In the old days there was a tradition among the people that the Lord, having created the earth, flew over it and, like a sower-worker, scattered picturesque fields, dense forests, sultry deserts generously from his magic basket. Flying over Ryazan, he tore it, and all the best fell in these lands: full-flowing rivers, deep forests, wheat fields, orchards ... Fate again presented the region with a gift that could not be more expensive at the end of the century when Sergei Yesenin was born. The poet lived a short sparkling life, leaving an unfading trace in Russian culture.
But when Yesenin was born, no one could even imagine that he was a great gift. In an ordinary peasant family, a boy was born, who was named Sergei. In childhood, he had the usual joys, cares and sorrows. But the conditions under which the first years of a person’s life usually take place often play an important role in his future fate. Was the environment of the future poet usual?
The birth of a poet
What year was Yesenin born? The great Russian poet was born five years before the beginning of the 20th century. And this means that his youth fell on terrible years in the history of Russia. He lived a little. And regarding his death in the last decades they began to build all sorts of conjectures and assumptions. To learn the truth, today, alas, is impossible.
When Yesenin was born, his family also experienced difficult times. His life and relationships with women were difficult. He always sought to assert himself. The main thing in Yesenin's life was poetry. All his existence was subordinated to writing poetry. There were simply no other values. Bravado, frenzy, wild antics, he only filled the void in life.
“In one village, maybe in Kaluga, or maybe in Ryazan ...”
When Yesenin was born, peasant origin did not yet have so much weight in society. A quarter of a century later, in the autobiography, the poet will persistently refer to the fact that he was a peasant by origin. This is not a tribute to time. Yesenin never wanted to make a career. He lived in a world of poetry. But why did he focus on his social background?
Yesenin was born in the village of Konstantinovo. His parents were really simple people, but they did not plow the land. They just belonged to the peasant estate. Alexander Yesenin, after the birth of his son, went to Petersburg and left his young wife Tatyana in the care of his parents. But the relationship did not work out. And then there was a big quarrel, after which Tatyana took her three-year-old son and left. Her father adopted a grandson. The daughter sent to the city to get bread.
The situation was also complicated by the fact that when Yesenin was born, hostility arose between the families of his father and mother. Five years the future poet lived in the house of his maternal grandfather. Parents have not lived together all this time. From childhood, he felt like an orphan. And the fact that he had to feel himself like that with his living parents was especially painful. Relations with relatives were not simple, as evidenced by letters and memoirs of friends and acquaintances.
Yesenin secrets
In 1926, a journalist visited the village of Konstantinovo, where Yesenin was born. He followed in hot pursuit. After the death of the poet, only a year passed. There he was told a mysterious story about the family of a singer of the Russian land. According to Yesenin's fellow villagers, everything in the relationship between Alexander and Tatiana was fine until she gave birth to a second son. Alexander Yesenin did not recognize the baby. The child soon died, but after these events everything in their family changed. The poet’s father stopped communicating with his mother for several years, did not send money and did not support financially. Tatyana later asked for a divorce, but Alexander did not give it.
The picture is incomplete, but in general terms is clear. In childhood, the future poet did not know maternal affection. And, perhaps, it is no coincidence that he so often struck up relations with women older than him. First of all, he sought in them feelings close to motherly.
"And I was bawdy, and I was scandalous ..."
Yesenin was born in the village, but in many respects from his childhood he was different from his peers. And the difference was primarily not even in his literary abilities, but in the desire to always dominate in everything. According to the memoirs of the poet himself, he, as a boy, was always a fighter and went bruised. He retained the desire to brag about the udder in a more mature age.
This behavior was due to a restless, absurd disposition and upbringing (grandfather sometimes forced to fight in order to become stronger). And also the desire to assert oneself and prove something. He became the first in everything. First in fights with village boys, then in poetry.
"Are you still alive, my old woman?"
From an early age, he was unlike his peers. A poet was already awakening in him. When Sergei Yesenin was born , the parents lived together, but five years later they temporarily separated. The boy was brought up in the house of his grandfather.
The spoken word played a big role in his life. Grandmother introduced him to folk art. And then he himself began to write poetry, imitating the ditties. It is worth saying that the father’s mother left a significant mark in his soul. He addressed the famous “Letter to the Woman” rather to her than to the woman who gave birth to him.
"I'm tired of living in my native land ..."
He wrote these lines not on his first visit to the capital. After school, the boy lounged for several weeks in Konstantinov, then went to Moscow to work in a butcher's shop. About what year Yesenin was born and when he died, everyone knows in Russia. The time between the two dates is shrouded in riddles and speculation. For some time he did not earn poetry. But this period in the life of the poet did not last long. Most of his life he lived on royalties. A rare luck for a Russian poet.
Before fame came to Yesenin, he worked in a printing house. But the rural boy, who grew up in the open spaces of the Ryazan region, was weighed down by the cramped Moscow streets. He is used to almost unlimited freedom. Here, in this printing house, he met a woman who became the mother of his firstborn. Her name was Anna Izryadnova. She was a modest, shy and outwardly inconspicuous person. Like many subsequent women in Yesenin's life, Izryadnova was older than him.
“And again I will return to my father’s house ...”
In 1917, a year after writing these lines, Yesenin returned to Konstantinovo. A significant event has occurred here. The landowner Kulakov, the owner of the cunning night shelters in Moscow, died. During his life he was strict, and the villagers were afraid of him. After death, the estate went to Lydia Kashina, his daughter.
This person did not differ in beauty, but was a comprehensively developed interesting personality. She was fluent in foreign languages, knew a lot about horseback riding, loved entertainment. It was in her house that Sergei Yesenin spent most of the time in those days. Which, it should be said, even led to quarrels with the mother. The thing is that Kashina was a married lady. They even rumored that her husband was a general. But the discontent of the mother did not cause Yesenin any reaction. She was a small authority for the poet, if any existed in his life. He visited Lidia Kashina regularly, and then unexpectedly returned to Moscow again.
“And some woman of more than forty years old ...”
He married Isadore Duncan in 1922. It was one of the most scandalous marriages not only in Russia, but also in Europe. As for Puritan American society, the time during which the dancer toured the United States accompanied by a young Russian husband was not immediately forgotten here. However, just in case, Duncan was deprived of American citizenship in order not to see this restless glaring couple in his calm and measured world.
"He was elegant, besides a poet ..."
To the question: “Where was Yesenin born?” each student will answer. It happened in s. Konstantinovo (Ryazan) in 1985. Died thirty years later. It’s also known from the poet’s life that he was very fond of Russia, wrote about the rural landscape, birches and dogs. But he drank a lot, hooligans, got confused in relations with women. That's why he hanged himself. But can a biography of a great man be so simple and unambiguous?