Yesenin, Sergei Alexandrovich, poet (October 3, 1895, village of Konstantinovo, Ryazan province - December 28, 1925 Leningrad) (see his biography). Born into a peasant family, he grew up in the house of his Old Believer grandfather, in religious strictness. In 1912-15 he studied at the People's University of A. L. Shanyavsky in Moscow and worked as a proofreader.
In 1914, Yesenin's first poems appeared in magazines. In 1915 in Petrograd, Yesenin met with Blok and entered the literary circles there. Block and Gorodetsky guided him towards rapprochement with peasant poets, especially with N. Klyuev. Yesenin's first collection of poems Radunitsa(1916) was received positively.
Sergei Yesenin in newsreels, 1918, 1921, Living voice of the poet of Russia
In 1917 Yesenin was close to the left socialist revolutionaries (SRs). He welcomed the October Revolution from the point of view of spiritual uplift, filled with messianic expectations, depicted in the image of a peasant paradise. In 1919, during the Civil War, Yesenin moved to Moscow and joined the literary group of Imagists. From time to time he indulged in revelry in the company of drunkards, prostitutes and drug addicts.
A meeting with the American dancer Isadora Duncan led to an unsuccessful marriage, scandals that were widely covered by the world press while Yesenin was abroad (May 1922 - August 1923). Yesenin was in despair, from which a temporary return to his native village (1924), as well as attempts to somehow adapt to communist reality, could not bring him out. In December 1925, he was found dead in a room in a Leningrad hotel. According to the official version, Sergei committed suicide, but there is a lot of evidence that he was killed on the orders of the authorities, dissatisfied with his last anti-Soviet poem Country of scoundrels.
During his lifetime, Yesenin was one of the most popular poets, but later party criticism consistently erased him from Soviet literature. “Yeseninism” has become a negative concept. Only in 1955 did his works begin to be widely published in the USSR again.
Yesenin’s innate lyrical talent, reflected in the melancholy glorification of the old Russian village with its meadows, clouds, huts (for example, in the poem Rus) and combined with religious imagery, developed thanks to various symbolist influences (Blok, Bely), but was strong enough to always remain itself. His early poems, which arose upon his return to the village after his first encounter with the city, include simple, very emotional ballads about animals, for example, Song of the Dog(1915). From an early age, he also gives heartfelt examples of love lyrics (for example, Don't wander, don't wander in the crimson bushes...).
In Yesenin, like in Blok and Bely, revolutionary events appear in connection with the ideas of Christianity, with a religious element manifested in a system of images, or, for example, in a poem Comrade in the description of Christ, is of a dual character, even to the point of blasphemy.
In the poem Inonia(1918), reminiscent of Chagall’s paintings in its figurative language, Yesenin paints the peasant paradise he so desired, free from the enslaving influence of urban civilization. In search of revolutionary content, he turned to Russian history and created a lyrical drama Pugachev(1921), where linguistic eccentricity makes it very difficult to understand the allegories to which the poet resorts.
Secrets of the Century - Sergei Yesenin. Night in Angleterre
Yesenin was by nature predisposed to melancholy; it was intensified by disappointment from the ongoing process of urbanization and proletarianization, which was destructive for the peasantry. Escape from reality into a wild life led to a different theme for his poems, written starting in 1920 and published in two collections - Confession of a hooligan(1921) and Moscow tavern(1924). Yesenin feels that he, as a poet, has no place in Soviet Russia; the despair associated with this permeates his confessional lyrics.
In the last two years of his life, Yesenin’s poetry, often narrative, rich in colors, sounds and unusual phrases, became increasingly clear and simple. The discord that ruined his life and led him to a tragic end was deeply understandable to thousands of young people who, like the poet, lost their roots and fell into the whirlpool of this flood: in poems full of confusion and loss, they saw their own lives, heard their own complaints.
S.A. Yesenin is a poet who lived a very short life, only 30 years. But over the years he wrote hundreds of beautiful poems, many “small” poems and large epic works, fiction, as well as an extensive epistolary heritage, which included the reflections of S.A. Yesenin about spiritual life, philosophy and religion, Russia and the revolution, the poet’s responses to events in the cultural life of Russia and foreign countries, thoughts about the greatest works of world literature. “I don’t live in vain...” wrote Sergei Yesenin in 1914. His bright and impetuous life left a deep mark in the history of Russian literature and in the heart of every person.
