Yesenin's years of life. Where and when was Sergei Yesenin born? Biography, creativity and life path

With Sergei, Yesenin did not immediately find his literary credo: he rushed from one direction to another. At first he performed in bast shoes and a shirt with the new peasant poets, then, dressed in a jacket and tie, he created new literature with the Imagists. In the end, he abandoned all schools and became a free artist, declaring: “I am not a peasant poet or an imagist, I am just a poet.”

“I won my freedom”: the childhood and youth of Sergei Yesenin

Sergei Yesenin was born on October 3, 1895 in the village of Konstantinov, Ryazan province. Life in the Russian outback inspired the boy from early childhood, and at the age of nine he wrote his first poems.

The poet's parents are Alexander Nikitich and Tatyana Fedorovna. 1905. Photo: cameralabs.org

Sergei Yesenin (third from right) among fellow villagers. 1909-1910. Photo: cameralabs.org

Sergei Yesenin with his sisters Katya and Shura. 1912. Photo: cameralabs.org

Sergei Yesenin received his primary education at the zemstvo school - the future poet graduated with honors. However, as he later recalled, his studies did not affect his development in any way and left nothing “except for a strong knowledge of the Church Slavonic language”. When the boy turned 14 years old, he was sent to the Spas-Klepikovsky teacher's school: his parents wanted their son to become a rural teacher. But Yesenin saw his calling in poetry, so he continued to write poems at school. He even tried to publish his collection “Sick Thoughts” in Ryazan, but the book was not published.

After graduating from school, in the summer of 1912, Sergei Yesenin came to Moscow: in the fall he was supposed to enter the Moscow Teachers' Institute. But in defiance of his parents’ decision, he got a job at the Kultura book publishing house and refused to study. “Now it’s decided. I am alone. Now I will live without outside help.<...>Eh, now I probably won’t see anything dear to me. Well! I won my freedom", he wrote to his friend Grigory Panfilov.

Yesenin sent his poems to Moscow magazines, but they were not published. In one of his letters to Panfilov, the poet admitted: “Lack of money especially choked me, but I still firmly endured the blow of fate, did not turn to anyone and did not curry favor with anyone.”. To have a livelihood, the young poet worked as a salesman in a bookstore.

In 1913, he became a volunteer student of the historical and philosophical cycle at the Moscow City People's University named after Alfons Shanyavsky. Classes were held in the evenings, so Yesenin easily combined them with daytime work. At this time he served in the printing house of the Ivan Sytin Partnership. First he worked as a freight forwarder, then as an assistant proofreader.

During this period, Yesenin became interested in the ideas of the Social Democratic Party. The poet distributed political leaflets, spoke to workers in factory areas and encouraged them to fight for their rights. On September 23, 1913, Yesenin took part in the all-Moscow strike against the persecution of the proletarian press. The poet reported to Panfilov about what was happening: “There, near you, blissful days flow peacefully and smoothly, alternating, but here cold time boils, seethes and drills, picking up all sorts of germs of truth in its flow, squeezing it into its icy embrace and carrying God knows where to distant lands, from where no one comes ».

Arrests of demonstrators, police repression, persecution of the workers' press - the young poet was acutely aware of all this and reflected it in his poems. By that time, Yesenin had collected a book of poems “Radunitsa”. He sent some essays from the collection to St. Petersburg magazines, but never received a single response. But Moscow publications began to publish the poet: the children's magazine "Mirok" published the poems "Birch", "Sparrows", "Powder", "Village", "Easter Blagovest", and the Bolshevik newspaper "The Path of Truth" published the poem "Blacksmith".

The poet's wanderings in the capital

Sergei Yesenin (left) with friends. 1913. Photo: cameralabs.org

Sergey Yesenin. 1914. Photo: cameralabs.org

Sergey Yesenin. Photo: cameralabs.org

Soon life in Moscow began to depress Yesenin. The city increasingly seemed to the poet to be a literary province, past which the real social and cultural life of the country passed. In a letter to Panfilov, he complained: “Moscow is a soulless city, and everyone who strives for sun and light mostly runs away from it. Moscow is not the engine of literary development, but it uses everything ready-made from St. Petersburg". Thus was born the decision to move to the capital.

In 1915 Yesenin arrived in Petrograd. He immediately went to his authority in the world of literature - Alexander Blok. He introduced him to the writer Mikhail Murashev and the poet Sergei Gorodetsky. Famous Petrograd authors gave the young man letters of recommendation to the editors of magazines, and finally Yesenin’s poems appeared in metropolitan publications.

