Sergei Yesenin

Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin (sometimes spelled as Esenin; Russian: Серге́й Алекса́ндрович Есе́нин; 3 October [O.S. 21 September] 1895 – 28 December 1925) was a Russian lyrical poet. He was one of the most popular and well-known Russian poets of the 20th century. Sergey Esenin was born in Konstantinovo in the Ryazan Province (Губерния, Gubernia) of the Russian Empire to a peasant family. He spent most of his childhood with his grandparents, who essentially reared him. He began to write poetry at the age of nine. In 1912, Esenin moved to Moscow, where he supported himself working as a proofreader in a printing company. The following year he enrolled in Moscow State University as an external student and studied there for a year and a half. His early poetry was inspired by Russian folklore. In 1915, he moved to St. Petersburg, where he became acquainted with fellow-poets Alexander Blok, Sergey Gorodetsky, Nikolai Klyuev and Andrei Bely. It was in St. Petersburg that he became well known in literature circles. Blok was especially helpful in promoting Yesenin's early career as a poet. Yesenin said that Bely gave him the meaning of form while Blok and Klyuev taught him lyricism. In 1916, Yesenin published his first book of poems, Ritual for the Dead (Radunitsa, Russian: Радуница). Through his collections of poignant poetry about love and the simple life, he became one of the most popular poets of the day. His first marriage was in 1913 to Anna Izryadnova, a co-worker from the publishing house, with whom he had a son, Yuri. Later that year, he moved to St Petersburg, where he met Klyuev. For the next two years, they were close friends, living together most of the time. From 1916 to 1917, Yesenin was drafted into military duty, but soon after the October Revolution of 1917, Russia exited World War I. Believing that the revolution would bring a better life, Yesenin briefly supported it, but soon became disillusioned. He sometimes criticised the Bolshevik rule in such poems as The Stern October Has Deceived Me. In August 1917 Yesenin married for a second time to Zinaida Raikh (later an actress and the wife of Vsevolod Meyerhold). They had two children, a daughter Tatyana and a son Konstantin. The parents quarreled and lived separately for some time prior to their divorce in 1921. Tatyana became a notable writer, and Konstantin Yesenin would become a well-known soccer statistician. In September 1918, Yesenin founded his own publishing house called "Трудовая Артель Художников Слова" (the "Labor Company of the Artists of the Word"). Together with Anatoly Marienhof, they founded Russian literary movement of imaginism.