The year Gogol's dead souls were written. The history of the creation of Gogol's poem "Dead Souls"

Genius is always popular (A. Blok)

Sergei Aleksandrovich Yesenin was born in 1895 in the village of Konstantinovo. Yesenin's talent, his ideological quests, the themes of his work, aesthetic preferences, his ethics - all this was rooted in childhood. To understand Yesenin’s phenomenon, it should be borne in mind that he was born and raised in a religious family. Monks and artists lived in the house of the paternal grandmother located opposite the restored church. The maternal grandmother took her grandson to a monastery forty miles away! Blind people and wanderers gathered in her house, they sang spiritual poems - about paradise, about Mikola, about the Laser, about the unknown city. Already at that time, Yesenin learned about the promised land, about the inevitable future paradise, about another world - and these themes would later resonate in his work. On Saturdays and Sundays, grandfather Fyodor Andreevich Titov, an expert in spiritual verses and the Bible, recounted sacred history to him. Yesenin was not a church person; In his family, he became familiar with Orthodoxy, during exams at the Konstantinovsky Zemstvo School according to the law. He received an A in reading and reading in Church Slavonic, but by nature he was “a bully and a tomboy.” This duality of the poet's nature - the desire for spiritual peace and rebellion, meekness and passion - was expressed in his lyrics.

Family traditions were complemented by Yesenin’s education. He had a passion for reading. After graduating from the Konstantinovsky Zemstvo School, he continued his education at the Spas-Klepikovsky Church and Teachers School. Yesenin early discovered his poetic gift: he began writing poetry while still at the Zemstvo School.

In 1912 he came to Moscow. He was a young man with developed self-awareness. The young provincial did not have an apprenticeship complex. His self-confidence grew rapidly: he conflicts with the owner of the office where he works, conflicts with his father, who supports him, works in a bookstore and quits from there: he is a poet! poetry will feed him! In 1913, he got a job in the printing house of the partnership I.D. Sytin - receives both financial independence and the opportunity to read: everything, a lot and voraciously. In the same year, he began studying at the historical and philosophical department of the Moscow City People's University. A. L. Shanyavsky. In 1916 his first poetry collection"Radunitsa". During these four years, he emerged as a poet of peasant culture.

Young Yesenin is a moral maximalist; he believed in the mission of a poet-prophet, ready to brand the vicious and blind crowd. A Christian in worldview, he perceived the world as a single whole, assuring that “all people are one soul,” that he could, like Christ, go to the cross for the good of his neighbor.

The motives of S. Yesenin's lyrics of the early 1910s are the sacrificial mission of the poet, spiritualized nature, God's chosenness of the peasant for whom St. Nicholas the Pleasant cares. Yesenin's poetry of this period revealed the peculiarities of his style. He built metaphorical rows: “The flood flooded with smoke / Covered the silt. / The yellow reins / The month dropped,” combining them with images in which he expressed immediate, precise meanings. He turned to the romance verse with his characteristic syntactic simplicity, the completeness of the phrase within the boundaries of the line: “The scarlet light of dawn was woven on the lake. / On the forest, wood grouse are crying with ringing sounds. / An oriole is crying somewhere, burying itself in a hollow. / Only I don’t cry, my soul is light.” His taste for dialectism, which he soon abandoned, did not detract from the precision and rigor of his style.

Yesenin entered Russian poetry as one of the brightest poets of the peasant movement, whose consciousness and aesthetic tastes were characteristic religious culture, influence of folklore, philosophy and poetics literary monuments Orthodox thought, including the literature of the Old Believers, focus on the fate of the peasantry! In 1919 Yesenin met the imagist poets, and his work underwent some aesthetic reorientation. His lyrics showed trends of late avant-gardeism.

Yesenin's poems were actively published in magazines and collective collections; he became one of the most popular poets in Russia. Collections of his poetry “Transfiguration” (1918), “Rural Book of Hours” (1918), “Dove” (1918), “Confession of a Hooligan” (1921), etc. were published. From May 1922 to August 1923, Yesenin lived abroad: in Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, USA.

In the fall of 1924, Yesenin made a trip to the Caucasus. He did not yet know that this time there would be almost no weather there, that this trip to the south would become his “Boldino autumn.” Here he wrote many of his “small poems”, here “Persian Motifs” and his “peak” poem “Anna Snegina” were created. Yesenin published twenty-seven new works in the Caucasus, and that was all in six months!

In December 1925, Yesenin left Moscow for Leningrad. There he dreamed, as friends said, of “starting a new life,” working, editing a magazine.

These intentions were not destined to come true. On the night of December 27-28, 1925, at the Angleterre Hotel, the poet’s life was cut short...

Now we rightly talk about Sergei Yesenin as a brilliant poet of the twentieth century.

Largest number of white spots for a long time was associated with Yesenin’s “village childhood” and youth in his native Ryazan region. Of the thirty years of the poet’s life, the first seventeen passed here. However, it so happened that until the mid-fifties, we, unfortunately, knew very little of the truth about the formation of Yesenin as a person, especially in his youth, about the early awakening of his “creative thoughts,” about the deep folk origins of his poetry. Many questions concerning the fate of the poet in adolescence and in teenage years, essentially remained unanswered.

But when you read and re-read Yesenin, including his early poems, where everything is truth, illuminated and sad, everything is life, joyful and tragic, poems and verses in which the artist’s confessional soul is completely exposed - their screaming incompatibility with various things becomes more and more obvious. kind of “novels without marriages.”

It is difficult, or rather almost impossible, to fully understand the poet, the movements of his soul, the birth of his poems, and finally, his fate, without visiting at least once the sacred land from where his life originates, his coming into the world, the land that the first conscious years of his steps and until death will fill his heart with love for the Fatherland.

Konstantinovo, the poet’s native village, is freely spread out on the right high hilly bank of the Oka - the high-water sister of the great Volga. The vast expanse of flooded meadows, copses running into the distance opens up to the eye, and at the very horizon - the haze of the forests of Meshchera.

For more than half a century, in any weather, in summer and winter, people come and go to Konstantinovo from all over the world to bow deeply to the ancient Ryazan land - the cradle of the great poet of Russia.

Yesenin’s ability for creative imagination, interest in folk songs, legends, fairy tales, and love of nature appeared in his childhood. Sergei Alexandrovich was “tenderly ill with childhood memories all his life.” “As a child, I grew up in an atmosphere of folk poetry,” he wrote. From an early age, the future poet listened to the singing of his grandmother and the spiritual poems of wanderers. His father composed songs himself, his mother was a wonderful songwriter. Alexandra, Yesenin’s younger sister, recalled: “It seems to me that there is no such Russian folk song, which our mother would not have known... Whether she was heating the stove, sewing, spinning, you could hear her singing while doing any work. And each of us, her children, listened to her tunes from the cradle, growing up, involuntarily memorized them and sang along with her...”

And in mature years When he came home, Sergei Alexandrovich always asked his mother to sing this or that song. The poet retained the charm of his mother’s singing in his memory for the rest of his life: “I was born with songs in a grass blanket. The spring dawns twisted me into a rainbow.”

But the poet’s heart was even more touched by the mournful songs that his grandfather sang to him. “The mental man,” as Yesenin called him, awakened in him a love of beauty. Sergei Alexandrovich admitted: “Looking back at the entire path I have traveled, I still have to say that no one was as important to me as my grandfather. I owe him the most."

Yesenin eagerly listened to the singing of the peasants during their work or in short moments of rest, in the evenings at gatherings, on holidays. He wrote down some of these songs, others spontaneously remained in his memory. He sang many songs to his own accompaniment on guitar or accordion.

Yesenin began composing poetry early, at the age of nine. In them he captured bright, light images, the first heartfelt experiences, pictures of those near and dear that surrounded him.

