Many of us have more than once had to deal with a merciless bureaucratic system, knock on the thresholds of various institutions, and go around dozens of offices in them in order to get an extract about what everyone already knows. Mayakovsky, on the other hand, had to face a similar situation during the formation of communism.

The poem "Seated" was written in 1922. The revolution and civil war are behind us, and now people have to learn how to live under the new system. But the state is strangled by the bureaucratic apparatus, drowning in papers and forgotten at numerous meetings that decide nothing. This is what Mayakovsky writes about.

The poem also has a biographical character, it is dedicated to a separate period in the life of the author. In 1921, Mayakovsky tried to publish his play Mystery Buff in the State Publishing House, because of which he had to go through a long and tedious paperwork.

It is known that Lenin really liked the poem, who said that Mayakovsky very well noted the disadvantages of the communist system that had just begun its formation.

Genre, direction and size

The genre of the poem is very unusual. This is a satirical feuilleton in poetic form. The poem ridicules and criticizes the useless bureaucracy characteristic of communism.

"Seated" is written in a grotesque style, to enhance the sense of confusion and disorder of what is happening. The poetic size of the poem is Mayakovsky's signature ladder.

Images and symbols

  1. Lyrical hero- a generalized version of the supplicant. He is looking for a certain Ivan Vanych in order to get an audience with him, but he still can’t find him on the spot, since Ivan Vanych is always at meetings.
  2. Ivan Vanych himself- exactly the same generalized and caricatured image of a certain boss who always disappears at absolutely meaningless events.
  3. Half people- these are symbols denoting the abnormal and absurd work schedule of institutions where it is absolutely impossible to do everything.
  4. Also, Mayakovsky always determines the daily period when the action takes place, in order to emphasize how long a person can spend in a senseless running after pieces of paper.

Themes and mood

  1. The main theme of the poem is bureaucracy. From dawn to dawn, the lyrical hero tries to get through to an audience with Ivan Vanych, but he is always refused, since Ivan Vanych is at the meeting. Unable to stand it, the lyrical hero bursts into one of the meetings, and an amazing picture appears before his eyes: only half of the people are sitting in the hall. It turns out that in this way they are trying to be in time for two meetings at once. This absurdity is the result of a bureaucratic system complicated to the chapel, which literally forces people to be divided into parts.
  2. Conflict between man and state. While officials solve trifling questions for hours, people are forced to wait at the door of the office, workers from which come only to help petitioners, solve their problem. In fact, it turns out that authorized employees only comply with countless formalities. Such a discrepancy gives rise to a conflict between the individual and the state machine, which becomes indifferent to his needs.
  3. Mood The poem gradually changes along with the mood of the hero. At first, the hero calmly asks if Ivan Vanych can give an audience, the mood of the poem is also restrained. However, gradually the mood of the petitioner changes, he is angry with the current situation. The mood becomes more aggressive, the number of absurdities and satirical elements increases.
  4. Main idea

    The poem "The Sitting Ones" is a brilliant example of grotesque satire. It is absurd, the author mocks everything connected with the bureaucratic system. His main idea is to show the failure of this system and the fact that communism begins its formation on the wrong foot.

    Mayakovsky is trying to show the reader how stupid and untenable the stupid and blind bureaucracy is, that people are wasting their time at meetings discussing nonsense, and at the same time they are forcing others to waste their time. The lyrical hero has been looking for Ivan Vanych for the whole day, while he is discussing the purchase of a can of ink by the Gubkooperativ. The poet is trying to draw our attention to the merciless stupidity of the bureaucracy, this is the meaning of his work.

    Means of artistic expression

    The first thing that catches your eye when reading is the abundant use of clericalisms and neologisms, reminiscent of clericalisms in their style. They give the poem a satirical mood, reflect the idea of ​​the author. Even the very name of the poem - "Prosessed" - is the author's neologism, which is a cross between the scrap "meeting" and the prefix pro-, which expresses a negative assessment of the action ("squandered", "loser").

