Sergey Yesenin. The name of the great Russian poet - an expert on the people's soul, the singer of peasant Rus', is familiar to every person, his poems have long become Russian classics, and on Sergei Yesenin's birthday, admirers of his work gather.
Oh you sleigh! What a sleigh!
The sounds of frozen aspen trees.
My father is a peasant,
Well, I am a peasant's son.
Sergei Yesenin: biography of the Russian poet
Ryazan Oblast. In 1895, a poet was born, whose works are still admired by fans of his work today. October 3 is the birthday of Sergei Yesenin. From childhood, the boy was raised by a wealthy and enterprising maternal grandfather, a great connoisseur of church literature. Therefore, among the child’s first impressions are spiritual poems sung by wandering blind men and fairy tales of his beloved grandmother, which prompted the future poet to create his own creativity, which began at the age of 9.
Sergei graduated from the 4th grade of the local zemstvo school, although he studied for 5 years: due to unsatisfactory behavior, he was retained for the 2nd year. He continued to gain knowledge at the Spas-Klepikovsky parochial school, which trained rural teachers.
The capital of Russian cities: the beginning of a new life
At the age of 17, he left for Moscow and got a job in a butcher shop, where his father served as a clerk. After a conflict with a parent, he changed jobs: he moved to book publishing, and then to a printing house as a proofreader. There he met Anna Izryadnova, who gave birth to his 19-year-old son Yuri in December 1914, who was shot in 1937 under a false verdict of an attempt on Stalin’s life.
While in the capital, the poet took part in the literary and musical circle named after. Surikov, joined the rebellious workers, for which he received police attention. In 1912, he began to attend classes at the A. Shanyavsky People's University in Moscow as a volunteer. There Yesenin received the basics of a humanitarian education, listening to lectures on Western European and Russian literature. Sergei Yesenin's birthday is known to many admirers of his work - October 3, 1895. His works have been translated into many languages and are included in the compulsory school curriculum. To this day, many are interested in what kind of relationship the poet built with the fair sex, did women love Sergei Yesenin, did he reciprocate? What (or who) inspired him to create; to create in such a way that after a century his poems are relevant, interesting, and loved.
Life and work of Sergei Yesenin
The first publication took place in 1914 in metropolitan magazines, and the beginning of a successful debut was the poem “Birch”. Literally in a century, Sergei Yesenin’s birthday will be known to almost every schoolchild, but for now the poet set foot on his thorny road leading to fame and recognition.
In Petrograd, where Sergei moved in the spring of 1915, believing that all literary life was concentrated in this city, he read his works to Blok, whom he personally came to meet. The warm welcome by the famous poet’s entourage and their approval of the poems inspired the envoy of the Russian village and endless fields for further creativity.
Recognized, published, read
Sergei Yesenin’s talent was recognized by Gorodetsky S.M., Remizov A.M., Gumilev N.S., whose acquaintance the young man owed to Blok. Almost all the imported poems were published, and Sergei Yesenin, whose biography still arouses interest among fans of the poet’s work, became widely known. In joint poetic performances with Klyuev before the public, stylized in a folk, peasant manner, the young golden-haired poet appeared in morocco boots and an embroidered shirt. He became close to the society of “new peasant poets” and was himself interested in this trend. The key theme of Yesenin’s poetry was peasant Rus', the love for which permeates all his works.
In 1916, he was drafted into the army, but thanks to the concern and troubles of his friends, he was appointed as an orderly on the military hospital train of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, which allowed the poet to attend literary salons, perform at concerts, and attend receptions with patrons of the arts without interference.
Peasant Rus' in the poet’s work
He accepted the October Revolution joyfully in his own way and enthusiastically wrote a number of short poems “Heavenly Drummer”, “Inonia”, “Dove of Jordan”, imbued with a premonition of future changes; The life and work of Sergei Yesenin were at the beginning of a new, yet unknown path - the path of fame and recognition.