Yesenin is the only poet among the great Russian lyricists in whose work it is impossible to separate poems about the Motherland into a separate section. Everything he wrote is imbued with a “feeling of homeland.” As the poet himself wrote: “The feeling of the Motherland is the main thing in my work.” Let us note not “theme”, but “feeling”. For example, in the poem “Go away, my dear Rus',” the image of the Motherland is drawn - paradise. Yesenin folk poet not only because he was born in the most Russian village, that he wrote about native nature, that the language of his poems is simple and understandable, but also because every person in Russia at least once experienced the same feelings as Yesenin, that Yesenin expressed national character, national sentiments, dreams, doubts, hopes.

The image of the Motherland in the poet’s lyrics is inseparable from the image of nature. The very first poem, as the poet himself remembered:

Where the cabbage beds are

The sunrise pours red water,

Maple baby for the little uterus

The green udder sucks.

An amazing miniature, the beginning of all of Yesenin’s future poetry.

Yesenin left his “birthplace” in the summer of 1912, leaving for Moscow to find a path into great literature. But life was difficult and not quite the way the young man wanted. The city did not leave the poet’s mind bright images. Pictures of rural life, sounds and colors of nature always lived in his soul. And in his poems he created an image of a living Russia, capable of yearning and experiencing pain. Yesenin sometimes imagined his native and beloved land as “forgotten and abandoned,” surrounded by “swamps and swamps.” Yesenin’s Rus' is also a “cinder strip”, “uncut hayfield”, “cared-for huts”, “people torn by grief”. The poet sees not only “stacks of the sun in the waters of the bosom”, his gaze also notices something else: “the spruce girls are sad,” “a shadow hangs like a scarf behind the pine tree,” “the grove covers the grove with blue darkness,” “beggars are knitting twine over their bags.” “,” “The old church is withering away,” “Oh, you are not happy, my native land...”. But even in sadness, what is close and dear to the poet is sweet:

Black, then smelly howl!

How can I not caress you, not love you!

In sad thoughts about the fate of the homeland there is so much heartfelt warmth, sincere love, attachment to the memories of childhood, youth, tenderness for fields filled with sadness, for nature, for rural life, giving birth to peace, clarity and tranquility in the poet’s soul.

Low house with blue shutters

I will never forget you, -

Were too recent

Sounded out in the twilight of the year.

The feather grass is sleeping.

Plain dear,

And the leaden freshness of wormwood.

No other homeland

It will not pour my warmth into my chest.

Know that we all have such a fate,

And, perhaps, ask everyone -

Rejoicing, raging and suffering,

Life is good in Rus'.

Both in joy and in sadness, no matter where fate threw Yesenin, his heart invariably reached out to his father’s threshold, to his dear arable lands and forests.

The feeling of sadness and longing for his native expanses gave rise in the poet’s soul to a feeling of loss of connection with the “blue Russia”. The revolutionary reality he observed long years severe disasters - war, famine, devastation, blood - deepened painful and soul-tearing contradictions. This time for Yesenin, with his penchant for the ideal, with his acute, almost painful reaction to everything ugly, both literally and figuratively, could not pass without a trace, destroying his peace of mind.

Yesenin's worldview was formed under the influence of Russian nature. For the poet, nature and homeland are not just words with the same root, they are inseparable concepts. poet Yesenin creativity homeland

Nature is personified and spiritualized by Yesenin. The image of living nature is created, for example, by appeals: “You, bird cherry, are covered in snow, / Sing, you birds, in the forest”; “You are my abandoned land, / You are my ruin, wasteland”; “Black, then smelly howl! / How can I not caress you, not love you?”; “Beloved land! My heart dreams of / Stacks of the sun in the waters of the bosom, / I would like to get lost / In your withdrawn greenery.”...

Note that in the personification of “In the greenery of your hundred-ringed...” the sound image that most often voices Yesenin’s plots: ringing, the poet uses a neologism that enhances the sound impression - “hundred-belled,” the ringing is heard in the alliteration of these lines. Sound images are often found in Yesenin’s poems: “The forest rings with ringing gold”; “Winter sings and calls, / The shaggy forest lulls / With the ringing of the pine forest.” Color and visual phenomena are perceived in sound images: “In the grove along the birch trees / white chime”; “I would like to get lost /In your hundred-ringing greenery”; “And near the low outskirts / The poplars are withering loudly”; “A girl’s laughter will ring out towards me like earrings.” This series can be continued.

Yesenin’s poetry also contains quiet sounds: “the rustle of the reeds,” “the whisper of the pine forest,” “meek speech,” “a weak cry,” “a drawn-out sigh,” “the barley straw gently groans,” and whistling, and humming, and screaming, and prayer, and song, and many other sound images.

The poet felt nature in motion; he could convey one natural phenomenon through another: “The bird cherry tree is pouring snow,” “The bird cherry tree is waving its sleeve like a blizzard”; “And the cloud-covered forest burns in the lilac brocade.” In the last example we note the bright colors.

In Yesenin's poems there are various shades of red: pink, scarlet, crimson, crimson; shades of yellow often take on a “metallic” sound: gold, copper; a lot of green, blue and cyan. There is white, and black, and gray colors, but in general Yesenin’s poems are painted in pure, clear, sometimes gentle, sometimes bright colors and shades. Yesenin's lyrics contain movement, sounds, and colors of the world. There are also smells.

The scarlet light of dawn was woven on the lake.

The silver river flows quietly

In the kingdom of evening green spring

The sun sets behind the forested mountains

The golden horn floats out of the moon...

Blue sky, colored arc,

Quietly the steppe banks flow,

Smoke trails near the crimson villages...

Yesenin most often depicts such natural phenomena as dawns, sunsets, snow, rain, wind, clouds, lakes, rivers... He paints both the animal world and the plant world. The image of a tree is especially common. The image of a girl is constantly associated with the image of a thin birch tree, the image of a soul with spring blossoms, the image of a lyrical hero with a maple tree.

Green hairstyle,

Maiden breasts

O thin birch tree,

Why did you look into the pond? ...

Bird cherry fragrant

Bloomed with spring

And golden branches,

Why did you curl your curls...

Yesenin writes about love already in his earliest poems, the origins of which are in Russian folklore (“Imitation of a song”, “You watered the horse from handfuls at the reins...”, 1910). Love for a woman is only an accent in the manifestation of a feeling of love for everything earthly, the beloved is often presented in the image of nature: “I’ll kiss you while you’re drunk, I’ll wear you out like a flower,” and nature is personified: “The scarlet color of dawn is woven on the lake” (1910); “Green hairstyle, / Girlish breasts, / O thin birch tree, / Why did you look into the pond?” All nature is permeated with love: “In the flowers of love, the spring princess / Unbraided her braids through the grove... And I, like a passionate violet, / Want to love, love spring” (“Enchantment”, 1913-1915).

The mood of love lyrics changes in the poet’s “urban” poems. The city tore Yesenin away from his “homeland-paradise”, and the feeling of happiness became a nostalgic experience, and the earthly “girl-nature” became a dream-memory, almost ethereal (“Here it is, stupid happiness”):

Somewhere beyond the garden timidly,

Where the viburnum blooms,

Tender girl in white

Sings a tender song.

The tonality of love lyrics in the urban cycle “Moscow Tavern” (1923) changes dramatically:

Rash, harmonica. Boredom... Boredom...

The finger accordionist pours out a wave.

Drink with me, you lousy bitch

Drink with me.

They loved you, they abused you -

Unbearable.

Why are you looking at those blue splashes like that?

Or do you want to punch me in the face?

Poetry and tenderness were replaced by embittered cynicism, cynicism as defensive reaction like despair. Love is reduced to a carnal, animal need, but at the end of the poem there is plaintive repentance: “Darling, I’m crying, / I’m sorry... I’m sorry...”.

