Conversation with a financial inspector about the poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky: Facsimile edition. Research. Commentary

In 1926, Vladimir Mayakovsky undertook one of his last radical escapades, he gave the poem "conversation with the Finin inspector about poetry". This is not only a hymn to poetic art and not only the poet’s caustic mockery of the bureaucracy. This work also demonstrates things of a very "delicate" properties - the level of writing income is designated, completely inaccessible to any ordinary citizen of the USSR. The poem was published in the form of a separate book, in the design of Alexander Rodchenko, and then printed in the journal New World. Subsequently, many lines became winged, a “conversation with a Finin inspector on poetry” is both a literary manifesto, a socio -political declaration, a semblance of a financial report, a scandalous gesture, as well as an invective against a faceless official - articulated with undisguised sarcasm and barely restrained rabies. An attempt to compete with Leviathan discouraged the poet - the tax on him but only did not reduce, but increased by almost five times (!), Putting financial bankruptcy on the line. In this publication, Mayakovsky’s shocking manifestation for the first time is first commented and reproduced by fax, the vicissitudes of the poet’s struggle with the financial department are analyzed in detail, unique financial documents from the funds of the State Museum of V.V. Mayakovsky (including tax returns and unknown letters of the poet), and also collected Caricatures and parodies on Mayakovsky related to the theme of fees