    It is impossible not to note the deliberate exaggeration of what is happening. Hyperbole has always been and will be one of the main tools of satire. The reasons for the meetings are deliberately ridiculous, if not absurd. Mayakovsky even mocks the names of organizations, exaggerates the absurdity of abbreviations (“A-be-ve-ge-de-e-zhe-ze-kom”). And, of course, the hyperbole reaches its peak at the culmination, when it turns out that the meeting had to split into parts in order to be in two meetings at once.

    The poet also uses expressive and vivid epithets and metaphors. So, the epithets "enraged", "wild (curses)" show that the hero's patience has been exhausted. The metaphors “I burst into an avalanche”, “the mind went crazy”, “it rains on paper things” also convey the necessary emotions.

    Interesting? Save it on your wall!

Vladimir Mayakovsky, as you know, unconditionally accepted the revolution and welcomed the emerging socialist system. However, observing reality, he noted with chagrin the "diseases" of the new formation. One of them was the total Soviet bureaucracy, which Mayakovsky did not expect from the new government. The poem "Prosessed" is his response to the current situation.

Face of bureaucracy

The word "bureaucracy" comes from the merger of two nouns - the French "office" and the Greek "power". This phenomenon exists wherever there is government. Bureaucracy (or clerical work) is called the immensely complicated movement of papers through the instances and desks of officials.

Mayakovsky's "Seated" helps to see the mask of "paper power" through the prism of lyrical perception, which makes the picture extremely expressive. To some extent, the poet's dislike for office paraphernalia can be explained by a personal drama: his father died of blood poisoning, which followed when he pricked his finger with a needle while stitching papers. And of course, the poet himself was touched by circular red tape when he was busy with the publication of his play "Mystery Buff". There were notes in which Mayakovsky told how he encountered "bureaucracy mixed with mockery."

Analysis of the poem "Seated": plot

The hero of the work from early morning ("a little night will turn into dawn") is trying to get an appointment with the chief "Ivan Vanych", this, of course, is a generalized image of all officials. This is far from the first attempt: “I have been walking since she” (this is a Slavic book expression meaning “once upon a time, very, very long ago”). But the chief is always sitting somewhere. Before the eyes of the lyrical hero, a bureaucratic whirlwind takes place: day after day, employees are overtaken by the “rain” of “paperwork” (here the author uses hyperbole), and they constantly go to meetings. The poet satirically comprehends the themes of these meetings, the issues discussed are ridiculous: “purchase of a bottle of ink by the Sponge Cooperative” or simply absurd: “the union of Theo and Gukon” (TEO is an abbreviation of the name “The Theater Department of the People’s Commissariat of Education”, and GUKON is the Main Department of Horse Breeding of the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture) . Favorite Soviet abbreviations fall under Mayakovsky's satirical pen, which he rhymes in a witty line: "At the meeting of A-be-ve-ge-de-e-ze-ze-coma."

idea and mood

An analysis of Mayakovsky's poem "The Sitting Ones" is especially interesting from the point of view of the development of the author's mood. At first it is restrained, the hero respectfully asks the secretary about the official: “Can they give an audience?” However, he is refused. And after you "travel a hundred stairs", you are already "not nice to the world." The author does not directly name his condition, but the vocabulary used clearly paints a portrait of an exhausted, unhappy petitioner.

After another unsuccessful attempt to get through to the official (already “looking at the night”), the mood of the lyrical hero changes decisively, he is “enraged” “bursts like an avalanche” into the sitting room, also “spewing wild curses on the road”. Epithets, as we see, are very expressive! And here is a terrible scene in front of the hero: "half of the people are sitting." Not daring to believe his eyes, he, like any normal person, is frightened and alarmed: "I'm rushing about, yelling," his "mind went crazy from a terrible picture." But especially ominous seems the equanimity of the secretary, who routinely states: "He is in two meetings at once." Why be surprised? There are so many meetings that one has to be torn between them: “... to the waist here, and the rest there!” Hyperbole develops into the grotesque and turns the narrative into a phantasmagoria. The poem of the lyrical hero completes that the advisors should gather for a meeting “Concerning the eradication of all meetings”. The poet ironically utters it in a deliberately clerical style.

