Sergei Aleksandrovich Yesenin interesting facts from life. Interesting facts from the life of Yesenin. The most interesting fact about Yesenin

His behavior was invariably found defiant, shocking, and shocking. His poems are a special page of Russian poetry. Yesenin cannot be driven into the narrow framework of literary movements of the early twentieth century; he is on his own, rebellious, passionate, with a huge Russian soul wide open. This is probably why the poetry of Sergei Yesenin leaves no one indifferent: they either adore it or refuse to accept and understand it.

October 3 marked the 119th anniversary of the birth of the great Russian poet. By this date, Bright Side collected interesting stories from Yesenin’s life and his most famous photographs.

Yesenin's education

The famous poet could become a teacher: Sergei Yesenin graduated with honors from the Konstantinovsky Zemstvo School in 1909, then entered the church teacher’s school, but after studying for a year and a half, he left it - the teaching profession had little attraction for him. Already in Moscow in September 1913, Yesenin began to visit people's university named after Shanyavsky. A year and a half of university gave Yesenin the foundation of education that he so lacked. Subsequently, the poet educated himself, read a lot and was known for his erudition.

The first Moscow muse

From the first days, a civil marriage with Anna seemed to the poet a mistake. At this point, he was more concerned about his career. He left his family and went to seek his fortune in Petrograd. In her memoirs, Izryadnova writes: “I saw him shortly before his death. He came, he said, to say goodbye. When I asked why, he said: “I’m washing away, I’m leaving, I feel bad, I’ll probably die.” I asked him not to spoil him, to take care of his son.”

The fate of Yuri, the son of Sergei and Anna, was tragic: on August 13, 1937, he was shot on charges of preparing to assassinate Stalin.

Yesenin and paper

He put on a long-skirted undershirt, combed his hair in a peasant style and went to see the member on duty of the Presidium of the Moscow Soviet. Yesenin stood in front of him without a hat, began to bow and, diligently cursing, asked “For the sake of Christ, do God’s mercy and release papers for peasant poets.”

For such an important purpose, paper, of course, was found, and the first book of Yesenin’s poems “Radunitsa” was published. "Artel", however, soon disbanded, but managed to publish several books.

Beautiful Zinaida

One of the most beautiful women in Yesenin’s life there was Zinaida Reich, a famous actress. She was so pretty that the poet simply could not help but propose to her. They got married in 1917, Zinaida gave birth to two children - Tatyana and Konstantin, but Yesenin was never distinguished by fidelity. Reich endured for three years, then they broke up. The most famous poem about her is “Letter to a Woman.”

Yesenin's fears

But the police caused no less fear in Yesenin. One day, walking with Wolf Ehrlich past the Summer Garden, the poet noticed a law enforcement officer standing at the gate. “He suddenly grabs me by the shoulders so that he himself faces the sunset, and I see his yellowed eyes, full of incomprehensible fear. He breathes heavily and wheezes: “Listen, eh!” Just don't say a word to anyone! I'll tell you the truth! I'm afraid of the police. Understand? I’m afraid!..”,” Ehrlich recalled.

Isadora

This page of Sergei Yesenin’s life is the most chaotic, with endless quarrels and scandals. They diverged and came back together many times, but in the end they were never able to overcome the “mutual understanding.” It is this passion that the poem “Rash, Harmonica!” is dedicated to. Boredom... Boredom...”

Isadora died tragically two years after Yesenin’s death, strangling herself with her own scarf.

Eternal enemies

In turn, Mayakovsky also had a high opinion of Yesenin, although he hid it with all possible care. The famous memoirist M. Roizman recalls that once, having come to a reception with the editor of Novy Mir, “I sat in the reception room and heard Mayakovsky loudly praising Yesenin’s poems in the secretariat, and in conclusion said: “Look, not a word to Yesenin about what did I say? The assessment that Mayakovsky gave to Yesenin was unequivocal: “Damn talented!”