The poet spent the summer of 1915 in his native village. Here he prepared the manuscript of the collection "Radunitsa", wrote the poems "White Scroll and Scarlet Sash...", "Robber", the story "Yar", the stories "Bobyl and Druzhok" and "By the White Water". The poet collected folk songs, fairy tales, ditties and riddles - later they were included in the collection “Ryazan Baskets, Ditches and Sufferings”.

Returning to Petrograd, Sergei Yesenin became a member of the Krasa association of peasant writers. Together with its participants, the poet spoke for the first time at an open literary evening. According to Gorodetsky, it was “Yesenin’s first public success”. Soon "Krasa" disbanded, and Sergei Yesenin moved to the literary and artistic society "Strada". Despite his great success, he could barely make ends meet: his performances brought in almost nothing.

Poetry of Sergei Yesenin

In 1916, the first collection, “Radunitsa,” was published. They started talking about Yesenin as an original lyric poet, an artist of “wonderful colors,” a creator who has a future. The poet himself wrote: “My poems made a great impression. All the best magazines of that time began to publish me, and in the fall my first book, “Radunitsa,” appeared. Much has been written about her. Everyone unanimously said that I was talented. I knew this better than others".

Soon after the book was published, Yesenin was drafted into the army. Thanks to the petition of Colonel Dmitry Loman, the poet went not to the front of the First World War, but to the Petrograd reserve of military orderlies, and from there to the Tsarskoye Selo hospital. With his patronage, Loman hoped to bring Yesenin closer to himself and make him a court poet. However, this calculation did not come true. The poet wrote a number of freedom-loving poems: “Behind the dark strand of copse trees,” “Blue sky, colored arc...”, “Mikola.”

“Trouble” overtook Yesenin in February 1917, when he again “refused to write poetry in honor of the king”, - the freedom-loving poet was sent to the front to a disciplinary battalion. However, he did not have time to get to the war: the February Revolution began, after which all decisions of the tsarist regime were canceled. During this period, Yesenin created a cycle of poems “Comrade”, “The Singing Call”, “Father” and “Oktoich”, in which the image of the revolution arose. The poet himself admitted that “I met the first period of the revolution with sympathy, but more spontaneously than consciously”.

In March 1918, Yesenin arrived in Moscow. Here the poet prepared for publication collections of poems “Dove”, “Transfiguration” and “Rural Book of Hours”, wrote a theoretical treatise “The Keys of Mary” on creativity and literature, and composed poems “Inonia” and “Dove of Jordan” with biblical motifs. Despite the fact that Sergei Yesenin enthusiastically accepted the October Revolution, he had a hard time experiencing the breakdown of peasant life. These sad, nostalgic moods formed the basis of the poem “Sorokoust”.

Poet in the “front line of imagism”

Sergei Yesenin (left) and poet Sergei Gorodetsky. 1915. Photo: cameralabs.org

Sergei Yesenin (right) and poet Leonid Kannegiser. 1915. Photo: cameralabs.org

Sergei Yesenin (right) and poet Nikolai Klyuev. 1916. Photo: cameralabs.org

At one of the poetry evenings in 1918, Sergei Yesenin, together with Anatoly Mariengof, Vadim Shershenevich and Rurik Ivnev, decided to create a new school of poetry - imagism. The main idea of ​​this literary movement was the independence of the image (in Latin imago) from reality. In 1919, the poets published a declaration of imagism. They described the main point of the program as follows: “Image as an end in itself. The word requires liberation from the idea.<...>Eating meaning by an image is the path to the development of the poetic word.”.

The ideas of the Imagists sounded provocative, but not fresh: the decadents promoted the liberation of poetry from meaning even before the revolution. Yesenin quickly became convinced of the inconsistency of the new program, and later criticized its main provisions in the article “Life and Art.”

However, Yesenin did not immediately succeed in breaking off relations with the Imagists - he was too accustomed to constant joint revelry. The riotous lifestyle was reflected in the poet’s work: he created a cycle of poems “Moscow Tavern”. Cheerfulness and village sketches disappeared from the lyrics, replaced by gloomy landscapes of the night city, where the lost lyrical hero wanders.

