Sergey Yesenin
Sergey Aleksandrovich Yesenin,
Yesenin also spelled Esenin (b. Oct. 3
[Sept. 21, Old Style], 1895,
Konstantinovo, Ryazan province,
Russia—d. Dec. 27, 1925, Leningrad), the
self-styled “last poet of wooden
Russia,” whose dual image—that of a
devout and simple peasant singer and
that of a rowdy and blasphemous
exhibitionist—reflects his tragic
maladjustment to the changing world of
the revolutionary era.
The son of a peasant family of Old
Believers, he left his village at 17 for
Moscow and later Petrograd (subsequently
Leningrad, now St. Petersburg). In the
cities he became acquainted with
Aleksandr Blok, the peasant poet Nikolay
Klyuyev, and revolutionary politics. In
1916 he published his first book,
characteristically titled for a
religious feast day, Radunitsa (“Ritual
for the Dead”). It celebrates in church
book imagery the “wooden Russia” of his
childhood, a world blessed by saints in
painted icons, where storks nest in
chimneys and the sky above the birch
trees is a bright blue scarf.
Yesenin welcomed the Revolution as
the social and spiritual transformation
that would lead to the peasant
millennium he envisioned in his next
book, Inoniya (1918; “Otherland”). His
roseate utopian view of Otherland was
still informed by a simple ethos—the
defense of “wooden things” against the
vile world of iron, stone, and steel
(urban industrialization). In 1920–21 he
composed his long poetic drama Pugachyov,
glorifying the 18th-century rebel who
led a mass peasant revolt during the
reign of Catherine II. In 1919 he signed
the literary manifesto of the group of
Russian poets called the Imaginists (see
Imaginism). He was soon the leading
exponent of the school. He became a
habitué of the literary cafés of Moscow,
where he gave poetry recitals and drank
excessively. A marriage to Zinaida Reich
(later the wife of the actor-director
Vsevolod Meyerhold) ended in divorce. In
1922 he married the American dancer
Isadora Duncan and accompanied her on
tour, during which he smashed suites in
the best hotels in Europe in drunken
rampages. They visited the United
States, their quarrels and public scenes
duly observed in the world press. On
their separation Yesenin returned to
Russia. For some time he had been
writing the consciously cynical,
swaggering tavern poetry that appeared
in Ispoved khuligana (1921; “Confessions
of a Hooligan”) and Moskva kabatskaya
(1924; “Moscow of the Taverns”). His
verse barely concealed the sense of
self-depreciation that was overwhelming
him. He married again, a granddaughter
of Tolstoy, but continued to drink
heavily and to take cocaine. In 1924 he
tried to go home again but found the
village peasants quoting Soviet slogans,
when he himself had not been able to
read five pages of Marx. Tormented by
guilt that he had been unable to fulfill
the messianic role of poet of the
people, he tried to get in step with the
national trend. In the poem “Neuyutnaya
zhidkaya lunnost” (1925; “Desolate and
Pale Moonlight”), he went so far as to
praise stone and steel as the secret of
Russia’s coming strength. But another
poem, “The Stern October Has Deceived
Me,” bluntly voiced his alienation from
Bolshevik Russia. His last major work,
the confessional poem “Cherny chelovek”
(“The Black Man”), is a ruthless
self-castigation for his failures. In
1925 he was briefly hospitalized for a
nervous breakdown. Soon after, he hanged
himself in a Leningrad hotel, having
written his last lines in his own blood.
Yesenin and Duncan
A prolific and somewhat uneven
writer, Yesenin had a true gift of song.
His poignant short lyrics are full of
striking imagery. He was very popular
both during his lifetime and after his
death. Frowned on by Communist critics
and party leaders, who feared the
debilitating effect of “Yeseninism” on
the civic dedication of the young, he
was long more or less out of official
favour. Editions of his work that became
available (1956–60) attested to his
continued popularity. His complete works
were published in 1966–68.