Yesenin very accurately noted about himself: “A bad reputation has spread that I am a bawdy and a brawler.” This statement was true, since the poet, in a drunken stupor, loved to entertain the audience with compositions of very obscene content. According to the recollections of eyewitnesses, Yesenin almost never wrote down obscene poems; they were born to him spontaneously and were immediately forgotten.

Yesenin had quite a lot of similar momentary poems. For example, his authorship is attributed to the poem “Don’t grieve, dear, and don’t groan,” in which the poet calls on his enemies to go to a well-known address, forestalling their desire to send Yesenin himself to hell.

Last wife

At the beginning of 1925, Sergei Yesenin met the granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy, Sophia. She was 5 years younger than Yesenin, and the blood of the world’s greatest writer flowed in her veins. Sofya Andreevna was in charge of the library of the Writers' Union. The poet was afraid of her aristocracy until his knees trembled. When they got married, Sophia became an exemplary wife: she took care of his health, prepared his poems for his collected works. And I was absolutely happy. And Yesenin, having met a friend, answered the question: “How is life?” - “I’m preparing a collection of works in three volumes and living with an unloved woman.” The unloved Sophia was to become the widow of a scandalous poet.

Death of poet

The mystery of the poet's death still remains unsolved. The official generally accepted version is suicide, but there is an assumption that Yesenin was actually killed for political reasons, and the suicide was only staged.

“You need to live easier”

And yet Yesenin is not a tragic poet. His poems are a hymn to life in all its manifestations. A hymn to a life that is unpredictable, difficult, full of disappointments, but still beautiful. This is the anthem of a hooligan and brawler, an eternal boy and a great sage.

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Sergei Yesenin is a wonderful Russian poet who early period creativity was one of the key figures of the new peasant lyricism, and later - of imagism. Interesting facts about Yesenin prove that it is unthinkable to impose any restrictions or boundaries on such a large-scale personality. He was outside the literary trends of the beginning of the last century. His lyrics are the Russian soul wide open, passionate, rebellious and incredibly responsive.

Interesting facts from the life and work of Yesenin

Not much is known about Yesenin’s childhood and youth. One thing is certain that fate invited the famous poet to choose a different path - to devote his life to pedagogy. In 1909, Sergei Yesenin’s studies at the Konstantinovsky Zemstvo School came to an end. Excellent grades allowed him to enter the church teacher's school. But after a year and a half, he left the rather boring school walls, because he could not imagine himself in the role of a teacher.
The poet's first muse was Anna Izryadnova. They met when Sergei, an ardent, self-confident young man of seventeen, came to conquer the capital. He had many plans and one goal - to become the brightest “servant of the muses” in vast Russia. This marriage was not happy. His wife and little son weighed heavily on Yesenin. Very soon he left them and went in search of glory to Petrograd.
In 1918, a new publishing house appeared in Moscow - “The Labor Artel of Word Artists”. It was organized by aspiring poets of Soviet Russia - Lev Povitsky, Andrei Bely, Pyotr Oreshin, Sergei Klychkov and Sergei Yesenin. For successful work There was an acute shortage of one thing - paper. At that difficult time, she was strictly registered, but Yesenin promised to get her. Having changed into simple clothes and combed his hair in a peasant style, he went straight to the Presidium of the Moscow Council. Paper was allocated exclusively for “peasant poets.”
There were many beautiful women in Yesenin’s life. The famous actress Zinaida Reich was one of them. She was so beautiful and charming that the poet could not resist and asked for her hand in 1917. In this marriage, Sergei Alexandrovich had two children - Tatyana and Konstantin. Three years later, the couple separated due to the endless betrayals of the head of the family. The wonderful poem “Letter to a Woman” is dedicated specifically to the beautiful Zinaida.
The poet also had many fears. One of the unknown to the general public is the horror of the police. Wolf Ehrlich recalled that one day he and Sergei were walking along the street, at the end of which the figure of a law enforcement officer appeared. The poet suddenly turned pale, then turned yellow, breathing heavily, asking him to leave quickly and not tell anyone about the panic that suddenly gripped him.
In the 20s, Yesenin’s personal life was chaotic and somewhat disheveled. He drank a lot, often got involved in ugly stories and endless fights. There were also random connections. But fate gave him a helping hand in the person of Isadora Duncan, a brilliant American dancer. It was love at first sight, which overcame many conventions. She was eighteen years older than him and did not speak Russian, and he did not speak English. But they got married, combining their surnames and their great feelings into one whole. From now on, they both signed Duncan-Yesenin.
However, the marriage with Isadora Duncan was not entirely successful. They often quarreled, made scandals, separated and passionately came together again. The final break was inevitable. In the poem “Rash, harmonica! Boredom...Boredom...” Yesenin conveyed what was happening in his soul during that period. Two years after the poet's tragic death, Duncan died, strangling herself with her own scarf.
WITH short biography Students are introduced to Yesenin’s work in the 5th grade. There is a common misconception about supposed mutual hatred between Yesenin and Mayakovsky. Indeed, the poets often and passionately argued and reproached each other. Often it came to open clashes during public speeches. But this did not mean that they did not recognize each other's talent. On the contrary, they praised and admired him. Once even Mayakovsky said that “darling Yesenin” was “terribly talented,” and asked not to tell him these words.
The poet’s last wife was Sophia Tolstaya, the granddaughter of the great Russian writer. She strove to be the ideal companion of the famous poet: she surrounded him with care, attention and helped him with the publication of his own collected works. But she never became his muse. He did not love her, and at the same time, her aristocratic origin caused him confusion and timidity. And yet, the unkind heart of Sophia had the misfortune of remaining the widow of a shocking poet.
The body of the dead Yesenin was found on December 25, 1925 in a room at the Angleterre Hotel. It is interesting to note that the day before he wrote in blood the poem “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye...”. There were two versions of his tragic departure. According to the official one, he committed suicide, writing a farewell poem and message. According to another, it was a political murder, and the poem was written in blood, because there was no ink in the room.