S.A. was born. Yesenin on October 3, 1895 in the village of Konstantinovo, Kuzminsky volost, Ryazan province, in a family of peasants - Alexander Nikitich and Tatyana Fedorovna Yesenin. In one of his autobiographies, the poet wrote: “I started writing poetry at the age of 9, I learned to read at 5” (vol. 7, p. 15). Own education S.A. Yesenin began in his native village, graduating from the Konstantinovsky Zemstvo 4-year school (1904-1909). In 1911 he entered the Second-Class Teachers' School (1909-1912). By 1912, the poem “The Legend of Evpatiy Kolovrat, of Khan Batu, the Flower of the Three Hands, of the Black Idol and Our Savior Jesus Christ” was written, as well as the preparation of a book of poems “Sick Thoughts”.
In July 1912, S.A. Yesenin moves to Moscow. Here he settled at Bolshoy Strochenovsky Lane, building 24 (now the Moscow State Museum of S.A. Yesenin). The young poet was full of strength and desire to make himself known. It was in Moscow that the first known publication of S.A. took place in the children's magazine Mirok. Yesenin - the poem “Birch” under the pseudonym “Ariston”. The poet also published in the magazines “Protalinka”, “Milky Way”, “Niva”.
In March 1913, he went to work at the printing house of the partnership I.D. Sytin as an assistant proofreader. At the printing house he met Anna Romanovna Izryadnova, with whom he entered into a civil marriage in the fall of 1913. This year the poet is working on the poem “Tosca” and the dramatic poem “The Prophet,” the texts of which are unknown.
During his stay in Moscow S.A. Yesenin enrolls as a volunteer student at the historical and philosophical department of the A.L. Shanyavsky People's University, but also listens to lectures on the history of Russian literature given by Yu.I. Aikhenvald, P.N. Sakulin. Professor P.N. The young poet brought his poems to Sakulin, wanting to hear his opinion. The scientist especially highly appreciated the poem “The scarlet light of dawn was woven on the lake...”.
S.A. Yesenin took part in meetings of the Surikov literary and musical circle, officially established in 1905. However, the literary situation in Moscow seemed insufficiently rich to the young poet; he believed that success could be achieved in Petrograd. In 1915 S.A. Yesenin leaves Moscow. Arriving in the northern capital, the poet goes to Alexander Blok, hoping for his support. The meeting of the two poets took place on March 15, 1915 and left a deep mark on the lives of each. In his 1925 autobiography, S.A. Yesenin wrote: “When I looked at Blok, sweat dripped from me, because for the first time I saw a living poet” (vol. 7, p. 19). A.A. Blok left a positive review of S.A.’s poems. Yesenina: “The poems are fresh, clean, vociferous.” Blok introduced the young poet to the literary environment of Petrograd, introducing him to famous poets (S.M. Gorodetsky, N.A. Klyuev, Z.N. Gippius, D.S. Merezhkovsky, etc.), publishers. Poems by S.A. Yesenin's works are published in St. Petersburg magazines ("Voice of Life", "Monthly Magazine", "Chronicle"), the poet is invited to literary salons. A particularly important and joyful event for the poet was the publication of his first collection of poems, “Radunitsa” (1916).
In 1917, the poet married Z.N. Reich.
The poet initially enthusiastically welcomes the revolution that took place in 1917, hoping that the time of “peasant paradise” is coming. But it cannot be said that the poet’s attitude towards the revolution was unambiguous. He understands that the changes taking place are taking the lives of many thousands of people. In the poem “Mare's Ships” by S.A. Yesenin writes: “With the oars of severed hands / You row into the land of the future.” (vol. 2, p. 77). By 1917-1918 includes the poet’s work on the works “Otchari”, “Advent”, “Transfiguration”, “Inonia”.
The year 1918 is connected in the life of S.A. Yesenin with Moscow. Here, together with the poets A.B. Mariengof, V.G. Shershenevich, A.B. Kusikov, I.V. Gruzinov, he founded the literary movement of imagists, from the English word “image” - image. The poetry of the Imagists is filled with complex, metaphorical images.
However, S.A. Yesenin did not accept some of the provisions of his “brothers.” He was sure that a poem cannot be simply a “catalogue of images”; the image must be meaningful. The poet defends the meaning and harmony of the image in the article “Life and Art.”
The highest manifestation of his imagism S.A. Yesenin called the poem "Pugachev", which he worked on in 1920-1921. The poem was highly appreciated by Russian and foreign readers.
In the fall of 1921, in the studio of the artist G.B. Yakulova S.A. Yesenin meets the American dancer Isadora Duncan, with whom he married on May 2, 1922. Together with his wife S.A. Yesenin traveled through Europe and America. While staying abroad S.A. Yesenin is working on the cycle “Moscow Tavern”, the dramatic poem “Country of Scoundrels”, the first edition of the poem “The Black Man”. In Paris in 1922, the book “Confession of a Hooligan” was published in French, and in Berlin in 1923, “Poems of a Brawler.” The poet returned to Moscow in August 1923.
