Rodina S.A. Yesenina (1895-1925) - the village of Konstantinovo, Ryazan region. His biography is bright, stormy, sad and, alas, very short. During his lifetime, the poet became popular and attracted genuine interest from his contemporaries.
Yesenin's childhood
Esenin's talent was manifested in many respects thanks to his beloved grandmother, who actually raised him.
The poet’s mother did not marry the peasant Alexander Yesenin of her own free will and, unable to bear her life with her unloved husband, returned with her three-year-old Sergei to his parents. She herself soon left to work in Ryazan, leaving her son in the care of her own mother and father.
About his childhood and work, he later writes that he began to compose verses thanks to his grandmother, who told him tales, and he remade them in his own way, imitating ditties. Probably, grandmother was able to convey to Sergei the charm of folk speech that permeates Yesenin's work.
Adolescence
In 1904, Yesenin was sent to study at the four-year school, which
was in the same village, and after him - to a church school. After a free life in his native home, fourteen-year-old Sergei is away from his relatives.
Yesenin’s work made itself felt during friendly gatherings, when the guys read poetry, among which Eseninsky especially stood out. However, this did not cause him respect from the guys.
The growth of Yesenin
In the years 1915-1916. poetry of a young poet is increasingly published next to the works of the most famous poets of that time. Yesenin's work is now becoming well known.
During this period, Sergei Alexandrovich draws close to the poet Nikolai Klyuyev, whose verses are consonant with his own. However, in Yesenin’s works, hostility to Klyuyev’s verses slips, therefore they cannot be called friends.
Reading poetry in Tsarskoye Selo
In the summer of 1916, while serving in the Tsarskoye Selo hospital, he reads verses in the infirmary to wounded soldiers. At the same time, the empress was present. This statement causes outrage among the writers of St. Petersburg, hostile to the tsarist government.
Poet's attitude to revolution
The revolution of 1917, as Yesenin seemed, carried hopes for a change for the better, and not unrest and ruin. It was in anticipation of this event that the poet changed greatly. He became more courageous, serious. However, it turned out that patriarchal Russia was closer to the poet than the harsh post-revolutionary reality.
Isadora Duncan. Travel to Europe and America
Isadora Duncan, a famous dancer, arrived in Moscow in the fall of 1921. She met Yesenin, and very soon they got married. In the spring of 1922, the couple went on a trip to Europe and the United States. At first, Yesenin was delighted with everything foreign, but then he began to mourn in the “terrible realm of philistinism”, he lacked sincerity.
In August 1923, his marriage to Duncan broke up.
The theme of the motherland in the work of Yesenin
The poet’s homeland, as already mentioned at the beginning of the article, is the village of Konstantinovo. His work has absorbed the world of bright colors of nature in central Russia.
The theme of the motherland in the work of Yesenin in the early period is closely connected with the types of landscapes of the Central Russian strip: endless fields, golden groves, picturesque lakes. The poet loves peasant Russia, which finds expression in his lyrics. The heroes of his poems are: a child asking for alms, plowmen who go to the front, a girl waiting for a loved one from the war. Such was the life of people in those days. The October Revolution, which, as the poet thought, would be a stage on the path to a new beautiful life, led to the disappointment and misunderstanding of "where rock events take us."
Each line of poetry is filled with love for the native land. Homeland in the work of Yesenin, as he himself admits, is a leading topic.
Of course, the poet was able to declare himself from the earliest works, but his original style is especially clearly visible in the poem "Goy you, my native Russia." Here you can feel the poet’s nature: scope, mischief, sometimes turning into hooliganism, unlimited love for the native land. The very first Yesenin poems about the homeland are filled with bright colors, smells, sounds. Perhaps it was simplicity and clarity for most people that made him so famous during his lifetime. About a year before his death, Yesenin would write poetry full of disappointment and bitterness, in which he would tell about his feelings for the fate of his native land: "But most of all / Love for my native land / I was tormented, / Tormented and burned."
Yesenin’s life and work fell on a period of great changes in Russia. The poet goes from Russia engulfed in World War II to a country completely changed by revolutions. The events of 1917 gave Yesenin hope for a bright future, but he soon realized that the promised utopian paradise was impossible. Being abroad, the poet remembers his country, carefully follows all the events taking place. His poems reflect the feelings for the fate of people, the attitude to change: "The mysterious world, my ancient world, / You, like the wind, have calmed down. / Here you squeezed the village by the neck / Stone hands of the highway."
Creativity of Sergei Yesenin is riddled with anxiety for the fate of the village. He knows about the hardships of rural life, many poems of the poet testify to this, in particular, “You Are My Abandoned Land”.
However, the majority of the poet’s work is still occupied by a description of rural beauties and village festivities. Life in the outback for the most part looks bright, joyful, beautiful in his poems: "Dawns are blazing, mists are smoking, / A crimson curtain over a carved window." In Yesenin’s work, nature, like a person, is endowed with the ability to grieve, rejoice, cry: “The girls ate a little bit lazy ...”, “... birch trees in white cry through the forests ...” Nature lives in his poems. She is feeling, talking. However, no matter how beautifully and figuratively Yesenin sang rural Russia, his love for his homeland is undoubtedly deeper. He was proud of his country and the fact that he was born in such a difficult time for her. This theme is reflected in the poem "Soviet Russia."
Yesenin's life and work are full of love for the Motherland, anxiety for her, hopes and pride.
The poet died from December 27 to 28, 1925, while the circumstances of his death were not fully understood.
I must say that not all contemporaries considered Yesenin's verses beautiful. For example, K.I. Even before his death, Chukovsky wrote in his diary that the “graphomanian talent” of the village poet would soon dry up.
The posthumous fate of the poet was determined by "Evil Notes" (1927) N.I. Bukharin, in which, noting Yesenin’s talent, he wrote that it was still “disgusting swearing, richly dampened with drunk tears.” After such an assessment, Yesenin published very little before the thaw. Many of his works were distributed in handwritten versions.