March's most popular materials for the classroom.

The work of Sergei Aleksandrovich Yesenin is familiar and dearly loved by more than one generation in our country. Quiet lyrical sadness, love for the Motherland, aching longing for peasant, bastard Rus' run like a red thread in all the works of this great Russian poet of the early twentieth century.

The poems “Birch”, “The golden grove dissuaded...”, “Letter to mother”, “Give me a paw, Jim, for luck...”, “Now we are leaving little by little...” and many others are familiar to us from school, based on poems Yesenin wrote many songs. They teach us kindness, compassion for our neighbors, love for our native land, elevate and spiritualize us.

The life of S. A. Yesenin was tragically cut short at a young age, at the peak of his creative powers and popularity. But his wonderful works will forever remain the spiritual heritage that is the national treasure of Russia.

Learning the biography of Yesenin, interesting facts from the life of the poet, we are immersed in the era of young Soviet Russia, which was characterized by numerous disagreements in the society of that time and, perhaps, was the cause of it early care from life.

A nugget from the Russian hinterland

Sergei Yesenin was born on September 21 (October 3 to modern style) 1895 in the village. Konstantinovo, Ryazan province, in a simple peasant family.

Since S. A. Yesenin’s father was almost constantly in Moscow, working in a shop there, and visited the village occasionally, Yesenin was raised by his maternal grandfather and grandmother and three uncles (mother’s brothers). Seryozha's mother with his two years of age went to work in Ryazan.

Yesenin’s grandfather, Fyodor Titov, knew church books well, and his grandmother, Natalya Titova, was an excellent storyteller of fairy tales, sang many songs and ditties, as the poet himself later admitted, it was she who gave the impetus to writing the first poems.

By the age of five, the boy learned to read, and in 1904, at the age of 9, he was sent to a rural zemstvo school. After studying for five years, he graduated from college with honors. Then, in 1909 and until 1912, the teenager Sergei Yesenin continued his studies at a parochial school in the village of Spas-Klepiki, receiving the specialty “literacy school teacher.”

The first steps on the creative path

In 1912, after graduating from the Spaso-Klepikovskaya school, S. A. Yesenin briefly worked in Moscow with his father in a butcher shop. After leaving the shop and working in the printing house, Yesenin meets the future common-law wife Anna Izryadnova, who bore him a son. At the same time, Yesenin became part of the Surikov circle of literature and music.