The cycle “Love of a Hooligan” (1923, Yesenin’s return from abroad) is marked by renunciation of the “tavern” past, purification, salvation through love. An update comes to the lyrical hero:

A blue fire began to sweep,

Forgotten relatives.

For the first time I sang about love,

For the first time I refuse to make a scandal.

Tragic pathos, anguish is replaced by sincerity, lyricism, frankness:

Let others drink you,

But I have left, I have left

Your hair is glassy smoke

And the eyes are tired in autumn.

Honey, let's sit next to each other

Let's look into each other's eyes.

I want under the gentle gaze

Listen to the sensual blizzard.

The dream of “pure” love is one of the cross-cutting motifs of Yesenin’s lyrics. A complex range of emotions accompanies suffering, caused either by the thirst for love, or by the awareness of its impracticability:

The evening annoyed my black eyebrows.

Someone's horses are standing in the yard.

Wasn’t it just yesterday that I drank away my youth?

Didn’t I stop loving you yesterday?

“Persian Motifs” (1924-1925) - an attempt to find agreement with oneself and with the world. Yesenin perceived the romantic plot about the love of a northerner and a southerner through the poetry of Pushkin and Lermontov. The poems were written in the Caucasus, but the themes, plots, tonality, and the very image of love were influenced by Persian lyrics. The beloved in Persian poetry surpasses nature itself in its beauty, it is exceptional.

Yesenin created the image of a blue and cheerful country, which Russia has ceased to be. Previously, Russia was associated in Yesenin’s lyrics with a “blue country,” an ideal country, a dream (“The sand of heaven turns blue,” “The dust bathes in blue”). After the revolution, the color blue almost disappeared from his lyrics: “The sunset sprinkled the gray fields,” “Covered with gray chintz / These poor northern skies.” Now the fictional Persia ("The Blue Homeland of Firduosi") corresponded to the ideal: "It is good to wander among the peace / Blue and affectionate country." “Persian motives” - a counterweight to “Moscow Tavern”:

My old wound has subsided -

Drunken delirium does not gnaw at my heart.

Blue flowers of Tehran

I am treating them today in a teahouse.

I've never been to the Bosphorus,

Don't ask me about him.

I saw the sea in your eyes,

Blazing with blue fire.

Even the form of "Persian Motifs" corresponds to the form of ancient Persian lyrics:

The air is clear and blue,

I'll go out into the flower thickets,

A traveler leaving for the azure,

You won't reach the desert.

The air is clear and blue.

The symbol of Persian beauty and love is the image of a rose: “Quietly roses run through the fields...”; “Lips are drawn to roses, drawn”; “The rose splashed with petals”; “Kisses blow like a red rose, / Melting petals on the lips.”

However, Persia in the poet’s artistic imagination is only temporary peace. One of the themes of the cycle is nostalgia for Russia. The image of the homeland is certainly introduced into love motives, love for Russia intensifies: “In Russia, we don’t keep spring girls / On chains like dogs”; “No matter how beautiful Shiraz is, / It is no better than the expanses of Ryazan”; “There’s a girl in the north too / She looks terribly like you, “The heart dreams of another country”

Fifteen poems of the cycle convey a special lyrical plot - the dynamics, development of the feelings and moods of the lyrical hero, which culminate in a return to the Motherland:

I have seen many countries

I looked for happiness everywhere

Only for desires

I won't search anymore.

Don't beat your stupid heart.

Many of Yesenin's poems became songs. And this second life of the poet’s lyrics became part of our lives.

Time moves irresistibly. One generation will replace another.

The world of poetry moves and lives according to its own laws - the Universe of the soul of humanity. Continuously arise and flare up in this wonderful world new poetic stars and asterisks. They burn out and fade away forever, even during the life of their “owner”; the light of others reaches us over the course of decades, and only a few, very few warm the people's hearts." living soul"over the centuries, flaring up brighter and brighter over time. The name of one of these most beautiful radiant stars in the immortal poetic constellation of Russia is Sergei Yesenin. It is eternal...

Literature

1. Two worlds (S. Yesenin) - In the book: Prokushev Yu. Time. Poetry. Criticism. M.: Fiction, 1980

2. Yesenin S. A. Favorites: Poems and Poems. Introductory article and comp. Yu. Prokusheva; Rice. E. Savich. - M.: Children's literature, 1983. - 283 p.

3. Yesenin S. Collected Works. In 2 volumes. Poems. Poems. - Mn.: Soviet Russia, Contemporary. - 1990

4. Yesenin S. Poems and poems: - Mn.: Yunatstva, 1982. - 159 p.

5. Khanaev B. The last poet of the village Sergei Yesenin // Soviet Belarus. - 1995. - September 27.

• 1895, September 21 (October 4 new style). In the village of Konstantinov, Kuzminsky volost (now Rybnikovsky district, Ryazan region), a son, Sergei, was born into the family of peasants Alexander Nikitich and Tatyana Fedorovna (nee Titova) Yesenin. (his sister Ekaterina was born in 1905, sister Alexandra in 1911) 1909 awarded a certificate of merit for excellent academic performance upon graduating from the Konstantinovsky Rural School.
• 1909--1912. Studying at a church-teacher second-grade school in the village of Spas-Klepiki, Ryazan district. The certificate of completion states that Yesenin was awarded the “title of literacy school teacher.”
• 1912, July. Moving to Moscow on the call of his father, who worked in N. Krylov’s butcher shop. The father got his son a job in the store’s office so that he could later enter a teacher’s college. However, Yesenin worked in the office for only one week.
• 1912, September - February. He worked as a salesman in a bookstore.
• 1913, March. Entered the printing house of the partnership of I. D. Sytin. At first, he worked as a freight forwarder, then as a proofreader.
• 2 September. I started listening to lectures at the evening historical and philological faculty of the Moscow City People's University of A. L. Shanyavsky, where, according to in my own words, studied for a year and a half.

Autumn. For the first time I read my poems to the professional writer I. Belousov, who found that Yesenin had “true talent.”

The end of the year. According to the recollection of Yesenin’s friend N. Sardanovsky, the poet read the poem “The scarlet light of dawn was woven on the lake...” to Shanyavsky University professor, famous literary critic P. N. Sakulin, and received a flattering review. He entered into a civil marriage with Anna Romanovna Izryadnova, a proofreader at Sytin’s printing house.

1914, January. IN children's magazine“Mirok” No. 1, under the pseudonym Ariston, Yesenin’s poem “Birch” was published. This is the poet's first published performance.

Mid-May. Resigned from Sytin's printing house.

August - December. Responds to hostilities with the poems “Mother’s Prayer”, “Orphan”, “Bogatyr Whistle”, “Through the Village on a Crooked Path...” and others, the poems “Jackdaws” (banned by military censorship, its text has not been found) and “Marfa Posadnitsa” .

September. He entered the printing house of the trading house “D. Chernyshev and N. Kobelkov.”

December. He quit his job at the printing house and since then has devoted himself entirely to creative work.

• 21 December.(1915, January 3, New Art.) Son Yuri was born. (In 1937 he was arrested and shot by security officers. In 1956 he was rehabilitated.)
• 8 Martha. Left Moscow for Petrograd.
• 9 Martha. He read poetry to Blok, from whom he received letters of recommendation to the publishing worker, writer M. Murashev and to the poet S. Gorodetsky.
• 11 Martha. Reading poetry to S. Gorodetsky, who introduces Yesenin to literary circle St. Petersburg.
• 22 April. In the magazine “Voice of Life” with a foreword by Zinaida Gippius, four poems by Yesenin were published, which the poet himself, together with the poem “The reeds rustled over the backwater...”, published with a dedication to S. Gorodetsky in the “New Journal for Everyone” (No. 4), in In one of his autobiographical sketches he called it his first publication.

End of April. In connection with the royal decree on conscription for military service, he went to Ryazan (to the place of conscription).

May 20. Due to an eye disease, he received a deferment from military service and went to Konstantinov.

