Gerasimov, Mikhail Prokofevich

Gerasimov, Mikhail Prokof’evich 

Born Sept. 30 (Oct. 12), 1889; died 1939. Soviet Russian poet. Member of the Communist Party from 1905. Born near Buguruslan, in present-day Orenburg Oblast.

Gerasimov was persecuted for his revolutionary activities. He took part in the Civil War. His first works were published in 1913 in Bolshevik publications such as Proletarii and Pravda. M. Gorky included Gerasimov’s poems in the Collection of Proletarian Writers (1914 and 1917). Gerasimov was one of the founders of the Smithy Poets literary group. His romantic poetry—the collections Calls of Spring (1917), The Factory of Spring (1919), Iron Flowers (1919), and Electrification (1922) and the narrative poem Mona Lisa (1918)—is characterized by the theme of the workers’ struggle for their rights, by the celebration of labor in abstract, hyperbolic images, and by industrial scenes. Misunderstanding the New Economic Policy, Gerasimov left the party in 1921 and underwent a creative crisis that is reflected in the narrative poem Black Froth (1921). Later, in the collections Earthly Radiance (1927), Cheerful Morning (1928), and To Competition! (1930), life-affirming motifs appeared again.

WORKS

Stikhotvoreniia. [Introductory article by V. Kazin and G. Sannikov.] Kuibyshev, 1958.
Stikhotvoreniia. [Introductory article by F. Levin.] Moscow, 1959.

REFERENCES

Zelinskii, K. “Gerasimov i Kirillov.” In his book Na rubezhe dvukh epokh. Moscow, 1962.
Papernyi, Z. “V pervye gody (Proletarskie poety).” In his book Samoe trudnoe. Moscow, 1963.

Z. SAMOILOV