In 1913, S. A. Yesenin became a volunteer student at the Faculty of History and Philosophy of the Shanyavsky Moscow City People's University. There is interesting fact about Yesenin, that during this period he closely communicated with revolutionary-minded workers, which explains the police’s interest in his personality.

In 1914, his works were published for the first time in the magazine “Mirok”; the first collection of poems was published in 1916 and was called “Radunitsa”. In 1915, Yesenin broke up with Izryadnova and left for Petrograd, meeting Russian symbolist poets there, and in particular A. Blok. Life in Petrograd brought him fame and recognition; his poems then began to be published in many publications.

War and revolution

At the beginning of 1916, Yesenin was drafted into the army and served as an orderly on the Tsarskoye Selo military ambulance train under the Empress. But despite close acquaintance With royal family, Yesenin ends up in a disciplinary unit because he refused to write a poem in honor of the Tsar. In 1917, the poet left the army without permission and joined the Social Revolutionaries, as he himself said, not as a party member, but as a poet.

The events of the revolution quickly captured the passionate nature of the poet. Accepting it with all his soul, Yesenin created his revolutionary works “Otchari”, “Octoechos”, “Jordan Dove”, “Inonia”, etc.

In 1917, S. A. Yesenin meets and falls in love with Zinaida Reich. In their official marriage they had a daughter, Tatyana, and a son, Konstantin. But three years later, the marriage broke up due to the poet’s amorous nature.

In 1918, the poet left for Moscow, his life was filled with the changes brought by the revolution: hunger, devastation and terror were sweeping across the country, peasant life was collapsing, and poetry salons were filled with a motley literary public.

Imagism and Isadora

In 1919, Yesenin, together with A. B. Mariengof and V. G. Shershenevich, became the founder of imagism - a movement whose essence is imagery and metaphor in the works created. Yesenin takes an active part in organizing the imagist literary publishing house and cafe “Stable of Pegasus”.

But soon he becomes bored with elaborate metaphors, since his soul still lies in the ancient ways of the Russian village. In 1924, Yesenin terminated all relations with the Imagists.

In 1921, the American dancer Isadora Duncan came to Moscow, who six months later would become Yesenin’s wife. After the wedding, the newlyweds went on a trip to Europe and then to America, where Yesenin lived for 4 months.

In that trip around the world the poet was often rowdy, behaved shockingly, drank a lot, the couple often argued, although they spoke different languages. After living in the same place for a little over a year, they separate upon returning to Russia.

last years of life

In 1923-1924. Yesenin continues to travel a lot around the country, having visited Central Asia, the Caucasus, Murmansk and Solovki. He visits his native village of Konstantinovo many times, lives in Leningrad or Moscow.

During this period, the poet’s collections “Poems of a Brawler” and “Moscow Tavern”, “Persian Motives” were published. In search of himself, Yesenin continues to drink a lot, and is often overwhelmed by severe depression.

In 1925, Yesenin married the granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy, Sofya Andreevna. This union lasted only a few months. In November 1925, against the backdrop of a difficult physical and moral condition, and perhaps in order to protect him from arrest, S. A. Tolstaya assigned him to the Moscow psychoneurological clinic.

Yesenin finishes two years of work on one of his last works, “The Black Man,” in which he imagines his entire past life as a nightmare.

After spending about a month in the clinic, the poet escapes to Leningrad and on December 24 stays in a room at the Angleterre Hotel. On the night of December 27-28, a poet who committed suicide and something written in his blood are discovered in his room. last poem“Goodbye, my friend, goodbye...”

