Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva. Love. I'll take you anyway someday - alone or together with Paris. Come here to the crossroads of my big ones.

Everyone remembers Vladimir Mayakovsky’s love for Lilya Brik for two reasons:
on the one hand, it was truly the great love of the great poet;
on the other hand, Lilya Brik over time transformed the status of her beloved woman
Mayakovsky into the profession.

And she never let anyone forget about their strange and sometimes crazy
relationships; about a bouquet of two red carrots in hungry Moscow; O
Blok’s precious autograph on a newly printed thin book of poems - about all the other miracles that he gave her.

But Mayakovsky worked miracles not only for her alone, but simply about them
gradually forgotten.
And, probably, the most touching story in his life happened to him in
Paris, when he fell in love with Tatyana Yakovleva.

There could be nothing in common between them. Russian emigrant, chiseled
and refined, brought up on Pushkin and Tyutchev, did not perceive a word
from chopped, hard, torn verses of a fashionable Soviet poet, an “icebreaker” from
Soviet countries.
She did not perceive a single word of his at all, even in real life.
Furious, furious, going ahead, living on his last breath,
he frightened her with his unbridled passion. She was not touched by his canine devotion,
she was not bribed by his fame.
Her heart remained indifferent.

And Mayakovsky left for Moscow alone.

What was left for him from this instantaneously flared and failed love was
secret sadness, and for us - a magical poem "Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva"

She was left with flowers. Or rather - Flowers.

Vladimir Mayakovsky put his entire fee for his Paris performances
to the bank to the account of a famous Parisian flower company with the only condition,
so that several times a week they bring Tatyana Yakovleva a bouquet of the most beautiful
and unusual flowers - hydrangeas, Parma violets, black tulips, tea roses,
orchids, asters or chrysanthemums.

A Parisian company with a reputable name strictly followed the instructions of the extravagant
client - and since then, regardless of the weather and time of year, from year to year in the door
Tatiana Yakovleva had messengers knocking with bouquets of fantastic beauty and
with the only phrase: “From Mayakovsky.”

He died in 1930 - this news stunned her like a blow
unexpected power.
She is already accustomed to the fact that he regularly intrudes into her life, she is already
I’m used to knowing that he is somewhere and sends her flowers.

They did not see each other, but the fact of the existence of a person who loves her so much
influenced everything that happened to her: this is how the Moon, to one degree or another, influences
on everything living on Earth only because it constantly rotates nearby.

She no longer understood how she would live further - without this crazy love,
dissolved in flowers.
But at the disposal left to the flower company by the poet in love,
there was not a word about his death. And the next day there appeared on her doorstep
a delivery boy with the same bouquet and the same words: “From Mayakovsky.”
They say that great love is stronger than death, but not everyone succeeds
translate this statement into real life.

Vladimir Mayakovsky succeeded.

Flowers were brought in the thirtieth, when he died, and in the fortieth, when about him
already forgotten.

During the Second World War, in Paris occupied by the Germans, she survived
only because she sold these luxurious bouquets on the boulevard.

If every flower was the word "love", then for several years
the words of his love saved her from starvation.

Then the Allied troops liberated Paris, then she, along with everyone
I cried with happiness when the Russians entered Berlin - and everyone was carrying bouquets.

The messengers grew up before her eyes, new ones replaced the old ones,
and these new ones already knew that they were becoming part of a great love story.
And already like a password that gives them a pass to eternity, they said, smiling
smile of the conspirators: “From Mayakovsky.”

Flowers from Mayakovsky have now become Parisian history.

Soviet engineer Arkady Ryvlin heard this story in his youth,
from his mother and always dreamed of knowing her continuation. In the seventies
years he managed to get to Paris.

Tatyana Yakovleva was still alive (T.A. Yakovleva died in 1991),
and willingly accepted her compatriot. They talked for a long time about everything
in the world over tea and cakes.

In this cozy house there were flowers everywhere - as a tribute to the legend, and he felt
it’s inconvenient to ask a gray-haired royal lady about the romance of her youth:
he considered it indecent.
But at some point I still couldn’t stand it and asked if they were telling the truth,
that flowers from Mayakovsky saved her during the war?