Genre analysis of Mayakovsky's poem "Seated"

There is no doubt that the poem is sustained in the genre of a satirical feuilleton. It, as befits a feuilleton, sharply ridicules the vices of society, has publicity and artistic merit. The author does not skimp on hyperbolization and grotesque, capacious metaphors and biting epithets. Many expressions, like the very title of the poem, became common nouns already during the life of the poet and tightly entered the treasury of the spoken language. The poet’s innovative linguistic research is also connected with the feuilleton genre, as evidenced by the analysis of the poem “The Sitting Ones”.

Mayakovsky - futurist poet

The poet's work came at a time when not only the language was broken, but also. Artists were looking for new means of expression, challenging tradition. The desire for novelty crystallized in the artistic direction of the early twentieth century - futurism, which Mayakovsky enthusiastically joined. The analysis of the poem "Seated" is therefore also valuable from the point of view of spectacular neologisms invented by the poet. According to the researchers, there are more than 2,800 new lexical constructions in the works of Vladimir Mayakovsky. Before him, in Russian speech, no one heard the epithet "enraged", as well as the infinitive "to split" or the gerund "orya". And the word in the title of the work is an innovation that knows no equal. The noun "to sit" is a derivative of the verb "to sit", which also does not exist in Russian. However, the connotation of the word is closely connected, for example, with the verb "to lose" and has a connotation of catastrophic excess, hopelessness.

The compositional completeness of the poem

The work is written in a circular composition. We observe a daily cycle: from the morning of one day to the morning of another. the hero, as the analysis of the verse “The Sitting Ones” demonstrates, corresponds to this cycle, the excitement that intensifies in the ordeals of the hero and culminates in the scene where he sees halves of people gradually subsides and transforms into reflection.

Prosessed (1922)

Many satirical works by Vladimir Mayakovsky were aimed at combating bureaucracy. In the first years of Soviet power, the bureaucratic apparatus grew dramatically, institutions appeared that were mired in meetings, imitating vigorous activity and far from the true needs of the people. The poet, of course, could not miss such a burning topic.

In the poem “Seated”, the main character, on whose behalf the story is being told, is an ordinary person who vainly knocks around the thresholds of a state institution in the hope of getting an audience with “comrade Ivan Vanych”, but cannot catch him in place - the elusive Ivan Vanych is constantly on some meetings.

The satirical effect grows gradually. At the beginning of the poem, the reader learns that every morning our hero sees how "the people disperse into institutions." So far, only the list of these institutions is alarming: “heads”, “com”, “watered”, “clearance” (Mayakovsky divided the actually existing Glavkompolitprosvet into four organizations).

The satirical sound of the second sentence is no longer in doubt: “Paper things are raining down…”. For Mayakovsky, bureaucracy, first of all, meant the blind power of a piece of paper, a circular, instructions that only interfere with a living cause. And the image of "paper rain" will be continued by the poet in a number of subsequent works. In the same poem, Mayakovsky is interested in something else - the deliberative rage of bureaucrats.

Again and again the unfortunate petitioner climbed to the “top floor of the seven-story building”, but he could not find Ivan Vanych, and each time he heard the same answer: “At the meeting.” But the main thing is not even endless meetings, but what officials do at such meetings during their official time.

First there was a meeting of "Theo and Gukon's association". The author came up with this association by connecting the Theater Association with the Main Directorate of Stud Farms in order to show the absurdity of what is happening. What can these associations have in common, what can they discuss? Only for satirical effect, you can come up with this. But Mayakovsky relied on a real fact: in 1921, the former head of Theo, director S. N. Kehl, was appointed to work in Gukon as the head of the horse breeding department.

The number of meetings in the poem is, of course, exaggerated, but the issues that are discussed at such meetings are a clear understatement (“buying a bottle of ink”, for example). Both exaggeration and understatement are common means of expression in Mayakovsky's work.

