Vladimir Vladimirovich Maiakovsky was – along, many would say, with Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922) – the leading Futurist poet in Russia over the last half-dozen years before the Revolution. Subsequently he became Soviet Russia's outstanding poetic advocate – up until his sudden suicide, at the age of thirty-six, in April 1930.

Futurism [see entry] was the principal avant-garde poetic movement in Russia, established there towards the end of the first decade of the twentieth century (analogously to Italian Futurism) in reaction to the lyrical and idealist “excesses” of Russian Symbolism. Iconoclastic in mood and intent, Futurism deprecated the “museum art” of the past and extolled the technological advances of the present and, in particular, the future. In the field of

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Citation: Cornwell, Neil. "Vladimir Maiakovsky". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 May 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3012, accessed 19 March 2024.]

3012 Vladimir Maiakovsky 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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