Yesenin creative life. Life and work of Yesenin SA
S.A. Yesenin is a poet who lived very short life, just 30 years old. But over the years, he wrote hundreds of beautiful poems, many "small" poems and large epic works, artistic prose, 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 the events of the cultural life of Russia and foreign countries, reflections on the greatest works of world literature. “It’s not in vain that I live ...,” wrote Sergei Yesenin in 1914. His bright and impetuous life left a deep mark both 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, Kuzminskaya 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, they learned to read at 5” (vol. 7, p. 15). 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 Teacher's School" (1909-1912). By 1912, the writing of the poem "The Tale of Evpatiy Kolovrat, of Batu Khan, the Three-Handed Flower, of the Black Idol and Our Savior Jesus Christ", as well as the preparation of a book of poems "Sick Thoughts" dates back to 1912.
In July 1912 S.A. Yesenin moves to Moscow. Here he settles at Bolshoy Strochenovsky lane, house 24 (now the Moscow State Museum of S.A. Yesenin). The young poet was full of strength and desire to express himself. It was in Moscow that the first known publication by 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 in the printing house of the I.D. Sytin as assistant proofreader. In 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 "Prophet", the texts of which are unknown.
During his stay in Moscow, S.A. Yesenin enters as a volunteer at the historical and philosophical department of the People's University named after A.L. Shanyavsky, but also listens to lectures on the history of Russian literature read by Yu.I. Aikhenwald, 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 weaved out 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 saturated 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 everyone's life. 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 the poems by S.A. Yesenin: "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 is published in St. Petersburg magazines ("Voice of Life", "Monthly Journal", "Chronicle"), the poet is invited to literary salons. A particularly important and joyful event for the poet is the publication of his first collection of poems, Radunitsa (1916).
In 1917, the poet marries Z.N. Reich.
The poet initially enthusiastically welcomes the revolution that took place in 1917, hoping that the time of "peasant's paradise" is coming. But it cannot be said that the poet's attitude to the revolution was unambiguous. He understands that the ongoing changes are taking the lives of many thousands of people. In the poem "Mare Ships" S.A. Yesenin writes: “With oars of severed hands / You are rowing to the land of the future.” (vol. 2, p. 77). By 1917-1918. refers to the work of the poet on the works "Father", "Coming", "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 the Imagists, from English word"image" is an 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 "fellow writers." He was sure that a poem cannot be just a "catalog of images", the image must be meaningful. The poet defends the meaning, the harmony of the image in the article “Life and Art”.
The highest manifestation of his Imagism S.A. Yesenin called the poem "Pugachev", on which he worked in 1920-1921. The poem was highly appreciated by Russian and foreign readers.
In the autumn 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. During his stay abroad, S.A. Yesenin is working on the "Moscow Tavern" cycle, the dramatic poem "Country of Scoundrels", the first edition of the poem "The Black Man". in Paris in 1922 French the book Confessions of a Hooligan was published, 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 take-off. The 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, "The Poem of 36", "The Song of the Great Campaign", the books "Moscow Tavern", "Birch Calico", the collection "On Russia and the Revolution" were published. Creativity S.A. Yesenin of the late period is distinguished by a special, philosophical character. The poet looks back life path, reflects on the meaning of life, tries to comprehend the events that changed the history of his Motherland, to find his place in new Russia. Often the poet reflected on death. Having finished work on the poem "The 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 and think, what are we fighting for, lying down in bed? .. "
Life S.A. Yesenina ended in St. Petersburg, on the night of December 27-28, 1925. The poet was buried in Moscow at the Vagankovsky cemetery.
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Sergey Yesenin. The name of the great Russian poet - connoisseur folk soul, a singer of peasant Russia, is familiar to every person, poems have long become Russian classics, and admirers of his work gather on the birthday of Sergei Yesenin.
Hey sled! What a sled!
Ringing frozen aspens.
My father is a peasant
Well, I'm a peasant's son.
Sergei Yesenin: biography of the Russian poet
Ryazan Oblast. In 1895, the poet was born, whose works are still admired by admirers of his work. October 3 - Sergei Yesenin's birthday. From childhood, the boy was raised by a prosperous and enterprising maternal grandfather, a great connoisseur of church literature. Therefore, among the first impressions of the child are spiritual poems sung by wandering blind men, and fairy tales of his beloved grandmother, which prompted the future poet to his own work, which started at the age of 9.
Sergei graduated from the 4th grade of the local zemstvo school, although he studied for 5 years: due to unsatisfactory behavior, he was left for the 2nd year. He continued to acquire knowledge at the Spas-Klepikovskaya parochial school, which trained rural teachers.
The capital of Russian cities: the beginning of a new life
At the age of 17 he left for Moscow, got a job in a butcher's shop, where his father served as a clerk. After a conflict with a parent, he changed jobs: he moved to a book publishing house, and then to a printing house as a proofreader. There he met Anna Izryadnova, who gave birth to him, 19-year-old, in December 1914, the son of Yuri, who was shot in 1937 under a false sentence of an attempt on Stalin's life.
During his stay in the capital, the poet took part in the literary and musical circle named after. Surikov, joined the rebellious workers, for which he received the attention of the police. In 1912, as a volunteer, he began to attend classes at the A. Shanyavsky People's University in Moscow. There Yesenin received the basics liberal education while listening to lectures on Western European and Russian literature. The birthday of Sergei Yesenin is known to many admirers of his work - October 3, 1895. His works have been translated into many languages, are included in the mandatory school curriculum. To this day, many are interested in what kind of relationship the poet built with the fair sex, did the women love Sergei Yesenin, did he reciprocate? What (or who) inspired him to create; to create in such a way that after a century his poems are relevant, interesting, loved.
The life and work of Sergei Yesenin
The first publication took place in 1914 in the capital's magazines, and the poem "Birch" became the beginning of a successful debut. Literally in a century, the birthday of Sergei Yesenin will be known to almost every schoolchild, but for now the poet has set foot on his thorny path leading to fame and recognition.
In Petrograd, where Sergei moved in the spring of 1915, believing that all literary life is concentrated in this city, he read his works to Blok, to whom he personally came to get acquainted. The warm welcome of the famous poet's entourage and the approval of his poems inspired the envoy of the Russian village and endless fields for further work.
Recognized, published, read
The talent of Sergei Yesenin was recognized by Gorodetsky S.M., Remizov A.M., Gumilyov N.S., acquaintance with whom the young man was obliged to Blok. Almost all the poems brought were published, and Sergei Yesenin, whose biography to this day is of interest to fans of the poet's work, has become widely known. In joint poetic performances with Klyuev before the public, stylized as a folk, peasant style, the young golden-haired poet appeared in morocco boots and an embroidered shirt. He became close to the society of "new peasant poets" and himself was fond of this direction. The key theme of Yesenin's poetry was peasant Russia, the love for which permeates all his works.
In 1916 he was drafted into the army, but thanks to the anxiety and troubles of his friends, he was appointed as an orderly to the military hospital train of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, which allowed the poet to visit literary salons without interference, perform at concerts, attend receptions from patrons.
Peasant Russia in the work of the poet
He accepted the October Revolution joyfully in his own way and enthusiastically wrote a number of small poems "Heavenly Drummer", "Inonia", "Jordan Dove", imbued with a premonition of future changes; the life and work of Sergei Yesenin were at the beginning of a new, still unexplored path - the path of fame and recognition.
In 1916, Yesenin's debut book "Radunitsa" was published, enthusiastically received by critics who discovered in it a fresh direction, the author's natural taste and his youthful spontaneity. Further, from 1914 to 1917, “Dove”, “Rus”, “Marfa-Posadnitsa”, “Mikola” were published, marked by some special Yesenin style with the humanization of animals, plants, natural phenomena, forming together with man , connected by roots with nature, a holistic, harmonious and beautiful world. The pictures of Yesenin's Russia - reverent, evoking almost a religious feeling in the poet, are painted with a subtle understanding of nature with a heating stove, a dog's shelter, unmowed hay, marshy swamps, the snoring of a herd and the hubbub of mowers.
The second marriage of Sergei Yesenin
In 1917, the poet married Nikolaevna, from whose marriage the children of Sergei Yesenin were born: son Konstantin and daughter Tatyana.
At this time, real popularity came to Yesenin, the poet became in demand, he was invited to various events. In 1918 - 1921, he traveled a lot around the country: Crimea, the Caucasus, Arkhangelsk, Murmansk, Turkestan, Bessarabia. He worked on the dramatic poem "Pugachev", in the spring he traveled to the Orenburg steppes.
In 1918-1920, the poet became close to Mariengof A.B., Shershenevich V.G., and became interested in Imagism - a post-revolutionary literary and artistic movement, which was based on futurism, which claimed to build the "art of the future", completely new, denying all the previous artistic experience. Yesenin became a frequent visitor to the Pegasus Stall literary cafe in Moscow near the Nikitsky Gate. The poet, who sought to cognize the "commune rearing Russia", only partially shared the desire of the newly created direction, the purpose of which was to cleanse the form from the "dust of content." He also continued to perceive himself as a poet of the "Departing Russia". In his poems, the motives of everyday life appeared, “torn apart by the storm”, drunken prowess, which is replaced by hysterical melancholy. The poet appears as a brawler, a hooligan, a drunkard with a bloodied soul, wandering from a brothel to a brothel, where he is surrounded by "alien and laughing rabble" (collections "Moscow Tavern", "Confessions of a Hooligan" and "Poems of a Brawler").
In 1920, a three-year marriage with Z. Reich broke up. The children of Sergei Yesenin each went their own way: Konstantin became a famous football statistician, and Tatiana became the director of her father's museum and a Member of the Writers' Union.
Isadora Duncan and Sergei Yesenin
In 1921, Yesenin met the dancer Isadora Duncan. She did not speak Russian, the poet, who read a lot and was highly educated, did not know foreign languages, but from the first meeting, when looking at the dance of this woman, Sergei Yesenin irreversibly reached out to her. The couple, in which Isadora was 18 years older, was not stopped by the age difference. Most often she called her beloved "angel", and he called her "Isidora". The immediacy of Isadora, her incendiary dances drove Yesenin crazy. She, on the other hand, perceived him as a weak and unprotected child, treated Sergei with trembling tenderness, and even learned a dozen Russian words over time. In Russia, Isadora's career did not work out because the Soviet authorities did not provide the field of activity that she was counting on. The couple registered their marriage and took the common surname Duncan-Yesenin.
After the wedding, Yesenin and his wife traveled extensively in Europe, visited France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Belgium, and the USA. Duncan tried her best to create PR for her husband: she organized translations of his poems and their publication, organized poetry evenings, but abroad he was recognized only as an attachment to a famous dancer. The poet yearned, felt unclaimed, useless, he began to feel depressed. Yesenin began to drink, there were frequent heartbreaking quarrels between the spouses with departures and subsequent reconciliations. Over time, Yesenin's attitude towards his wife, in whom he already saw not an ideal, but an ordinary aging woman, changed. He still got drunk, occasionally beat Isadora, complained to his friends that she stuck to him and did not come off. The couple broke up in 1923, Yesenin returned to Moscow.
The last years of Yesenin's work
In further work, the poet very critically denounces the Soviet government ("Country of Scoundrels", 1925). After that, the persecution of the poet begins, accusing him of fighting and drunkenness. The last two years of his life were spent in regular traveling; Sergei Yesenin, a Russian poet, hid from judicial persecution, traveled three times to the Caucasus, traveled to Leningrad and constantly visited Konstantinovo, never interrupting communication with him.
During this period, the works “Poem about 26”, “Persian Motifs”, “Anna Snegina”, “Golden Grove Dissuaded” were published. In the poems, the main place is still occupied by the theme of the motherland, which is now acquiring shades of drama. This period of lyrics is increasingly marked by autumn landscapes, motives for summing up and saying goodbye.
Goodbye my friend, goodbye...
In the autumn of 1925, the poet, trying to start anew family life, combined with marriage to Sofya Andreevna - the granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy. But this union was not happy. The life of Sergei Yesenin was going downhill: alcohol addiction, depression, pressure from the ruling circles caused the poet to be placed in a neuropsychiatric hospital by his wife. Only a narrow circle of people knew about this, but there were well-wishers who contributed to the establishment of round-the-clock monitoring of the clinic. The Chekists began to demand from P.B. Gannushkin - a professor at this clinic - the extradition of Yesenin. The latter refused, and Yesenin, after waiting for an opportune moment, interrupted the course of treatment and left the psycho-neurological institution in the crowd of visitors and left for Leningrad.
On December 14, he finished work on the poem "The Black Man", on which he spent 2 years. The work was published after the death of the poet. December 27 from the pen of Sergei Yesenin came out his final work "Goodbye, my friend, goodbye." The life and work of Sergei Yesenin was coming to an end, terrible and incomprehensible. The Russian poet died, whose body was found hanged in the Angleterre Hotel on the night of December 28, 1925.
On the birthday of Sergei Yesenin, they gather to honor his memory in all corners of Russia, but the most large-scale events are held in his native Konstantinov, where thousands of admirers of the poet's work come from all over the world.
1. The meaning of the theme of the Motherland in Yesenin's work.
2. Early work of S. A. Yesenin.
3. The theme of the motherland and nature are the main ones in the poet's work.
4. Poetry of the 1920s.
5. The ideal of the poet is Russia.
I am not a new person, what to hide.
I stayed in the past with one foot.
In an effort to catch up with the steel army,
I slide and fall another.
S. A. Yesenin
These lines of the talented Russian poet S. A. Yesenin, which sound bitter, are autobiographical. Having enthusiastically met the new post-revolutionary Russia, he could not understand and accept what began to happen to the Russian village, nature and man as its integral part. Whatever the poet writes about: about the revolution, about the personal, about the eternal, the feeling of the motherland, love for it, its significant role in the fate of Yesenin, has always been a leitmotif in his poetry. He himself often admitted: “My lyrics are alive with one great love, love for the motherland. The feeling of the motherland is the main thing in my work.
S. A. Yesenin (1895-1925) was born into a simple peasant family in the village of Konstantinovo, Ryazan province. During his studies at the zemstvo school and the Spas-Klepikovskaya school, he wrote more than 30 poems, compiled a handwritten collection "Sick Thoughts" (1912). The Russian village, the nature of central Russia, oral folk art, Russian classical literature had a strong influence on the formation of the young poet, nourished his natural talent. The feeling of the motherland finds expression so far only in love for native nature, a landscape familiar from childhood: Compressed fields, a red-yellow bonfire of an autumn grove, a mirror-like surface of lakes. The poet feels himself a part of nature and is ready to merge with it: "I would like to get lost in the greenery of your callous." Another great master Silver Age A. A. Blok highly appreciated the "fresh, clean, vociferous", although "wordy" poems of the nugget poet. At the beginning of 1916, Yesenin's first collection of poems, Radunitsa, was published, which is imbued not only with freshness and lyricism, a vivid perception of nature, but also with figurative brightness. In the pre-revolutionary poetic world of Yesenin, Russia has many faces: “thoughtful and tender”, “humble and violent”, “poor and cheerful”. In the poem “You didn’t believe in my God” (1916), the poet calls on Russia, the “sleepy princess”, located “on a foggy shore”, to “a cheerful faith”. In the poem of the same year, "Clouds from the Colt..." the poet somehow predicts a revolution that will bring about the transformation of Russia "through torment and the cross."
At the end of 1916, Yesenin was preparing a new collection of poems, Dove, which would be released after the revolution in 1918. There are already many lyrical masterpieces here, both about bright love, painted in sensual tones, and about convict, impoverished, requiring the renewal of Russia. The lyrical hero also undergoes changes - he is now a “gentle youth”, “humble monk”, then “sinner”, “tramp and thief”, “robber with a flail”.
The poet met the October Revolution enthusiastically. “I rejoice in the song of your death,” he addresses the old, obsolete world. It seemed to him that an era of great spiritual renewal, a reassessment of values, was coming. At this time, he creates a cycle of 10 small poems in which "violent Russia" is sung and "red summer" is famous ("Comrade" (1917), "The Singing Call" (1917), "The Coming" (1918), "Transfiguration "(1918)," Inonia "(1918)," Jordan Dove "(1918), etc.). Yesenin expected from the revolution to improve the lives of ordinary peasants, which did not happen. He is going through a spiritual crisis, which is expressed in the following lines: “... I don’t understand where the fate of events leads us.” Changing the face of Russia Soviet power Now he doesn't understand either. The transformations in the village are associated by the poet with the invasion of the "hostile" "iron guest", before which the nature, praised by him since childhood, is defenseless. Considering that a person negatively affects its integrity and beauty, he feels like "the last poet of the village." A vivid symbol of this performance is the image of a foal, trying in vain to overtake a steam locomotive:
Dear, dear, funny fool
But where is he, where is he going?
Doesn't he know that living horses
Did the steel cavalry win?
The most significant works of Yesenin, which brought him fame as one of best poets Russia, created by him in the 20s of the XX century. The poetry of the most tragic years (1922-1925) is marked by a striving for a harmonious worldview. During these years, he writes his best creations: “I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry ...”, “The golden grove dissuaded ...”, “We are now leaving a little ...”, etc. A poem also belongs to this time "Sorokoust" (1920), collections of poems "Treryadnitsa" (1920), "Confessions of a Hooligan" (1921), "Poems of a Brawler" (1923), "Moscow Tavern" (1924), "Soviet Russia" (1925), "Country Soviet" (1925), "Persian motives" (1925).
Most often in the lyrics of this period there are motives for a deep understanding of the Universe, one's place in the world, along with the awareness of lost hopes. Indicative in this respect is the poem "Pushkin", dated 1924:
Dreaming of a mighty gift
The one who became Russian fate,
I'm standing on Tverskoy Boulevard.
I stand and talk to myself.
Blond, almost white
In legends, which has become like fog,
Oh Alexander! You were a rake
Like I'm a bully today.
... But, doomed to persecution,
I will sing for a long time...
So that my steppe singing
Managed to ring bronze.
The poem is largely seen as prophetic, with the exception of one moment - he did not have long to “sing”.
The poem "Anna Snegina" (1925) became in many ways the final work in which the personal fate of the poet is intertwined with the fate of the entire Russian people. It is here that the image of the "black man" pursuing the poet appears. His tragic death and today is one of the unsolved mysteries of the literature of the XX century and dark pages in history. Soviet state. This foreboding of an impending tragedy, a break in fate - both personal and common - made many talented poets and writers of the "troubled" years of the early 20th century related.
The system of motives in Yesenin's poetry forms a single picture of the "beloved homeland" in all its variety of shades. This is the highest ideal of the poet, who throughout his short life subtly feels and sings of "a sixth part of the earth with a short name - Russia."
Every student understands the meaning of Yesenin's name in Russian literature. It is no coincidence that it is rated so highly, because the poet had a significant impact on the development of Russian culture and morality. During his career, Sergei managed to create a unique poetic fund that covers many topics related to the life of ordinary people. His lines have long been cited, and his works are actively studied in schools and other educational institutions, as an example of the art of the Russian style. Masterpieces of poetic skill are thoroughly saturated with incredible sincerity and passionate feelings that tend to be transmitted to the reader.
The poetry of Sergei Yesenin is imbued with a sense of patriotism and love for his homeland. He describes the beauty of Russian nature and awakens in the souls of people the hidden strings of awareness of belonging to a great people. He does not get tired of describing the natural beauty of his lands and singing respectful feelings for the successes of the working class. Yesenin's poems about nature can never be confused with the poems of other authors. He describes her so subtly and so accurately. Sergey put in the first place the primitiveness of life and its everyday moments, describing them gently with a soul full of spirituality and kindness.
The words that fly from the poet's lips are masterpieces each separately, and together they create an incredible composition imbued with love for their native lands. Reading skillfully composed poems, the layman involuntarily experiences feelings of empathy and responsibility to the heroes of the works. Yesenin had an amazing gift to revive the simplest scenes from Everyday life person and turn them into something meaningful and really important.
Sergei always showed a special love for animals, which is typical for his poetry. The experiences of animals are conveyed with truly human warmth, which is given in every line of the reporting works. Yesenin endows animals with human feelings and on the pages of books they tend to feel sad, experience joy and other characteristic of a person emotions. It does not matter at all who represents the world of animals, in any poem they have a special drama and genuine sincerity. Plus, the poet emphasizes the full depth of suffering of our smaller brothers through the fault of a person who does not always deal with them with dignity.
Among other things, the theme of maternal love has a rather great influence on the poet's work. This is not surprising, given that Yesenin attaches to this aspect great value.
Sergei's work does not lie on the surface and is far from accessible to every layman, because the meaning of the poems is revealed only as a result of hard mental work. His style cannot be confused with anything else, because the penetration resonates with many generations of readers. Yesenin possessed the soul of a Russian free man and zealously defending the essence native people which is reflected in art.
The lyric of an incredibly broad soul has gained immense popularity, mixing sincerity and relevance in the vessels of poetry, which is not lost over time.
Sergei Yesenin lived a short life (1895-1925), but he is alive in the memory and consciousness of the people. His poetry has become an integral part of the spiritual culture of the nation. Yesenin belongs to those artists whose works are characterized by great simplicity. They are clear to any reader. The poet's poems enter the soul, merge with a feeling of love for the motherland. Perhaps it is this feeling of indissoluble connection with the native land that is the essence of Yesenin's poetic world. Russia is in the heart of the poet, and that is why this declaration of love for native land! One of the successors of Yesenin's tradition in modern poetry, Nikolai Rubtsov, conveyed this quality of Yesenin's work in precise and expressive lines:
Versts of all the shaken earth,
All earthly shrines and bonds
As if nervous system entered
In the waywardness of Yesenin's muse!
Yesenin was born in the Ryazan region, in the village of Konstantinovo, freely spread among wide fields on the steep bank of the Oka. But the poet left the Ryazan village very young, then lived in Moscow, and in St. Petersburg, and abroad, came to his native village from time to time as a guest.
Childhood memory - "I was born with songs in a grassy blanket" - nourished the roots of his poetry and life itself. In one of his autobiographies, the poet notes that he had "a childhood like that of all rural children." It left an indelible mark on his work.
How good
that I saved you
All the feelings of childhood.
Yesenin was destined to spend most of his life in the city, only he visited endlessly expensive places where he spent his childhood and youth. The soul remained forever attached to the father's house, native family, beloved Ryazan expanses. Russian nature, the peasant way of life, folk art, great Russian literature - these are the true sources of his poetry. It was the separation from his native land that gave his poems about her that warmth of memories that distinguishes them. In the very descriptions of nature, the poet has that measure of detachment, which allows this beauty to be seen and felt more sharply.
For a poet, his native village in Russia is something unified, his homeland, especially in his early work, is, first of all, his native land, native village, something that later, already at the end of the 20th century, literary critics defined as a concept " small homeland". With the lyrical tendency inherent in S. Yesenin to animate all living things, everything around him, he also addresses Russia as a person close to him:
Oh, you, Russia, my meek homeland,
Only for you I save love ...
Sometimes the poet's poems take on a note of aching sadness, a feeling of restlessness arises in them, their lyrical hero is a wanderer who left his native hut, rejected and forgotten by everyone. And the only thing that remains unchanged, that preserves the eternal value, is nature and Russia:
And the month will swim and swim,
Dropping oars across the lakes...
And Russia will also live,
Dance and cry at the fence.
It is the folk ideas about beauty and goodness that are embodied in Yesenin's work. In his poems, poetry accompanies man in everything - in hard peasant labor and in cheerful village festivities.
Oh arable land, arable land, arable land,
Kolomna sadness,
Yesterday in my heart
And Russia shines in the heart .
Nature itself is the center of beauty. Yesenin drew poetry from this pantry. And it is difficult to name another poet whose poetic perception would be so directly and deeply connected with the world of native nature:
I wander through the first snow,
In the heart are lilies of the valley of flashing forces.
Evening blue candle star
He lit up my road.
Man and nature are merged in the attitude of the poet. They have common life and common lot. Nature in Yesenin's lyrics is really alive, endowed with reason and feeling, capable of responding to the pains and joys of a person.
Yesenin's poetic vision is concrete, therefore his poems are so visible, sonorous and multicolored. The poet creates a harmonious world where everything is coordinated and has its place:
Quietly, squatting, in the patches of dawn
They listen to the tale of the old mower...
Such vivid imagery can only be born from a deep and true feeling. Yesenin searched and found unexpected images, his amazing comparisons and metaphors came, as a rule, from everyday life. peasant life: "evening frosty, like a wolf, dark storm"; “birch milk is pouring across the plain”; "dawn with a dewy hand of coolness knocks down the apples of dawn."
The image was never an end in itself for him. Reflecting on the poets who sinned with form-creation, he accurately identified the source of their delusions: “My brethren do not have a sense of homeland in the entire broad sense of the word, therefore everything is inconsistent with them.”
Yesenin was endowed, as noted by almost all who wrote about him, with an exceptional, phenomenal impressionability. He discovered the beautiful in the usual, spiritualized the everyday with his word:
Weaved out on the lake the scarlet light of dawn.
Capercaillie are crying on the forest with bells .
And this same increased impressionability did not allow him to pass by someone else's grief, endowed his Muse with responsiveness, which really extended to all living things:
They did not give the mother a son, The first joy is not for the future. And on the stake under the aspen, the breeze ruffled the skin .
Sometimes his poetic revelations, the accuracy of his vision, seem like a miracle born not of man, but of nature itself. It is no coincidence that M. Gorky in his essay on Yesenin emphasized precisely this idea: “Yesenin is not so much a person as an organ created by nature exclusively for poetry, to express the inexhaustible“ sadness of the fields ”, love for all living things in the world and mercy, which - more than anything else - deserved by man.
Yes, the poet's natural gift is enormous. But it would not be entirely fair to consider Yesenin a kind of careless village shepherd singing on the flute, Lel. By the way, the poet himself has always been uncomfortable with such an interpretation of his work. Behind each of his poetic insights was a serious literary work. Yesenin came to the city not naive " natural man". He knew classical literature well, he traced his poetic pedigree from A. Koltsov. And in his final autobiography (October 1925) he emphasized the great importance of Pushkin for him: “In terms of formal development, now I am drawn more and more to Pushkin.” Interest in Russian classics woke up in Yesenin while still studying at the Spas-Klepikovskaya teacher's school. And later in Moscow, in the classroom at the Shanyavsky People's University, he continued its in-depth study. The poet especially loved Gogol. And just like the author of Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, Yesenin not only organically felt and remembered the fairy tales, songs, ditties he heard in childhood, but also thoughtfully studied oral folk art. The poet studied with the people, in folklore he saw the “nodal ties” of the figurative expression of the world.
It is known that Yesenin collected and recorded four thousand ditties. Already it was a peculiar, but, undoubtedly, a living and serious poetic school. Yesenin was not alone in his interest in this form of folk art. At that time, the ditty was actively included in the works of Blok, Mayakovsky, D. Poor. In 1918, 107 ditties recorded by Yesenin appeared on the pages of the Moscow newspaper Voice of the Working Peasantry. And in 1920 he published the book "Keys of Mary" - an interpretation of the worldview and creativity of the people.
Already in the first youthful poems that appeared in print in January 1914, Yesenin is an outstanding poet, his poetic feeling is so rich and fresh, his figurative vision is so precise and expressive! But his life in great Russian literature began, perhaps, on March 9, 1915, after a significant meeting with A. Blok. Yesenin, an aspiring poet, did not accidentally come to Blok. He knew well the work of his older contemporary and felt a certain poetic affinity with him. Subsequently, comprehending his path in art, Yesenin accurately outlined the range of his interests and poetic origins: “Of the contemporary poets, I liked Blok, Bely and Klyuev the most. Bely gave me a lot in terms of form, while Blok and Klyuev taught me lyricism.” Blok instantly felt the original sonorous gift of the “young Ryazan guy” and spoke to him as to a fellow writer. He did not teach and instruct, but invited Yesenin to think about creativity, as if foreseeing the difficult poetic fate of the young poet: “... I think that your path may not be short, and in order not to stray from it, you must not hurry up, don't be nervous. Sooner or later, you will have to give an answer for your every step, and it is difficult to walk now, in literature, perhaps, the most difficult thing. Blok does for Yesenin, perhaps, the most necessary thing for him at that moment: it helps to strengthen the feeling of self-confidence and brings closer, through letters of recommendation to magazines, the meeting of Yesenin's poems with his reader.
Readers of Petrograd magazines, in which Yesenin's poems began to appear one after another, were literally stunned by the sincerity of his poetry. A rush to people, closeness to nature, love for the Motherland, poeticization of simple human feelings - these moods and thoughts, voiced in Yesenin's poems, captivated contemporaries. Before the revolution, only one book of the poet was published - "Radunitsa" (1916), but Yesenin's fame was enormous. Contemporaries were waiting for his new poems, they treated them as an unparalleled document of life, addressed and addressed directly to each reader. The poet rapidly reduced the distance between the author, the lyrical hero and the reader. Giving himself entirely to the reader's judgment, sharing his innermost feelings, he with good reason could write later: "... as for the rest of the biographical information, they are in my poems." The poetry of Sergei Yesenin is deeply patriotic. Already in the first verses, with merciless sincerity, he sang the high civic love for the Motherland:
If the holy army shouts:
"Throw you Russia, live in paradise!"
I will say: “There is no need for paradise,
Give me my country."
Motherland, in essence, is the main human and creative theme poet. With all the inevitability, Yesenin's filial love for the world around him turns into a great love for the Motherland, its past and present. The poetic perception of the Motherland by the poet is as concrete and direct as his depiction of nature. First of all, this is peasant Russia, the width of the Ryazan fields, fellow villagers, relatives. The joy of communicating with your beloved land does not obscure the pictures of the difficult peasant life.
The drought drowned out the sowing,
Rye dries, and oats do not sprout,
At a prayer service with banners girls
Stripes dragged in butts.
A thorough knowledge of peasant life, the aspirations of rural workers makes Yesenin a singer of the people, of Russia. With all his heart, he wants the life of the peasants to become more joyful and happy. In pre-revolutionary Russia, the poet cannot but see the bleak downtroddenness and deprivation of the village (“You are my abandoned land, you are my wasteland”). Angrily does not accept the first poet world war bringing new troubles to the people. But, perhaps, the feeling of hopelessness of what is happening depresses the compassionate soul most of all:
And Russia will still live,
Dance and cry at the fence.
Sharp social vision allows Yesenin to perceive February Revolution in a broader historical perspective. He calls for a further and deeper renewal of the country in his very first poetic response after February 1917:
O Russia, flap your wings, Put up a different support!
With special enthusiasm in the "Heavenly Drummer" the poet will express his attitude to the transforming power October revolution. Its truly popular character, the scale of social changes cannot but attract the rebellious soul of the poet to it. Even his theomachic poems of those years, "Transfiguration", "Jordan Dove", "Inonia", permeated with a vague understanding of the revolution, a naive idea of the coming "peasant's paradise", were still a tangible blow to the old world. The voice of Yesenin, singing the revolution, sounds in unison with the poetic anthem of the revolution in Blok's poem "The Twelve", with the revolutionary poems of Mayakovsky and D. Poor. A truly new kind of Soviet poetry is being born.
And, nevertheless, it is pointless, and it is not necessary to deny the complexity and inconsistency of the poet's perception of a radical break in the patriarchal way of life. Yesenin noted in his autobiography: “During the years of the revolution he was entirely on the side of October, but he accepted everything in his own way, with a peasant bias.”
Reflections on the fate of the modern peasantry lead Yesenin to history. He turns to the peasant war of the XVIII century and creates a poignant dramatic poem about the outstanding leader of the peasant masses Emelyan Pugachev. The element of popular revolt splashed out powerfully in the lines of Pugachev. He draws the hero of the poem as a great sympathizer of national disasters, but at the same time a historically doomed political figure.
During the period civil war and first post-war years the country is undergoing colossal changes, the village is being transformed before our eyes. The unheard-of depth of perestroika at times frightens the poet. These fluctuations were especially significant in 1919-1920. The village seems to him to be sacrificed to an alien city. The poet's lines in Sorokoust sound poignant:
Dear, dear, funny fool
Well, where is he, where is he chasing?
Doesn't he know that living horses
Did the steel cavalry win?
And yet the new inevitably captures the soul of the poet. He feels that patriarchal foundations can no longer be perceived as the unconditional and the only ideal principle. Time gives birth to other values.
A trip with his wife, the famous American dancer Isadora Duncan, around Europe and the United States of America (1922-1923) helps to fully understand the legitimacy and prospects of the country's social reorganization. A true patriot, Yesenin cannot see without pain the irrefutable evidence of Russia's technical backwardness. At the same time, he keenly felt the wretchedness of the spiritual life of the West, the all-consuming power of money. Pride is born in the heart for the grandeur of the revolutionary transformations taking place in the Motherland. There is a turning point in the mood of the poet, there is a steady desire to discover, as it were, anew his own country:
Nice publisher! In this book
I indulge in new feelings
Learning to comprehend in every moment
Commune rearing Russia.
Sergei Yesenin is the son of Russia. Her new, social choice of the majority of the people becomes native for him too. The poet clearly understands “what the peasants gossip about”, he fully shares the decision of his fellow villagers: “With Soviet power, we live according to our guts.” Farewell to the old village is inevitable:
Field Russia! Enough
Drag along the fields.
It hurts to see your poverty
And birches and poplars.
How palpable in these lines is the pain for Russia, the spiritual continuity of Yesenin's work to the Russian classics!
The selfless feeling of love for the Motherland leads Yesenin to a revolutionary theme. An amazing revolutionary epic “Song of the Great Campaign” appears, written in the form of a ditty. He pays a grateful tribute to the heroes of the revolution (“The Ballad of Twenty-Six”, “Captain of the Earth”, etc.), bowing to selfless fighters for a great idea, to people who opened up new horizons for Russia. Their life for the poet is an example of civic service to the Fatherland:
I envy that
Who spent his life in battle
Who defended the great idea...
Comprehension of the revolution and social transformations in the country reaches true historicism in the poem "Anna Onegin" (1925). And in mastering this topic, Yesenin is again on a par with Mayakovsky and D. Poor. In "Anna Snegina" surprisingly accurate and expressive words were heard about Lenin as a truly popular leader:
Trembling, swaying steps
Under the ringing of the head:
Who is Lenin?
I answered quietly:
"He is you"...
The revolutionary theme in Yesenin's poetry objectively introduced the poet into a common circle with the people, gave life perspective. However, finding a place in the new reality turned out to be very difficult for him. That new, which with such artistic power was embodied in his art, was hardly affirmed in his own destiny. The new is accepted and sung, but somewhere in the recesses of the soul, longing is hidden, the poet is burdened by a feeling of spiritual fatigue:
I'm not new!
What to hide?
I stayed in the past with one foot,
In an effort to catch up with the steel army,
I slide and fall another.
Personal life is also difficult. Always surrounded by admirers and friends, Yesenin is essentially lonely. A bitter line breaks out of him - "I do not find shelter in anyone's eyes", - but how much he needs a "friendly smile"! All his life, Yesenin dreamed of a family, of "his own home." The family didn't work out. For many years his life was disorderly. Such a way of life is alien to the nature of the poet. “With unprecedented cruelty to himself” (P. Oreshin), Yesenin exposes his delusions and doubts in the “Moscow Tavern” cycle. Not the ecstasy of revelry in these verses, but painful philosophical reflections on the meaning of life, on one's own destiny.
He sought salvation from the "dark forces that torment and destroy" in the images of his native nature, in turning to people dear to him - mother, sister, beloved women, friends. Yesenin's messages of recent years open up new possibilities for the epistolary poetic genre, traditional in Russian literature. This poetic form of confidential appeal is filled with a special lyrical confession and patriotic sound. Behind the image of a woman dear to him stands the "iconic and strict face" of the Motherland, his beloved sister is compared with a birch tree, "that stands behind the birth window." Yesenin's intense confession, in many verses addressed to a specific addressee, turns out to be universally significant. From the personal experience grows the universal. The fusion of the personal and the public in Yesenin's poetry leads to the fact that in the lyrics he acts as a poet "with a big epic theme", and in poems, especially in "Anna Snegina", his lyrical voice sounds fully.
The famous lines of "Letters to a Woman" speak not only about the complexity of the poet's fate, but also about the drama of history:
You didn't know
That I'm in solid smoke
In a life torn apart by a storm
That's why I'm tormented that I don't understand -
Where the rock of events takes us.
Indeed, in every image, in every line, we feel the naked Yesenin "I". Such sincerity requires wisdom and courage. Yesenin rushed to people, immersion in himself, "desert and breakaway" were for him a dead end, creative and human (about this - one of his latest works-- the tragic poem "The Black Man", completed on November 14, 1925). The poet hoped to find a new creative life:
And let another life of the village
Will fill me
New strength.
Like before
Led to fame
Native Russian mare.
The poets of the circle of S. Yesenin of that time are N. Klyuev, P. Oreshin, S. Klychkov. These hopes are expressed in the words of N. Klyuev, a close friend and poetic mentor of S. Yesenin: "The land of the peasants is now, / And the church will not hire the official." In Yesenin's poetry in 1917, a new feeling of Russia appears: "Already washed away, wiped off the tar / Resurrected Russia." The feelings and moods of the poet of this time are very complex and contradictory - these are both hopes and expectations of the bright and new, but this is also anxiety for the fate of his native land, philosophical reflections on eternal topics. One of them - the theme of the collision of nature and the human mind, invading it and destroying its harmony - sounds in S. Yesenin's poem "Sorokoust". In it, the competition between the foal and the train, which acquires a deeply symbolic meaning, becomes central. At the same time, the foal, as it were, embodies all the beauty of nature, its touching defenselessness.
The locomotive takes on the features of an ominous monster. In Yesenin's "Sorokoust" eternal theme opposition of nature and reason, technical progress merges with reflections on the fate of Russia. In the post-revolutionary poetry of S. Yesenin, the theme of the motherland is saturated with difficult thoughts about the poet’s place in a new life, he is painfully experiencing alienation from his native land, it is difficult for him to find mutual language with the new generation, for which the calendar Lenin on the wall replaces the icon, and the "pot-bellied" Capital "- the Bible. It is especially bitter for the poet to realize that the new generation sings new songs: "Poor Demyan's agitation sing." This is all the more sad because S. Yesenin rightly remarks: "I am a poet! And not like some Demyan there."
Therefore, his lines sound so sad: "My poetry is no longer needed here, / Yes, and, perhaps, I myself am not needed here either." But even the desire to merge with new life does not force S. Yesenin to abandon his vocation as a Russian poet; he writes: "I will give my whole soul to October and May, / But I will not give only my dear lyre."
Today, it is difficult for us, living in Russia, to fully understand the meaning of these lines, and yet they were written in 1924, when the very name - Rus - was almost forbidden, and citizens were supposed to live in "Resefeser". With the theme of the motherland, S. Yesenin understands his poetic mission, his position as "the last singer of the village", the keeper of her precepts, her memory. One of the programmatic, important for understanding the theme of the motherland, the poet has become the poem "The feather grass is sleeping":
The feather grass is sleeping.
Plain dear
And the lead freshness of wormwood!
No other homeland
Do not pour my warmth into my chest.
Know that we all have such a fate,
And, perhaps, ask everyone -
Rejoicing, raging and tormented,
Life is good in Russia.
The light of the moon, mysterious and long,
Willows are crying, poplars are whispering,
But no one under the cry of a crane
He will not stop loving his father's fields.
And now that behold the new light
And my life touched fate,
I still remain a poet
Golden log cabin.
At night, clinging to the headboard,
I see a strong enemy
How someone else's youth splashes with new
To my glades and meadows.
But still cramped by the new,
I can sing heartily:
Give me in the homeland of my beloved,
Loving everything, die in peace."
This poem is dated 1925, refers to the mature lyrics of the poet. It expresses his innermost thoughts. In the line "rejoicing, raging and tormented" is a difficult historical experience that fell to the lot of Yesenin's generation. The poem is built on traditionally poetic images: feather grass as a symbol of the Russian landscape and at the same time a symbol of longing, wormwood with its rich symbolism and a crane cry as a sign of separation. The traditional landscape, in which the no less traditional "light of the moon" is the personification of poetry, is opposed by " New World", rather abstract, inanimate, devoid of poetry. And in contrast to it, the recognition sounds lyrical hero Yesenin's poem in adherence to the age-old rural way of life. The poet's epithet "golden" is especially significant: "I will still remain a poet / of the Golden Log Cabin."
It is one of the most frequently encountered in the lyrics of S. Yesenin, but usually it is associated with a color concept: golden - that is, yellow, but certainly with a touch of the highest value: "golden grove", "golden frog moon". In this poem, the shade of value prevails: gold is not only the color of the hut, but a symbol of its enduring value as a symbol of the way of village life with its inherent beauty and harmony. The village hut is a whole world, its destruction is not redeemed for the poet by any tempting news. The finale of the poem sounds somewhat rhetorical, but in the general context of S. Yesenin's poetry, it is perceived as a deep and sincere recognition of the author.
In the last years of his life, human and creative maturity comes to the poet. The years 1924-1925 are perhaps the most significant in terms of what he created. From September 1924 to August 1925, Yesenin made three rather long trips to Georgia and Azerbaijan. As a result of these trips, in particular, an amazing cycle of poems "Persian Motives" was born. The Georgian poet Titian Tabidze noted that “... The Caucasus, as once for Pushkin, and for Yesenin, turned out to be a new source of inspiration. In the distance, the poet had to rethink a lot ... He felt the influx of new topics ... ". The scale of the poet's vision is enlarged. His civic feeling is able to glorify not only his native Ryazan corner, but the entire "sixth of the earth" - the greater Motherland:
I will chant
With the whole being in the poet
sixth of the earth
With a short name "Rus".
Yesenin's poetry lives in time, appeals to empathy. His poems breathe love for everything, "that clothes the soul in flesh." The earthly simplicity of the subject of the image turns into high poetry:
Bless each work, good luck!
To a fisherman - so that a net with fish.
Plowman - so that his plow and nag
They got bread for a year.
The poet strove for the fullness of being, hence this cheerful line was born: “Oh, I believe, I believe, there is happiness!” And even the picturesqueness of many of his works, especially in his early work, is due to this desire to include all the diversity of the surrounding life in his poetic world. Yesenin comprehends the deep laws of human life and nature and wisely blesses everything that "came to flourish and die." In his heartfelt “I am happy that I breathed and lived” - a generous gratitude to the world that filled the soul with inexhaustible impressions.
Sergei Yesenin always lived and wrote on the extreme strain of mental strength. That is his nature. Filled with love for the Motherland, for man, nature, Yesenin did not spare only himself. He did not know another way for the artist:
Being a poet means the same
If the truth of life is not violated,
Scarring your soft skin
To caress other people's souls with the blood of feelings.
The reader, feeling this generous dedication of the poet, submits to the emotional power of Yesenin's poems.
Today Yesenin's poetry is well known and loved in all the republics of our country, in many foreign countries. Such a deeply Russian, singing with great lyrical power native nature, home country She turned out to be truly international. And that is why the words of the Lithuanian writer Justinas Marcinkyavichus about the Russian poet are so organic: “Yesenin is a miracle of poetry. And like any miracle, it's hard to talk about it. A miracle must be experienced. And we must believe in him ... "Thus, the theme of the motherland in the poetry of S. Yesenin develops from an unconscious, almost childishly natural attachment to the native land to a conscious, withstood the test of hard times, changes and fractures of the author's position.