Yesenin, Sergey

Yesenin, Sergey (Aleksandrovich)

 or Sergey Esenin

(born Oct. 3, 1895, Konstantinovo, Ryazan province, Russia—died Dec. 27, 1925, Leningrad) Russian poet. From a peasant family, he celebrated what he called “wooden Russia” (traditional culture) over modern, industrialized society in works beginning with Radunitsa (1916), and he believed the Revolution of 1917 would lead to the peasant millennium he envisioned. Taking up the life of a rowdy and blasphemous exhibitionist, he wrote cynical, swaggering tavern verse such as that contained in Ispoved khuligana (1921; “Confessions of a Hooligan”). In 1922 he married dancer Isadora Duncan, though neither could speak the other's language. His efforts to adjust to the revolutionary era were unsuccessful, and he hanged himself at age 30. Though frowned on by the authorities, he was very popular in Russia both during his life and afterward.