May - September. He lived in Konstantinov, wrote poetry and the story “Yar”.

End of September. Arrived in Moscow.

Early October. Arrived in Petrograd, met for the first time with N. Klyuev.

Mid October. He joined the Krasa group of peasant poets, which ceased its activities in the first half of November 1915. However, Yesenin also took part in the organizational meeting of the Strada society, which took place in S. Gorodetsky’s apartment. In December, Strada organized an evening of poetry by Yesenin and Klyuev.

• 16 October. Passed it on. M. V. Averyanov the right to publish the book of poems “Radunitsa”.
• 1916, 4 January. With material support from Colonel D.N. Loman, Yesenin and Klyuev arrived in Moscow for creative performances(including before court circles).
• 16 January. The head of the Tsarskoye Selo field military medical train N 143, Colonel D. N. Loman, petitions the mobilization department of the Main Directorate General Staff about Yesenin’s enrollment in the train’s sanitary team.
• 30 January. Censorship permission for the release of the poet’s first book “Radunitsa”.
• 5 April. Called up for military service and enlisted with D.N. Loman on a military hospital train.
• 20 April. Arrived for military service on the train.
• 27 April -- June 13. Made two train trips to the front line.
• 22 July. He read poetry at a concert for the wounded in the hospital in the presence of the Empress and her daughters. At the request of D.N. Loman, the Empress granted Yesenin a gold watch for participating in the concert, which the poet, however, did not receive.

August. Due to untimely return from dismissal, he received a disciplinary sanction (arrest) for 20 days.

• 1917, February 27. Overthrow of the autocracy in Russia.
• 17 Martha. Seconded from the sanitary train to the disposal of the Military Commission under the State Duma.

March. Meet Zinaida Nikolaevna Reich.

• 30 July. Wedding with 3.N. Reich in the Kiriko-Julitt Church on the outskirts of Vologda.
• 25 October. Bolshevik coup; overthrow of the Provisional Government headed by A.F. Kerensky.
• 1918, January. The poem "Inonia" was written.
• 25 February. The book “Red Bell” has been published - a collective collection of works by S. Yesenin, N. Klyuev, P. Oreshin and A. Shiryaevets. Yesenin placed in it, under the title “Versebook”, a cycle of five poems (“Marfa Posadnitsa”, “Comrade”, “Us”, “Singing Call”, “Otchari”).

End of February - beginning of March. Yesenin’s poem “Baby Jesus” is published as a separate book by the Segodnya publishing house.

End of April. He left Petrograd for permanent residence in Moscow.

Second half of May. The Socialist Revolutionary publishing house “Revolutionary Socialism” published a collection of poems “Dove”.

Second half of September. Organizes the publishing house "Moscow Labor Artel of Artists of the Word" (MTAHS), in which he becomes the head (board members - A. Bely, S. Klychkov, P. Oreshin, L. Novitsky). Before the end of the year, this publishing house published Yesenin’s books “Transfiguration”, “Rural Book of Hours”, as well as the second, revised edition of “Radunitsa”.

• 3 November. At the opening of the monument to A. Koltsov in Moscow, I read the poem “O Rus', flap your wings...”.
• 1919, January 30. Together with the poets A. Mariengof, R. Ivnev, V. Shershenevich and with the artists B. Erdman and G. Yakulov, he published the “Declaration” of the Imagists in Voronezh (on February 10 it was reprinted in Moscow).

Until February 10. He was one of the organizers of the cooperative publishing house “Imaginists”.

February. The poem "Pantocrator" was written.

September. The poem "Mare's Ships" was written.

December. Yesenin’s article “The Keys of Mary” was published as a separate publication.

1920, January. The second edition of the collection “Dove” and the first issue of the collective collection “Cavalry of Storms” with the poem “Heavenly Drummer” were published by the MTAHS publishing house.

February. The publishing house “Imaginists” published the collection “The Melting House of Words” by S. Yesenin, A. Mariengof and V. Shershenevich.

February 3rd. Yesenin's son Konstantin, a future sports journalist, was born. (Died 1986)

Mid-April. In Kharkov, where Yesenin was at that time, who, together with V. Khlebnikov and A. Mariengof, performed at the city theater reading poetry, a collective collection “The Dawn Tavern” with the poem “Mares’ Ships” was published.

May. The second collection of Imagists “Cavalry of Storms” was published with Yesenin’s poem “Pantocrator” and with the poems “Now my love is not the same...” (dedicated to N. Klyuev), “It’s good in the autumn freshness...”, “I left my home. .."

• 14 June. In the Imagist cafe “Stable of Pegasus” (Tverskaya, 37) I read poetry at the “Evening of Imagist Lyrics”.
• 15 June. Individual poetry evening Yesenin in the "Stable of Pegasus". June The collection “Treryadnitsa” was published (Zlak publishing house)

Beginning of July - mid-September. Together with A. Mariengof he traveled around the south of Russia and the Caucasus. Visited Rostov-on-Don, Novocherkassk, Taganrog, Kislovodsk, Pyatigorsk, Baku, Tiflis.

August. On the train on the way from Kislovodsk to Baku, the poem “Sorokoust” was written.

October November. In Berlin, the publishing house "Scythians" published Yesenin's book "Triptych" (poems "Advent", "Transfiguration") and the collective collection "Russia and Inonia" with Yesenin's poems "Inonia" and "Comrade".

November.“Confession of a Hooligan” was written. The second edition of the collection “Transfiguration” has been published.

December. Work has begun on the dramatic poem “Pugachev”. The publishing house "Imaginists" has released the third edition of the book "Radunitsa", as well as the collective collection "Imaginists" with Yesenin's poem "Sorokoust".

January. The Imaginists publishing house released the collective collection “Golden Boiling Water” with the poem “Confession of a Hooligan.”

February. The same publishing house published the second edition of the collection “Treryadnitsa” and the collective collection of S. Yesenin and A. Kusikov “Starry Bull” with “Song of Bread”.

• 14 April. In Izvestia there is a letter from the People's Commissar of Education A.V. Lunacharsky criticizing the collection “Golden Boiling Water” and other books published in 1921 by the publishing house “Imaginists”.
• 16 April. Yesenin leaves for Turkestan.

May. Arrival in Tashkent. For the first time after six years of correspondence (by correspondence), I met the poet A. Shiryaevets.

The end of May. Reading “Pugachev” at the Tashkent apartment of the writer and publishing worker V. I. Volpin.

• 1 July, August 6. Public readings of "Pugachev", which he continues to finish and finishes in August.
• 3 October. In the studio of the artist G. Yakulova meets the American dancer Isadora Duncan.
• 5 October. The Oryol court dissolved Yesenin's marriage with Z. N. Reich.

November. Gets close to A. Duncan.

December. The dramatic poem is being published as a separate publication by the Imaginists publishing house. "Pugachev".

• 1922, February. Together with A. Duncan was in Petrograd for several days. With the money of Yesenin's friend A. Sakharov, the Elsevier publishing house published the second edition of Pugachev.
• 17 Martha. An official appeal to the People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky with a request to petition the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs to allow Yesenin to travel to Berlin.
• 3 April. Permission was received to travel to Berlin for a period of three months.
• 2 May. Yesenin's marriage to Isadora Duncan is officially registered.
• 10 May. I flew to Koenigsberg, from where I took a train to Berlin.
• 11 May. Arrived in Berlin. On the same day I visited the editorial office of the newspaper “Nakanune”.

Summer. I was in Dusseldorf, from where I went to Belgium, then to Paris, then to Italy, then again to Paris, where I lived with A. Duncan for about a month.

July August. The Berlin "Russian Universal Publishing House" published "Pugachev" as a separate book. August in the fourth issue of the Franco-Belgian magazine “Le Bisque vert” an article by the poet F. Ellens “The Great Russian” was published modern poet: Sergei Yesenin" and the poem "Mare's Ships" (translated into French by F. Ellens and M. Miloslavskaya).

