Sergey Yesenin (Esenin) (03.10.1895 - 27.12.1925) - Russian lyrical poet

Sergey Yesenin (Esenin) (03.10.1895 - 27.12.1925) - Russian lyrical poet.

• Sergey Yesenin was born on 3 October 1895 in the Ryazan Province. He didn’t spend much time with his parents and he was substantially brought up by his grandparents. Yesenin began to compose poetry when he was nine.

 

Early life  

• In 1912 he moved to Moscow and found a job. At first Yesenin worked in a bookshop and then in the printing establishment. A year later he entered Moscow State University and attended there for eighteen months.

Career

 

• In 1914 in the children's magazine "small World" were first published poems of Yesenin.
• The first Yesenin’s book was published in 1916. It was called Radunitsa. Yesenin became one of the most famous poets in those days for his touching poesy about simple life and love.
• In September 1918, Yesenin founded his own publishing house called "Трудовая Артель Художников Слова".
• In 1924-1925 Esenin visited Azerbaijan, has released a collection of poems in the printing of the "Red East", published in the local publishing house. There is a version that here, in may 1925, was written a poetical "Epistle to the Evangelist Demian". Lived in the village of Mardakan (a suburb of Baku). Now here are his house-Museum and memorial plaque.

Personal life

 

In 1913 he married Anna Izryadnova who was his colleague in the publishing house. They had a son.

 

When Yesenin moved to St. Petersburg he became acquainted with Klyuev who became his close friend. They lived together for some time. In 1916 he was drafted into the army till 1917. Yesenin was also confident that the October Revolution would be an incitement for a better life and he supported it but later was disappointed. Yesenin occasionally criticized the Bolshevik rule in his works.

 

In 1917 he married Zinaida Raikh who was an actress. It was his second marriage. They had 2 children, Tatyana and Konstantin. Subsequently Sergey and Zinaida fell out and did not live together. In 1921 they divorced. Their son became a prominent soccer statistician and Tatyana became a writer.

Later years and death

 

• The last 2 years Yesenin was addicted to drink but at the same time he wrote some of his best poems. In 1925 he married Sophia Andreyevna Tolstaya who was a granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy. She was his fifth wife. She tried to help him jolt out of his depression.

 

• His last poem was written in his own blood. The next day Yesenin hanged himself in the Hotel Angleterre at the age of thirty. Yesenin was buried in Moscow’s Vagankovskoye Cemetery.

Verse

 

•  Snow-clad is the plain,  and the moon is white Covered with a shroud is my country side. Birches dressed in white are crying, as I see. Who is dead, I wonder? Is it really me?  1925  
  (Снежная равнина, белая луна, Саваном покрыта наша сторона. И березы в белом плачут по лесам. Кто погиб здесь?  Умер?  Уж не я ли сам? )