In 1916, Yesenin’s debut book “Radunitsa” was published, enthusiastically received by critics who discovered in it a fresh direction, the author’s natural taste and his youthful spontaneity. Further, from 1914 to 1917, “Dove”, “Rus”, “Marfa-Posadnitsa”, “Mikola” were published, marked by some special, Yesenin style with the humanization of animals, plants, natural phenomena, which together with man form , connected by roots with nature, a holistic, harmonious and beautiful world. Pictures of Yesenin's Rus' - reverent, evoking an almost religious feeling in the poet, are colored with a subtle understanding of nature with a heating stove, a dog's coop, uncut hayfields, swampy swamps, the snoring of a herd and the hubbub of mowers.
Second marriage of Sergei Yesenin
In 1917, the poet married Nikolaevna, from whose marriage Sergei Yesenin’s children were born: son Konstantin and daughter Tatyana.
At this time, real popularity came to Yesenin, the poet became in demand, he was invited to various In 1918 - 1921, he traveled a lot around the country: Crimea, the Caucasus, Arkhangelsk, Murmansk, Turkestan, Bessarabia. He worked on the dramatic poem “Pugachev”, and in the spring he traveled to the Orenburg steppes.
In 1918-1920, the poet became close to Mariengof A.B., Shershenevich V.G., and became interested in imagism - a post-revolutionary literary and artistic movement based on futurism, which claimed to build an “art of the future”, completely new, denying everything previous artistic experience. Yesenin became a frequent visitor to the literary cafe “Stable of Pegasus”, located in Moscow near the Nikitsky Gate. The poet, who sought to understand the “commune-raised Rus',” only partially shared the desire of the newly created direction, the goal of which was to cleanse the form from the “dust of content.” He still continued to perceive himself as a poet of “Departing Rus'.” In his poems there appeared motifs of everyday life “destroyed by a storm”, drunken prowess, which is replaced by hysterical melancholy. The poet appears as a brawler, a hooligan, a drunkard with a bloody soul, wandering from den to den, where he is surrounded by “alien and laughing rabble” (collections “Moscow tavern”, “Confession of a hooligan” and “Poems of a brawler”).
In 1920, her three-year marriage to Z. Reich broke up. Sergei Yesenin's children each followed their own path: Konstantin became a famous football statistician, and Tatyana became the director of her father's museum and a member of the Writers' Union.
Isadora Duncan and Sergei Yesenin
In 1921, Yesenin met the dancer Isadora Duncan. She did not speak Russian, the poet, who read a lot and was highly educated, did not know foreign languages, but from the first meeting, when he looked at the dance of this woman, Sergei Yesenin was irreversibly drawn to her. The couple, in which Isadora was 18 years older, was not stopped by the age difference. She most often called her beloved “angel,” and he called her “Isidora.” Isadora's spontaneity and her fiery dances drove Yesenin crazy. She perceived him as a weak and unprotected child, treated Sergei with reverent tenderness, and even over time learned a dozen Russian words. In Russia, Isadora’s career did not work out because the Soviet authorities did not provide the field of activity that she expected. The couple registered their marriage and took the common surname Duncan-Yesenin.
After the wedding, Yesenin and his wife traveled a lot around Europe, visiting France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Belgium, and the USA. Duncan tried in every possible way to create PR for her husband: she organized translations of his poems and their publication, organized poetry evenings, but abroad he was recognized exclusively as an addition to a famous dancer. The poet was sad, felt unclaimed, unwanted, and became depressed. Yesenin began to drink, and frequent heartbreaking quarrels with departures and subsequent reconciliations occurred between the spouses. Over time, Yesenin’s attitude towards his wife, in whom he no longer saw an ideal, but an ordinary aging woman, changed. He still got drunk, occasionally beat Isadora, and complained to his friends that she was stuck to him and wouldn’t leave. The couple broke up in 1923, Yesenin returned to Moscow.
The last years of Yesenin's work
In his subsequent work, the poet very critically denounces the Soviet regime (“Country of Scoundrels,” 1925). After this, the persecution of the poet begins, accusing him of fighting and drunkenness. The last two years of my life were spent in regular travel; Sergei Yesenin is a Russian poet, hiding from judicial persecution, traveling to the Caucasus three times, traveling to Leningrad and constantly visiting Konstantinovo, never breaking ties with him.
During this period, the works “Poem of 26”, “Persian Motifs”, “Anna Snegina”, “The Golden Grove Dissuaded” were published. In the poems, the main place is still occupied by the theme of the homeland, now acquiring shades of drama. This period of lyricism is increasingly marked by autumn landscapes, motifs of drawing conclusions and farewells.