End of September - beginning of October. In Moscow, Gosizdat published Yesenin’s “Favorites”, and abroad – Yesenin’s book “Confession d’un Voyou” (“Confession of a Hooligan” translated into French by F. Ellens and M. Miloslavskaya; introductory article F. Ellensa).

• 1 October. On the steamer "Paris", together with A. Duncan, he arrived in the United States (at that time they were called the North American United States - USA). However, representatives of the immigration department forbade Yesenin and Duncan to go ashore, citing information available to the authorities that the couple arrived in the States to conduct communist propaganda. Yesenin and Duncan indignantly rejected this accusation.
• 2 October. The President of the United States ordered Yesenin and Duncan to be allowed into the country.

October November. I traveled with Duncan to American cities where she performed. Visited New York, Chicago, Boston, Louisville, Kansas City, Memphis, Detroit, Baltimore. Philadelphia, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, etc.

November. The Berlin publishing house of Z. I. Grzhebin published the first volume (it turned out to be the only one) of Yesenin’s “Collected Poems and Poems.”

During a year. He began working on the poems “The Black Man” and “The Country of Scoundrels.”

• 1923, February 4. He left with A. Duncan on a ship to France.
• 11 February. Arrival in Paris.
• 15--16 February. Moving to Berlin.

End of March. He handed over to the publisher (engineer I.T. Blagov) the collection “Poems of a Brawler.”

• 10 April. Returned to Paris.
• 13 May. Evening of Yesenin's poetry at the Parisian theater of R. Duncan, brother of A. Duncan. Conflicts arise between the poet and the dancer, which ultimately lead to their alienation from each other.

Until June 10. The collection “Poems of a Brawler” was published in Berlin. Glavlit banned its import into Soviet Russia.

Spring Summer. He prepared the collection “Moscow Tavern” for publication in Paris. The publication did not take place in Paris.

August. Met the actress of the Moscow Chamber Theater Augusta Leonidovna Miklashevskaya, to whom he dedicated the cycle of poems “The Love of a Hooligan.”

September. He broke up with A. Duncan and entered into a civil marriage with Galina Arturovna Benislavskaya.

• 17 December. Placed for treatment at the Shumskaya dispensary (for nervous patients).
• 1924, February March. He continued treatment at the Sheremetyevsk (now Sklifosofsky Institute) and Kremlin hospitals. Conducted negotiations on the publication of Moscow Tavern.
• 7 April. Breaks with the Imagists. He writes a letter of refusal to cooperate in their magazine “Hotel for Travelers in Beauty.”
• 12 May. The poetess and translator Nadezhda Davidovna Volpin had a son, Alexander, from Yesenin, whom Yesenin did not see or recognize. (Subsequently, Alexander Sergeevich Yesenin-Volpin himself became a poet who played a prominent role in dissident movement in Russia 1960-1970s. Currently resides in the United States of America.)
• 17 May. Funeral of the poet Alexander Shiryaevets on Vagankovskoe cemetery in Moscow. Yesenin took part in the civil funeral service and the memorial evening. The poem “Now we are leaving little by little...” was initially published in the magazine “Krasnaya Nov” (1924. No. 4) under the title “In Memory of Shiryaevets.”

June July. Lived in Leningrad. He wrote the poems “Son of a Bitch”, “Soviet Rus'” and the poem “Song of the Great March”.

July.“Moscow Tavern” was published in Leningrad.

• 1 August. Return to Moscow.
• 2--6 August."Poem about 36" was written.
• 31 August.“Pravda”: “Letter to the editor. We, the creators of Imagism, bring to everyone’s attention that the group “Imagists” has hitherto known composition We declare it dissolved. Sergey Yesenin. Ivan Gruzinov."
• 3 September. He went to the Caucasus, where he stayed until the end of February 1925. He lived in Tiflis, Baku, Batumi. I wrote a lot there famous poems and poems. Such, for example, as “The Ballad of Twenty-Six”, “Stanzas”, “Departing Rus'”, “Homeless Rus'”, “Letter to a Woman”, “Letter from a Mother”, “Answer”. He began work on the cycle “Persian Motifs” and on the poem “Anna Snegina”.

• 1925, until January 20. In V. Tiflis the book “The Soviet Country” was published, which included almost all of Yesenin’s poems written in the Caucasus.
• 1 Martha. Returned to Moscow.

March. Meeting L. Tolstoy's granddaughter Sofia Andreevna.

End of March. Transfer to Baku.

March, April. The poem “Song of the Great March” was published as a separate publication.

First half of May. He was admitted to the Baku water workers' hospital with suspected pneumonia (final diagnosis: tuberculosis).

May. With dedication to Peter Ivanovich Chagin in the publishing house " Modern Russia"The book "Persian Motifs" was published.

The beginning of June. The book “Birch Calico” has been published.

30 June. Signed an agreement with Gosizdat for the publication of “Collected Poems” in three volumes (10,000 lines at the highest rate - 1 ruble per line).

July. Came to Konstantinov. Wrote the poem “The feather grass is sleeping. Dear plain...”, “Bless every work, good luck...”, “Apparently, it’s been like this forever...”.

July 25. Together with S.A. Tolstoy left for Baku. He settled at P.I. Chagin’s dacha in Mardakan.

August. Several poems in the series “Persian Motifs” were written, as well as “ Life is a lie with enchanting melancholy...", "Shine, my star, don't fall...".

• 7 September. Return to Moscow.
• 13 September. Poems were written: “I have never seen such beautiful ones...”, “Oh, how many cats there are in the world...”, “You sing me that song from before...”, “In this world I am only a passerby... ", dedicated younger sister Yesenina Shura.
• 18 September. The marriage with S.A. was officially registered in the Khamovnichesky registry office. Tolstoy.

September October. He worked on preparing the typesetting of the manuscript “Collected Poems” for Gosizdat.

• 12--14 November. I wrote down and submitted the poem “The Black Man” to print.
• 26 November. I went to the clinic of the 1st Moscow State University. “You see, you need to treat your nerves...” - from Yesenin’s letter to P.I. Chagin. In the hospital there are written “You are my fallen maple, icy maple...”, “What a night! I can’t...”, “Don’t look at me reproachfully...”, “You don’t love me, don’t feel sorry for me...”.
• 21 December. Left the clinic. Before this, from the hospital he gave a telegram to his friend Wolf Iosifovich Erlich with a request to find him two or three rooms in Leningrad for permanent living in this city. He asked S.A. Tolstaya to transfer the Moscow room to himself: “After all, I am leaving and therefore it is inappropriate to pay extra money...” Upon leaving the clinic, he wrote a statement to Gosizdat with a request to cancel all his previous powers of attorney and give the fee only to him. I withdrew all the money from my savings book to take it to Leningrad.
• 23 December. He asked Gosizdat to send proofs of his collected works to Leningrad, where he left Moscow by evening train.
• 24--27 December. In Leningrad I stayed at the Angleterre Hotel. I met with many of the writers there.
• 27 December. He tore out a piece of paper with a poem written on it from the notebook and gave it to V. Erlich. He asked that he read it not in front of him. Ehrlich read the poem on December 28. It was - “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye...”.
• 28 December. Hanged himself in a hotel room (according to the official version).
• 30 December. Yesenin's body was brought to Moscow. The coffin is installed in the House of Printing. A banner was attached to the facade of the house with the inscription: “The body of the great national poet Sergei Yesenin rests here.” The farewell to the poet did not stop at night.
• 31 December. Before Yesenin was buried at the Vagankovskoye cemetery, his coffin was carried in their arms around the monument to Pushkin on Tverskoy Boulevard...