Isn't this a beautiful fairy tale? Is it possible for so many years in a row...
“Drink tea,” Tatyana answered, “drink tea.” You're not in a hurry, are you?
And at that moment the doorbell rang.

Never in his life had he seen such a luxurious bouquet, behind which
the messenger was almost invisible, the bouquet of golden Japanese chrysanthemums,
similar to clots of the sun.
And from behind the armful of this splendor sparkling in the sun, the voice of the messenger
said: “From Mayakovsky.”

The delivery boys have their usual work, -
Is it snowing or raining over the kiosks -
And his bouquets go
With the words: from Mayakovsky.
Without such radiance
Without such a glow
How incomplete the collection is
All his works.

“You are not a woman, you are an exception” V. Mayakovsky and Tatyana Yakovleva.

The last two years of Mayakovsky's life, the world of his personal
experiences and feelings are associated with the name Tatyana
Yakovleva.

A little over a year and a half before meeting Mayakovsky
T. Yakovleva came from Russia to Paris at the call of her uncle,
artist A.E. Yakovlev.

Twenty-two years old, beautiful, tall, long-legged
("...we need you in Moscow too, we don't have enough long-legged ones" -
we read in “Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva”), with
expressive eyes and bright sunny,
like luminous hair, a swimmer and
tennis player, she is fatally irresistible,
attracted the attention of many young and
middle-aged people in their circle.

The exact day they met is October 25, 1928.
Recalls Elsa Triolet, the famous French
writer, sister of Lily Brik: “I met
with Tatyana just before Mayakovsky’s arrival in Paris and
told her: “Yes, you are the height of Mayakovsky.”

So, because of this “under height”, for fun, I introduced
Volodya with Tatiana. Mayakovsky at first sight
fell cruelly in love with her." And in her memoirs, Elsa will write that
she did this so that Mayakovsky would not get bored in Paris.

But there is an opinion that the meeting was organized with
other goals - to distract the poet from the American Ellie Jones,
who bore him a daughter and detain the poet in the capital of France,
where Mayakovsky generously paid for Elsa’s living and
Louis Aragon.

21 days after Mayakovsky’s departure, December 24
1928, Tatyana will send a letter to her mother in Russia:
"He is so colossal both physically and mentally that
after it there is literally a desert. This is the first person
managed to leave a mark on my soul..."

Tatyana avoided Mayakovsky's persuasion to go to
as his wife to Moscow...
And one more circumstance alarmed Mayakovsky: he
reads in the Russian society of Paris dedicated to his beloved
poems - she is unhappy, he wants to publish them - she, not
in a hurry to bring complete clarity to the relationship with the poet, do not
agrees to this.
Her evasiveness and caution were perceived
Mayakovsky as a disguised refusal.
The poem says this directly and sharply:
Do not want?
Stay and winter...

Their first meeting lasted more than a month.
Before leaving, Mayakovsky made an order in a Parisian
greenhouse - send flowers to the address of your beloved woman.

And he left for Moscow alone.

From this instantly flared up and failed
love we are left with a magical poem "Letter
Tatyana Yakovleva."

He almost thought about moving to Paris himself.
As a result, he was denied permission to travel abroad.
One of Mayakovsky's friends Natalya Bryukhanenko
recalled: “In January 1929, Mayakovsky said,
that he’s in love and will shoot himself if he can’t soon
see this woman."

He did not see this woman.

And in April 1930, he pulled the trigger.

Is there any connection between these events -
No one can say for sure. The denouement happened in the spring.

Back in October 1929, Lilya, in the presence of
I read Mayakovsky aloud in a letter from my sister Elsa
that Tatiana is going to marry the Viscount du
Plessis. Although in reality we will talk about the wedding
only a month later.

Yakovleva once admits with bitter irony that
I’m even grateful to Lila for this. Otherwise she
sincerely loving Mayakovsky, I would return to the USSR and
would have perished in the meat grinder of '37.

Tatyana with her sister Lyudmila and governess.
Penza, 1908

Tatyana's uncle, Alexander Yakovlev, graduate
Imperial Academy of Arts, a year before
upon Tatyana's arrival he was awarded the Order of Honor
legion.
Mr. helped him arrange a call for his niece
Citroen, the owner of the automaker with whom the artist
agreed to cooperate in exchange for a petition for
Tatyana.
The 19-year-old girl spent her first months in the south
France, where she was treated for tuberculosis contracted
in the hungry post-revolutionary years in Penza.
And then she returned to Paris and entered fashion school.
Soon Tatyana tries her hand at modeling
hats and succeeds in this.