Everyday life oppressed the poet: “I live like a bivouac,- he complained in one of his letters, - without shelter and without refuge, because various idlers began to come home and bother. They, you see, are pleased to drink with me! I don’t even know how to get rid of such bungling, but I’ve become ashamed and pathetic about wasting myself.”.

Yesenin found a way out of this situation in creativity. The poet was working on the dramatic poem “Pugachev” and decided to go on a trip to the places of the Pugachev movement. In 1921, Yesenin left Moscow for Central Asia and the Volga region. During the trip, the poet finished the poem and was able to distract himself. The public received the new work warmly. Maxim Gorky wrote: “I couldn’t even believe that this little man had such enormous power of feeling, such perfect expressiveness.”, and director Vsevolod Meyerhold planned to stage the poem at the RSFSR-1 Theater.

In the spring of 1922, Sergei Yesenin went abroad. He visited Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, America. The poet's impressions from his trip abroad were contradictory. In his letters he noted external beauty - “after our devastation, everything here is tidied up and ironed”. But at the same time, he did not feel spirituality in this: “I haven’t met the person yet and I don’t know where he smells.<...>We may be beggars, we may have hunger, cold and cannibalism, but we have a soul, which was rented out here as unnecessary for Smerdyakovism.”. While traveling, Yesenin continued to work. He began writing the dramatic poem “The Country of Scoundrels” and made sketches of the poem “The Black Man”.

Personal life of Sergei Yesenin

Sergei Yesenin met Anna Izryadnova in 1913 at Sytin’s printing house. Together they not only worked, but studied at Shanyavsky University. Soon they began an affair. Izryadnova recalled: “He became very attached to me, read poetry. He was terribly demanding, he didn’t even order me to talk to women - “they are not good.” He was in a depressed mood - he is a poet, no one wants to understand him, editors don’t accept him for publication, his father scolds... He spent all his salary on books, magazines, and didn’t think at all about how to live.”.

A few months after they met, Yesenin and Izryadnova began to live together. Yesenin almost immediately became disillusioned with family life: he saw his destiny in literature and poetic success. Izryadnova felt like a nuisance: “Yesenin had to mess with me a lot (we lived only together)”. In 1915, their son Yuri was born, and Yesenin left Anna.

Yesenin's first official wife was Zinaida Reich. They met in the spring of 1917. By that time, Yesenin was already a famous poet, and she worked as a secretary-typist in the newspaper Delo Naroda. The Yesenins lived in Orel, then moved to Petrograd, and from there in 1918 to Moscow. Family life again did not go well, and the poet left Reich. They officially divorced only in 1921. In their marriage, the Yesenins had two children - daughter Tatyana and son Konstantin.

Sergei Yesenin with his wife Isadora Duncan. Photo: cameralabs.org

Sergei Yesenin with his wife Isadora Duncan. Photo: cameralabs.org

In the fall of 1921, Sergei Yesenin met Isadora Duncan. The American dancer came to the country on tour. Feelings flared up between the poet and the artist almost immediately. “It was deep mutual love”, wrote Sergei Gorodetsky. "Certainly,- he added, - Yesenin was as much in love with Duncan as with her fame, but he was no less in love than he could fall in love at all.”.

In 1922, Sergei Yesenin and Isadora Duncan got married. The writer decided to accompany his wife on tour in Western Europe and the USA. He himself planned to conduct creative propaganda of his homeland abroad. The poet declared to his friends: “I am going to the West in order to show the West what a Russian poet is”. He promised the authorities to establish publishing of books by Russian poets in Berlin, and in America to regulate relations between the Soviet state and the States.

The couple returned to the Soviet Union in 1923, and the couple soon separated. Yesenin and Duncan shared a lot: the age difference (the dancer was 17 years older than the poet), the language barrier, the difference in worldview. A common comrade, Sergei Konenkov, wrote: “Duncan was a bright, unusual figure. She gave Yesenin a lot, but took away even more of his moral and spiritual strength.”.

Sergei Yesenin “I was always burdened by family instability and the lack of my own corner”, wrote the poet’s sister Alexandra. This feeling did not leave the writer even with new relationships. In 1925, Yesenin met Sofia Tolstoy, the granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy. A few months later they got married. But this marriage did not make Yesenin happy either: “Everything I hoped for and dreamed about is going to waste. Apparently, I won’t be able to settle down in Moscow. Family life is not going well, I want to run away". The poet divorced Sofia Tolstoy after six months of marriage.

