Mayakovsky, Vladimir

Vladimir Mayakovsky's name is closely interwoven with the Russian Revolution. This fact makes him as controversial as the revolution itself. He was born in the village of Baghdati in western Georgia. His father was a river master, a sort of civil servant of the forest. From him Vladimir, or Volodya as he used to be called, inherited his powerful physique, the dark bass voice which would come in handy at his poetry readings in the future, and his feeling for language and word games, but also his hot temper and his great sensitivity. As long as his father was alive, the family lived comparatively well, but in 1906 the father died from blood-poisoning and all in once the family's economic situation changed. The mother moved with her children to Moscow.