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Vladimir Mayakovsky
Mayakovsky (1893 - 1930) was the perfect, the "good" Soviet poet. A Romantic by temperament, he believed in his bones the revolution of 1917 and in the Bolsheviks. Anecdote has it that, in public, he would denounce the poetry of Anna Akhmatova. The State found her objectionably bourgeois in her personal expression of sentiment. But in private and behind a closed door Mayakovsky read her and wept.
At some time disillusionment set in. Stalin was in power and future clear. In 1930 Mayakovsky shot himself. His suicide note drew from this poem:
http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/literature/mayakovsky/1930/past-one-o-clock.htm
Tere
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Mar/8/2013, 8:22 pm
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Re: Vladimir Mayakovsky
The version you provide is exquisite. I thought it was longer -- had a memory of something so different. I looked around for that faintly remembered version of this poem and found this. Link below.
different version/translation
I can't account for the extra strophes, though the language, tone etc. is a matter of a different translator. I don't like the translation as much -- the way it sounds, I guess. I don't know how to sort through the differences in translations. Reminds me of a thread in Translation forum from awhile back. How does one ever know?
It's a good story. The public and the private. Self-preservation up against conviction (and passion), until the double standard gets to be too much.
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Mar/9/2013, 2:58 pm
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Re: Vladimir Mayakovsky
Actually, vkp's version is the right one. When I found what I found I thought something not right.
Tere
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Mar/9/2013, 4:14 pm
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Re: Vladimir Mayakovsky
I like the one you found. Plus, that version is all over the internet, interestingly. The version I found not so available.
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Mar/9/2013, 4:35 pm
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Re: Vladimir Mayakovsky
What a difference a translation makes! I, too, like the version you posted, Tere. The version vkp found is longer and may be a more literal translation, but it is also lesser poem in many ways.
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Mar/10/2013, 10:42 am
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Re: Vladimir Mayakovsky
Interesting. I suspect it comes to a matter of different versions found after his death.
Tere
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Mar/10/2013, 1:13 pm
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