Her uncle introduces her to the world of secular Paris.

Before her eyes, Coco Chanel's romance with
Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich,

she plays four hands on the piano with Sergei
Prokofiev, meets Jean Cocteau, whom
in a few years he will save you from prison.

Cocteau, who settled in the same hotel room with
Jean Marais, will be arrested by the morality police. And Yakovleva
will rush to the Toulon police station and declare,
that her lover Cocteau was arrested by mistake.
The great playwright will be released immediately.

Communicating with the most prominent representatives
Russian culture - Fyodor Chaliapin is courting her,
Mikhail Larionov and Natalya Goncharova donate their drawings,
- Tatyana perceives the meeting with Mayakovsky completely
calmly.

Only the poet’s letters to her have survived to this day.
In October 1929, Elsa Triolet carefully
informed Tatyana that the poet was not given a visa.
She probably didn’t fail to tell him about his new
passion for actress Veronica Polonskaya...

Well, Tanya’s life was just beginning...

She accepted the offer of one of the fans
- young French diplomat Bertrand du
Plessey, who had just been appointed merchant
attache to Warsaw.
There, in the fourth month of pregnancy, she learned about
suicide of the "absolute gentleman".

Marriage to Viscount Bertrand du Plessis became
Yakovleva, in her words, was “an escape from Volodya.”
She understood that Mayakovsky would no longer be released
abroad, and wanted a normal family. And also
I honestly admitted that I never loved
du Plessis.
In 1930, their daughter Francine was born.

Cute, looks like a silent movie star
Rudolph Valentino, musician, pilot, connoisseur
antiques, du Plessis was a wonderful man,
who adored his wife.

Three years later, the family idyll gave a thorough
crack: returning home at an inopportune hour, Tatyana
I found my husband in bed with his friend - Katya Krasina,
one of the three daughters of the former People's Commissar
and diplomat Leonid Krasin.

The marriage did not break up, but family life with Bertrand
from now on it will be only nominal.

Moreover, Yakovleva herself will soon
a new hobby will appear - Alexander Liberman.
The meeting will take place in 1938, when Alex and
Lyuba Krasina, daughter of the Soviet ambassador to France, on
whom he was going to marry, will come to rest in the south.

There Tatyana also regained her strength, having fallen
the year before in a car accident. Her injuries were like this
terrible that the body was sent to the morgue. There she came
into herself and, to the horror of the orderlies, began to moan. In the hospital
Yakovleva had to endure thirty plastic surgeries
operations.
And the trip to the sea was very, very useful.

Krasina herself found Tatyana and introduced her
with Alexander. How will he remember later?
Lieberman, “there was an instant attraction” between them.
And they never parted again...

Tatyana will officially become Lieberman’s wife in 1941
year after the death of du Plessis - over the English Channel
the plane was shot down by fascist anti-aircraft gunners.
From the hands of General de Gaulle Yakovlev, like the widow of a hero,
will receive the order. And together with Alex and daughter
Francine will move to the United States.

Tatiana with her daughter Francine in Connecticut

Fate has always been favorable to her.
No wonder that in the 20s Tatyana wrote to her mother:
“It’s written in my blood to come out of the water unscathed.”
Even during the occupation, when Yakovleva organizes
shelter for 123 street children, she will be able to get
help from the Germans themselves.
When the German commandant of Tours found out what was in front of him
Viscountess du Plessis, he asked Tatiana, not a descendant
whether she is Cardinal Richelieu, who bore the same family name
Name.
Tatyana replied that she would rather be a descendant
Ladies with camellias.
The commandant appreciated the answer - he was a professor
French literature.
It was he who straightened out her departure pass.

Tatyana's father, Alexey Evgenievich Yakovlev, disappeared with
horizon of his former family even before the revolution.
It was known that he had gone to America, but where was he, what happened?
none of the relatives knew about it.
But grandmothers have the ability to find a needle in a haystack.
hay
It turned out that Alexey Evgenievich, having turned into Al
Jackson, suffered a lot of hardships overseas.