Illness and death of Sergei Yesenin

The poet returned to his homeland only a year later. He said goodbye to all literary movements to which he once considered himself and declared: “I’m not a peasant poet or an imagist, I’m just a poet”. He decided to become a “singer of a new life” and wrote the historical-revolutionary poem “Song of the Great March”, the heroic story “Poem of 36”, and the poem about the revolution “Memory”.

In September 1924, Yesenin went to the Transcaucasian republics. During the six months of his journey, he published two books of poetry - “Soviet Rus'” and “Soviet Country”, wrote “The Ballad of Twenty-Six”, the poems “Letter to a Woman”, “My Path”, “Captain of the Earth”, “Departing Rus'”, “Homeless Rus'”, “Flowers”, “In Memory of Bryusov”, began the poem “Anna Snegina” and the cycle of poems “Persian Motifs”.

Sometimes the poet came to his native village. Here he created the poems “Returning to the Homeland”, “The golden grove dissuaded...”, “A low house with blue shutters...”, “Apparently, this is how it has been done forever...”. Village impressions later formed the basis for other works of the poet: “This sadness cannot be scattered now...”, “I will not return to my father’s house...”, “The feather grass is sleeping. Dear plain...", "Rash, talyanka, ringing, rash, talyanka, boldly...".

By mid-1925, Yesenin’s fruitful creative period was replaced by a period of mental crisis. Pessimistic moods and frayed nerves were complicated by physical illness. The doctors insisted that the poet undergo a course of treatment in a neuropsychiatric clinic.

Yesenin continued to work in the hospital. Here he wrote “Don’t look at me reproachfully...”, “You don’t love me, don’t feel sorry for me...”, “Maybe it’s too late, maybe it’s too early...”, “Who am I? What am I? Only a dreamer...", which were included in the cycle "Poems about which...". Having not completed his treatment at the clinic, the writer decided to make a sharp break with the past and left for Leningrad. However, the writer failed to find peace: old acquaintances constantly visited him. On December 28, 1925, weakened by illness and depressive thoughts, the poet committed suicide. He was buried at the Vagankovskoye cemetery in Moscow.

1. At his first public appearances, Sergei Yesenin behaved like an uneducated village peasant and spoke with a voice, as Vladimir Mayakovsky said in his essay, like “living lamp oil”: “We are villagers, we don’t understand this of yours... we somehow... in our way... in the primordial, eternal way.”. In literary salons, the poet imitated a village boy in appearance: most often he was dressed in a white shirt with embroidery, bast shoes or felt boots, and with an accordion in his hands. Mayakovsky believed that in this way Yesenin “advertised” his peasant poetry, and even argued with him that he would soon leave “all these bast shoes and cockerel combs.” And indeed, as soon as Yesenin’s relationship with peasant poets went wrong, his clothing style also changed. Having met the young poet after the revolution in a tie and jacket, Mayakovsky demanded that he give up the loss.

2. In his work “Pugachev” Sergei Yesenin loved Khlopushi’s monologue most of all. He always read it with special ecstasy. Maxim Gorky, who was present at one of the readings, recalled: “I cannot call his reading artistic, skillful, and so on; all these epithets say nothing about the nature of the reading. The poet’s voice sounded somewhat hoarse, loud, hysterical, and this most sharply emphasized Khlopushi’s stony words.”.

3. Khlopushi’s monologue has long been Yesenin’s calling card - the author’s performance was even recorded on a phonograph. On the surviving audio recording of Yesenin’s speech, the Ryazan accent is clearly audible: the author pronounces “e” as “ey”, “o” as “ou”.

4. After returning to Moscow from a trip abroad, Sergei Yesenin published his poetry collection “Moscow Tavern” in the Imagist magazine “Hotel for Travelers in Beauty.” In the two previous issues of the publication, the works were arranged in alphabetical order by the names of the authors; in the same issue, the Yesenin cycle followed the poems of Anatoly Mariengof. This fact hurt Yesenin, as he reported to the Association of Freethinkers: “Out of aesthetic feelings and feelings of personal resentment, I completely refuse to participate in the magazine “Hotel”, especially since it is Mariengof. I capriciously declare why Mariengof published himself on the first page, and not me.”.

5. Once, in a conversation with Mariengof, Yesenin boasted: “But I, Anatoly, have had three thousand women in my entire life.”. To the incredulous phrase: “Vyatka, don’t make a mistake!”- corrected: "Well, three hundred<...>Well, thirty". When talking about his victories of the heart, the poet often lied about numbers, but he had few real loves. Yesenin himself justified his failure in family life with his love of poetry and art.