There are other interesting things about the Russian poet:

Yesenin's uncles - adult single sons of his grandmother and grandfather - had a cheerful, perky disposition, often played mischief and in their own way, with rather specific methods, raised the boy. So, for the first time, having put three-year-old Seryozha on horseback without a saddle, they let the horse gallop. And they taught the boy to swim in the same way - they got to the middle of the lake in a boat and threw him into the water. But at the age of eight, as Sergei Yesenin later recalled interesting facts from childhood, at the request of a neighbor, he swam instead of a hunting dog, picking up shot ducks.
The boy writes his first poems at the age of 8-9 years. The poems are simple, unpretentious and reminiscent of ditties in style.
Instead of the required four years of study at the zemstvo school, due to bad behavior, Seryozha is left for the second year. This interesting fact about Yesenin speaks of his rebellious character, which manifested itself in adolescence.
The poem “Birch” is the poet’s first published work.
The poet does not go to the front, perhaps due to such an interesting fact about Yesenin that in the spring of 1916, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna herself listened to his poems. The poet even traveled around Crimea with the royal couple.
In 1918, Yesenin promised to get paper, which was in acute shortage at that time, for his friends from the publishing house “Labor Artel of Word Artists.” To do this, he, dressed in peasant clothes, went straight to the Presidium of the Moscow Council, where the paper was issued for the needs of “peasant poets.”
Yesenin dedicated the poem “Letter to a Woman” to Zinaida Reich. After her marriage to Yesenin, she married theater director V.E. Meyerhold, who adopted Yesenin’s son and daughter.
Isadora Duncan, the third wife of A. S. Yesenin, was 18 years older than him. In marriage, they combined their surnames, both signing Duncan-Yesenin.
An interesting fact about Yesenin and Mayakovsky is that they were eternal opponents and criticized each other's work. However, this did not prevent them from recognizing the talent of another behind their backs.
After writing the poem “Land of Scoundrels,” where Yesenin writes impartially about the Soviet regime, persecution begins in newspapers, accusations of drunkenness, rowdyism, etc. Yesenin even had to hide from prosecution on one of his trips to the Caucasus.
The death of the poet became one of greatest secrets XX century. Yesenin's corpse was found hanging at a height of three meters. According to one version, they decided to remove him as objectionable to the Soviet regime. And he wrote poems in blood due to the lack of ink.

To summarize, we can say that Yesenin’s life, biography and interesting facts are proof that a large-scale personality cannot be confined to any framework and limited political regimes. Sergei Yesenin is a great Russian poet who, in his individual, unique creativity, glorifies the Russian soul, so passionate, vulnerable, rebellious and wide open.

He went from a cherubic village boy to the most famous rowdy and foul-mouthed man in Russia. At the performances of the blue-eyed shepherd, who read something about the simple joys of rural life, the girls squealed in unison: “Dear Yesenin!” Mayakovsky called the early Yesenin a “decorative peasant”, too sweet, insincere, and his poems - “revived lamp oil”. But “bast shoes and cockerel combs” did not occupy the poet for long. And there was little angelic left in him: he wrote obscene poems on the wall of the Passionate Monastery and, having split an icon, could heat a samovar with it, and could easily light a cigarette from a lamp.

His behavior was invariably found defiant, shocking, and shocking. His poems are a special page of Russian poetry. Yesenin cannot be driven into the narrow framework of literary movements of the early twentieth century; he is on his own, rebellious, passionate, with a huge Russian soul wide open. This is probably why the poetry of Sergei Yesenin leaves no one indifferent: they either adore it or refuse to accept and understand it.

Sergei Yesenin with his sisters Katya and Shura

Yesenin's education

The famous poet could become a teacher: Sergei Yesenin graduated with honors from the Konstantinovsky Zemstvo School in 1909, then entered the church teacher’s school, but after studying for a year and a half, he left it - the teaching profession had little attraction for him. Already in Moscow, in September 1913, Yesenin began to attend the Shanyavsky People's University. A year and a half of university gave Yesenin the foundation of education that he so lacked. Subsequently, the poet educated himself, read a lot and was known for his erudition.