When Tatiana, Alex and Francine in January 1941 from
Lisbon on a Portuguese steamer sailed to
New York, they were met on the pier by two men, like
would have exchanged social status.

Former Soviet official Semyon
Lieberman, Alexander's father, turned into
American entrepreneur and led a bourgeois
Lifestyle.
Alexey Yakovlev, nobleman, graduate
St. Petersburg Cadet Corps, architect,
motorist, aviator and bon vivant, became
a proletarian and lived in a workers' village.

In the first months of their stay in New York, the noble
the surname once again played into Tatyana’s hands. She did it
get a job as a designer of women's hats as "Countess du"
Plessey." Her hats were worn by Marlene Dietrich, Edith Piaf,
Estee Lauder and other wealthy women.

Her daughter Francine explains the secret of her success to “cultural
level and knowledge of the laws of society, which are much
surpassed her design talent. She was
talented amateur psychiatrist and could
convince anyone that she is beautiful.”
Tatyana agreed with her daughter. "They are leaving me,
self-confident, like prize horses,” she said
she's talking about her clients.

Alex, who was first an artist in Paris and then
editor-in-chief of the fashion magazine “Vu”, received
sentence from the American magazine “Vogue”.

The Lieberman family was quite wealthy.
In New York they occupied a multi-story building and
owned a luxurious estate in Connecticut, which
George Balanchine called the country Libermania.
Many famous people became guests of Libermania
Russians who came to the States.

Tatiana recommended a new secretary to Dior.
It was young Yves Saint Laurent (photo from 1950)
Yakovleva gave the impression of a strict woman.
Direct, majestic. And this could be understood -
after all, her husband Alex occupied a very high position:
was one of the leaders of the Kondenast publishing house and
a sculptor.

Yakovleva with Valentina Sanina.

She was friends with the muses of other Russian poets.
She was the best friend of Valentina Nikolaevna Sanina,
muses of Vertinsky.
She was close to Lady Abdi, née Iya Ge,
niece of the artist Ge, muse of Alexei Tolstoy,
which brought her into the image of the heroine of the novel “Aelita”.
In a word, she chose her friends to match herself.

Tatyana Yakovleva's achievements include climbing
Christian Dior and the emergence of Yves Saint Laurent.
They owe their talent, of course, not to her. But
the press started talking about these couturiers after
Yakovleva told her husband that they were the geniuses.

She was friends with Joseph Brodsky, Alexander
Godunov, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Natalia
Makarova.

She willingly hosted fugitives from Soviet Russia.

The couple Tatiana and Alexander were one of the most
famous in New York. Guests at their luxurious
the cream of the city became the receptionists. Wherein
the family life of Yakovleva and Lieberman also seemed
perfect.
Author of the book “Tatiana. Russian Muse of Paris" Yuri
Tyurin, who was the first to shed light on Tatyana’s fate
Yakovleva, describes her impressions of the spouses:
“In everyday life, Alex was conservative: shirts
sewn only by a tailor in England, red wine
ordered in France, thirty years of morning oatmeal
on the water, one woman for half a century.
“Over the past years, in total, we have not been
“We’ve been together for five days,” Alex admits. - But they were
the darkest days of my life."

His eyes always shone with love. They even quarreled
surprisingly calm and respectful.
Alex is unhappy that Tatiana did not touch
breakfast.
He grumbles that she's already lost three pounds in a week.
In response, a drawn-out pleading: “Alex, don’t start.” That's all.
No emotional outbursts, offended eyes, pouting
cheeks
Even if one of them was fixated on something, the other
skillfully translated the situation into humor...

The brief affair with Mayakovsky was never erased from her memory.
In the mid-70s, an acquaintance told her that he was going to
Moscow and will see Lilya Brik there. Tatyana came out for a minute
into the bedroom and returned with a white lace handkerchief,
which she asked me to give to Lila. “She will understand,” she said
Tatiana. “I understand,” Lilya nodded sadly, having received
unexpected gift.