S.A. Yesenin was born on September 21 (October 3), 1895 in the village of Konstantinovo, Ryazan province, into a peasant family. He grew up in the religious family of his Old Believer grandfather. He began writing poetry at the age of 8. In 1912-1915. studied in Moscow at the Shanyavsky People's University and worked as a proofreader. Since 1914, Yesenin began to publish in children's publications “Protalinka”, “Mirok”, “Nov” and others. In the spring of 1915, he went to Petrograd and met there with A.A. Blok, S.M. Gorodetsky and other capital poets, met publishers. From this time on, Yesenin became a professional poet.

At the beginning of 1916, Yesenin’s first poetry collection “Radunitsa” was published, highly appreciated by critics who paid attention to the original talent of the young poet. Soon he was drafted into the army, and until the February Revolution of 1917 he served as an orderly on a military train. “During the years of the revolution, he was entirely on the side of October, but he accepted everything in his own way, with a peasant bias,” he later explained his attitude to what was happening in the country.

In 1919, Yesenin moved to Moscow and joined the literary group of imagist poets. First half of the 1920s - the most productive period of Yesenin’s creativity. The lyrical collections “Treryadnitsa” (1920), “Confession of a Hooligan” (1921), “Moscow Tavern” (1924), “Poems” (1924), “Persian Motifs” (1925), “On Russia and the Revolution” ( 1925) and the poems “Mare Ships” (1920), “Sorokoust” (1920), “Song of the Great March” (1924), “Return to the Homeland” (1924), “Soviet Rus'” (1924), “Homeless Rus'” (1924), “Departing Rus'” (1924), “Lenin” (1924-25), “Poem about 36” (1925), “Anna Snegina” (1925), “Black Man” (published in 1926); dramatic poems“Pugachev” (1922), “Country of Scoundrels” (1924-1926). In 1922-1923 Yesenin made a long trip to Europe and the USA.

Early lyrics

Sergei Yesenin (unlike, for example, Blok) was not inclined to divide his creative path into any stages. Yesenin's poetry is different high degree integrity. Everything in it is about Russia. “My lyrics are alive with one great love, love for my homeland. The feeling of homeland is fundamental in my work,” said the poet. Yesenin brought Russian nature with all its distances and colors into poetry - “amazing in its beauty.” But his contribution to Russian literature is connected not so much with the novelty of the theme (landscape lyrics are the main theme of all poetry of the 19th century), but with the ability to see nature from the inside peasant world. In Yesenin’s poems, everything turns into poetry gold: the soot above the damper, the clucking chickens, and the shaggy puppies (the poem “In the Hut”). And the poet sees the inconspicuous Central Russian landscape as follows:

Favorite region! I dream about my heart

Stacks of sun in the waters of the bosom,

I would like to get lost

In your hundred-ringing greens.

Goy, my dear Rus',

Huts - in the robes of the image...

No end in sight

Only blue sucks his eyes.

Peasant Rus'- the central image of Yesenin’s first collections “Radunitsa” (1916) and “Dove” (1918). The very titles of both books are indicative. Radunitsa is the day of remembrance of the dead, usually the first Monday of the week after Easter. The word itself means “brilliant”, “enlightened”. This is what they called the first days of spring in Rus'. Blue, blue - constant epithets of Yesenin’s Russia:

Again there is a blue field in front of me.
The puddles of the sun shake the red face.

The blue in your eyes freezes like water...

“The charm and mystery of Yesenin’s Rus' is in the quietly radiant absence” (L. Anninsky). The key images of early poetry are ringing and sleep (slumber, fog, haze). Yesenin Russia is the heavenly city of Kitezh. She quietly dozes to the sound of bells “on a foggy shore”:

Milky smoke blows through the village wind,
But there is no wind, there is only a slight ringing.
And Rus' slumbers in its cheerful melancholy,
Clutching your hands into the yellow steep slope.
(“Dove”)

And even though your fog clears away
The stream of winds blowing with wings,
But all of you are myrrh and Lebanon
Magi, mysteriously doing magic.
(“I am weaving a wreath for you alone...”).

Of course, Yesenin’s Russia, just like Tyutchev’s, Nekrasov’s, Blok’s Russia, is just a poetic myth. For young Yesenin, she is the embodiment of paradise. However, gradually this image becomes more complicated. The similarities between Yesenin’s image of Rus' and Blok’s Russia are noteworthy. For both poets, next to “Mystery Russia”, the “bright wife”, there is another, “roaring Mother Rus'”, walking, poor and homeless:

Is it my side, my side,
Burning streak...
Only the forest and the salt shaker,
Yes, the spit beyond the river...

The puddle grass glows with tin.
Sad song, you are Russian pain.

But, despite everything, the feelings of the lyrical hero are unchanged: “I’m weaving a wreath for you alone, / I’m scattering flowers on a gray stitch” and “... not to love you, not to believe - / I can’t learn.”

In the poem “Behind the Dark Strand of Woodlands...” the lyrical hero directly identifies himself with his homeland:

And you, like me, are in sad need,
Forgetting who is your friend and enemy,
You yearn for the pink sky
And dove clouds.

These are very revealing lines. Two Russias - “earthly” and “heavenly” - coexist in the poet’s soul, although his longing is for blue Rus', the heavenly city of Kitezh. Yesenin’s lyrical hero is an “eternally wandering wanderer”, “leaving into the azure”. And the homeland is loved with mortal love because it is abandoned. The motif of an abandoned father's house is one of the leading ones in Yesenin's lyrics.

As specific features The lyrical hero of Yesenin’s poetry is usually distinguished as follows:

Maximum proximity of the “biography of the hero” to the biography of the author ( autobiographical motives- at the basis of most of Yesenin’s poems);

The naturalness of the tone, the confessional openness of the lyrical hero (“the poems are a letter from Yesenin,” Yu. Tynyanov defined this feature);

The hero’s feeling of a blood, mortal connection with everything alive in the world (“the verb of the earth is clear to me”);

The hero's openness to the world, his grateful acceptance, but at the same time - longing for the “foreign fields” and for “the one that is not in this world.”

Post-October lyrics

"The Last Poet of the Village." Despite the extraordinary integrity of Yesenin’s art world, for creative path The poet's style of “verbal gait” changed. “During the years of the revolution, I was entirely on the side of October, but accepted everything in my own way, with a peasant bias,” the poet wrote in his autobiography (“About Myself,” 1925). The “peasant deviation” was that Yesenin, like other poets who wrote about the peasantry (N. Klyuev, P. Oreshin, S. Klychkov), expected from the revolution the liberation of the peasants, the transformation of Russia into a great Peasant Republic - a blessed country of Bread and Milk. In 1917-1919 Yesenin, having almost stopped writing lyrics, creates a cycle of revolutionary poems: “The Jordanian Dove”, “Heavenly Drummer”, “Inonia”, etc. - “The New Testament of the New Peasant Era”. However, it soon became clear that Yesenin’s expectations were not met. In the spring of 1920 in Konstantinov (trips to his homeland were usually “fruitful” for lyric poetry), Yesenin wrote a single poem - “I am the last poet of the village...”:

I am the last poet of the village,
The plank bridge is modest in its songs.
At the farewell mass I stand
Birch trees burning with leaves.

If we did not know for sure that the poem was written in early spring, when the leaves on the trees were barely hatching, if it were not for certain that it was written in Konstantinov, where there are no bridges, it could well be mistaken for a sketch from life. But this is not a landscape, but one created by means landscape painting the image of farewell to both the dying - wooden - village and its the last poet- still alive, but already feeling that his time had passed:

Not living, alien palms,
These songs will not live with you!
There will only be ears of corn
To grieve about the old owner.

The wind will suck their neighing,
Funeral dance celebrating.
Soon, soon wooden clock
They will wheeze my last hour!