Sergei Yesenin and Anna Izryadnova among the workers of the printing house of the I.D. Sytin Partnership

The first Moscow muse

When Yesenin arrived in Moscow, he was only seventeen years old. He had one goal: to become the most famous poet in Russia. A year later, he fell madly in love with Anna Izryadnova, who worked with him as a proofreader in a printing house.
From the first days, a civil marriage with Anna seemed to the poet a mistake. At this point, he was more concerned about his career. He left his family and went to seek his fortune in Petrograd. In her memoirs, Izryadnova writes: “I saw him shortly before his death. He came, he said, to say goodbye. When I asked why, he said: “I’m washing away, I’m leaving, I feel bad, I’ll probably die.” I asked him not to spoil him, to take care of his son.”
The fate of Yuri, the son of Sergei and Anna, was tragic: on August 13, 1937, he was shot on charges of preparing to assassinate Stalin.

Yesenin with friends of his youth

Yesenin and paper

In 1918, the publishing house “Labor Artel of Word Artists” was organized in Moscow. It was organized by Sergei Klychkov, Sergei Yesenin, Andrei Bely, Pyotr Oreshin and Lev Povitsky. I wanted to publish my books, but paper in Moscow was strictly controlled. Yesenin nevertheless volunteered to get the paper.
He put on a long-skirted undershirt, combed his hair in a peasant style and went to see the member on duty of the Presidium of the Moscow Soviet. Yesenin stood in front of him without a hat, began to bow and, diligently cursing, asked “For the sake of Christ, do God’s mercy and release papers for peasant poets.”
For such an important purpose, paper, of course, was found, and the first book of Yesenin’s poems “Radunitsa” was published. "Artel", however, soon disbanded, but managed to publish several books.

Yesenin reads poetry to his mother

“Being a poet means the same thing
If the truths of life are not violated,
Scar yourself on your delicate skin,
To caress other people’s souls with the blood of feelings.”

Reading poetry

At the end of 1918, Yesenin lived for several weeks in Tula, fleeing the Moscow famine. Every evening, an educated public gathered in the house where he lived, and Yesenin read his poems, which he remembered by heart - every single one. Yesenin accompanied his recitation with very expressive gestures, which gave his poems additional expressiveness and strength.
Sometimes Yesenin imitated Blok and Bely. He read Blok's poems seriously and with respect, and Bely's poems with mockery, parodying him.

Zinaida Reich

"Do you remember,
Of course, you all remember
How I stood
Approaching the wall
You walked around the room excitedly
And something sharp
They threw it in my face.
You said:
It's time for us to part
What tormented you
My crazy life
That it's time for you to get down to business,
And my destiny is
Roll further down.
Darling!
You didn't love me.
You didn’t know that in the crowd of people
I was like a horse driven into soap,
Spurred by a brave rider."

Beautiful Zinaida

One of the most beautiful women in Yesenin’s life was Zinaida Reich, a famous actress. She was so pretty that the poet simply could not help but propose to her. They got married in 1917, Zinaida gave birth to two children - Tatyana and Konstantin, but Yesenin was never distinguished by fidelity. Reich endured for three years, then they broke up. The most famous poem about her is “Letter to a Woman.”

Sergei Yesenin and imagist Anatoly Mariengof

Yesenin's fears

Sergei Yesenin suffered from syphilophobia - the fear of contracting syphilis. The poet’s friend Anatoly Mariengof said: “It used to be that a pimple the size of a bread crumb would pop up on his nose, and he would walk from mirror to mirror looking stern and gloomy. Once I even went to the library to read the signs of a terrible illness. After that it got even worse, almost like the corolla of Venus!”
But the police caused no less fear in Yesenin. One day, walking with Wolf Ehrlich past the Summer Garden, the poet noticed a law enforcement officer standing at the gate. “He suddenly grabs me by the shoulders so that he himself faces the sunset, and I see his yellowed eyes, full of incomprehensible fear. He breathes heavily and wheezes: “Listen, eh!” Just don't say a word to anyone! I'll tell you the truth! I'm afraid of the police. Understand? I’m afraid!..”,” Ehrlich recalled.

“Sing, sing. On the damn guitar
Your fingers dance in a semicircle.
I would choke in this frenzy,
My last, only friend.
Don't look at her wrists
And silk flowing from her shoulders.
I was looking for happiness in this woman,
And I accidentally found death.
I didn't know that love is an infection
I didn't know that love was a plague.
Came up with a narrowed eye
Made the bully crazy."