The satirical sound intensifies when, already “looking at night”, the petitioner comes to the institution and finds out that the mysterious Ivan Vanych this time is “at a meeting a-be-ve-ge-de-e-zhe-ze-coma”. In this abracadabra, the author clearly ridicules the love for complex abbreviations characteristic of the twenties of the XX century.

All four episodes of the search for Ivan Vanych are just a kind of approach to the central event of the work. The poor visitor, "spewing wild curses on the road," rushes into the meeting, brought to a white heat, and sees: "half of the people are sitting." This is the culmination of the famous poem "The Sitting Ones". The satirical effect is enhanced by the fact that the “enraged” hero, horrified by the “terrible picture”, is opposed by the “calmest voice” of the secretary, who explains: in order to be in time for twenty meetings a day, “I involuntarily have to double up. / To the waist here, / and the rest / there. But no matter how fantastic and how funny this scene is, it only captures the sad reality - the bureaucratic reality. Mayakovsky's favorite technique is the realization of metaphors. In this poem, we see the implementation of the phraseological turnover: "I can not break in half."

There is no specific image of a bureaucrat in the poem - Ivan Vanych is absolutely faceless, but there is a generalized portrait of endlessly and senselessly sitting officials. And the main idea of ​​the satirical work is formulated by the author as an aphorism: "Oh, at least / one more / one meeting / regarding the eradication of all meetings!". This phrase clearly sounds the author's irony. And, unfortunately, the dream of the poet has not yet come true.

As usual in his work, Mayakovsky uses new rhymes and rhythms in this poem. He needs them for the most expressive effect. The poet tried to display the rapidly changing life, which did not fit into the usual schemes and images. He believed that the use of ordinary artistic means impoverishes the work and does not emphasize well enough the phenomena that he wanted to show his readers.

The poem "Seated" was created on the basis of the technique of "absurd hyperbolism" (the term was introduced into literature by Mayakovsky) - this is a merciless irony, turning into open exaggeration. With the help of his own expressive means, the satirist poet achieves the effect, knocking out readers and listeners from the usual associative series and forcing them to perceive long-familiar phenomena in a completely unexpected perspective.

There is probably no such negative phenomenon in life that Mayakovsky would not fight against. The poet admitted: " I have a big itch for writing satirical things". In the last years of his poetic activity, he created a number of classical works of a satirical nature with telling names: "Coward", "Foolish", "Plyushkin", "Prude", "Gossip", "Hack".

The neologism of Vladimir Mayakovsky, who were in session, has firmly entered the Russian colloquial speech.

Searched here:

  • pending analysis
  • Mayakovsky analysis
  • analysis of the poem

"Prosessed" was written in 1922 and this word is still a common noun. Such a vivid caricature of the existing bureaucratic system with its inherent directness and causticity was drawn by Mayakovsky.

The main theme of the poem

The main theme and the main semantic load of the poem is the task of ridiculing bureaucratic delays and the feigned importance of officials of that time. The fact that the work is still relevant today suggests that Mayakovsky raised a layer of really important and acute problems. He speaks about this so aptly and very harshly that he immediately finds a lively response in the hearts of readers, makes them resent along with him.

During the writing of the work, bureaucracy was indeed brought to the point of absurdity and elevated to a kind of cult. This prevented ordinary citizens from doing everyday things, because in order to receive only one certificate, they had to run pretty much for several weeks. The same work, which, like ants, is endlessly carried out by “important” officials throughout the entire poem, in the end is of no use to anyone.

“You will climb a hundred stairs. The light is not nice, ”the author shares his impressions with the reader, and they turn out to be very close to them.

Structural analysis of the poem

The work is pure satire with prevailing angry notes of denunciation and exposure. The petitioner in the form of the protagonist throughout the entire poem vainly knocks on the thresholds of state institutions and cannot find a meeting with elusive officials in any way.

Mayakovsky boldly ridicules the deliberately important demeanor of the bureaucracy and frankly expresses indignation at the endless unnecessary meetings and paperwork. The main means of expression presented here is hyperbole, that is, deliberate exaggeration. By the end of the poem, the hyperbole reaches its climax, turning into a grotesque. Bursting into the meeting room, the hero sees only half of the torsos of people there. This is an artistic embodiment of the famous phrase “I can’t burst,” which Mayakovsky brings to life in this way and sends half the bodies of officials to one meeting, and half to another.

