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Books

Both lyricist and agitator: the split personality of Vladimir Mayakovsky

A review of Mayakovsky by Bengt Jangfeldt reveals how the great avant-garde Russian poet lost his voice to Soviet doublespeak

21 February 2015

9:00 AM

21 February 2015

9:00 AM

Mayakovsky: A Biography Bengt Jangfeldt, translated from the Swedish by Harry D. Watson

University of Chicago Press, pp.601, £24.50

Why increase
the number
of suicides?

Better
to increase
the output of ink!

wrote Vladimir Mayakovsky in 1926 in response to the death of a fellow poet. Four years later, aged 36, he shot himself. What drove the successful author, popular with the public and recognised by officialdom, to suicide? Bengt Jangfeldt provides some clues to this question in his detailed, source-rich biography.

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