It was a white flag, a sign of surrender.
In his suicide note, Mayakovsky appointed Lilya Yuryevna
manager of his papers and manuscripts. In my bath
apartment, Lilya burned every single letter from Tatyana.
She took a fatal dose of sleeping pills in 1978,
breaking her hip - she was 86 years old, at that age the bones
no longer grow together.
She managed to remain, if not the only one, then the main one
Mayakovsky's muse.
But she could not get to his letters to Tatyana. Tatiana
kept them in a sealed bag and did not publish them to anyone
I didn’t show it, but I allowed my daughter to do it.

Daughter of Francine du Plessis.

On the eve of Tatyana's 85th birthday,
hemorrhage in the intestines. The operation was to be done
pointless.
A few days later, Yakovleva passed away.
On his wife's tombstone, Alex Lieberman ordered
engrave: "Tatiana du Plessis-Lieberman,
nee Yakovleva, 1906-1991.”
The husband wanted to be buried in the same grave
with Tatyana and even prepared an inscription for myself:
"Alexander Lieberman, 1912-..."
But life had other plans.
After a heart attack and clinical death
he married a Filipina, Milinda, one of the nurses,
who have been caring for Tatyana in recent years.
And he bequeathed to scatter his ashes over the Philippines.
In 1999, his will was carried out...

Contrary to the wishes of the deceased, the father stubbornly did not give
Francine's letters to Mayakovsky - he claimed that he did not remember,
where is the package?
He didn't say it even on his deathbed, and Francine
understood: Alex's jealousy was akin to Lily's jealousy, he
wanted to remain the only one in Tatyana’s life.
Francine found the papers herself: 27 pages of letters, 24
telegrams and autographs of some poems...
Archive of the Parisian novel.

Epilogue.
In the diary entries of M.Ya. Present, found in the archives
Kremlin literary critic Valentin Skoryatin, there is
mention that the poet early in the morning of April 14, 1930,
three hours before the shot, I went to the telegraph office and sent it to Paris
a telegram addressed to Tatyana Yakovleva: “Mayakovsky
shot himself."
Gossip? Legend? Fact? Hard to say...

Used in illustration
materials from the archives of the State Museum
V.V. Mayakovsky and Yuri Tyurin’s book “Tatyana”.
Vladimir ABARINOV
Special for “Top Secret”

Composition

Nowadays, when moral problems are becoming increasingly important and acute, it is important for us to “see” Mayakovsky more fully and more clearly as the greatest lyricist. He is here - a pioneer of world poetry of the twentieth century. A pioneer not only in political, socially naked, civil lyrics, but also in poems about the revolution, its heroes...

Even in the pre-October period, rejecting the “chirping” bourgeois poets who “with rhymes, squealing, from loves and nightingales” boil “some kind of brew,” Mayakovsky, in the best traditions of Russian and world lyric poetry, acts as a passionate singer and defender of true love that elevates and giving wings to a person:

And I feel -

not enough for me.

Someone breaks out of me stubbornly.

Who's speaking?

Your son is beautifully sick!

His heart is on fire.

Mayakovsky jokingly said that it would be good to find a reasonable use for human passions - at least make the turbines rotate - so that the charges of energy would not be wasted. The joke turned out to be true for at least one of the passions - love. The salvation for the poet turned out to be creativity and inspiration hidden in the underground depths of this passion.

not heaven but tabernacles,

buzzing about

what now

put into operation

cold motor.

The famous lines about the creative power of love (“Loving is like torn sheets, insomnia, breaking down, jealous of Copernicus...”) were truly a huge artistic discovery of Mayakovsky. In them his talent was freely and widely revealed, celebrating his victory over “chaos” and “inertia.” As if freed from the force that humiliated him, the poet opened up completely to meet a new emotion that reconciled his heart and mind. The poem “Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva” is also characteristic in this regard. The beginning of a poetic message addressed to a beloved woman is surprisingly unusual. At the same time, it is characteristic of Mayakovsky, for whom everything is inseparable from the revolution, both in poetry and in life, in the fate of the Motherland and the fate of each of its fellow citizens:

Is it in the kiss of hands,

in body trembling

those close to me

my republics

blaze.

The addressee of the letter is a person really close to the poet:

You are the only one for me

height level,

stand next to me

with an eyebrow eyebrow,

about this

important evening

tell

humanly.

