Information about the author:
Michiko Komiya
Michiko Komiya, PhD in Philology, Assistant Professor, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, 1130033 Tokyo, Japan.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-3341-6175
E-mail:
Abstract:
Focusing on the creations of the poet V. Mayakovsky, this paper examines his involvement with the “art of life construction” — the banner of the Left Front of the Arts (LEF), a Russian avant-garde group.
The slogan “art of life construction” was proposed by N. Chuzhak in the first issue of the group’s journal, “LEF”, published in 1923, and was primarily concerned with fine arts. What form the construction of life would take in literature remained unresolved.
When “LEF” was first published, agitation poetry (agitki) was gaining momentum as a literary genre. In his search of the group’s forthcoming literature, Mayakovsky was likely inclined toward agitation poetry.
However, the intended readership for Mayakovsky’s poems in the journal differed from the one of the typical agitation poems. While the agitki’s target readership was the less intellectually advanced masses, Mayakovsky’s poems in the journal were not pure agitki in terms of their weak mass character.
After 1927, Mayakovsky frequently expressed concern about the LEF’s divergence from the masses. The workers and peasants that Mayakovsky had tried to lead under his ideals in the immediate post-revolutionary period, ten years after the revolution, had gone in a different direction than he had intended. Furthermore, the poet was about to lose command over the literature of the group. The “art of life construction” was realized as a documentary prose, “literature of fact.” In the process, Mayakovsky’s agitki had served its time.
