{"id":522,"date":"2018-11-18T23:03:47","date_gmt":"2018-11-19T04:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/?p=522"},"modified":"2018-11-19T07:35:41","modified_gmt":"2018-11-19T12:35:41","slug":"mayakovskys-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/soviet-aspirations-and-environmental-disasters\/mayakovskys-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayakovsky’s Conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"

After reading the Mayakovsky poems, I did a little research about his political views. I found many of his poems ambiguous in interesting ways given the subheading \u201cSoviet Aspirations and Environmental Disasters.\u201d I was not surprised to find out that Mayakovsky had a very complicated relationship with the soviet state\u2014 he was a strong soviet supporter, specifically he was a big fan of Lenin, yet he also questioned the state\u2019s involvement in cultural censorship. <\/span><\/p>\n

I saw this conflict in the poems assigned. Where I believe the most obvious contradictions appear are in his poem \u201cVladimir Mayakovsky Rented a Dacha One Summer; You Won\u2019t Believe What Happened Next.\u201d He begins the poem with his contempt for the sun. He shows this anger through his frustration with the sun\u2019s constant rising and setting: \u201cThe next day he would rise again\/ to flood the world with light.\/ This happened day after day after day:\/ what a load of\u2026 rubbish!\u201d (97). The sun clearly represents more than just the physical sun because, after the speaker loses his patience and calls the sun a \u201cparasite,\u201d the speaker and the sun engage in a dialogue. Though at first the speaker is angry at the sun, the tone of their conversation quickly changes: \u201cI end up sitting comfy, chatty,\/ absolutely normal.\/ I talk about that,\/ I talk about this,\/ how work\u2019s driving me crazy (nearly)\u201d (98). The different tones of conversation I believe emulate Mayakovsky\u2019s relationship with the Soviet State.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mayakovsky\u2019s \u201cLove\u201d also shows the complexity of his relationship with the Soviet State. Though the poem is entitled \u201cLove,\u201d the body of the poem argues a relationship more complicated than positive love. The speaker describes himself as \u201ca melting July pavement,\/ where she throws her kisses like the butts of cigarettes\u201d (10). That line transitions into the third and most disturbing stanza:<\/span><\/p>\n

Come on then, walk out on the city,
\ngo naked in the sun, you dumb fucks!
\nPour drunken wines into wineskin-titties
\npour, rain-kisses onto your coal-cheeks.<\/p>\n

This stanza portrays what I think might be Mayakovsky\u2019s relationship to the Soviet State as an incredibly turbulent relationship. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After reading the Mayakovsky poems, I did a little research about his political views. I found many of his poems ambiguous in interesting ways given the subheading \u201cSoviet Aspirations and Environmental Disasters.\u201d I was not surprised to find out that Mayakovsky had a very complicated relationship with the soviet state\u2014 he was a strong soviet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":691,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[143],"class_list":["post-522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-soviet-aspirations-and-environmental-disasters","tag-mayakovsky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/691"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}