Goodbye, my friend, goodbye...
In the fall of 1925, the poet, trying to start his family life anew, married Sofia Andreevna, the granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy. But this union was not happy. Sergei Yesenin's life was going downhill: alcohol addiction, depression, pressure from leadership circles caused his wife to place the poet in a neuropsychiatric hospital. Only a narrow circle of people knew about this, but there were well-wishers who contributed to the establishment of round-the-clock surveillance of the clinic. The security officers began to demand from P.B. Gannushkin, a professor at this clinic, to extradite Yesenin. The latter refused, and Yesenin, having waited for an opportune moment, interrupted the course of treatment and, in a crowd of visitors, left the psychoneurological institution and left for Leningrad.
On December 14, I finished work on the poem “The Black Man,” which I spent 2 years on. The work was published after the poet’s death. On December 27, his final work “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye” was published from the pen of Sergei Yesenin. The life and work of Sergei Yesenin was coming to a terrible and incomprehensible end. The Russian poet died, whose body was found hanged in the Angleterre Hotel on the night of December 28, 1925.
On Sergei Yesenin’s birthday, people gather to honor his memory in all corners of Russia, but the most large-scale events take place in his native Konstantinov, where thousands of admirers of the poet’s work come from all over the world.
Some writers believed that without alcohol his muse would leave him, others that without alcohol the public would stop loving him, for some the bottle was an integral part of leisure, for others it was salvation from their own demons. The reasons for drunkenness in a creative environment are different; after all, writers and poets are people just like everyone else, and it is just as difficult for them to overcome their addiction on their own as it is for other people. In our review there are five writers who had to combine alcoholism with the creation of their creative masterpieces.
Sergey Yesenin
They wrote and talked about Sergei Yesenin’s addiction to drunkenness almost all the time from the first years of the poet’s popularity until his death. In the last years of his life, such articles became especially harsh - Yesenin was accused of drunkenness, rowdy behavior, fights and antisocial behavior. Thus, while previously in America, the poet’s contemporaries said that he got so drunk that he suffered from epileptic seizures.
According to Anatoly Mariengof, at the beginning of his career, Yesenin deliberately drank in public, thereby maintaining his image of a mischievous reveler from the common people. But, as often happens, he failed to stop in time and control himself. “Shortly before his death, the hereditary alcoholism gnawing at Yesenin took on a pathological character,” wrote the poet Vladimir Kirillov. “Yesenin was noticeably fading physically... He began to give the impression of a man scorched by some destructive internal fire.”
The official version of the poet's death is suicide, although speculation about his murder by OGPU officers still continues. One way or another, at that time the poet most likely suffered greatly from depression associated with alcoholism, calling himself a “finished man.” However, many agree that it was thanks to his image, an integral part of which was alcohol and the poet’s scandalous behavior, that Yesenin became so popular.
Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac once said, “I'm a Catholic, so I can't commit suicide. But I plan to drink myself to death." His passion was reflected in his novels, including his most famous works, On the Road and Naked Lunch. In 1958, when work on the novel “Naked Lunch” was in progress, the writer lived in New York, they wrote about him that “locals remember him mostly as a drunk, wandering around barefoot or in slippers.”
It must be said that literally two years later, Jack Kerouac tried to get rid of his addiction: he went to visit his friend in a house located far from cities in the lap of nature. Returning home three weeks later, the writer fell into such drunkenness, which was clearly much heavier than what had happened before.
The writer died, as he “planned,” from excessive alcoholism: while drunk, he was injured in a bar, and it was not possible to save him, since the writer’s blood stopped clotting due to cirrhosis of the liver.
Ernest Hemingway
Winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, Ernest Hemingway significantly influenced 20th-century literature with his work. And at the same time, he combined his writing activity with constant alcoholism. The writer's office was located in a house in Key West next to the lighthouse, which Ernest found especially wonderful - after a night of drinking he could just walk into the light of the lighthouse and not get lost.