6. Despite the fact that Yesenin often wrote about the village in his poems, the poet rarely visited his native Konstantinov. Anatoly Mariengof recalled: “In the four years that we lived together, only once did he [Yesenin] get out to his Konstantinovo. I was going to live there for a week and a half, but three days later I galloped back, spitting, kicking and telling, laughing, how the next day in the morning I didn’t know what to do with myself out of green melancholy.”. The poet strove to become a city dweller both in his clothes and in his lifestyle. Even on trips abroad, he liked “civilization” most of all.

In the old days, there was a legend among the people that the Lord, having created the earth, flew over it and, like a sower-worker, generously scattered picturesque fields, dense forests, and sultry deserts from his magic basket. Flying over Ryazan, he tore it, and all the best fell into these regions: deep rivers, dense forests, orchards... Fate again presented the region with a gift that could not be more expensive, at the end of the century, when Sergei Yesenin was born. The poet lived a short, sparkling life, leaving an unfading mark on Russian culture.

But when Yesenin was born, no one could even imagine that he was a great gift. In an ordinary peasant family, a boy was born who was named Sergei. As a child he had the usual joys, worries and sorrows. But the conditions in which the first years of a person’s life usually pass often play an important role in his future fate. Was the environment of the future poet ordinary?

Birth of a poet

In what year was Yesenin born? The great Russian poet was born five years before the beginning of the 20th century. This means that his youth fell on terrible years in the history of Russia. He didn't live long. And in recent decades, all sorts of conjectures and assumptions have begun to be made regarding his death. Unfortunately, it is impossible to find out the truth today.

When Yesenin was born, his family was also going through difficult times. His life and relationships with women were difficult. He always sought to assert himself. The main thing in Yesenin’s life was poetry. His entire existence was subordinated to writing poetry. There were simply no other values. With bravado, fury, and wild antics, he only filled the void in his life.

“In one village, maybe in Kaluga, or maybe in Ryazan...”

When Yesenin was born, peasant origins did not yet have so much weight in society. A quarter of a century later, in his autobiography, the poet will persistently refer to the fact that he was a peasant by origin. This is not a tribute to the times. Yesenin never sought to make a career. He lived in the world of poetry. But why did he emphasize his social origin?

Yesenin was born in the village of Konstantinovo. His parents were truly simple people, but they did not plow the land. They just belonged to the peasant class. After the birth of his son, Alexander Yesenin left for St. Petersburg and left his young wife Tatyana in the care of his parents. But the relationship did not work out. And then there was a big quarrel, after which Tatyana took her three-year-old son and left. Her father accepted his grandson. He sent his daughter to the city to get bread.

The situation was further complicated by the fact that when Yesenin was born, enmity arose between the families of his father and mother. The future poet lived for five years in the house of his maternal grandfather. The parents did not live together all this time. Since childhood, he felt like an orphan. And the fact that he had to feel like one while his parents were alive caused especially acute pain. Relations with relatives were not easy, as evidenced by letters and memories of friends and acquaintances.

Yesenin's secrets

In 1926, a certain journalist visited where Yesenin was born. He was hot on his trail. Only a year has passed since the poet's death. There they told him a mysterious story about the family of the singer of the Russian land. According to fellow villagers of the Yesenins, everything in the relationship between Alexander and Tatyana was good until she gave birth to her second son. Alexander Yesenin did not recognize the baby. The child soon died, but after these events everything in their family changed. The poet's father stopped communicating with his mother for several years, did not send money or support financially. Tatiana later asked for a divorce, but Alexander did not give it.

The picture is incomplete, but in general terms clear. As a child, the future poet did not know his mother's affection. And, perhaps, it is no coincidence that he subsequently so often began relationships with women older than him. First of all, he looked for feelings in them that were close to maternal ones.

“And I was obscene and scandalous...”

Yesenin was born in a village, but in many ways, from childhood, he was different from his peers. And the difference lay primarily not even in his literary abilities, but in his desire to always dominate in everything. According to the recollections of the poet himself, as a boy he was always a fighter and walked around with bruises. He retained the desire to boast of his prowess even into adulthood.