It’s as if Yesenin orders a memorial service for the doomed world dear to his heart, “celebrates” it alone, and does it precisely in the Temple where worship can be performed at any hour and in any place - in the Temple of Nature. Through the “woody” figurative sign traditional for his poetry (“everything is from a tree - this is the religion of the thoughts of our people,” the poet believed) he expresses his deepest pain. This is pain from the death of that way of life, where everything is connected with the “tree,” and most importantly, from the extinction of the art born of this “religion.” Therefore, the “modest” bridge that the “last poet of the village” builds in songs is a “plank” bridge made of wood. Therefore, the wheezing of the “wooden” moon clock becomes a sign of death. Therefore, the servants of the temple are trees, “cense-burning” autumn foliage. And even the candle necessary in the ritual of the memorial ceremony, like everything that rallied in doomed protest against the lifeless palms of the iron guest, is a living candle, created from bodily wax:

Will burn out with a golden flame
A candle made of flesh wax,
And the moon clock is wooden
They will wheeze my twelfth hour.

Yesenin became the “last poet” not only of the village, but of all of the departing Rus', that Rus', the myth of which existed for centuries. “I am very sad now, history is going through a difficult era of killing the individual as a living person” (from Yesenin’s letter, August 1920).

Dear, dear, funny fool,
Well, where is he, where is he going?
Doesn't he really know that live horses
Did the steel cavalry win?

Only for me, as a psalm-reader, to sing
Hallelujah over our native land.
(“Sorokoust”, 1920)

The year 1920 was a turning point in Yesenin’s work. The motives for abandoning his home are complicated by the conflict “Soviet Rus'” - “Leaving Rus'”. The poet himself is in the “narrow gap” between them: “The language of my fellow citizens has become like a stranger to me. I’m like a foreigner in my own country.”

Literary critic Alla Marchenko named the hero of Yesenin’s lyrics recent years"talking Yesenin." Poems 1924-1925 surprisingly polyphonic. The poet himself does not know the answer to the question “where is the fate of events taking us?”, so he gives the right to vote to many of his heroes - mother, grandfather, sisters, fellow countrymen:

I'm listening to. I look in my memory
What the peasants are gossiping about.
“With Soviet power, we live according to our gut...
Now I’d like some chintz... Yes, a few nails..."

How little do these wedding couples need?
Whose life is nothing but potatoes and bread.
(“Rus' is leaving”).

Love lyrics. “A blue fire swept up, / The distances we loved were forgotten. / For the first time I sang about love, / For the first time I refuse to make a scandal.” These are the lines of the famous poem from the cycle “The Love of a Hooligan” (1923). Indeed, in early work Yesenin (until the early 1920s) poems about love were rare. Indicative of his poetic world poem of 1916 “Do not wander, do not crush in the crimson bushes...”. Here the beloved is inseparable from the natural environment: she has “a sheaf of oat hair” and “grains of eyes”: “With the scarlet juice of the berries on the skin, / You were tender, beautiful / You look like a pink sunset / And, like snow, radiant and light.” The departed beloved, who was a “song and a dream,” did not disappear without a trace - she disappeared into the world around her:

The grains of your eyes have fallen off and withered,
The subtle name melted like a sound,
But remained in the folds of a crumpled shawl
The smell of honey from innocent hands.

1895 , September 21 (October 3) - born in the village of Konstantinovo, Kuzminsky volost, Ryazan district.

1904 - goes to study at the Konstantinovsky Zemstvo School.

1909 - graduates from the Konstantinovsky Zemstvo four-year school with a certificate of merit. Begins his studies (until May 1912) at the parish second-grade teacher's school (the village of Spas-Klepiki, Ryazan province and district).

1910 – the beginning of a systematic poetic creativity. In 1925, when preparing his collection, the poet dates the poem “It’s already evening” to 1910. Dew...", "Where the cabbage beds are...", "Winter sings and echoes...", "Imitation of a song", "The scarlet light of dawn is woven on the lake...", "Smoke floods... ", "The bird cherry tree is pouring snow...", "Kaliki"..

1912 – graduates from the Spas-Klepikovsky parochial second-grade teacher’s school and receives the title of literacy school teacher. He is preparing a collection of poems, “Sick Thoughts.” Leaves Konstantinov for Moscow for permanent residence, goes to work in the office of the book publishing house "Culture" (Malaya Dmitrovka, 1).

1913 – works in the proofreading printing house of the I. D. Sytin Partnership. Becomes a first-year student of the historical and philosophical cycle of the academic department of the Moscow City People's University named after A. L. Shanyavsky.

1914 - in the Moscow children's magazine "Mirok" under the pseudonym "Ariston" the poem "Birch" was published - the poet's first known publication. Begins the poem "Rus".

1915 - sends the first letter to A.V. Shiryaevets, which served as the beginning of many years of communication between the two poets. On a voluntary basis, he is the secretary of the magazine of the Surikov literary and musical circle “Friend of the People”. Participates in the preparation of his second issue.
March- comes to Petrograd, meets A. A. Blok at his apartment, reads his poems, receives letters of recommendation to S. M. Gorodetsky and M. P. Murashev. A. A. Blok inscribes Yesenin’s book of his poems. Reads his poems to S. M. Gorodetsky. Receives from him letters of recommendation to the editor-publisher of the “Monthly Magazine” V. S. Mirolyubov and the secretary of the magazine “Dushevnoe Slovo” S. F. Librovich.
September– writes his first autobiography “Sergei Yesenin”. Participates together with N. A. Klyuev, A. M. Remizov, S. M. Gorodetsky in the “Beauty” evening in concert hall Tenishevsky School(St. Petersburg).
november– visits A. A. Akhmatova and N. S. Gumilyov in Tsarskoe Selo (Malaya St., 63). Akhmatova inscribes Yesenin’s magazine reprint of the poem “By the Sea itself,” Gumilyov inscribes the collection “Alien Sky.”
winter 1915–1916 – visits I.E. Repin on his estate Penaty, reads poetry. Meets the artist Yu. P. Annenkov.

1916 – the first edition of the book “Radunitsa” was printed (censorship permission for publication - January 30).
April- Yesenin, called up for military service, was issued a certificate of enrollment in the Tsarskoye Selo field military medical train No. 143. He reads poetry at the “Evening of Contemporary Poetry and Music” in the concert hall of the Tenishevsky School together with A. A. Akhmatova, A. A. Blok, G. V. Ivanov, N. A. Klyuev and others.
July- reads “In the crimson glow, the sunset is effervescent and foaming...” and “Rus” at a concert for wounded soldiers, organized in Tsarskoe Selo hospital No. 17, in the presence of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and her daughters.
He is preparing the book “Dove” for publication (published in 1918).

1917 , February - at Ivanov-Razumnik’s apartment in Tsarskoye Selo he meets Andrei Bely. Together with other writers, he participates in the preparation of the collections “Scythians”.
May- in the newspaper “Delo Naroda” - the poem “Comrade”.
July- the first collection “Scythians” is published, which published “Marfa the Posadnitsa” and poems under the general title “Dove”: “Autumn” (“Quiet in the thicket of juniper along the cliff...”), “The road was thinking about the red evening... ", "Blue sky, colored arc...", "About merry comrades...".

1918 – writes “Inonia”. The publishing house of the artel of artists "Segodnya" is publishing the book "Baby Jesus", of which 1000 copies in 125 illustrations are hand-painted by the artist E. I. Turova.
February– in “Banner of Labor” - the poem “The Advent” with a dedication to Andrei Bely.
May– the publishing house “Revolutionary Socialism” (Pg.) publishes the book “Dove”.
August– the newspaper “Izvestia of the Ryazan Provincial Council of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies” publishes “The Jordanian Dove.”
December– the MTAHS publishing house publishes a book of poems “Rural Book of Hours”. Unanimously elected to the Moscow Trade Union of Writers.
Writes the poem “Heavenly Drummer”.

