ROSTA Windows

Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) was Russian Soviet poet, playwright, artist and actor. He is one of the most famous Russian poets, and during his early, pre-Revolution period, Mayokovsky became renowned as a prominent figure of the Russia Futurist Movement. Though Mayakovsky's work regularly demonstrated ideological and patriotic support for the ideology of the Communist Party and a strong admiration of Vladimir Lenin, Mayakovsky's relationship with the Soviet state was always complex...
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Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) was Russian Soviet poet, playwright, artist and actor. He is one of the most famous Russian poets, and during his early, pre-Revolution period, Mayokovsky became renowned as a prominent figure of the Russia Futurist Movement. Though Mayakovsky's work regularly demonstrated ideological and patriotic support for the ideology of the Communist Party and a strong admiration of Vladimir Lenin, Mayakovsky's relationship with the Soviet state was always complex and often tumultuous. Mayakovsky often found himself engaged in confrontation with the increasing involvement of the Soviet State in cultural censorship and the development of the State doctrine of Socialist realism.

The State Museum of V Mayakovsky in Moscow is dedicated to the work of Vladimir Mayakovsky. The museum was founded 80 years ago and is located in a house where he lived from 1919-1930 and where his life tragically ended after he committed suicide. The museum has a large collection of agitational Soviet posters from Mayakovsky's time working for the Russian Telegraph Agency (ROSTA), titled ROSTA Windows or Windows of ROSTA. It is a specific form of mass agitational art that arose in Soviet Russia during the period of revolution and civil war. Satirical posters were made in a sharp and accessible artistic manner in the style of popular art and in the tradition of Russian iconography. Figures were accompanied by laconic texts in verse and devoted to actual events. Kazemir Malevich and Vladimir Mayakovsky developed and used an alphabet of this agitational art. Nowadays these posters are seen as great works of avant-garde art. The museum has more than three hundred authentic posters in its collection, created by Vladimir Mayakovsky as an artist and as author of the texts.

The book will comprise approximately 200 posters from the collection. The subjects of these posters are very different; from the realities of the revolutionary and military years to the economic and domestic issues of the young Soviet state.

The author of this magnificent book is the Russian expert Vera Terekhina, Doctor of Philology, chief research fellow of the Gorky Institute of World Literature, a specialist in Russian literature of the 20th century and the literary and artistic avant-garde. In addition to the illustrations, the album will include articles for each section, annotations with the illustrations, and indexes.

A major exhibition from the Mayakovsky family, located in the Manège, exhibition space in the centre of Moscow, was launched in July 2018, on what would have been Mayakovsky's 125th birthday. A large section was dedicated to his posters.