title: Vladimir Mayakovsky and the Utopian Imagination in the Russian Revolution
metadata.name: dc.contributor.author
metadata.value: Steinberg, Mark D.
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.accessioned
metadata.value: 2018-04-04T14:20:34Z
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.available
metadata.value: 2018-04-04T14:20:34Z
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.issued
metadata.value: 2018-03
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.identifier.citation
metadata.value: Steinberg M. D. Vladimir Mayakovsky and the Utopian Imagination in the Russian Revolution. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. History, 2018, vol. 63, issue 1, pp. 83–91.
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.identifier.other
metadata.value: 10.21638/11701/spbu02.2018.105
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.identifier.uri
metadata.value: http://hdl.handle.net/11701/9279
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.description.abstract
metadata.value: This article — the third part of a three-part series that reinterprets the “utopianism” of Russian
  revolutionaries, especially the Bolsheviks — focuses on the perspectives of Vladimir Mayakovsky.
  Part 1 described the basic theoretical approach: an alternative definition of the utopian
  imagination developed after 1917 in the work of Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Theodor
  Adorno, and others. In brief, this sees utopia as a critical analysis of conventional constructions
  of reality, time, and the possible: as a critical negation of that which merely is in the name
  of what should be, as a radical challenge to assumptions about what is possible and impossible
  in the present, as a vision of time and history as containing the possibility of an explosive “leap
  in the open air of history” (Benjamin). Utopian consciousness breaks into the normativized
  world of knowledge and expectations about reality and possibility in history to reveal the
  new and unexpected. This is utopia as radical epistemology, hermeneutics, and praxis. This
  article focuses on Vladimir Mayakovsky (the previous articles discussed Alexandra Kollontai
  and Lev Trotsky). Mayakovsky’s poetry visualized both the oppressive darkness of the lived
  present and a world of possibility greater than the normativized reality of his own time. He
  offered a counterreality of “Vladimir Mayakovsky” as utopian antithesis to the merely factual
  reality of the present. He explored the conventional linear temporality of the world as given
  and the possibility of an explosive leap into the future. Time was particularly important for
  Mayakovsky’s poetic thought and is a central theme in all utopian thought. Like Kollontai and
  Trotsky, Mayakovsky’s utopian impulse collided with the stubbornness of the present, with the
  tenacious force of necessity. But the focus in all three articles has been on the spirit that led
  them to attempt to leap into the clear, free, and unpredictable open air of history. This utopian
  impulse was central to the experience of the Russian revolution for so many. We must recognize
  their utopian “leap” even as we acknowledge the dystopian and catastrophic landing.
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.language.iso
metadata.value: en
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.publisher
metadata.value: St Petersburg State University
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.relation.ispartofseries
metadata.value: Vestnik of St Petersburg University. History;Volume 63; Issue 1
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Vladimir Mayakovsky
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: the Russian revolution
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: utopianism
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Russian revolutionaries
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.title
metadata.value: Vladimir Mayakovsky and the Utopian Imagination in the Russian Revolution
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.type
metadata.value: Article
metadata.lang: en_GB
resources.filename: 05-Steinberg.pdf
resources.url: https://dspace.spbu.ru/bitstream/11701/9279/1/05-Steinberg.pdf
resources.format: Adobe PDF
resources.size: 609,21 kB