(MAJAKOVSKIJ, Vladimir) (1893-1930) - Viktor Dmitrievi Duvakin

Dresden, VEB Verlag der Kunst, 1975. 4to. 29,5 x 20,5 cms. 240 pp. Richly illustrated in colour. Publisher's printed linen cloth, slight wear, front free endpaper creased. Provenance: Peter Weiss (1916-1982), neatly stamped in 2023. With a postal / customs address card, stamped and labelled, indicating that the book was sent to Peter Weiss from "Prof. Perten" in Rostock, July 1975. (The card has been pinned to inside back cover, leaving a tiny pinhole through the rear board and final three leaves.)

Second, revised edition. - - - Prof. Hanns Anselm Perten was one of the most important but also most controversial theater personalities in the GDR. The Volkstheater Rostock had one of the most varied schedules, as plays were or could be played here that were sometimes considered unplayable throughout the GDR. Many US and Latin American plays were premiered or first performed here. However, this stage became known primarily through authors such as Dürrenmatt, Walser, Henze, Frisch, Kroetz, Forte and, above all, Rolf Hochhuth and Peter Weiss. For Peter Weiss, the Rostock Volkstheater even became a "house stage". Many of this playwright's plays were premiered or first performed in Rostock. A close friendship and extremely productive collaboration arose between Peter Weiss and Hanns Anselm Perten, which linked both artists until Weiss' death in 1982. Their correspondence was published in 2019. - - - See also Birgitta Almgren: "Möten, makt och motstånd. Peter Weiss mellan Sverige och DDR" (in Swedish). - - - The "Rosta windows" were the first Soviet propaganda posters published by the Russian telegraph agency Rosta between September 1919 and February 1922 under the supervision of Vladimir Mayakovsky. The Rosta windows dealt with political, military and economic themes and were displayed in the shop windows of Moscow. Rather than printed posters in the conventional sense, they were hand-painted by some of the most prominent Russian avant-garde artists of the time. Vladimir Mayakovsky was one of the first Russian artists to devote themselves to the revolution and one of the most committed to it. He saw the political and artistic revolution in the years following 1917 as being one inextricable unit. Mayakovsky described the Rosta windows as "a nation of 150 million being served by hand by a small group of painters".