In the late period of creativity (1923-1925) S.A. Yesenin is experiencing a creative takeoff. A true masterpiece of the poet’s lyrics is the cycle “Persian Motifs”, written by S.A. Yesenin during a trip to the Caucasus. Also in the Caucasus, the lyric-epic poem “Anna Snegina” and the philosophical poem “Flowers” were written. The birth of many poetic masterpieces was witnessed by the wife of the poet S.A. Tolstaya, with whom he married in 1925. During these years, “Poem of 36”, “Song of the Great March”, books “Moscow Tavern”, “Birch Calico”, and the collection “About Russia and the Revolution” were published. Creativity S.A. Yesenin's late period is distinguished by a special, philosophical character. The poet looks back on the path of life, reflects on the meaning of life, tries to comprehend the events that changed the history of his Motherland, and find his place in the new Russia. The poet often thought about death. Having finished work on the poem “Black Man” and sending it to his friend, P.I. Chagin, S.A. Yesenin wrote to him: “I am sending you “The Black Man.” Read it and think about what we are fighting for when we lie in bed?..”
Life of S.A. Yesenin's life ended in St. Petersburg on the night of December 27-28, 1925. The poet was buried in Moscow at the Vagankovskoye cemetery.
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Ryazan region. His biography is bright, stormy, sad and, alas, very short. During his lifetime, the poet became popular and aroused genuine interest from his contemporaries.
Yesenin's childhood
Yesenin’s talent largely manifested itself thanks to his beloved grandmother, who actually raised him.
The poet’s mother married the peasant Alexander Yesenin not of her own free will and, unable to bear life with her unloved husband, returned with three-year-old Seryozha to her parents. She herself soon left to work in Ryazan, leaving her son in the care of her own mother and father.
He would later write about his childhood and creativity that he began to compose poetry thanks to his grandmother, who told him fairy tales, and he remade them in his own way, imitating ditties. Probably, the grandmother was able to convey to Sergei the charm of folk speech, which permeates Yesenin’s work.
Boyhood
In 1904 Yesenin was sent to study at a four-year school, which
was in the same village, and after that - to a church school. After a free life in his home, fourteen-year-old Sergei finds himself far from his family.
Yesenin’s creativity made itself felt during friendly gatherings, when the guys read poems, among which Yesenin’s especially stood out. However, this did not earn him respect from the guys.
The growth of Yesenin's popularity
In 1915-1916 The young poet's poems are increasingly published alongside the works of the most famous poets of that time. Yesenin's work is now becoming generally known.
During this period, Sergei Alexandrovich became close to the poet whose poems were consonant with his own. However, hostility to Klyuev’s poems creeps in, so they cannot be called friends.
Poetry reading in Tsarskoe Selo
In the summer of 1916, while serving in the Tsarskoye Selo hospital, he read poetry in the infirmary to wounded soldiers. The empress was present. This speech causes indignation among the writers of St. Petersburg, who are hostile to the tsarist power.
The poet's attitude to the revolution
The revolution of 1917, as it seemed to Yesenin, carried hopes for change for the better, and not unrest and destruction. It was in anticipation of this event that the poet changed greatly. He became more courageous and serious. However, it turned out that patriarchal Russia was closer to the poet than the harsh post-revolutionary reality.
Isadora Duncan. Travel to Europe and America
Isadora Duncan, a famous dancer, came to Moscow in the fall of 1921. She met Yesenin, and very soon they got married. In the spring of 1922, the couple went on a trip to Europe and the USA. At first, Yesenin is delighted with everything foreign, but then he begins to mope in the “most terrible kingdom of philistinism”; he lacks soulfulness.
In August 1923, his marriage to Duncan broke down.
The theme of the homeland in Yesenin’s works
The poet’s homeland, as mentioned at the beginning of the article, is the village of Konstantinovo. His work absorbed the world of bright colors of nature in central Russia.
The theme of the homeland in Yesenin’s early works is closely related to the types of landscapes of the Central Russian strip: endless fields, golden groves, picturesque lakes. The poet loves peasant Rus', which is expressed in his lyrics. The heroes of his poems are: a child begging for alms, plowmen who go to the front, a girl waiting for her beloved from the war. Such was the life of people in those days, which, as the poet thought, would become a stage on the way to a new wonderful life, led to disappointment and misunderstanding, “where the fate of events is taking us.”
Every line of the poet's poems is filled with love for his native land. The homeland in Yesenin’s work, as he himself admits, is the leading theme.
