Letajushchij proletarij (The Flying Proletarian) [Poem]

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Near fine condition; repaired top and bottom end of the spine, also repaired minor missing piece of the fore-edge of front cover, cover corners are strengthened with small triangle paper pieces from the inner side, bookstore stamp..

Tags: rare books, first edition books, Russian avant-garde, constructivism, cubism, futurism, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Grigory Bershadsky

Near fine condition; repaired top and bottom end of the spine, also repaired minor missing piece of the fore-edge of front cover, cover corners are strengthened with small triangle paper pieces from the inner side, bookstore stamps on the back wrapper; internally almost fine. 

 

Current Mayakovsky’s seldom seen (especially in such condition) propagandistic scines fiction poem was written on the occasion of the second anniversary of the Society of Friends of the Air Force (ODVF) established in 1923. Composed in the 1925, the poem depicts life in the far future of the year 2125. The poem starts with a description of the dismal and stifling lifestyle of the present day from the laborer’s position, who feels tired of backbreaking, dirty work comes home to his room in a communal apartment where he lives like a sardine in a couple of square feet. He is surrounded by screaming children, old men and women, noise, and general disarray. The world to escape is the new life in socialism. Mayakovsky’s solution for these cramped living circumstances is to give all people airplanes and launch them into the skies. The first section of the poem depicts apocalyptic air battle of the 2125 between the Soviet proletarian and the American bourgeois air forces. The latter prevails until an uprising of New York workers against their government turns the tide. The second section features life in the thirtieth century of the post-apocalyptic aviation bliss. Mayakovsky's communist future is all comfort and electric ease: electric razors, electric toothbrushes, every Soviet citizen with his own private airplane (Moscow no longer has any streets, just airports), wholly mechanized labor. Profession of the future is making compressed air for interplanetary transport. People eat in aerocafeterias artificial milk and sourcream made from clouds. In free time they play “aeroball” in a vehicle faster than wind. For Mayakovsky, flying lifestyle is one that is finally free of oppression—and not only bourgeois oppression but that perpetuated by the Communist government. His poem, written from the position of a person exasperated with the real conditions of socialist lefestyle, which remains in total discord with the visions of progressive society disseminated by the Communist Party, also involves an implicit critique of the system: the critique of the Communists’ inability to change the fabric of the quotidian and the critique of government officials who were supposed to organize a new kind of lifestyle but instead made it more unbearable. 


Book's cover by Grigory Bershadsky (1895-1963) shows great example of the constructivism graphic design. The artist is best known for his avant-garde agitprop posters and book designs, which he created for major publishing companies. 


Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893 – 1930) was an outstanding Russian poet, playwright, artist, and actor. During his early, pre-Revolution period Mayakovsky became renowned as a prominent figure of the Russian Futurist movement. In 1919-1921 being inspired by the October Revolution he produced Bolshevik propaganda ROSTA posters. In 1920s editor of the cult avant-garde journals LEF and Novyi LEF, and a principal poet of the socialist realism. In the 1930 Mayakovsky had strongly disappointed with Stalin's regime and committed suicide.

 

Title Letajushchij proletarij
Author Vladimir Mayakovsky
Artist Grigoriy Bershadskiy
Publisher Avioizdatelstvo i Aviokhim, Moskva
Published year 1925
Edition 1st edition
Condition Russia
Binding Soft cover
Octavo 15 x 23 cm.
Weight 0.090 kg.
No. of pages Wrappers, 64 pp.
Print run 30000 copies
Language Russian