In 1954, after the publication of the story “The Old Man and the Sea,” the writer was in a terrible plane crash: the plane he was flying on crashed, and when they tried to hospitalize him, wounded, the next day on another plane, this second plane caught fire during takeoff , because of which the writer also received burns and a concussion. Ernest's injuries were so serious that few believed that he would survive. After this, they wrote about Hemingway that he “became heavily addicted to alcohol for the rest of his life, and began to drink even more than before, trying to drown out the pain from his wounds.”
At some point, Hemingway found himself in terrible depression, which was adjacent to paranoia. The writer stopped communicating with his family and friends, and was terribly irritable. It seemed to him that FBI agents were following him everywhere and that his house was bugged. Psychiatrists tried to treat Hemingway with electric shock, and a few days after being discharged from the hospital, he shot himself with a gun, leaving no suicide note.
The evil irony of his situation is that in the 1980s the Hemingway case was declassified: the FBI was really watching the writer and listening to all his phones, his house, reading his letters and almost never leaving him unobserved.
Stephen King
The King of Horror has written more than 60 novels during his career, not counting short story collections and other works. His incredible creative fertility went almost all the time side by side with severe alcoholism and drug addiction. According to the author himself, he wrote some of his novels in such a strong intoxication that he still does not remember how he wrote them - in particular, the novel “Cujo”.
With the advent of fame (after the success of the novel “Carrie”), Stephen King literally did not get out of alcohol and drug failures. It seemed to the writer that without all this he was simply unable to write, or that without alcohol and cocaine his muse would leave him. Perhaps this is partly true - the writer’s most successful works were written during the most difficult period from the point of view of his health.
His wife helped the writer cope with his demons. Tired of her husband's self-destructive behavior, she one day raked out all of Stephen's stash from around the house, dumped this huge pile of bottles and pills, packages and jars in front of his office and said that if he didn't change his life, Stephen would lose his family - the only thing , something the writer truly valued.
After several unsuccessful attempts to cope with alcoholism on his own, King was finally able to pull himself together. His first novel written while sober was Necessary Things, which was later also filmed. The muse has not disappeared anywhere.
Sergey Dovlatov
Sergei Dovlatov’s friend Alexander Genis recalled: “Sergei hated his binges and fought furiously against them.” The writer was very worried that his works were not published, which only aggravated his alcoholism. Sometimes, when he received an order and Dovlatov was completely immersed in work, he forgot about alcohol and did not touch the bottle for several months in a row. This was followed by a period of prolonged drinking, so that his wife had to call his friends, trying to find out where her husband had gotten himself this time.
The work of Sergei Yesenin, uniquely bright and deep, has now firmly entered our literature and enjoys great success among numerous readers. The poet's poems are full of heartfelt warmth and sincerity, passionate love for the boundless expanses of his native fields, the “inexhaustible sadness” of which he was able to convey so emotionally and so loudly.
Sergei Yesenin entered our literature as an outstanding lyricist. It is in the lyrics that everything that makes up the soul of Yesenin’s creativity is expressed. It contains the full-blooded, sparkling joy of a young man who is rediscovering an amazing world, subtly feeling the fullness of earthly charm, and the deep tragedy of a man who has remained for too long in the “narrow gap” of old feelings and views. And, if in the best poems of Sergei Yesenin there is a “flood” of the most secret, most intimate human feelings, they are filled to the brim with the freshness of pictures of native nature, then in his other works there is despair, decay, hopeless sadness. Sergei Yesenin is, first of all, a singer of Rus', and in his poems, sincere and frank in Russian, we feel the beating of a restless, tender heart. They have a “Russian spirit”, they “smell of Russia”. They absorbed the great traditions of national poetry, the traditions of Pushkin, Nekrasov, Blok.
Even in Yesenin’s love lyrics, the theme of love merges with the theme of the Motherland. The author of "Persian Motifs" is convinced of the fragility of serene happiness far from his native land. And the main character of the cycle becomes distant Russia: “No matter how beautiful Shiraz is, it is no better than the expanses of Ryazan.” Yesenin greeted the October Revolution with joy and warm sympathy. Together with Blok and Mayakovsky, he took her side without hesitation. The works written by Yesenin at that time ("Transfiguration", "Inonia", "Heavenly Drummer") are imbued with rebellious sentiments. The poet is captured by the storm of the revolution, its greatness and strives for something new, for the future. In one of his works, Yesenin exclaimed: “My mother is my homeland, I am a Bolshevik!” But Yesenin, as he himself wrote, perceived the revolution in his own way, “with a peasant bias,” “more spontaneously than consciously.” This left a special imprint on the poet’s work and largely predetermined his future path. The poet's ideas about the purpose of the revolution, about the future, about socialism were characteristic. In the poem "Inonia" he depicts the future as a kind of idyllic kingdom of peasant prosperity; socialism seems to him a blissful "peasant paradise."