Isadora

In the early 20s, Yesenin led an idle life: he drank, made scandals in taverns, and was easy about casual relationships, until he met her - the famous American dancer Isadora Duncan. Duncan was 18 years older than the poet, did not know Russian, and Yesenin did not speak English. They got married six months after they met. When they were asked what surname they would choose, both wanted to have a double surname - Duncan-Yesenin. This is what was written down on the marriage certificate and in their passports. “Now I am Duncan,” Yesenin shouted when they went outside.
This page of Sergei Yesenin’s life is the most chaotic, with endless quarrels and scandals. They diverged and came back together many times, but in the end they were never able to overcome the “mutual understanding.” It is this passion that the poem “Rash, Harmonica!” is dedicated to. Boredom... Boredom...”
Isadora died tragically two years after Yesenin’s death, strangling herself with her own scarf.

“Oh, rash, oh, heat,
Mayakovsky is a mediocrity.
The mug is full of paint,
Robbed Whitman."

Eternal enemies

The myth of mutual hatred between Sergei Yesenin and Vladimir Mayakovsky is one of the most famous literary movements of the 20th century in the history. The poets were indeed irreconcilable ideological opponents and in public speeches they were ready to endlessly throw mud at each other. However, this does not mean that one of them underestimated the strength of the other's talent. Contemporaries confirm that Yesenin understood the significance of Mayakovsky’s work and singled him out from all the futurists: “Whatever you say, you can’t throw Mayakovsky out. It will lie like a log in literature, and many will stumble over it.” The poet repeatedly read excerpts from Mayakovsky’s poems; in particular, he liked the poems about the war “Mother and the Evening Killed by the Germans” and “War Has Been Declared.”
In turn, Mayakovsky also had a high opinion of Yesenin, although he hid it with all possible care. The famous memoirist M. Roizman recalls that once, having come to a reception with the editor of Novy Mir, “I sat in the reception room and heard Mayakovsky loudly praising Yesenin’s poems in the secretariat, and in conclusion said: “Look, not a word to Yesenin about what did I say? The assessment that Mayakovsky gave to Yesenin was unequivocal: “Damn talented!”

Yesenin on the beach in Venice

Yesenin very accurately noted about himself: “A bad reputation has spread that I am a bawdy and a brawler.” This statement was true, since the poet, in a drunken stupor, loved to entertain the audience with compositions of very obscene content. According to the recollections of eyewitnesses, Yesenin almost never wrote down obscene poems; they were born to him spontaneously and were immediately forgotten.
Yesenin had quite a lot of similar momentary poems. For example, his authorship is attributed to the poem “Don’t grieve, dear, and don’t groan,” in which the poet calls on his enemies to go to a well-known address, forestalling their desire to send Yesenin himself to hell.

Sergei Yesenin and Sofia Tolstaya

“Apparently, it’s been this way forever -
By the age of thirty, having gone crazy,
More and more, hardened cripples,
We keep in touch with life.

Honey, I'll soon be thirty,
And the earth becomes dearer to me every day.
That's why my heart began to dream,
That I burn with pink fire.

If it burns, then it burns and burns,
And no wonder in the linden blossom
I took the ring from the parrot -
A sign that we will burn together.

The gypsy woman put that ring on me.
I took it off my hand and gave it to you,
And now, when the barrel organ is sad,
I can’t help but think and be timid.”

Last wife

Posthumous photo of Sergei Yesenin

“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.”

Death of poet

On December 28, 1925, Yesenin was found dead in the Leningrad Angleterre Hotel. His last poem, “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye...”, according to Wolf Ehrlich, was given to him the day before: Yesenin complained that there was no ink in the room, and he was forced to write with his own blood.
The mystery of the poet's death still remains unsolved. The official generally accepted version is suicide, but there is an assumption that Yesenin was actually killed for political reasons, and the suicide was only staged.

“You need to live easier”

Selection of records

About Yesenin they make you think that the poet partially lived in an imaginary world. He presented some of the altered facts of his biography as real and, it seems, began to believe in them himself.