This behavior was due to a restless, absurd disposition and upbringing (my grandfather sometimes forced me to fight in order to become stronger). And also the desire to assert oneself and prove something. He became the first in everything. First in fights with village boys, then in poetry.

“Are you still alive, my old lady?”

From an early age he was different from his peers. The poet in him was already awakening then. When Sergei was born they lived together, but five years later they temporarily separated. The boy was brought up in his grandfather's house.

The spoken word played a big role in his life. His grandmother introduced him to folk art. And then he himself began to write poetry, imitating ditties. It is worth saying that my father’s mother left a significant mark on his soul. He addressed his famous “Letter to a Woman” to her rather than to the woman who gave birth to him.

“I’m tired of living in my native land...”

He wrote these lines not on his first visit to the capital. After school, the boy idle for several weeks in Konstantinov, then went to Moscow to work in a butcher shop. Every person in Russia knows what year Yesenin was born and when he died. The time between these two dates is shrouded in mystery and speculation. For some time he did not earn money through poetry. But this period in the poet’s life did not last long. Basically all his life he lived on royalties. A rare success for a Russian poet.

Before fame came to Yesenin, he worked in a printing house. But the rural boy, who grew up in the vastness of the Ryazan region, was burdened by the crowded Moscow streets. He was used to almost unlimited freedom. Here, in this printing house, he met the woman who became the mother of his first child. Her name was Anna Izryadnova. She was a modest, shy and outwardly inconspicuous person. Like many subsequent women in Yesenin’s life, Izryadnova was older than him.

“And I will return to my father’s house again...”

In 1917, a year after writing these lines, Yesenin returned to Konstantinovo. A significant event took place here. The landowner Kulakov, the owner of the Khitrovsky night shelters in Moscow, has died. During his life he was strict, and the villagers were afraid of him. After his death, the estate went to Lydia Kashina, his daughter.

This person was not distinguished by her beauty, but she was a comprehensively developed, interesting person. She spoke foreign languages, knew a lot about horse riding, and loved entertainment. It was in her house that Sergei Yesenin spent most of his time in those days. Which, it should be said, even led to quarrels with my mother. The whole point is that Kashina was a married lady. It was even rumored that her husband was a general. But the mother’s dissatisfaction did not cause any reaction from Yesenin. She had little authority for the poet, if such existed at all in his life. He visited Lydia Kashina regularly, and then unexpectedly returned to Moscow again.

“And some woman over forty years old...”

He married in 1922. It was one of the most scandalous marriages not only in Russia, but also in Europe. As for the puritanical American society, the time during which the dancer toured the United States, accompanied by a young Russian husband, was not immediately forgotten. However, just in case, Duncan was deprived of American citizenship, so as not to see this restless, blatant couple again in their calm and measured world.

“He was elegant, and also a poet...”

To the question: “Where was Yesenin born?” every student will answer. It happened in the village. Konstantinovo (Ryazan) in 1985. He died thirty years later. It is also known from information about the poet’s life that he loved Russia very much, wrote about the rural landscape, birch trees and dogs. But he drank a lot, behaved like a hooligan, and became entangled in relationships with women. That's why he hanged himself. But how can the biography of a great man be so simple and unambiguous?

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.

Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin born in the village of Konstantinova, Ryazan province, on October 3 (September 21), 1895, in the family of wealthy peasants Alexander Nikitich and Tatyana Fedorovna Yesenin. Because The poet's mother was married not of her own free will, but soon she and her young son went to live with her parents. After some time, Tatyana Fedorovna went to work in Ryazan, and Sergei remained in the care of the Titov grandparents. Sergei Yesenin’s grandfather was an expert in church books, and his grandmother knew many songs, fairy tales, ditties, and as the poet himself claimed, it was his grandmother who pushed him to write his first poems.

In 1904, S. A. Yesenin was sent to study at the Konstantinovsky Zemstvo School. A few years later he entered the church-teachers' school.

In 1912, after graduating from school, Sergei Aleksandrovich Yesenin went to work in Moscow. There he gets a job at the printing house of I.D. Sytin as an assistant proofreader. Working in the printing house allowed the young poet to read many books and gave him the opportunity to become a member of the Surikov literary and musical circle. The poet’s first common-law wife, Anna Izryadnova, describes Yesenin in those years: “He was reputed to be a leader, attended meetings, distributed illegal literature. I pounced on books, read all my free time, spent all my salary on books, magazines, did not think at all about how to live...”