Such ideas were reflected in other works of Yesenin of that time:
I see you, green fields,
With a herd of dun horses.
With a shepherd's pipe in the willows
Apostle Andrew wanders.
But the fantastic visions of peasant Inonia, naturally, were not destined to come true. The revolution was led by the proletariat, the village was led by the city. “After all, the socialism that is coming is completely different from what I thought,” Yesenin declares in one of his letters from that time. Yesenin begins to curse the “iron guest”, bringing death to the patriarchal village way of life, and to mourn the old, passing “wooden Rus'”. This explains the inconsistency of Yesenin’s poetry, who went through a difficult path from the singer of patriarchal, impoverished, dispossessed Russia to the singer of socialist Russia, Leninist Russia. After Yesenin’s trip abroad and to the Caucasus, a turning point occurs in the poet’s life and work and a new period is designated. She makes him fall in love with his socialist fatherland more deeply and strongly and appreciate everything that happens in it differently."...I fell even more in love with communist construction," Yesenin wrote upon returning to his homeland in the essay "Iron Mirgorod." Already in the cycle “Love of a Hooligan,” written immediately upon arrival from abroad, the mood of loss and hopelessness is replaced by hope for happiness, faith in love and the future. The wonderful poem “A blue fire swept up...”, full of self-condemnation, pure and tender love, gives a clear idea of the new motives in Yesenin’s lyrics:
A blue fire began to sweep,
Forgotten relatives.
For the first time I sang about love,
For the first time I refuse to make a scandal.
I was all like a neglected garden,
He was averse to women and potions.
I stopped liking singing and dancing
And lose your life without looking back.
Yesenin's work is one of the brightest, deeply moving pages in the history of Russian literature. Yesenin's era has receded into the past, but his poetry continues to live, awakening a feeling of love for his native land, for everything close and different. We are concerned about the sincerity and spirituality of the poet, for whom Rus' was the most precious thing on the entire planet.
Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin is a subtle lyricist and dreamer, deeply in love with Rus'. He was born on September 21, 1895 in the village of Konstantinovo, Ryazan province. The poet's peasant family was very poor, and when Seryozha was 2 years old, his father went to work. The mother could not stand the absence of her husband, and soon the family fell apart. Little Seryozha went to be raised by his maternal grandfather.
Yesenin wrote his first poem at the age of 9. His short life lasted only 30 years, but was so eventful that it had a great influence on Russian history and the soul of every person. Hundreds of small poems and voluminous poems of the great poet echo throughout the vast country and beyond.
Young Yesenin
My grandfather had three unmarried sons living in the village where Seryozha was exiled. As Yesenin later wrote, the uncles were mischievous, and ardently took up the male education of their nephew: at 3.5 years old, they put the boy on a horse without a saddle and sent him to gallop. They taught him to swim: the delegation got into a boat, went to the middle of the lake and threw little Seryozha overboard. At the age of 8, the poet helped in the hunt - however, as a hunting dog. He swam through the water looking for shot ducks.
There were also pleasant moments in village life - the grandmother introduced her grandson to folk songs, poems, legends and tales. This became the foundation for the development of little Yesenin’s poetic beginnings. He went to study in 1904 at a rural school, which after 5 years he successfully graduated as an excellent student. He entered the Spas-Klepikovskaya teacher's school, from where he graduated in 1912 as a “teacher of the literacy school.” In the same year he moved to Moscow.
The birth of a creative path
In an unfamiliar city, the poet had to ask his father for help, and he got him a job in a butcher shop, where he himself served as a clerk. The many-sided capital captured the poet's mind - he was determined to make himself known, and soon he became bored with work in the shop. In 1913, the rebel went to serve in the printing house of I.D. Sytin. At the same time, the poet joins the Surikov Literary and Musical Circle, where he finds like-minded people. The first publication occurred in 1914, when Yesenin’s poem “Birch” appeared in the Mirok magazine. His works also appeared in the magazines "Niva", "Milky Way" and "Protalinka".