Of course, the poet managed to make a name for himself from his earliest works, but his original handwriting is especially clearly visible in the poem “Go away, my dear Rus'.” The poet’s nature is felt here: scope, mischief, at times turning into hooliganism, boundless love for his native land. Yesenin’s very first poems about his homeland are filled with bright colors, smells, and sounds. Perhaps it was his simplicity and clarity for most people that made him so famous during his lifetime. About a year before his own, he would write poems full of disappointment and bitterness, in which he would talk about his worries about the fate of his native land: “But most of all / Love for my native land / Tormented me, / Tormented and burned me.”
Yesenin's life and work occurred during a period of great change in Russia. The poet goes from Rus', engulfed in world war, to a country completely changed by revolutions. The events of 1917 gave Yesenin hope for a bright future, but he soon realized that the promised utopian paradise was impossible. While abroad, the poet remembers his country and closely follows all the events taking place. His poems reflect his feelings about people’s destinies and his attitude to change: “The world is mysterious, my ancient world, / You, like the wind, calmed down and sat down. / So they squeezed the village by the neck / The stone hands of the highway.”
The work of Sergei Yesenin is permeated with anxiety for the fate of the village. He knows about the hardships of rural life, as evidenced by many of the poet’s poems, in particular “You are my abandoned land.”
However, a large part of the poet’s work is still occupied by the description of rural beauties and village festivities. Life in the outback for the most part looks bright, joyful, and beautiful in his poems: “The dawns are blazing, the mists are smoking, / There is a crimson curtain over the carved window.” In Yesenin’s works, nature, like man, is endowed with the ability to grieve, rejoice, and cry: “The spruce girls are saddened...”, “... birches in white are crying through the forests...” Nature lives in his poems. She experiences feelings, talks. However, no matter how beautifully and figuratively Yesenin sings of rural Rus', his love for his homeland is undoubtedly deeper. He was proud of his country and the fact that he was born in such a difficult time for it. This theme is reflected in the poem “Soviet Rus'”.
Yesenin's life and work are full of love for the Motherland, anxiety for it, hopes and pride.
From December 27 to December 28, 1925, while the circumstances of his death have not been fully clarified.
It must be said that not all contemporaries considered Yesenin’s poems beautiful. For example, K.I. Even before his death, Chukovsky wrote in his diary that the “graphomaniacal talent” of the village poet would soon dry up.
The poet’s posthumous fate was determined by “Evil Notes” (1927) by N.I. Bukharin, in which he, noting Yesenin’s talent, wrote that it was still “disgusting foul language, abundantly moistened with drunken tears.” After such an assessment of Yesenin, very little was published before the thaw. Many of his works were distributed in handwritten versions.
"Sergey Yesenin. Personality. Creation. Epoch"
Sergei Yesenin was born on September 21 (October 3, new style) 1895 in the village of Konstantinov, Ryazan province and lived only thirty years. But the trace he left in Soviet poetry. So deep that it was not erased either by the efforts of some of his deaf and blind contemporaries, or by subsequent decades, in which mistrust and prejudice towards the poet were palpable. His poetry is always alive in the soul and memory of our people, because it is rooted in the thickness of people's life.
A faithful and loving son of the multimillion-dollar peasant Russia, Yesenin lived by its faith, feelings and hopes. Both the strength and weakness of the Russian peasantry were reflected in the work of the poet, who found himself at the turn of two eras - old and new. The poet's spiritual image was formed under the influence of the revolution of 1905 and the February revolution of 1917. The complexity and inconsistency of Yesenin's creativity can only be explained by the complex circumstances of the historical period in which he lived. Attempts to understand and explain Yesenin outside of this connection are obviously doomed to failure.
Yesenin cannot be imagined as a pure lyricist, who was not touched by time and was not interested in the era. The well-known saying can be applied to his work that if the world is split in half, then the crack passes through the poet’s heart.
Yesenin’s path to a new life was complex, painful, difficult; this is one of the most dramatic pages in the history of Soviet literature. But despite all the falls and breakdowns, the poet followed this path, because the main feeling that possessed him never died in him - the feeling of an indissoluble spiritual connection with his people.
Using the example of several works by Yesenin, I will try to reveal and understand those feelings that completely captured the poet, in different time dimensions; a poet looking for his way in the poetic world of that time.
In Yesenin’s early work, and somewhat later, the poet resorted to religious images instilled by his grandfather from early childhood.
Incredible confusion reigns in his young head from books read and misunderstood. He classifies Christ and Buddha as “geniuses,” and judge for yourself the poets of that time:
At that time, Belinsky called him the apostle of ignorance in his letter. Yesenin's immaturity, the confusion of his impressions, and lack of knowledge were reflected in the precocity of his judgments. He believed that Pushkin was a cynic; Lermontov, Gogol are rude and ignorant; Nekrasov is a hypocrite.