But it's not that simple. Rejecting with his mind jealousy - “the feelings of the offspring of the nobility,” the poet is jealous of his beloved for Paris: “... it’s not a thunderstorm, but it’s just jealousy that moves mountains.” Realizing that jealousy can offend the woman he loves, he strives to reassure her, and at the same time tell her what she means to him, how dear and close she is:

Passion measles will scab away,

but joy

inexhaustible,

I'll be there for a long time

I'll just

I speak in poetry.

And suddenly a new twist on a deeply personal topic. As if returning to the beginning of the poetic message, the poet excitedly says:

I'm not myself

for Soviet Russia.

Again, at first glance, such a statement may seem, to put it mildly, somewhat strange and unexpected. After all, we are talking about a deeply personal, intimate feeling, about love and jealousy for a woman from Russia, who, due to circumstances, finds herself far from her homeland - in Paris. But the poet dreams that his beloved will be with him in Soviet Russia...

Don't think

just squinting

from under straightened arcs.

Come here,

go to the crossroads

my big ones

and clumsy hands.

My beloved is silent. She remains in Paris for now. The poet returns home alone. But you can't order your heart. Again and again he remembers with excitement everything that happened in Paris. He still loves this woman. He believes that in the end his love will win:

Do not want?

Stay and winter

and this is an insult

We'll reduce it to the general account.

I don't care

someday I'll take it -

or together with Paris.

To discover a person of the future means to open oneself, to open, to really feel this future in one’s soul and heart. This is how some of the best love poems in our poetry by Vladimir Mayakovsky were born.

