ROMANTICISM
My first house, which I remember clearly. Two stories. The top floor is ours. The lower floor is a tiny wine factory. Once a year: bullock-carts of grapes. They would squish them. I ate. They drank. All of this on the territory of an oldest Georgian fortress right by the Baghdads. The fortress is surrounded on all four corners by a moated wall. In the corners of the wall: lanes for rolling cannons. On top of the wall: toothed openings for archers. Beyond the wall laid moats. Past the moats were forests and jackals. Above the forests rose mountains. I grew up. Ran up the tallest one. The mountains are lowering towards the North. On the North side was a chasm. I would dream that it was Russia. I felt an incredible pull towards it.
Seven years old. Father would bring me along on horseback tours of the forestry domains. A mountain pass. Night. Shuttered by sudden mist. Couldn't even see my father. The narrowest path. My father, apparently, pulled with his sleeve a rosehip branch. The branch snapped hard into my cheeks with its thorns. Slightly wailing time to time, I pull out the thorns. Both the mist and the pain suddenly vanished. As the mist opens up the space before my feet: everything is brighter than the sky. This is electricity. Count Nakashidze's rivet factory. After electricity I completely lost any interest in nature. An unperfected thing.
THE TEACHING
Taught by mother and variously removed cousins, sisters. Arithmetics appeared non-palpable. One is forced to count-out apples and pears dispersed among the boys. I, for one, was always given some and I always gave away without bothering to count. In the Caucasus there are as many fruits as one could ever wish for. Learned to read with pleasure.
FIRST BOOK
Some sort of "Birdkeeper Again". If at that time I would've come across a few more books like that - I would've given up reading outright. Thankfully, the second was "Don Quixote". Now that's what I call a book! I manufactured a wooden sword and armor, would smite what surrounds.
THE EXAM
We moved. From The Baghdads to Kutais. Gymnasium school entrance exam. Passed it. Was questioned about an anchor (on my sleeve): was well-versed. But the priest asked - what is a "peering orb". I responded: "Three pounds" (of flesh. Georgia-style). The gracious examiners graciously explained that a "peering orb" is how you say "eye" in ancient Church-Slavonic. Because of this almost failed. Whoich is why I immediately grew to hate everything ancint, everything churchy, and everything Slavic or Slavonic. It's possible that from this came my futurism, my atheism, and my internationalism alike.
GYMNASIUM SCHOOL
The preparatory, first and second grades. Came in first in the class. Covered in A's. Reading Jules Verne. And fantastical science-fiction in general. Some bearded-man began to discern in me an artistic talent. Teaches me for free.
JAPANESE WAR
The quantity of newspapers and magazines at home multiplied. "Russian Current-Events", "The Russian Word", "The Russian Wealth", and others. I read everything. Irrepressibly wound-up. Am in awe of battleship greeting cards. Am magnifying and copying out. The word "proclamation" first appeared. Proclamations were hung by Georgians. Georgians were hung by Cossacks. Georgians are my comrades. I began to despise Cossacks.
ILLEGAL STUFF
Sister visited from Moscow. She seemed totally awestruck. Secretly gave me some long papers. I liked that: very risky. I remember even now. The first:
Wake up, dear comrade, recall yourself, brother,
come quick, toss your gun to the ground.
And another one that ended with:
...and, if not, there remains another path -
to the Germans with mommy, with son, and with wife...
(about the tzar).
This was revolution. This was in verse. Revolution and verse somehow grew inseparable in my head.
THE 905TH YEAR
Better things to do than studying. Now came the F's. Graduated into fourth grades solely because of getting my head smashed in with a rock (got in a fight out on the Rion): they took pity on me during the second-attempt exam. This is how the revolution began for me: my comrade, Isidor - who worked as a cook for a priest - out of pure joy hopped onto a stone plate. They murdered General Alikhanov. The tamer of Georgia. Demonstrations and meetings began. I started going too. Good. Absorbing everything in a painterly way: anarchists wear black, SR's wear red, SDK's wear blue, the federalists in all others colors.
SOCIALISM
Speeches, newspapers. From all of it: unknown terms and words. Demanding explanations from myself. Little white books in shop Windows. "The Storm-trumpeter". About the same stuff. I'm buying-up everything. Would get up at six in the morning. Binge-read. The first: "Away with social-democrats". The second-attempt: "Discussions on economics". For the rest of my life became struck by the capacity of the socialists to untangle facts, to systematize the world. "What to read?" - Rubakov, it appears. Would reread the suggested. Failed to understand much. Would inquire. I was brought into a Marxist club. Wound-up up in the "Erfurtskaya". In the middle. About the "lumpenproletariat". Began to consider myself a social-democrat; pilfered father's berms and brought them to the social-democrat committee.