This is how the early poet appears before me, who did not consider himself a poet, but was a searching and doubting young man who was left to himself from childhood, who did not have a person who would become an adviser and mentor for him.
His early work, I cannot say that it was successful, can be associated with admission to the Shanyavsky People's University and joining the Surikov Circle. These two events gave rise to new thoughts and moods in Yesenin. Such poems are born as “Knock off my chains, throw off my shackles”, “The Poet” is the poet of the enemies who destroys......, which I think help to understand the turmoil of that difficult time - the revolution of 1905, the plight of the common Russian people - "Blacksmith" - Strike, blacksmith, strike...
But Yesenin did not become a conscious revolutionary; his stay in the Surikov Circle was just the next stage in the spiral of his creativity. He did not become a revolutionary, like most artists, musicians, poets of that time, he was not interested in this, I think that in this way, by joining such circles, he simply escaped from the loneliness that haunted him.
So, Yesenin, after a long search for himself, not feeling himself urban, returns to poetry about rural nature. He was always attracted by freedom-loving and independent natures, Russian prowess and breadth of soul, as well as historical themes.
And Yesenin’s first printed poems were poems about nature - “Birch”, “Birch Bird”, “Powder”.
In his poem “The Song of Evpatiy Kolovrat” (about Khan Batu and the ruin of Ryazan), “Marya the Posadnitsa” (the struggle of Novgorod against Moscow) and in the poem “Us” (about the comrade-in-arms of Stepan Razin), the motive of Russian history, which he knew and loved.
In my opinion, in this way Yesenin gradually became a poet - lyricist and folk storyteller, sympathizing with his heroes.
Blok’s work had a great influence on Yesenin’s work. Their meeting took place and Blok noted Yesenin’s poems as fresh, pure, vociferous and verbose. And I agree with Blok, since Yesenin’s poems and poems have been familiar to me since early childhood.
Yesenin himself noted that Blok’s poems taught him “lyricism,” as evidenced by the poem “The Hewn Roads Sang,” where he imitated the great poet.
The poet was twenty years old when his first book of poems appeared - the collection “Radunitsa”. The victory of real life over religious legends.
The World War of 1915 left its mark on Yesenin’s work, but Yesenin’s responses to the war did not contain social protest. He writes very calmly such poems as “O Rus', a calm corner”, “Mother’s Prayer”, “Heroic Whistle”, “Dareful Man”. Yesenin’s poems of that time reflected the deplorable state of the village in tsarist Russia - “Goy, you are my dear Rus'...”, “Savior”. But love for the Motherland was generated not only by sad pictures of the impoverished peasantry, but he saw it in another way: in joyful spring decoration, with fragrant summer flowers and herbs, with the bottomless blue of the sky, cheerful groves, with crimson sunsets and starry nights - this is evidenced by such poems like: “The valleys have turned blue,” “The bird cherry is waving its sleeve,” “Don’t wander, don’t crush in the crimson bushes.”
Yesenin's depiction of man in communication with nature is complemented by another very noticeable feature - love for all living things: animals, birds, domestic animals. With an extraordinary personality and pity, he writes poems: “The Cow”, “Song of the Dog” (after reading this poem, Gorky wrote: “I told him that, in my opinion, he is the first in Russian literature to write about animals so skillfully and with such sincere love ).
Recalling his youth, Yesenin wrote in his autobiography: “Of the poets, I liked Lermontov and Koltsov the most.” And he writes poems in structure reminiscent of Koltsov’s poems, whose bast shoes and torn caftans are firmly established in poetry: “My Thoughts, Thoughts,” “In the Hut,” “Threshing.”
The poem “O Rus', Flap Your Wings” was written shortly after the February Revolution; the illusion of hope for change was reflected in Yesenin’s work.
I agree with the positive reviews of the famous literary critic P. Sakkulin’s “Radunitsa”, “The People’s Golden Flower”, in which he was one of the first to point out that Yesenin’s work is in the “stream of artistic folklorism”, that his poetry “speaks of the direct feeling of the peasant , nature and the countryside enriched his language with wondrous colors.” “For Yesenin, there is nothing more expensive than the Motherland,” Sakkulin made the correct conclusion (Bulletin of Europe, 1916, No. 5, pp. 205, 208).
“The poetic creativity of the Russian people did not freeze: it only took on new forms,” he asserted. Thus, Yesenin’s work has already served as a compelling argument in a serious literary dispute.
In his responses to the February Revolution, the poet does not touch upon any specific historical facts or life circumstances at all.
