V. Mayakovsky: “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.” Fragment (The First Publication of an Autograph in a Notebook)

Abstract

The recently discovered V.V. Mayakovsky’s notebook with an autographed fragment of the poem “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin” is being published for the first time. This is approximately half of the first part and the whole second part of the poem, which restores the complete draft manuscript of the work with variants to the printed text, rhyme gaps and lines that were not included in it. The text is recorded in the form of a dynamic transcription. The introductory article preceding the publication deals with the place of Mayakovsky’s notebooks in the poet’s creative heritage, textual work on them and a new stage of their study, including the publication of notebooks in the Complete Collection of Mayakovsky’s works, which is currently being prepared at the A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It has also been proven that the text of the poem contained in this notebook can be placed between the texts of notebooks no. 23 and no. 24 pertaining to the same period and currently kept in V.V. Mayakovsky State Museum collection. Comparing these notebooks that contain the autographs of the first and the third parts of the poem, this paper analyses characteristic features of the poet’s creative work, confirms the authenticity of the published notebook, and substantiates its dating. In addition, the article presents the history of this notebook, which was gifted by Mayakovsky to the children’s writer N. Kalma in 1924.

Keywords

• vladimir mayakovsky
• poem “vladimir ilyich lenin
• ” notebook
• autograph
• dynamic transcription