I like to watch children die. Private practice. Digital, M.D.

For the umpteenth time I come across those who say about Mayakovsky: "He was an evil sadist and a cynic, he wrote:" I love to watch children die. 30 years ago. Then I figured everything out, but for many years I forgot again. But from the very beginning, it is clear that the poet was never a maniac observer of children's deaths, that this is some kind of extreme poetic image. Because now again there is an exchange of views with frendessa, a former admirer of the work of the great Russian futurist, who rejected and condemned him, having read these unkind lines, I nevertheless decided to look on the Internet - and what kind of poetic metaphor is behind these words? child death"?

As I thought, this metaphor is built into the system of poetic language of a small but absolutely brilliant poem, which ends with even more famous lines than "I love to look ...", namely: "I am lonely, like the last eye / of the one going to blind man!"

Do I need to explain what this poem is about and why the poet resorted to such a shocking image? Who wants to, look here: http://infoart.udm.ru/magazine/novyi_mi/filos/amelin/m12.htm. Quote from the article: Blasphemous words are presented to the Heavenly Father. It is he - "the father of skillful torment" (Khlebnikov) - who loves to watch how children die. The first line is from the mouth of the Creator. The nasty “and I ...” indicates that this is not the one who confesses his cynical love for dying children: “I love to watch how children die<...>And I<...>like the last eye of a man going to the blind!” In place of Christ who escaped from the icon, time will paint his sacrificial image: “And when my forehead<...>the fading frame will bleed...” (I, 47) [I will find myself] “in a scorched sky on a rusty cross”. What's happening? The rejection of God is accompanied by an appeal to another heavenly Father, all hope is only in him: “Sun! My father! Have pity though you don't torment!". The sun doesn't seem to hurt. Torment and death come from another testing and punishing right hand. The poem is full of Christian symbols - an icon, a tunic, a cathedral, a cross, a face, a goddess, a bogomaz. There is a pagan-paradoxical communion of the Holy Mysteries - the body and blood of Christ, wine and bread (“the sky is swollen flesh”, “spilled blood”). Like Pushkin's Prophet, Mayakovsky's hero is at a crossroads. But Mayakovsky leaves this crossroads armed not only divine verb, but also ... laughter, however, also of Pushkin's origin. At one of the evenings at the Polytechnic, when Mayakovsky was asked “What is your real name?”, He replied: “Say? Pushkin!!!”.

I publish the little tragic theomachic poem in its entirety:

Vladimir Mayakovsky

SOME WORDS ABOUT ME

I love watching children die.
Did you notice the surf of laughter misty shaft
for melancholy trunk?
And I -
in the reading room of the streets -
so often leafed through the coffin volume.
Midnight
groped with wet fingers
me
and a boarded up fence
and with raindrops on the bald head of the dome
jumped crazy cathedral.
I see ________ running,
chiton windy edge
yelala crying slush.
I scream at the brick
frantic words I stab a dagger
in the sky swollen pulp
"Sun!"
"My father!"
"Have pity, though you do not torment!"
It is the blood shed by you that flows down the road.
This is my soul
shreds of torn clouds
in the scorched sky
on the rusty cross of the bell tower!
Time!
Though you, lame bogomaz,
paint my face
to the goddess of the freak of the century!
I'm lonely as the last eye
from a man going to the blind!

Countless authors have written about Mayakovsky's "mysterious" and "cynically sadistic" line "I love to watch children die." There were also quite a few defenders, starting with the most influential Roman Yakobson. “The line of the advocacy was summed up by Lilya Brik, whom the poet himself called “dear and dear Child”: “Life is full of suffering, and longing, and feelings of loneliness. The sooner such a life ends, the better for a person. The sooner a person dies, the better for him That's why - "I love to watch how children die"... As they say - "I did not suffer for long"... So they once said among the people about dead children.<...>This bitter expression is taken sharply and paradoxically, as the only thing that can please a person who loves and pities people. Mayakovsky allowed himself a little poetic liberty - to give a conclusion not at the end of the poem, but at the beginning. Mayakovsky himself did not enter into debates, and according to the testimony of one of the accusers, in 1928 he answered: “You need to know why it was written, when it was written and for whom it was written.” Let's follow his advice."

An amazing poem by a young and talented guy writing under a pseudonym April Alchemy.
Subtle feeling and honoring of Vladimir Mayakovsky warm the soul of his devoted admirers.

“You left, as they say, in another world, -
Emptiness, fly into the stars crashing.
No newspapers for you, no feelings with someone else's wife.
No, Vladimir is not a mockery!
There is a lump in the throat, not a laugh.
I see how, in the arshins of the room, hesitating
You drop the bag of your own bones.
Stop Mayakovsky, are you out of your mind!
Let the deadly chalk flood your cheeks!?
You knew how to bend like that,
That no one in the world could do it!
(Mayakovsky "Sergey Yesenin")

"I love watching children die" 1
Not having known lifelong enmity.
Citizens, comrades answer, -
As a sacrifice, whose ideas the leaders burned you!?

Gossips leave your news,
Our poet did not like them terribly,
Stop hand-to-hand marches
To see this is beyond all powers.

Will not reveal to us the reasons for the loss
Neither a cartridge, nor a line of honored handwriting,
Among all the famous hysterics
I walk along these bows past ...

Mayakovsky lived up to his neck in drama,
Where the master and the boor are the grin of spring,
Where a swarm of people is wounded by a storm
And the fear of worldly fuss is close.

And who will hear quietly, - "God!"
Are deaf eunuchs superstitious!?