As a figure very much liked La Salle. Must be because he didn't wear a bearded-man. Was youngish-looking. Started confusing La Salle with De Mossfen. Am visiting the Rion. Giving speeches with my mouth full of stones.
THE REACTION
As far as I see it, the following began: in the middle of panic which began during the demonstrations in memory of Bauman, I (after having fallen) was hit in the head with a big huge drum. I grew frightened, thought I too began cracking.
THE 906TH YEAR
Father died. Poked his finger (threading together paper). Blood infection. Since that time can not stand pins. The good times ended. After father's funeral, we were left with three roubles. Instinctively, fevorously sold away away all the chairs and tables. Started moving towards Moscow. How come? We didn't even know anyone there.
THE ROAD
Baku was better than everywhere else. Towers, cisterns, the best perfumes - black oil, and afterwards came the steppes. Then the desert.
MOSCOW
We stayed in Razumovskiy. The Plotnikovs: acquaintances of my sister's. In the morning took a steamboat to Moscow. Rented a tiny apartment on Bronskaya street.
THE MOSCOVIAN
Not so good as far as foods. Pension: ten roubles per month. My two sisters and I are studying. Mom is forced to organize and rent out room and board. Crappy rooms. Impoverished university students lived there. Socialists.I remember the first "Bolshevik" whom I encountered: Casual Kandelaki.
THE PLEASANT
Was sent to get kerosene. Five roubles. At the colonial store was given fourteen roubles and fifty kopeks in change; ten roubles of pure profit. Conscience acted up. Walked around the store twice ("Erfurtskaya" eating me up). Who messed up the change, was it the owner or the worker, I quietly question the orderly. - It was the owner! - I purchase and eat four citron-flavored breads. spent the rest racing a boat around the Patriarchs' Ponds. Since that day can't even look at citron-flavored breads.
WORK
No money in the family. So, had to embroider with heat and paint. I especially recall the Easter eggs. Round, spinning and squeaking, like doors. I would sell the eggs to a handicraft store on Neglinnaya street. Ten to fifteen kopeks for each. Since those days can't stand department stores, the Russian style, and handicraft stuff.
GYMNASIUM SCHOOL
Was moved into the fourth grade of gymnasium school number five. F's barely diversified by D-'s. Under the school desk "Anti-During".
READING
Was utterly not down with fiction, belles-lettres stuff. Instead, philosophy. Hegel. Natural sciences. But mainly Marxism. There was no work of art which absorbed my attention more than Marx's "Introduction". From the rooms of the university students veered out illegality. "Street-fighting tactics" and etc...Clearly recollect Lenin's little blue "Two tactics". Liked that the book was cut to the letters. So that it could be illegaly slipped through places. The aesthetic of maximal economy.
THE FIRST SEMI-POEM
The third gymnasium school published an illegal little journal "Thrust". My feelings were hurt. Others are wrting, but I can't?! Started to crackle. What resulted was incredibly revolutionary and, to the same degree, unseemly. Sort of like today's Kirillov. Can't remember even a single line. Wrote a second one. Came out very lyrical. Being unable to affirm that such a state of the heart could be reconciled with my "socialistic dignity", gave up altogether.
THE PARTY
Year 1908. Joined the RSDRP party (the Bolsheviks). Took an exam in a commercial-factory sub-quarter. Passed. A propagandist. Went to see the bread-bakers, then the boot-makers and, finally, the typographers. At the city-wide conference was elected into the MK. Lomov, Povoljhets, Smidovic and others were there. I was dubbed "comrade Konstantinovich". But I didn't get to work there - got picked up.
THE ARREST
On March 29th of 1908 I stumbled into an ambush in the Georgias. Our illegal typography. Ate a notebook. Along with all the addresses and a thick-bound cover. The Presnenkiy precinct. Okhranka. The Sushevskaya quarter. Inspector Voltanovskiy (evidently considering himself quite clever) forced me to writer under dictation: I was being accused of composing a proclamation. I hopelessly scrambled up and confused the dictation. Wrote: "sotial-dimocretic". Possibly got them to buy it. They released me on bail. While at the precinct read "Sanin" with total incredulity. For some reason they had it in every precinct. Evidently, a soul-saving text.
Was let out. For a year - party work. And again short-term imprisonment. They confiscated my revolver. Mahmudbekov, a friend of my father's and - at that time - the deputy head of the Crosses prison, who was accidentally arrested in my ambush, declared that the revolver was his and they released me.