A passion for knowledge guides the poet to the A.L. People's University. Shanyavsky. He enters the historical and philosophical department, but this is not enough, and Yesenin attends lectures on the history of Russian literature. They are led by Professor P.N. Sakkulin, to whom the young poet would later bring his works. The teacher will especially appreciate the poem “The scarlet light of dawn was woven on the lake...”
Service at the printing house introduces Yesenin to his first love, Anna Izryadnova, and he enters into a civil marriage. From this union, a son, Yuri, was born in 1914. At the same time, work begins on the poems "Tosca" and "Prophet", the texts of which were lost. However, despite the emerging creative success and family idyll, the poet becomes cramped in Moscow. It seems that his poetry will not be appreciated in the capital as much as he would like. Therefore, in 1915, Sergei abandoned everything and moved to Petrograd.
Success in Petrograd
The first thing he does in a new place is look for a meeting with A.A. Blok - a real poet, whose fame Yesenin could only dream of at that time. The meeting took place on March 15, 1915. They made a lasting impression on each other. Later in his autobiography, Yesenin will write that at that moment sweat poured from him, because for the first time in his life he saw a living poet. Blok wrote about Yesenin’s works like this: “The poems are fresh, clean, vociferous.” Their communication continued: Blok showed the young talent the literary life of Petrograd, introduced him to publishers and famous poets - Gorodetsky, Gippius, Gumilev, Remizov, Klyuev.
The poet becomes very close to the latter - their performances with poems and ditties, stylized as the folk peasantry, are a great success. Yesenin's poems are published by many St. Petersburg magazines "Chronicle", "Voice of Life", "Monthly Magazine". The poet attends all literary meetings. A special event in Sergei’s life was the publication of the collection “Radonitsa” in 1916. A year later, the poet married Z. Reich.
The poet greets the revolution of 1917 with zeal, despite his contradictory attitude towards it. “With the oars of severed hands you row into the land of the future,” Yesenin responds in the poem “Mare’s Ships” in 1917. The poet devotes this and next year to working on the works “Inonia”, “Transfiguration”, “Father”, “Coming”.
Return to Moscow
At the beginning of 1918, the poet returned to the golden-domed city. In search of imagery, he converges with A.B. Mariengof, R. Ivnev, A.B. Kusikov. In 1919, like-minded people created the literary movement of Imagists (from English image - image). The movement was aimed at discovering fresh metaphors and fanciful images in the works of poets. However, Yesenin could not fully support his brothers - he believed that the meaning of the poems was much more important than bright veiled images. For him, the harmony of works and the spirituality of folk art were paramount. Yesenin considered his most striking manifestation of imagism to be the poem “Pugachev,” written in 1920 - 1921.
(Imagists Sergei Yesenin and Anatoly Mariengof)
New love visited Yesenin in the fall of 1921. He meets Isadora Duncan, a dancer from America. The couple practically did not communicate - Sergei did not know foreign languages, and Isadora did not speak Russian. However, in May 1922 they got married and left to conquer Europe and America. Abroad, the poet worked on the cycle “Moscow Tavern”, the poems “Country of Scoundrels” and “Black Man”. In France in 1922 the collection “Confessions of a Hooligan” was published, and in Germany in 1923 the book “Poems of a Brawler” was published. In August 1923, the scandalous marriage broke up, and Yesenin returned to Moscow.
Creative release
In the period from 1923 to 1925, the poet’s creative upsurge took place: he wrote the masterpiece cycle “Persian Motifs”, the poem “Anna Snegina”, and the philosophical work “Flowers”. The main witness of the creative blossoming was Yesenin’s last wife, Sofya Tolstaya. During her reign, the “Song of the Great March”, the book “Birch Calico”, and the collection “On Russia and the Revolution” were published.
Yesenin's later works are distinguished by philosophical thoughts - he recalls his entire life's journey, talks about his fate and the fate of Rus', searches for the meaning of life and his place in the new empire. Discussions about death often appeared. The death of the poet is still shrouded in mystery - he died on the night of December 28, 1925 at the Angleterre Hotel.
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