Maybe under this hellish garden
It was terribly tender to stand!?
Shame is suppressed by the stupefied herd,
Where brass knuckles walked the brains of the cut.

LEF is surrounded by false friends,
The spirit is humiliated by a greedy wife,
Labor is immobilized by its articles, -
The rain of bile did not pass by.

Self-love does not allow pity
And love gets worse.
What happened to the dream from greedy looks
In the red osprey of fallen lights!?

Tenderness is a treasure in its deadly mask,
But verses are already coming with hostility,
Fairy tales will become a hell of heavenly songs
From the attacks of inexperienced such.

Yes, cruelty is forced to roar
The lust of obese feelings -
Heap handwriting rushed by bumps
The world is frightened in an arc bending.

Maybe the last century is worthless lived,
Maybe the cry did not justify the singer.
Which of you is not worthy of trembling
On the oval of a plump face!?

Here is a huge mercantile Morok
Surrounds you with dogmas
And fat you're dying soon
How stingy for endurance having descended.

Communism is great in its ideas,
But the people could not live outside the cage,
The prophet drowned in a crowd of plebeians,
Equality quickly broke the thread.

And when the roar of the choir subsides
Above the scale of the local machines, -
Only a burn is looking for red gunpowder,
Leaving us only smoke cipher ...

“So what did Zarathustra once say to you?
That poets lie too much?
But Zarathustra himself is a poet.
Now do you believe
What did he tell the truth now?
Why do you believe?
F. Nietzsche "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"

1 Countless authors have written about Mayakovsky's "mysterious" and "cynically sadistic" line "I love to watch children die." There were also quite a few defenders, starting with the most influential Roman Yakobson. Lilya Brik, whom the poet himself called “dear and dear Detik”, summed up the line of the advocacy: “Life is full of suffering, and longing, and a feeling of loneliness. The sooner this life ends, the better for the person. The sooner a person dies, the better for him. Therefore, - “I love to watch how children die”. As the saying goes - "suffered for a short time". This is what people used to say about dead children.<...>This bitter expression is taken sharply and paradoxically, as the only thing that can please a person who loves and pities people. Mayakovsky allowed himself a little poetic liberty - to give a conclusion not at the end of the poem, but at the beginning. Mayakovsky himself did not enter into debates, and according to the testimony of one of the accusers, in 1928 he answered: “You need to know why it was written, when it was written and for whom it was written.” Let's follow his advice. As you know, the young Vladimir Vladimirovich was a maximalist and did not exchange for “small poetic liberties”. Immediately after the savage line followed:

Did you notice the surf of laughter misty shaft
for melancholy trunk?

No, they did not notice, and Mayakovsky himself did not reveal his cards.

15. “I LOVE TO WATCH HOW CHILDREN DIE” (Extract from various sources) (section to the material V. MAYAKOVSKY. ON THE BIRTHDAY)

Qui cum Jesuitis,
non ite cum jesuitis.*
* Walking with Jesus
do not go with the Jesuits (lat.).
Children, children, this is me.

Velimir Khlebnikov

Dorthin will unser Steuer, wo
unser Kinder-Land ist!

** Our ship is striving there,
where is the country of our children! (F. Nietzsche).

The sooner a person dies, the better for him. Therefore, - “I love to watch how children die”. As the saying goes - "suffered for a short time". This is what people used to say about dead children.<...>

This bitter expression is taken sharply and paradoxically, as the only thing that can please a person who loves and pities people. Mayakovsky allowed himself a little poetic liberty - to give a conclusion not at the end of the poem, but at the beginning.

Mayakovsky himself did not enter into debates, and according to the testimony of one of the accusers, in 1928 he answered: “You need to know why it was written, when it was written and for whom it was written.” Let's follow his advice.

As you know, the young Vladimir Vladimirovich was a maximalist and did not exchange for “small poetic liberties”.
Here is the full fourth poem, “A Few Words About Myself”:

I love watching children die.
Did you notice the surf of laughter misty shaft
for melancholy trunk?
And I -
in the reading room of the streets -
so often leafed through the coffin volume.

Midnight
groped with wet fingers
me
and a clogged fence
and with raindrops on the dome's bald head
jumped crazy cathedral.

I see Christ fled from the icon,
chiton windy edge
kissed, crying, slush.
I scream at the brick
frantic words I stab a dagger
in the sky swollen pulp:
"Sun!

My father!
Have pity though you do not torment!
It is my blood shed by you that flows down the road.
This is my soul
shreds of torn clouds
in the scorched sky
on the rusty cross of the bell tower!

Time!
Though you, lame bogomaz,
paint my face
to the goddess of the freak of the century!
I'm lonely as the last eye
from a man going to the blind!” (I, 48-49)

Blasphemous words are presented to the Heavenly Father. It is he - "the father of skillful torment" (Khlebnikov) - who loves to watch how children die. The first line is from the mouth of the Creator. The nasty “and I ...” indicates that this is not the one who confesses his cynical love for dying children: “I love to watch how children die<...>

And I<...>like the last eye of a man going to the blind!” In place of Christ who escaped from the icon, time will paint his sacrificial image: “And when my forehead<...>the fading frame will bleed...” (I, 47) [I will find myself] “in a scorched sky on a rusty cross”. What's happening? The rejection of God is accompanied by an appeal to another heavenly Father, all hope is only in him: “Sun! My father! Have pity though you don't torment!". The sun doesn't seem to hurt. Torment and death come from another testing and punishing right hand.

PHOTO FROM THE INTERNET