In 1913, S. A. Yesenin entered the Faculty of History and Philosophy of the Moscow City People's University. Shanyavsky. It was the country's first free university for students. There Sergei Yesenin listened to lectures on Western European literature and Russian poets.

But, in 1914, Yesenin gave up work and study, and, according to Anna Izryadnova, devoted himself entirely to poetry. In 1914, the poet's poems were first published in the children's magazine Mirok. In January, his poems begin to be published in the newspapers Nov, Parus, Zarya. In the same year, S. Yesenin and A. Izryadnova had a son, Yuri, who was shot in 1937.

In 1915, young Yesenin left Moscow and moved to Petrograd. There, many poets and writers of that time became acquainted with his work. His poems were read by A.A. Blok and S.M. Gorodetsky. At this time, Sergei Alexandrovich joined the group of so-called “new peasant poets” and published the first collection “Radunitsa”, which made the poet very famous.

In January 1916, Yesenin was called up for military service. In the spring, the young poet is invited to read poetry to the empress, which in the future will help him avoid the front.

In the spring of 1917, Sergei Yesenin met Zinaida Reich at the editorial office of the newspaper Delo Naroda. And in July of the same year they got married. At this time, the October Revolution was unfolding, which the poet accepted unconditionally.

In 1918, the second book of poems by S. A. Yesenin “Dove” was published in Petrograd.

From 1917 to 1921, Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin was married to actress Zinaida Nikolaevna Reich. From this marriage Yesenin had a daughter, Tatyana, and a son, Konstantin.

Already in April 1918, Yesenin broke up with Z. Reich and moved to Moscow, which by that time had become a literary center.

While living together with translator Nadezhda Volpin, Sergei Yesenin had a son, Alexander.

In 1921, the poet went on a trip to Central Asia, visited the Urals and Orenburg region.

In 1922, Yesenin married the famous American dancer Isadora Duncan. Soon he left with her on a long tour of Europe and America. The Izvestia newspaper published S. A. Yesenin’s notes about America “Iron Mirgorod”. The marriage of S. Yesenin and A. Duncan broke up shortly after returning from the tour.

In one of his last poems, “The Country of Scoundrels,” Sergei Aleksandrovich Yesenin writes very harshly about the leaders of Russia, which entails criticism and a ban on the poet’s publications.

In 1924, creative differences and personal motives prompted S. A. Yesenin to break with imagism and leave for Transcaucasia.

In the fall of 1925, Yesenin married Leo Tolstoy's granddaughter Sophia, but the marriage was not successful. At this time, he actively opposed Jewish dominance in Russia. The poet and his friends are accused of anti-Semetism, which is punishable by execution. Yesenin spent the last year of his life in illness, wandering and drunkenness. Due to heavy drunkenness, S. A. Yesenin spent some time in the psychoneurological clinic of Moscow University. However, due to persecution by law enforcement agencies, the poet was forced to leave the clinic. On December 23, Sergei Yesenin leaves Moscow for Leningrad. Stays at the Angleterre Hotel.

On the night of December 28, 1925, under unclear circumstances, a Russian singer, Sergei Aleksandrovich Yesenin, died.

In 1912 he graduated from the Spas-Klepikovskaya teacher's school with a degree in literacy school teacher.

In the summer of 1912, Yesenin moved to Moscow and for some time served in a butcher shop, where his father worked as a clerk. After a conflict with his father, he left the shop and worked in book publishing, then in the printing house of Ivan Sytin in 1912-1914. During this period, the poet joined the revolutionary-minded workers and found himself under police surveillance.

In 1913-1915, Yesenin was a volunteer student at the historical and philosophical department of the Moscow City People's University named after A.L. Shanyavsky. In Moscow, he became close to writers from the Surikov literary and musical circle - an association of self-taught writers from the people.

Sergei Yesenin wrote poetry since childhood, mainly in imitation of Alexei Koltsov, Ivan Nikitin, Spiridon Drozhzhin. By 1912, he had already written 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,” and also prepared a book of poems “Sick Thoughts.” In 1913, the poet worked on the poem "Tosca" and the dramatic poem "The Prophet", the texts of which are unknown.

In January 1914, in the Moscow children's magazine "Mirok" under the pseudonym "Ariston", the poet's first publication took place - the poem "Birch". In February, the same magazine published the poems "Sparrows" ("Winter Sings and Calls...") and "Powder", later - "Village", "Easter Annunciation".