THE THIRD ARREST
Our lodgers (Koridze (illegally Morchadze), Herulaites, and others) are digging a tunnel under the Taganka prison. To rescue women-prisoners. Successfully organized a prison-break out of the Novinskaya prison. I got picked up. Didn't want to rot in a cell. Grew scandalous. They moved me from precinct to precint - Basmannaya, Meshanskaya, Myasnitskaya, etc. - and finally: the Butirki. Solitary-confinement cell #103.
ELEVEN MONTHS AT THE BUTIRKI
An important-most time for me. After three years of theory and practice, began devouring belles-lettres fiction stuff.
Read all the latest things. The Symbolists: Beliy, Balmont. The formal novelty knocked me out. But it all felt kind of alien to me. The themes, the imagery were not relatable to my life. Attempted to write just as good as they did, but about other things. It turned out that to write Just like that but about different things was impossible. Came out stilted and weepy-mopey. Something like:
In golds and in purples the forests dressed,
As sun played upon the churches' heads.
I waited: but days in my months got lost,
Hundreds and hundreds of languished days.
Completely covered an entire notebook in this manner. A genuine thank you to the prison guards: they took it away when I got released. What if I published that crap!
Having read through the whole of modernity, I fell like an avalanche upon the classics. Byron, Shakespeare, Tolstoy. The last book was "Anna Karenina". Did not finish that one. At night they called me "with posessions out on the town". To this day I've no idea how the whole story worked out for them, for the Karenins.
I was released. I was supposed to (the city-guardship proclaimed) go out to Turuhansk for three years. But Mahmudbekov pried me away from Kurlov.
While I was serving, they judged my under the first-degree: guilty, but I ended up being too young in the years. Was put on police-oversight parole and under parental responsibility.
A SO-CALLED DILEMMA
I was agitated upon release. The authors I've read: they were the so-called great ones. But how easy it was to write better than them. Even at this point I already have the correct attitude towards the world. One merely requires some experience in the arts. Where to procure it? I'm unlearned. I must put myself through some serious schooling. But I couldn't even avoid getting booted from a gymnasium, not even Stroganosfakaya gymnasium. If I were to stay in the party - I must become an illegal. It seemed to me that one couldn't teach oneself to become an illegal. What this boded was me writing flyers for the rest of my life, putting out thoughts taken out of correct books, but not ones written by me. And if someone tossed everything I've read out of me. what would be left? The Marxist method. But could this weapon have fallen into the hands of a child? It's easy to wield it when one is solely dealing with the thought of those who are on the same side. What happens when one runs across enemies? After all, I could never write better than, say, Andrey Beliy, no matter what. He's writing about his own joy - "I launched a pineapple up into heaven", while I write of my own: "hundreds of languishing days". The other party members have it easy. They've also got university behind them. (Oh, but higher education - I didn't even really know what that was back then - was an object of my highest respect in those days!)
What could I possibly set against the whole oldie dross aesthetic which has suddenly fallen all over me? Wouldn't the revolution require from me some very serious schooling? At that point I went to see one of my party comrades: Medvedev. I want to create socialistic art. Good old Sergey laughed for a long time: you don't have the balls.
Nevertheless, I think he may have underestimated my balls.
I ceased my party activities. I sat down to study.
THE START OF MASTERY
My thought was: I can't write poetry. Pitiful experiments. Took up visual art. Studied with Zhukovskiy. Together with some kind of damsels embroidered silvery little tablewares. After a year I guessed it: I'm learning a handicraft. Went to Kevin. A realist. A good drawing-maker. The best teacher. A tough one. A changing one.
Requirement - mastery, Golbein. Who couldn't stand pretty stuff.
A poet revered: Sasha Chorny. Was pleased by his anti-aestheticism.
Sat on the "head" for a year. Entered the Academy of fine arts, sculpture and, architectonics: the only place which accepted me without the official attestation of good behavioral character. Worked well.
Was surprised: imitators are cherished - the independent ones are chased out. Larionov. Mashkov. Through my Rev-instinct took the side of those chased out.
DAVID BURLYUK
At the academy appeared Burlyuk. Looking insolent. A pence-nez. A frock-coat. Walks around singing. I began teasing. Almost fought it out.
IN THE SMOKING ROOM
A high-minded gathering. A concert. Rachmaninoff. An island of the dead. I fled from unbearable melodicized boredom. After a minute Burlyuk fled as well. Burst out laughing into each other. Left to roam around together.
A MOST MEMORABLE NIGHT
A conversation. From Rachmanenuffian boredom switched over to the academic kind; from the academic, to the entirety of the classicist boredom. David possesses the rage of a master who has raced ahead of all contemporaries. I carry the pathos of a socialist aware of the inevitability with which the old order will crash. And that's when Russian Futurism was born.