It can be argued that Yesenin, in his attitude towards the revolution, shared the mood of the patriarchal part of the Russian peasantry, its passive layers, far from the idea of a conscious revolutionary struggle, faithful to the ancient laws of the village and the illusory dream that life would proceed in the same direction, but without landlord oppression and violence of royal officials.
The October Revolution intensified the political struggle in the country.
A clear indication of Yesenin’s position at that time is his sketches for the poem “Anna Snegina”, in which he tried to depict the acute literary struggle caused by the revolution:
"Retribution has reached its doom,
The links of the ring fell apart.”
Yesenin’s position during the revolution can be judged by some facts of his biography. The poet D. Semenovsky recalled: “It is known that in response to the appeal of the Council of People’s Commissars “The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger,” written by V.I. Lenin in connection with the German offensive in 1918, Yesenin enlisted in the fighting squad. That time dictated its approach to literature, and Yesenin, together with M. Gerasimov and S. Klychkov, wrote the text of the “Cantata,” which was performed at the opening of the memorial plaque - a monument to the foremost fighters of the October Revolution. The poet also wrote the poem “Heavenly Drummer” - this is a pathetic poem of faith in the victory of the revolution. In his poems the theme of brotherhood and unity begins to sound, journalisticism and sloganeering appear - “Who wants freedom and brotherhood, He doesn’t care to die!”, “Long live the revolution On earth and in heaven!” Thus, the revolutionary era burst into the poems of the soulful lyricist, introducing pathos and high inspiration into his work.
He even wrote the film script “Calling Dawns,” in collaboration with Gerasimov, Klychkov and the writer Pavlovich, and took the most enthusiastic part. N. Pavlovich recalls: “Yesenin could not help but see the shortcomings of our immature brainchild, but he rewrote most of the final copy of the script with his own hand, without renouncing it, wanting to bring it to print” (Almanac “Literary Ryazan”, book two, 1957. Here The script “Calling Dawns” was published for the first time)
Yesenin took part in Proletkult classes and was keenly interested in the work of proletarian poets. And there was nothing unexpected in this, since the poets came from peasants who had not broken ties with the village. But in Proletkult there was no consensus about him, and in a review of Yesenin’s collections, published in one of the Proletkult magazines, it was said: “Yesenin’s ideology is very definite: this is left populism…. Yesenin cannot be called a proletarian poet. Nevertheless, it is so large and unique that even the proletariat cannot help but look closely at it.”
But proletkult magazines also published opposite assessments of the poet’s work: “completely unnecessary for the proletariat,” “goes straight into the camp of reaction.” Such an attitude towards Yesenin obviously doomed him to failure in getting closer to Proletkult. And he, together with Konenkov and Klychkov, submitted an application to the Moscow Political Culture with a request to organize a section of peasant writers with it. But this desire to become closer to revolutionary art failed. The word “Bolshevik” was not just a means of poetic language for Yesenin, and he makes an attempt to become a member of the Communist Party. But he was not accepted. Yesenin, like all other poets, was captured in the spirit of the times by the pathos of the revolution. Yesenin poet Duncan imanzhist
Now let's figure out what changes in Yesenin's work occurred in connection with the October Revolution?
The poet sought to touch upon issues vital for the Russian village, trying to understand the significance of the great historical turn in the destinies of the Russian peasantry. However, his attempts are complicated by insufficient clarity of political views, helplessness in the face of difficult political issues, and above all in relation to one of the most important ones - about the Russian peasantry and the proletarian revolution. A painful search led him to a rapprochement with Socialist Revolutionary circles. He sought political self-determination. And it was more difficult than for many to find the right position for Yesenin, who was associated with the patriarchal village. He enters into “Scythianism” and is published in the newspaper “Znamya Truda” - the works “Octoechos”, “Advent”, “Inonia”, “Rural Book of Hours”. All of them were marked with religious symbols. The use of biblical symbols is a very characteristic feature of the literature of the first years of the revolution. Biblical images, myths and parables were rich in meaning and quite understandable to representatives of various strata.
But it is not religious problems that concern the poet, but rather the fate of the peasantry.
Gradually, he moved away from the Socialist Revolutionary Party and left the “Scythians,” realizing that he had not followed the true path, noting that he differed on the issue of the national characteristics of the Russian people.
The poet was looking for a new point of support, a new position in life, and other means of artistic expression.