In the spring of 1915, Yesenin arrived in Petrograd (St. Petersburg), where he met the poets Alexander Blok, Sergei Gorodetsky, Alexei Remizov, and became close to Nikolai Klyuev, who had a significant influence on him. Their joint performances with poems and ditties, stylized in a “peasant”, “folk” style, were a great success.

In 1916, Yesenin’s first collection of poems, “Radunitsa,” was published, enthusiastically received by critics, who discovered in it a fresh spirit, youthful spontaneity and the author’s natural taste.

From March 1916 to March 1917, Yesenin served in military service - initially in a reserve battalion located in St. Petersburg, and then from April he served as an orderly on the Tsarskoye Selo military hospital train No. 143. After the February Revolution, he left the army without permission.

Yesenin moved to Moscow. Having greeted the revolution with enthusiasm, he wrote several short poems - “The Jordan Dove”, “Inonia”, “Heavenly Drummer” - imbued with a joyful anticipation of the “transformation” of life.

In 1919-1921 he was part of a group of imagists who stated that the purpose of creativity was to create an image.

In the early 1920s, Yesenin’s poems featured motifs of “everyday torn apart by a storm,” drunken prowess, giving way to hysterical melancholy, which was reflected in the collections “Confession of a Hooligan” (1921) and “Moscow Tavern” (1924).

An event in Yesenin’s life was a meeting in the fall of 1921 with the American dancer Isadora Duncan, who six months later became his wife.

From 1922 to 1923, they traveled around Europe (Germany, Belgium, France, Italy) and America, but upon returning to Russia, Isadora and Yesenin separated almost immediately.

In the 1920s, Yesenin's most significant works were created, which brought him fame as one of the best Russian poets - poems

“The golden grove dissuaded me…”, “Letter to my mother”, “Now we are leaving little by little…”, the cycle “Persian Motifs”, the poem “Anna Snegina”, etc. The theme of the Motherland, which occupied one of the main places in his work, acquired during this period dramatic shades. The once single harmonious world of Yesenin’s Rus' split into two: “Soviet Rus'” - “Leaving Rus'.” In the collections "Soviet Rus'" and "Soviet Country" (both - 1925), Yesenin felt like a singer of a "golden log hut", whose poetry "is no longer needed here." The emotional dominant of the lyrics were autumn landscapes, motives for summing up, and farewells.

The last two years of the poet’s life were spent traveling: he traveled to the Caucasus three times, went to Leningrad (St. Petersburg) several times, and to Konstantinovo seven times.

At the end of November 1925, the poet was admitted to a psychoneurological clinic. One of Yesenin’s last works was the poem “The Black Man,” in which his past life appears as part of a nightmare. Having interrupted the course of treatment, Yesenin left for Leningrad on December 23.

On December 24, 1925, he stayed at the Angleterre Hotel, where on December 27 he wrote his last poem, “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye...”.

On the night of December 28, 1925, according to the official version, Sergei Yesenin committed suicide. The poet was discovered on the morning of December 28. His body hung in a loop on a water pipe right at the ceiling, at a height of almost three meters.

No serious investigation was carried out, the city authorities from the local police officer.

A special commission created in 1993 did not confirm versions of other circumstances of the poet’s death, in addition to the official one.

Sergei Yesenin is buried in Moscow at the Vagankovskoye cemetery.

The poet was married several times. In 1917, he married Zinaida Reich (1897-1939), secretary-typist of the newspaper Delo Naroda. From this marriage a daughter, Tatyana (1918-1992), and a son, Konstantin (1920-1986), were born. In 1922, Yesenin married the American dancer Isadora Duncan. In 1925, the poet’s wife was Sofia Tolstaya (1900-1957), the granddaughter of the writer Leo Tolstoy. The poet had a son, Yuri (1914-1938), from a civil marriage with Anna Izryadnova. In 1924, Yesenin had a son, Alexander, from the poet and translator Nadezhda Volpin, a mathematician and activist in the dissident movement, who moved to the United States in 1972.

On October 2, 1965, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the poet’s birth, the State Museum-Reserve of S.A. was opened in the village of Konstantinovo in the house of his parents. Yesenin is one of the largest museum complexes in Russia.

On October 3, 1995, in Moscow, in house number 24 on Bolshoy Strochenovsky Lane, where Sergei Yesenin was registered in 1911-1918, the Moscow State Museum of S.A. was created. Yesenina.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources