The fatal shot that I heard, leaving the room on Lubyanka, the last affection of the poet - Veronika Polonskaya, sounded on April 14, 1930…
Mayakovsky's death at the age of thirty-seven raised many questions from his contemporaries. Why did the genius, beloved by the people and the Soviet government, the "singer of the revolution" voluntarily die?
There is no doubt that it was suicide. The results of an examination conducted by criminologists 60 years after the death of the poet confirmed that Mayakovsky shot himself. A handwriting examination established the authenticity of a suicide letter written two days earlier. The very fact that the note was written in advance speaks in favor of the thoughtfulness of this act.
When Yesenin passed away three years earlier, Mayakovsky writes: "It is not difficult to die in this life. Make life much more difficult." With these lines, he puts a bitter assessment of escaping from reality with the help of suicide. About his own death, he writes: “… this is not a way … but I have exitsno.”
We will never know the exact answer to the question of what broke the poet so much. But Mayakovsky's voluntary death can be partly explained by the events preceding his death. In part, the choice of the poet reveals his work. The famous lines from the poem "Man", written in 1917: "And the heart is eager for a shot, and the throat is raving with a razor…" - speak for themselves.
In general, Mayakovsky's poetry is a mirror of his nervous, contradictory nature. His poems are full of either almost teenage delight and enthusiasm, or bile and bitterness of disappointment. This is how Vladimir Mayakovsky was described by his contemporaries. The same Veronika Polonskaya, the main witness to the poet's suicide, writes in her memoirs: “In general, he always had extremes. I don't remember Mayakovsky… calm…”.
The poet had many reasons to draw the last line. Married Lilya Brik, the main love and muse of Mayakovsky, all her life approached and moved away from him, but never belonged to him entirely. Long before the tragedy, the poet had already flirted with his fate twice, and the reason for this was an all-encompassing passion for this woman. But then Mayakovsky, whose death still worries minds, remained alive - the weapon misfired.
The onset of serious he alth problems due to overwork and severe flu, the deafening failure of the play "Bath" in March 1930, parting with Tatyana Yakovleva, whom the poet asked to become his wife … All these life collisions, indeed, are a blow for as if they were preparing the death of Mayakovsky with a blow. Kneeling in front of VeronicaPolonskaya, persuading her to stay with him, the poet clung to the relationship with her, like a saving straw. But the actress was not ready for such a decisive step as a divorce from her husband… When the door closed behind her, a revolver with a single bullet in the clip put an end to the life of one of the greatest poets.
The poet in his last note asked not to “gossip” about his act, but for more than eighty years Mayakovsky’s death has been one of the most discussed events in the life of Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century…