He joins the Imanzhinists who robbed Yesenin of his fame without giving anything valuable in return, getting away with the rubbish of their political lines. They created the appearance of a poetic school, but in fact they were marked by all the signs of bohemia of the lowest order, as evidenced by their literary life and constant scandals for advertising. And it was the Imanjists who destroyed his marriage with Zinaida Nikolaevna Reich. Yesenin could never get rid of the thought that he had taken the wrong step by leaving his family. The destruction of the home entailed another disaster - the poet's homelessness and homelessness. Thus, the Imanzhist environment not only tried to disfigure the poet’s poetic talent, but also crippled his personal life. But the imanjists were unable to subordinate the poet’s true talent to cold and calculating buffoonery. Yesenin did not lose his own poetic voice. Against the background of the monotonous verbal exercises of the imanjists, Yesenin’s poetry was distinguished by its bright originality. And V. Bryusov wrote: “The third prominent artist, S. Yesenin, began as a “peasant” poet. From this period he retained much more direct feeling than his comrades... Yesenin has clear images, melodious verse and light rhythms.”
Yesenin is leaving abroad. He turned to figurative and everyday symbolism and came to the conclusion that it is in it that one must look for the sources of true poetry. But sadness about the departed possesses the poet, and he feels tied to the past. The inability to clearly understand the present, to see signs of the future at times lead the poet to fatalism and the word “rock” is increasingly heard in his poems -
Mysterious world, my ancient world,
You, like the wind, calmed down and sat down.
They squeezed the village by the neck
Stone hands of the highway.
So scared in the snowy whitewash
A ringing horror rushed about.
Hello, you, my black death,
I'm coming to meet you!
In this poem, the poet compares himself to a hunted wolf surrounded by enemies. Tormenting thoughts haunt Yesenin, exhausting him, giving rise to an indifferent and indifferent attitude towards life - “I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry...”
And being in torment and in an internal withdrawal from the world of those ideas in which he lived, he writes - “There is no love for either the village or the city,” “I left my native fields.” Yesenin was in a state of imbalance, which tormented and caused unbearable pain in his heart. He became addicted to wine and scandals, experiencing a creative crisis - “Moscow tavern”, “They drink here again, fight and cry.” In “Moscow Tavern” the poet’s character traits are closely intertwined with his painful thoughts about the era, about the ways of Russia; there are undoubtedly echoes of how and what he lived then. The dissolute and depraved women of "Moscow Tavern" to whom Yesenin addresses are not so much real persons as a reflection of the general atmosphere of that difficult time.
The terrible tavern life overwhelmed the poet, and I think the reason for this was his weak character and inability to withstand circumstances. Yesenin himself was aware of everything that was happening to him, called himself a “mischievous reveler”, a “boorer”, a “scandalist”, a “hooligan”. Realizing his situation, Yesenin was tormented by mental pain and bitterness, which gave rise to a whole theme in him - the theme of repentance: “Young years with forgotten glory, I myself poisoned you with bitter poison.” He had deep doubts about the necessity of what he was writing.
October 3, 1921 Sergei Yesenin meets Isadora Duncan. Lunacharsky officially invited the dancer to open a school in Moscow, promising financial support. However, the promises of the Soviet government did not last long; Duncan was faced with a choice - quit school and go to Europe or earn money by going on tour. And at this time she had another reason to stay in Russia - Sergei Yesenin. She is 43, a plump woman with short, dyed hair. He is 27, a golden-haired poet with an athletic build. A few days after they met, he moved his things and moved in with her himself, on Prechistenka, 20. 1922. - Yesenin and Duncan got married.
Surprisingly, with all her great desire to love and be loved, Isadora only got married once. And then, it turns out, according to calculation - Yesenin would not have been allowed to go abroad with her otherwise. This marriage was strange for everyone around him, if only because the spouses communicated through an interpreter, not understanding each other’s language. 1922-1923 - Yesenin and Isadora make a long trip around Western Europe and the USA.
It is difficult to judge the true relationship of this couple. Yesenin was subject to frequent changes of mood, sometimes something came over him, and he began to shout at Isadora, call her the last words, beat her, at times he became thoughtfully gentle and very attentive. Abroad, Yesenin could not come to terms with the fact that he was perceived as the young husband of the great Isadora; this was also the cause of constant scandals. It couldn't go on like this for long. “I had passion, great passion. This lasted a whole year... My God, how blind I was!.. Now I don’t feel anything for Duncan.” The result of Yesenin’s thoughts was a telegram: “I love someone else, married, happy.” They were scammed, fortunately it was so easy to do in Russia at that time. .1923 - they separated.
1924 - 1925 - Yesenin travels through Transcaucasia. At the same time, the collection “Persian Motifs”, the poems “Departing Rus'”, “Letter to a Woman”, “Letter to a Mother”, “Stanzas” were published.
The poet needed to make some effort to control himself, and he found it. He wrote a poem, “The Black Man,” filled with unspeakable inner pain. This poem was published after the poet's death. This poem is a conversation between Yesenin and a gloomy alien who has terrible power over the poet. I believe that the reason for the appearance of this poem is a certain premonition of the poet’s imminent death, since this is the most tragic work, his double, which has absorbed into its image what the poet himself considers disgusting and vile. This was the poet’s attitude towards himself.