The work is crowned with a fierce call to eradicate bureaucracy for the benefit of all mankind. Mayakovsky, in the optimistic manner inherent in that period of creativity, looks ahead with the hope of changing the world for the better.

Undoubtedly, Mayakovsky is the most talented civil poet, and especially, he succeeds in harsh satire, hitting right on target. In general, he was always known as a great critic, at first he endlessly scolded the autocratic system, then he set about the Soviet government that had come to replace him. And such reformers are very necessary and useful for every time, it is they who make others develop and move forward, they try to make the world a better place not only for themselves, but for all of humanity. The poem "Seated" has almost a century of history and still has not lost its relevance, and this already says something.

Satire is the weapon in the possession of which the poet V.V. Mayakovsky had no equal. Perfectly knowing the tricks, and in addition, possessing great talent and fearlessness, Vladimir Mayakovsky could hit any opponent with satire. The high, exciting pathos and penetrating lyricism of his poetry coexisted with satirical ruthlessness, with Shchedrin's and Swift's mocking laughter. The higher and purer the radiant ideal of the new man was drawn to the poet, the more violently he fell upon vulgarity, lack of culture, greed and predation.

Mayakovsky called his satirical poems "terrible laughter", and saw their purpose in burning out "various rubbish and nonsense" from life. The poet sincerely hated philistinism, ridiculed and exposed it everywhere. Such are his poems “Love”, “Letter to Beloved Molchanova”, “Beer and Socialism”, “Marusya Poisoned”, etc. The theme of satire on the bourgeoisie is also developed in his comedies “Klop” and “Bath”.

The poem "Seated" was published on March 5, 1922 in the newspaper "Izvestia". An essential feature of Mayakovsky's first work on bureaucrats is that there is no specific image of a bureaucrat in it, but instead there is a generalized picture of "sitting bureaucrats".
The satirical effect in the poem grows gradually. At first, the satirical sound portends little: we learn that every morning (“just as the night turns into dawn”) the poet sees how “the people disperse into institutions”. Only the list of these institutions is alarming - even the list of their names ("who is in the head, who is in whom, who is watered, who is in the gap ..") becomes a little uncomfortable. But the satirical sound of the second stanza is no longer in doubt:

Rain on paper things

Just enter the building:

Having selected from fifty -

The most important!-

Employees leave for meetings.

For Mayakovsky, bureaucracy always meant the blind power of a piece of paper, a circular, an instruction that is used to the detriment of a living cause. In this poem, the poet is interested in the sitting rage of bureaucrats. Therefore, we immediately learn that, having selected from fifty "the most important" cases, "employees disperse to meetings." At the same time, we see the author's smirk about the names of institutions that arose in the post-revolutionary years. The person simply suffocated under all these "heads", "com", "watered".

Already at the beginning of the second stanza, the image of a petitioner appears, “since the time it” has been hovering around the thresholds of the institution. He hopes to get an "audience" with his leader - the elusive "comrade Ivan Vanych", who sits endlessly. Mocking the pseudo-importance of the cases that Ivan Vanych and his subordinates are dealing with, Mayakovsky resorts to hyperbole. Their concern is the question of merging the Theater Department of the People's Commissariat of Education with the Main Directorate of Horse Breeding under the People's Commissariat of Agriculture (TEO and GUKON).

For the second time, “having traveled a hundred stairs”, the petitioner, having come to the institution, finds out that Ivan Vanych is again “sitting”. This time the poet ridicules the narrowness, the worthlessness of the topic of the meeting - "the purchase of a bottle of ink by the Sponge Cooperative." And for the third time, no one is at the place at all, because "everyone under 22 years old is at a meeting of the Komsomol."

