„Dzisiaj ma głos towarzysz Mauzer”. Rewolucyjna strategia literacka Majakowskiego
‘You have the floor, Comrade Mauser’. Literature and engagement: Mayakovsky’s revolutionary poetry as a case study

Summary/Abstract: The Russian futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky was criticised not only by conservative or moderate critics and writers, but also by Bolshevik ideologists and activists. While moderate authors criticised Mayakovsky’s engagement in the communist movement and worried about the waste of his genius, the left-wing writers refused him the place among proletarians due to his improper social background. The article shows the similarities between these two strands of criticism and analyses why communist party was so hostile to the avant-garde revolutionary poetry. The aim of this text was to investigate why engaged literature is regarded as insincere, unnatural and inappropriate, and to analyse the relations between the poet’s words and their specific performative power, the revolutionary abuse and the utopian vision of new world.

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