Yesenin's work is one of the brightest, deeply moving pages in the history of Soviet literature. It occupies a prominent place in the artistic chronicle of the life of our country in the first years of the revolution. And we all know the truth that only truly national art becomes universal art.
The more time passes, the more obvious is the universal significance of Yesenin’s poetry, with its ideas of humanism, love for all living things, this is poetry of kindness and warmth, understandable and close to the Russian heart, this is the atmosphere of sincerity without which human communication is impossible.
The Georgian poet G. Leonidze wrote about Yesenin: “We loved him precisely because he sang “in his own tune and dialect,” expressing the “human feelings” that worried us all, because he was a truly national poet” (newspaper “ Truth" 1965).
February 27, 1925 - Yesenin moves from Moscow to Leningrad and writes his last poem, “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye...”.
Goodbye, my friend, goodbye.
My dear, you are in my chest.
Destined separation
Promises a meeting ahead.
Goodbye, my friend, without a hand, without a word,
Don’t be sad and don’t have sad eyebrows, -
Dying is nothing new in this life,
But life, of course, is not newer.
This is how the country is!
Why the hell am I
Yelled that I was friendly with the people?
My poetry is no longer needed here,
And I myself am not needed here one bit.
But his sense of participation in the fate of Russia, his sense of love and responsibility for it force Yesenin to fight to the end. Yesenin passed away in 1925 at the Angleterre Hotel, not having had time to see how his beloved homeland was voluntarily collectivized. No wonder Gorky wrote: “You cannot hide Sergei Yesenin, you cannot erase him from our reality, he expressed the groan and cry of many hundreds of thousands, he is a bright and dramatic symbol of Russia.”
Perhaps this is one of the most famous poetic names in Russia of the 20th century. In his short thirty years, the poet reflected in his work the most dramatic and turning points in the life of peasant Russia, which is why the red line in his work is a kind of tragic worldview and at the same time a surprisingly subtle vision of the nature of his vast homeland. This peculiarity of creativity can be explained by the fact that he was born and lived at the junction of two eras - the outgoing Russian Empire and the birth of a new state, a new world, where the old orders and foundations had no place. , the First World War, the February and October revolutions, difficult - all these events tormented the long-suffering country and its people, leading to the collapse of the old world. The poet, better than anyone, felt the tragedy of this situation, reflecting it in his work. However, one of the most bitter confessions sounds in his poem “I am the last poet of the village.” This work reveals the deep pain of the beginning of the death of that peasant life, whose singer he was throughout his life. , of which he was a supporter, did not bring freedom and prosperity to the life of the village, but, on the contrary, aggravated its situation, making the peasants even more powerless than in tsarist times. The premonition of the future death of the village is best reflected in these lines:
On the blue field path
The Iron Guest will be out soon.
Oatmeal, spilled by dawn,
A black handful will collect it.
The poet says goodbye to the village that is beginning to die and at the same time feels that his time has also passed. This is especially heard in such bitter lines:
Soon, soon wooden clock
They will wheeze my twelfth hour!
Yesenin became the last poet to glorify the past peasant Russia, which now remains forever in that old era. He has a conflict with the new Soviet Russia, where the poet feels like an absolute stranger here. Moreover, he does not know where future events are leading the country, and especially his beloved village, which he idolized so much. Such a work, where the poet forever says goodbye to his old life and rural Russia, was the poem - “Yes! Now it's decided! No return...", where he bitterly writes that he "left his native fields" and now he is destined to die on the "crooked streets of Moscow." Afterwards, the poet no longer refers to the village and peasant life in his works. And in the poems of the last years of his life there are mainly love lyrics and amazing poetic praise of nature, where, however, there is the bitterness of memories of that past happy life.
The poems of 1925, the last year of the poet’s life, are imbued with a special tragedy. Sergei Alexandrovich seems to feel his imminent death, so he writes “A Letter to his Sister,” where he turns to his past life and already says goodbye to his close relatives, admitting that he is ready to leave forever. But, perhaps, the feeling of imminent death was most clearly reflected in the poem “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye...”, where the poet says goodbye to an unknown friend and at the end utters the phrase: “In this life, dying is not new, But living, of course, not newer.” On December 28, 1925, he died in Leningrad, leaving behind a trail of unsolvable mysteries with his death. He was the last poet of a bygone era with its peasant patriarchal way of life and careful attitude towards nature, which he deified. And the Yesenin village was replaced by a new way of life, which the poet was so afraid of, which completely changed the life of the peasants.