The poet's parents were not entirely peasants. My father worked in a Moscow butcher shop and just came to the village. Mother worked alternately in Ryazan and Moscow. The poet spent his childhood in village houses grandparents. The mother paid her father money to support Sergei, and when they met, he could mistake her for someone else’s woman.
In childhood, it was difficult to guess the future traits of the poet and joker. His peers called Yesenin “Seryoga the monk” for his calm character. But at the same time, he remained for the second year in the third grade of the school of his native Konstantinovka. A year later, after graduating from college, Yesenin received a certificate of merit. Already as a child, the future poet loved to read and would stop at nothing if he wanted to get a book from someone that was unfamiliar to him.
Sergei Alexandrovich began composing poetry when he was studying at school in the village of Spas-Klepiki not far from Ryazan. The poet’s classmates recalled that even then he declared that he was going to become a writer.

4. Living in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Yesenin often went to literary evenings in village attire and behaved like a peasant guy. This was part of the image that Sergei Alexandrovich created for himself - a peasant poet praising rural Rus'.

5. V.V. Mayakovsky recalled how he first met Yesenin (even before the revolution). The poet from the Ryazan province was dressed like a peasant, and when asked by his interlocutor about his appearance, he began to answer that he was unaccustomed to city clothes. Mayakovsky bet with him that at their next meeting Yesenin would be dressed in a tailcoat and tie. When it happened a few years later, the tactless futurist poet shouted: “Give me your bet, Yesenin! You're wearing a jacket and tie."

6. During the years of the revolution, Yesenin could appear at a literary evening in a white embroidered shirt or cloth caftan, a blue jacket, and wide pants. Or he could wear a narrow, smart jacket, with a fashionable tie, boots and gray leggings.

7. After the revolution, Yesenin created for himself the image of a deserter hiding from recruiters who wanted to send the poet to the front. This image appeared in “Anna Snegina”, as well as in the memoirs of E. German and S. Vinogradskaya. The first wrote that Yesenin escaped a street raid in the yard restroom. The second is that the poet was hiding from conscription in a hut on Novaya Zemlya, where he fought with birds who were trying to eat his supplies. In reality, both stories are fiction, and no one tried to take Yesenin to the front.

8. Yesenin loved to invent a “dream biography” for himself. He told Nadezhda Volpin the story of how he sat on the back stairs of the palace with Grand Duchess Anastasia and read poetry to her. Then the poet admitted to the princess that he was hungry and asked her to bring something. Anastasia brought a pot of sour cream, but was afraid to ask for a second spoon, so they ate one by one. As Nadezhda Volpin wrote, even if it was a fiction, in his imagination it became the truth.

9. In 1918, the poet had a relationship with noblewoman Lydia Kashina. Yesenin did not allow the poor people of Konstantinovka to burn down her house, but Kashina was forced to leave the estate. Little is known about their relationship. In a highly romanticized form, the love story of Kashina and Yesenin was embodied in the poem “Anna Snegina”. The poet added fictitious details: the burning of the estate by the peasants of the village of Kriushi, the death of Anna Snegina’s beloved husband in the war. In fact, since 1916, Kashina lived in a virtual divorce from her husband.

10. Once, when Yesenin was visiting Konstantinovka, the chairman of the village council asked him to write a certain statement. The poet refused, saying that he did not know how to write such a thing. The dissatisfied chairman said that Yesenin was being praised in vain.

11. Last public speaking Yesenin took place in the fall of 1925 at an evening of modern poetry at the House of Press. According to the testimony of those present, the poet looked very bad - sweat was pouring from him, Yesenin read in a hoarse voice with great tension.

12. In the last months of his life, the poet was subject to panic attacks and committed inexplicable antics that frightened his acquaintances. So, he threw his clay bust by the sculptor Konenkov from the balcony. He assured that “Seryozha” (as he called the bust) was stuffy and hot.

The interesting facts about Yesenin presented here do not reflect the fullness of the talent and great poet. In his life there was a place for fatal love, throwing, mistakes and fantasy.