Yesenin, Sergei Aleksandrovich 1895-1925
Russian peasant poet

Born in the Ryazan district to a peasant family, he became well known when he began to associate with the Surikov circle of peasant-proletarian poets in Moscow. In his remarkable first collection, Radunitsa (1915, 'Memorial Service'), there had been nothing antipathetic to Bolshevism, but his second, Goluben (1918), and some subsequent ones, tried - fatally to their integrity - to come to terms with it. His greatest poetry was written after he had rejected Bolshevism, and had become an alcoholic and hooligan, wandering about Russia and elsewhere in a haze of riotous living which became legendary. In 1922 he married the dancer Isadora Duncan, with whom he was unable to exchange a word, as she knew no Russian and he knew no English. In his later collections such as Moskva kabatskaya (1924, 'Moscow Tavern') and Rus sovetskaya (1925, 'Soviet Russia'), his poetry took on new dimensions in its expression of his regrets for the death of his hopes for himself and for Russia. He hanged himself after writing a suicide note in his own blood. The Communists suppressed his work for many years after his death, but in the 1960s it was revived, with great success.

Bibliography: F de Graff, Sergei Esenin: A Biographical Sketch (1966)