Poem by V.V. Mayakovsky is autobiographical, like almost all of the poet’s lyrics. met a very beautiful young woman in Paris, Tatyana Yakovleva, fell in love with her and invited her to go back to the Soviet Union with him. They corresponded, and Mayakovsky wrote one letter in verse.
Even if you don’t know these facts of the poet’s biography, after reading the poem, you can immediately feel that it differs from the poet’s lyrics as a whole. There are no stunning hyperboles, thundering metaphors, or fantasy in it. The poet himself promises in the “Letter...”: “... I will be for a long time, / I will simply / speak in poetry.” “The letter...” is addressed mainly to Tatyana Yakovleva, the poet strives to be understood by his beloved, and is ready “... to tell about this important evening / as a human being.” This poem amazes with its sincere, confidential tone; it looks like the confession of a lyrical hero.
In “Letter...” Mayakovsky manages, with just a few lines, to create the image of Tatyana Yakovleva, to describe both her appearance and her inner world. The poet’s beloved is “long-legged,” but, more importantly, she is “as tall as him.” Mayakovsky feels that this is the key to understanding between them, meaning growth not only physical, but also spiritual, it is no coincidence that he asks Tatyana Yakovleva to stand next to him “next to the eyebrow,” before a conversation that is of great importance to him. She is not “any female”, adorned with silks, who cannot kindle the flame of passion in the poet’s heart. Tatyana Yakovleva had to go through a lot before she settled in Paris. The poet appeals to her, to her memory: “It’s not for you, in the snow and in typhus / who walked with these feet, / here to give them out for caresses / to dinners with oil workers.”
The entire poem seems to be divided into two parts: it depicts and contrasts two worlds, both very important to the poet. This is Paris and the Soviet Union. These two worlds are huge and draw the heroes of the poem, their thoughts and feelings into their orbit.
Paris is described as a city of love, luxury and pleasures unacceptable to the poet (“I don’t like Parisian love”). The populated city seems to be extinct already at “five o’clock,” but there are “females” in silks and “dinners with oil workers.” Everything is different in Soviet Russia: “... there are patches on the shoulders, / their consumption licks with a sigh,” because “one hundred million were ill.”
In the poem “Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva,” the personal and civil organically merge in the voice of the lyrical hero. The intimate lyrical “I” at the beginning of the poem turns into a public “we” where the poet begins to talk about the Motherland: “I am not myself, but I am jealous / for Soviet Russia.” The theme of jealousy, which runs through the entire poem, is closely related to its “civil” plan. Critics even suggested renaming “Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva” “Letter on the Essence of Jealousy.” Mayakovsky’s lyrical hero himself is characterized not by jealousy, but by “inexhaustible joy,” love as the main law of life and the universe.
The poet portrays “personal” jealousy as a universal cataclysm: “In the black sky there is a lightning tread, / the thunder of curses in a heavenly drama - / not a thunderstorm, but it’s just / jealousy that moves mountains.” This is how Mayakovsky conveys his inner state, the titanic power of passion boiling in his chest. However, the poet is ashamed of personal jealousy, calls it the feeling of “the offspring of the nobility,” and considers passion measles, a dangerous disease. He asks his beloved not to believe “stupid words... raw materials.”
Words dictated by love are stupid because they come from the heart and express personal feelings, but they acquire a different meaning and rise in status as soon as the poet begins to speak not for himself personally, but for “Soviet Russia.” It turns out that the need for beauty is felt not only by the lyrical hero, but also by his homeland: “... we need you in Moscow too, / there are not enough long-legged ones.” The poet is offended that Tatyana Yakovleva remains in Paris, while in Moscow “not many can be straightened out by sports.” He admits that after many years of wars, illnesses and hardships in Soviet Russia they begin to appreciate true beauty and become “tender.”
In “Letter...” Mayakovsky reflects on the essence of love. He not only contrasts love with jealousy, but also distinguishes two types of love. He rejects the first, “Parisian” love, “dogs of brutal passion,” and does not believe in its sincerity. Together with her, he also rejects “personal” love, feelings “for himself”: “Jealousy, wives, tears... well, them!” He recognizes another type of love, in which love for a woman and love for the Motherland merge together, as the only true one. It seems that the choice is so obvious that Tatyana Yakovleva doesn’t even need to think, “simply squinting / from under straightened arches.”
However, the poet and his beloved belong to two different worlds: she is entirely the world of Paris, with which the poem is associated with images of love, the night sky, European space (the lyrical hero hears the “whistle dispute / of trains to Barcelona”), He wholeheartedly belongs to his young republic. The theme of jealousy, hardships and deprivations, the snow-covered space along which Tatyana Yakovleva once walked “with these feet” is associated with Soviet Russia. The poet even shares insults with his homeland, lowering them “at a common expense.” With resentment in his voice, he allows his beloved to “stay and spend the winter” in Paris, thus giving a respite to the besieged enemy. The theme of military operations, the “capture of Paris,” which flashes at the end of the poem, makes one recall Napoleon and the resounding victory of Russian troops over the French in the Patriotic War of 1812. The lyrical hero seems to hope that the Parisian winter will weaken the impregnable beauty, just as the Russian winter once weakened Napoleon’s army, and will force Tatyana Yakovleva to change her decision.
The lyrical hero himself, in the face of love, looks like a big child; he paradoxically combines strength and touching defenselessness, challenge and the desire to protect his beloved, to surround her with “big and clumsy” hands. The poet compares an embrace not to a ring, as usual, but to a crossroads. On the one hand, a crossroads is associated with openness and insecurity - the poet does not seek to protect his love from prying eyes, on the contrary, he combines the personal with the public. On the other hand, at an intersection two paths connect. Perhaps the poet hopes that “personal”, loving embraces will help connect two worlds - Paris and Moscow, which do not yet have other points of intersection. But until this happens by the will of his beloved, the poet challenges - not so much to her, but to the very movement of life, history, which divided them, scattered them across different countries and cities: “I will still take you someday - / alone or together with Paris "
In the poem “Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva” there is a merging of two plans of the lyrical hero - intimate, secret and public, civil: “In the kiss of hands, or lips, / in the trembling of the body of those close to me / the red color of my republics / should also burn.” Is the poet sincere when he desires beauty and love not for himself alone, but for all of Soviet Russia? In this poem, love appears to him as akin to duty. Mayakovsky writes not only about his duty - to return the beautiful Tatyana Yakovleva to her homeland, but also reminds her of her duty - to return to where there is snow and disease, so that Russia also finds a piece of beauty, and with it hope for revival.
“The Letter...” paradoxically combines feelings and duty, mental storms and civic position. This expresses the whole of Mayakovsky. Love for the poet was a unifying principle: he wanted to believe that the coming of the revolution would put an end to all conflicts; For the sake of love for the idea of ​​communism, Mayakovsky was ready, as he would later write in the poem “At the top of his voice,” to “step on the throat of his own song” and fulfill the “social order.”
Although at the end of his life the poet will be disappointed in his previous ideals and aspirations, “Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva” conveys the very essence of the poet’s worldview: in love everything is one, it represents the meaning of being and its main idea, which, according to Dante, “moves the suns and luminaries "

