Sergey Yesenin’s friends recall: “It was clear that his ordinary looks hid the gleam of something complex and extraordinary”

The 123rd anniversary of the birth of the great Russian poet Sergey Yesenin (1895-1925) will be marked on October 3, 2018. The Presidential Library collections feature a variety of materials, dedicated to the poet: books, photographic cards, digitized newspaper clippings, video lecture “Sergey Alexandrovich Yesenin in a Dialogue between Cultures”, research works focused on his oeuvre, sets of postcards, which present the poet, memorials, and his small homeland. In the Electronic Reading Room you may also read drafts of the letters of S. A. Tolstaya-Yesenina, the poet’s last wife, to the famous lawyer and public man A. F. Koni.

At the heart of  the electronic collection of the Presidential Library are the memoires of Yesenin’s close friends. They give an insight into the poet’s contradictory character. We meet a man of great originality, who is trying hard to hold on despite the pressure of a great talent, nurtured by the native Ryazan land.

The poem "Prayer" of the young poet was published in the February issue of "Letopis" magazine (1916) along with the poems of Ivan Bunin, Alexander Blok, and Maxim Gorky's prose. The publication is available for study in the Electronic Reading Room of the Presidential Library.

In his book “Memoir of Yesenin”(1926), Anatoly Marienhof, poet’s close friend, describes the way a peasant’s son, who made up his mind to conquer the capital and was a frequent visitor to luxurious parlors, instructed his friend: "Tolya, it will be hard for you, indeed, with the shiny boots of yours and your neat parting. And what about poetic absent-mindedness? How can you be up in the clouds when you are wearing ironed trousers!"

Yesenin was frank when he described his entry into literature: "I thought, let everyone believe that it was he who introduced me into the Russian literature. Was it Gorodetsky, who introduced me? Yes, it was. Was it Klyuev? Yes, it was. Did Sologub and Chebotarevskaya introduce me? They did. To cut a long story short, they were Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Blok, and Ryurik Ivnev ... the latter was, indeed, the first poet I turned to. I had hardly finished reciting the twelve-line verse, when he said in a thin voice: "Oh, how wonderful! How brilliant! Oh ... "- and, grabbing hold of my arm, he pulled me from one celebrity to another. <...> I am, I must admit, the shiest of all people. I blush like a girl when being praised, and I do not look at anyone.

Yesenin’s neighbor in Moscow, the journalist Sofya Vinogradskaya, who worked in “Pravda” and “Izvestia VTsIK” newspapers, highlights the poet’s most defining characteristics in the memoir “The Life of Yesenin”(1926): "Everyone remembers that Yesenin had blue eyes, curly golden hair, absent smile; and according to many people’s accounts – he was mischievous <...> who recited his wonderful poems in front of crowded room”.

According to Vinogradskaya, Yesenin, like any great poet "was proud, vain and believed that he was "Russia’s best poet" and demanded an appropriate attitude towards him. But sometimes, in contrast to “the best poet”, he was considered to be a troublemaker and a hooligan. It angered him, it hurt him. And when he encountered such people, he used to say with a kind of wicked mockery: "It's me - Yesenin! You know, there is such a poet, who writes good poems”.

Genuinely sincere and gifted people, like poetess Natalya Krandiyevskaya, Alexey Nikolayevich Tolstoy’s wife, took to the beginning poet from the very first hours of their acquaintance.

"You could endlessly talk to Yesenin", Vinogradskaya’s book reads. - He was inexhaustible, animated, interesting during conversations, political arguments, which were sometimes full of childish naivety, as he was surprisingly totally unaware of the basics of  politics. <...> "What is" Capital"?" - "Accounting", - he would say. There is a chorus of laughter in return, and he looks at everyone as a youngster, who had amused adults. "

"The days of continuous noise and songs were followed by days of work over poems," Vinogradskaya narrates. - And after that there were days of melancholy, when all the colors faded, as well as his blue eyes, which turned gray."

Talent is known to be a heavy burden and a big responsibility. Not everyone copes with such a burden. A kind of "professional burnout" sometimes happens, and, unfortunately, family and friends admitted that Yesenin went through it.

"The main thing in Yesenin is the fear of loneliness. The last days in the Angleterre Hotel. He would flee from his room and sit alone in the lobby until winter dawn, late at night he knocked on the door of Ustinova’s room, begging her to let him in”, A. Marienhof wrote sadly after Yesenin’s death.

Those, who would like to learn more about Yesenin, will take an interest in electronic copies of photographic cards, which show the poet in different time. Along with famous official images there are photographs, which were made at home: Sergey Yesenin as a child, with his parents, sisters, with friends and fellow servicemen, during the service on a military medical train during the First World War. Sergey Yesenin treasured the Ryazan village of Konstantinovo in his heart, he could suddenly rush home in any situation. After the revolution, he closely watched the collectivization and suffered when he came across the facts of oppression of fellow villagers. "He loved a peasant inside of him and was proud of it", A. Marienhof wrote.