The satirical sound does not weaken even when the petitioner again, already “looking at night”, comes to the institution. Here he learns that the mysterious Ivan Vanych this time is "at a meeting a-be-ve-ge-de-e-ze-coma." In this deliberate nonsense, Mayakovsky ridicules the love for complex abbreviations characteristic of the 1920s. But the author does not stop and brings the hyperbole to the grotesque: a terrible picture appears before the petitioner who burst into the meeting. He sees the "half people" sitting there and decides that a terrible atrocity has happened. The grotesque character of the picture is emphasized by the “calmest” attitude of the secretary, who considers such a situation, from which the poor petitioner “has lost his mind”, quite natural:

meetings for twenty

We need to hurry up.

Inevitably, you have to split up.

To the waist here

But other -

Mayakovsky's favorite technique is the realization of metaphors. Here we see the implementation of the phraseological phrase "do not break in two." Transmitted in the literal sense, it creates a grotesque image of half-hearted people. The final stanza following this picture sounds like the summation of the entire poem: “Oh, at least one more meeting regarding the eradication of all meetings.” These lines are like a cry from the soul of a poet who is tired of the worthlessness of bureaucrats and their activities. Subsequently, they will acquire a truly nationwide fame.

Mayakovsky's neologism "sitting", sounding in the title of the poem, has long entered the Russian language. The prefix “pro” and the postfix “sya” add additional shades of meaning to the word: here is the meaninglessness of the meeting, and a waste of time, and the absence of real life.

Thanks to Mayakovsky, the word "sitting" has become a household name for senseless meeting fuss and any bureaucracy.

For me, the poem "Seated" is a magnificent example of Mayakovsky's satire, creating which the poet widely used a variety of artistic techniques. This is his favorite satirical grotesque, and hyperbole in the episode with half of the people, and the device of contrast. I am also delighted by the poet's verse speech, interspersed with neologisms (“furious”, “divided”, “hungry”). All this creates the unique image of a satirist poet, whose merciless laughter reaches our ears from every line of the poem.

It is obvious that the poet did not accept even the slightest manifestation of bureaucratic swagger and in every possible way fought against it through the literary word. Unfortunately, the octopus-shaped bureaucracy, which from time immemorial has been the object of satire of the great Russian writers, has not been eradicated in Russia to this day. On the contrary, the tentacles of the bureaucratic octopus have become more confident and bolder to get into human life.
Only a hermit can do without meetings with officials and bureaucrats in modern Russia. And today our country so clearly lacks Mayakovsky with his sharp smashing satire - in order to defeat bureaucracy forever.

M. Yu. Lermontov is a poet of the generation of the 30s of the XIX century. “Obviously,” Belinsky wrote, “that Lermontov is a poet of a completely different era and that his poetry is a completely new link in the chain of the historical development of our society.” The era of timelessness, political reaction after the Decembrist uprising in 1825, disappointment in former ideals gave rise to such a poet as M. Yu. Lermontov, a poet who chose the theme of loneliness as his main theme. And this theme runs through all of Lermontov’s work: it sounds with extraordinary power in lyrics, in poems, in the immortal novel “A Hero of Our Time”. Connection “Hero

I will sing with all my being in the poet One sixth part of the earth With a short name "Rus". S. Yesenin Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin rose to the heights of world poetry from the depths of people's life. Ryazan soil became the cradle of his poetry, Russian songs, sad and secluded, were reflected in his poems. The theme of the Motherland is the leading theme in Yesenin's work. Yesenin himself said: “My lyrics are alive with one great love - love for the Motherland. The feeling of the Motherland is the main thing in my work. For him, there was nothing outside the Russian Federation: no poetry, no life, no love, no glory. Outside the Russian Federation, Yesenin simply could not imagine himself. But the topic R

The work of the remarkable and unlike other writer Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov existed apart from Russian literature of the nineteenth century. He did not accept those aspirations that were characteristic of his contemporaries. This is a deeply Russian writer who raised in his works the eternal problems of good and evil, honor and dishonor, love and hatred. "The Enchanted Wanderer" is one of Leskov's brightest works. The hero becomes an ordinary man, a courtyard count from the Oryol province. This man had to experience a lot on his life path, but this did not stop him.