Love plays its role in every person's life. If someone cannot imagine life without love, then it “clippings the wings” of another. For some, she is the light in the window, while others pronounce this word through clenched teeth, cursing everything in the world. And yet the world is held together by love. As long as there is love in the world, life goes on. It is no coincidence that the Russian playwright of the early twentieth century, Evgeny Schwartz, in his play “An Ordinary Miracle,” put the following words into the mouth of the Master-Wizard: “Glory to the brave men who dare to love, knowing that all this will come to an end.”

Vladimir Mayakovsky, a contemporary of Evgeniy Schwartz, experienced the same dramatic trials. The then famous actress, Tatyana Yakovleva, went to Paris in 1925 to visit her uncle, the artist A. Yakovlev. Mayakovsky met her in 1928. It is not known for certain why mutual love, according to the testimony of many of the poet’s friends, could not bring happiness to the lovers. After all, in the spring of 1929, the poet, once again in Paris, made plans for a future life together. True, Tatyana herself agreed to marry the famous poet on the condition that he leave Soviet Russia, which was then in a difficult situation. However, in the fall of 1929, Vladimir Vladimirovich was for the first time denied a visa for the trip, which should have decided everything, and later the news came that Tatyana Yakovleva was going to get married.

Mayakovsky dedicated two works to his love experiences: “Letter to Comrade Kostrov from Paris about the essence of love” and "Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva". Both poems are written in Mayakovsky’s favorite genre - a monologue, and each is dedicated to a specific person. The first “Letter...” was addressed to the editor of Komsomolskaya Pravda, where the poet, who ended up in Paris, worked, and the second, not originally intended for publication, was handed over to the woman he loved. For Mayakovsky, love is a feeling that changes a person, revives him, sometimes creating him anew, like a Phoenix bird from the ashes.

In “Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva,” the analysis of which will be presented further, the theme of love is presented from a dramatic perspective. In addition, the poet makes an attempt to give eternal feelings a different meaning. Immediately at the beginning of the poem, words of a different, social nature stand on par with the deeply intimate feelings of a man for a woman:

Whether in the kiss of hands or lips,
in the trembling bodies of those close to me
red is the color of my republics
should also burn.

The association between the color of the beloved’s lips and the banner does not seem blasphemous: such a comparison is caused by the desire to turn the conversation about a feeling that connects only lovers into a conversation about the happiness of millions. Such inseparability of personal and social is characteristic of many of Mayakovsky’s poems. Even jealousy takes on a more sublime meaning:

Not myself, but I am jealous for Soviet Russia.

Mayakovsky combines two plans - personal and social - very skillfully: it would be unfair to blame the poet for insincerity, because he really believed in the great future of his Fatherland and did not understand how he could exchange it for "dinners with oil workers".

Reminder "Parisian love", causing the hero to have a contemptuous attitude towards "females", should become a powerful argument for the addressee of the letter (Tatyana Yakovleva) about the need to return to Moscow. A "dinner with oil workers" is perceived as an act of betrayal towards hungry and cold Moscow, where "not enough long-legged ones". Only such a heroine who "in the snow and typhus" was walking "with these legs", can become a hero "eyebrow to eyebrow", which means only she is with him "level in height".

The extreme frankness characteristic of the poems is reinforced by words about "dogs of brutal passion", about the jealousy that "moves mountains", O "measles of passion"- the letter seems to be filled with the power of intimate passion. But it is always translated into a social plan. This two-dimensionality determines the compositional structure of the poem: a surge of passion is curbed, introduced into the shores by a reminder of the era, of the reality of which the poet is the plenipotentiary.

Therefore, when the intensity of feelings makes the hero shout out at the end:

Come here,
go to the crossroads
my big ones
and clumsy hands -

words about the coming change ultimately become final. The hero puts an end to their dispute:

I don't care
you
someday I'll take it -
one
or together with Paris.

• “Lilichka!”, analysis of Mayakovsky’s poem
• “The Sitting Ones”, analysis of Mayakovsky’s poem
• “Cloud in Pants”, analysis of the poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky