Yesenin Sergei Aleksandrovich

Main article: Writers and poets of Russia

Biography

Sergey Yesenin, Petrograd province, city Petrograd, March-April 1915. Color: Klimbim

Poets Imagists Alexander Kusikov, Anatoly Mariengof and Sergey Yesenin in Moscow, summer 1919 Photo card with the gift inscription "Friend Imagist Rurik Ivnev."

Sergey Yesenin and Anatoly Mariengof

Sergey Yesenin in Italy

1922: A Trip to the United States

Sergei Yesenin was in the United States in 1922-1923. He spent more than four months there, from early October 1922 to February 1923.

In America, Sergei Yesenin, together with his wife, attended the party of Mani Leib, who translated his poems into English.

Yesenin and Isadora Duncan

As the guests later recalled, the evening was languid for a short time. In addition to the fact that Yesenin swore at his wife Isadora Duncan in front of everyone, he also read the poem "Country of Scoundrels," where he replaced the word 'Jew' with 'Jid'. After that, the poet tried to throw himself out of the window, and when he was grabbed, he shouted: "Jews, Jews, damned Jews!"

Here Mani Leib, being a Jew, could not stand it and told Yesenin: "Listen, Sergey, you know that this is an offensive word, stop!" However, the poet not only did not stop, but also spat on the owner of the evening in the face, after which he took his wife and went home with her.

Yesenin later sent Leib a letter in which he apologized for his unworthy behavior that day. In a sign of reconciliation, he gave him a collection of his poems, on which he wrote: "Dorogoy friend - Jew Mani Leib."

The bill in the capital's restaurant issued to Sergei Yesenin. The poet consumed 14 portions of beer, 2 portions of soda and meat. Interestingly, out of 2750 rubles in cash, he paid only two hundred

1924: Nadezhda Volpin - mother of the fourth child Yesenin - Alexandra

For the poetess and translator Nadezhda Volpin, an intelligent Muscovite, the daughter of lawyer and lawyer David Samuilovich Volpin, the relationship with the poet was "most enlightening." Yesenin was a bully, Nadia was a young lady. After the gymnasium, she entered the Physics and Mathematics Department of Moscow University. Before I had time to finish it, a revolution began. She earned a living in translations, wrote poetry, went to poetry evenings. I met Yesenin.

Sergei immediately tried to persuade a pretty nineteen-year-old young lady to intimacy, and she fell in love without memory, but for a whole year she told him: "No." The poet was not used to hearing this from women, Nadia somehow tangentially hooked his heart, and for a year and a half they were together, as they said then, in a "virtual guest marriage." And it was a horrible relationship. It got to a terrible point: one day Yesenin led Nadia to show her her new love, the famous dancer Isadora Duncan: "Well, how do you like her?"

Nadezhda answered, as it seemed to her, destroying: "The spectacle is not for the far-sighted." She never demanded anything, did not look plaintively, did not manipulate. While Yesenin wanted - she was nearby, only wanted to - she stepped aside. But when he called - she went...

"Why do you allow yourself to be treated like this?" - some American could not stand it. The American was glad that someone could talk to him (little was said in English in Moscow at that time), and dejected by what he saw. Nadia began to explain our Russian specifics to a foreigner with fervor: this is not just a poet, this is one of the first, best poets in the country, and he dies! She is now not up to petty female pride, she, like all friends, is trying to save Sergei...

In those days, Nadia already knew that she was expecting a child. But Yesenina has not yet said. She knew what he would say: Go, Nadia, for an abortion.

In her memoirs, Nadezhda Volpin wrote that abortion in those years was the main means of contraception, a common story for every woman. She had no illusions, but she still told him about the pregnancy. Yesenin at first even seemed to be delighted, said: every man is proud that he will have a child. But then he repeated several times: Nadia, this is nothing, I already have three (there was Yuri from Anna Izryadnova, he was born when Sergei Yesenin was 19 years old; and Tatiana and Konstantin are children with ex-wife Zinaida Reich).

Sergey Yesenin and the monument to Pushkin, Detsky Selo, 1924

Yesenin saw that Nadia would never go for an abortion, and was quietly angry. When this story ended, Nadezhda moved to Petrograd, gave birth to a son. Yesenin never came to see him. He died when Alexander was a year and a half old.

For eight years, the mother and her son lived in Petrograd and returned to Moscow.

The youngest son of Sergei Yesenin, Alexander Yesenin-Volpin, a famous mathematician, first Soviet, and then American, human rights activist, philosopher and poet.