*ollections

The effect of this letter was startling. Mayakovsky was instantly hailed a Soviet classic, proving to be the only member of the artistic avant-garde of the early 20th century to enter the Soviet mainstream. His birthplace of Baghdati in Georgia was renamed Mayakovsky in his honour. In 1937 the Mayakovsky Museum (and library) were opened in Moscow.[16] Triumphal Square in Moscow became Mayakovsky Square.[17] In 1938 the Mayakovskaya Metro Station was opened to the public. Nikolay Aseyev received a Stalin prize in 1941 for his poem "Mayakovsky Starts Here", which celebrated him as a poet of the revolution.[9] In 1974 the Russian State Museum of Mayakovsky opened in the center of Moscow in the building where Mayakovsky resided from 1919 to 1930.[39] As a result, for the Soviet readership Mayakovsky became just "the poet of the Revolution". His legacy has been censored, more intimate or controversial pieces ignored, lines taken out of contexts and turned into slogans (like the omnipresent "Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin shall live forever"). The major rebel of his generation was turned into a symbol of the repressive state. The Stalin-sanctioned canonization has dealt Mayakovsky, according to Boris Pasternak, the second death, as the communist authorities "started to impose him forcibly, like Catherine the Great did the potatoes."[40] In the late 1950s and early 1960s Mayakovsky's popularity in the Soviet Union started to rise again, with the new generation of writers recognizing him as a purveyor of artistic freedom and daring experimentation. "Mayakovsky's face is etched on the altar of the century," Pasternak wrote at that time.[11] Young poets, drawn to avant-garde art and activism that often clashed with communist dogma, chose Mayakovsky's statue in Moscow for their organized poetry readings. Among the Soviet authors he influenced were Valentin Kataev, Andrey Voznesensky (who called Mayakovsky a teacher and favorite poet and dedicated a poem to him entitled Mayakovsky in Paris)[41][42] and Yevgeny Yevtushenko.[43] In 1967 the Taganka Theater staged the poetical performance Listen Here! , based on Mayakovsky's works with the leading role given to Vladimir Vysotsky, who was also much inspired by Mayakovsky's poetry.©&℗ IE Vorobev V.A.; ©&℗ Publishing House Soyuz