1919 , January - Voronezh magazine “Sirena” No. 4/5 publishes “Oh God, God, this depth...”. The same issue publishes the “Declaration” of the Imagists, signed by Yesenin, Rurik Ivnev, A. B. Mariengof, V. G. Shershenevich, B. R. Erdman and G. B. Yakulov.
February– the newspaper “Soviet Country” publishes “Song of the Dog” and “I’m Tired of Living in native land...". The same issue contains the “Declaration” of the Imagists and a message about the organization of the cooperative publishing house “Imagists”, among the organizers of which Yesenin is named. It is reported that this publishing house is preparing to publish the poet’s books “Poems” (not published) and “The Keys of Mary” (published by the MTAHS publishing house). The newspaper carries an advertisement from the publishing house “Imaginists” that the collective collections “Imaginists” and “Melting House of Words” are being published.
"Soviet Country" publishes the poem "Pantocrator" with a dedication to Rurik Ivnev.
July– participates in the evening “4 Elephants of Imagism” at the stage-canteen of the All-Russian Union of Poets. The Kiev magazine “Red Officer” No. 3 prints a fragment of the poem “Heavenly Drummer”.
november- the book “The Keys of Mary” is published with a dedication to A. B. Mariengof.
December– a collective collection of imagists “Cavalry of Storms” [No. 1] is published with the poem “Heavenly Drummer” dedicated to L. N. Stark.

1920 – the book “Treryadnitsa” is published under the label of the publishing house “Zlak”.
July–September- makes a trip to the Caucasus.
December – the publishing house “Imaginists” publishes the book “Radunitsa”.

1921 , January - the book “Confession of a Hooligan” is published by the publishing house “Imaginists”. In the collective collection of imagists “Golden Boiling Water” - “Confession of a Hooligan”.
February– the book “Treryadnitsa” is published by the publishing house “Imaginists”. In the collective collection of imagists “Starry Bull” - “Song of Bread”.
April June– trip to Turkestan.
July– reads “Pugacheva” on literary evening at the House of Printing.
October- acquaintance with Isadora Duncan, who came to Russia at the invitation of the Soviet government.
December- published by the Petrograd publishing house "Elsevier" separate publication poem "Pugachev".

1922 - “Pugachev” was named by V. E. Meyerhold among the plays scheduled for production in the theater in a letter sent to the board of the People’s Commissariat for Education and to the Main Political Education.
May- end of the year - together with A. Duncan goes on tour abroad. In Germany he meets with M. Gorky and gives him his book “Pugachev” (M.: Imaginists, 1922). France, America.

1923 – America, France, Germany.
June– the book “Poems of a Brawler” is published in Berlin.
August– return from a foreign tour to Moscow. Reads an early version of the poem “The Black Man” to friends and acquaintances.
September- writes “A blue fire has started ...” and “You are as simple as everyone else ...” - the first poems of the cycle “The Love of a Hooligan”, dedicated to A. L. Miklashevskaya.

1924 , February - “Hotel for Travelers in Beauty” (No. 3) prints “I’ve never been this tired before...”, “I only have one fun left...”, “Yes! Now it's decided. No return..." under the general heading "Moscow Tavern".
March, April- writes the poem “Letter to Mother”.
April May– “Krasnaya Nov” publishes “Young Years with Forgotten Glory...” and “Letter to Mother.”
June– travels repeatedly with Leningrad imagist poets, V. A. Rozhdestvensky, Ivan Pribludny to Detskoe Selo, where he performs reading poetry in a sanatorium scientific workers and in the Military Chamber of the Fedorovsky town.
July- performs reading poetry in Sestroretsk at an evening in the Kursaal, organized by the Leningrad branch of the All-Russian Writers' Union. The book “Moscow Tavern” is published in Leningrad. August - Pravda publishes a “Letter to the Editor” by Yesenin and I.V. Gruzinov about the dissolution of the group of imagists.
September– end of the year – trip to the Caucasus. Present at the literary evening-debate “The Trial of the Futurists”, held at the Batumi Theater. The book “Soviet Rus'” is published in Baku. (See the memoirs of literary critic V.A. Manuylov about Yesenin’s stay in Baku on the website “Life and Work of V.A. Manuylov”)

1925 – the Tiflis publishing house “Soviet Caucasus” publishes the book “The Soviet Country”.
March, 1st – return to Moscow. The magazine "Town and Country" prints lines 1-123 of the poem "My Way". Reads “Anna Snegina” and poems from the series “Persian Motifs” at a meeting literary group"Pass" in the Herzen House.
March, 27th – May trip to Baku.
May- The book “Birch Calico” is published in Gosizdat.
June– signs an agreement with the State Publishing House for the publication of “Collected Poems” in three volumes. October – receives a membership card of the All-Russian Writers Union.
December, 24–27 – lives in Leningrad at the Angleterre Hotel. Meets with N. A. Klyuev, G. F. Ustinov, Ivan Pribludny, V. I. Erlikh, I. I. Sadofyev, N. N. Nikitin and other writers.
on the night from 27 to 28. – tragic death Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol created extraordinary works that caused a lot of disagreement, controversy, and reasons for thought. A particularly clear reflection of Russian reality in the 19th century is shown in the novel “Dead Souls,” work on which began in 1835. The plot of the beautiful creation was suggested famous writer Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, who was not indifferent to Gogol’s work. Work on the work lasted 17 years, because every little thing and every detail was thought out by the writer to the last, carefully.

Initially it was assumed that the novel would be humorous, but through reflection and deep reflection, Nikolai Vasilyevich decided to touch upon global problems people's lives in an indifferent world. Designating a poem as a genre of work, Gogol considered the best option divide it into three parts, where in the first I wanted to depict negative qualities modern society, in the second - this is the self-realization of the individual, ways to correct it, and in the third - the life of the characters who changed their fate in the right direction.

The first part took the writer exactly 7 years; it began in Russia, but subsequently continued abroad. He devoted quite a lot of time to the creation, because he wanted everything to be perfect. The part was already ready for printing in 1841, but, unfortunately, it failed to pass the censorship. The publication process took place only the second time, taking into account that Gogol’s friends in an influential position helped him in this. But the work was published with some reservations: Nikolai Vasilyevich was obliged to change the title to “The Adventures of Chichikov or Dead Souls”, make some adjustments, and exclude the story “about Captain Kopeikin”. But the writer agreed only to change the text, and not to remove it from the poem. So the first part was published in 1842.

After the publication of the work there was a flurry of criticism. Judges, officials, and other people of high status were categorically against accepting the work, because they believed that Gogol did not show Russia as it really is. They argued that Nikolai Vasilyevich portrayed his homeland as harsh, gray, and negative. There were disagreements about dead soul what Gogol wrote in the novel. Thoughtless people said that the soul is immortal and that what the writer is talking about is complete nonsense, nonsense. It becomes clear that they are too far from the great Gogol in terms of intelligence.

It is noteworthy that friends and colleagues considered how deeply and accurately he raised eternal problems Nikolai Vasilyevich, because what is depicted in the poem is simply amazing in its reality, severity, and truth.

Criticism from people seriously hurt Gogol, but this did not stop him from continuing to work on the novel. I wrote the second chapter until my death, without finishing it. To Nikolai Vasilyevich the work seemed imperfect, imperfect. Exactly nine days before his death, Gogol sent his own manuscripts to the fire, this was the final version. To this day, some chapters have survived; their number is five; now these days they are perceived as a separate independent work. As you can see, the implementation of the third part of the novel did not happen; it remained only an idea that Gogol did not have time to bring to life.

Thus, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is considered an unsurpassed writer, because he was able to present all the pressing problems in his work.

His long-term works are invaluable; after reading, many questions remain. Own point vision was presented in the novel “Dead Souls,” which is now a masterpiece of world literature. Even though Gogol did not have time to finish the third part, he left readers with something worth grasping with their hands and feet, something worth thinking about and reflecting on. Nikolai Vasilyevich would not have put anything in the poem in vain, because he cared too much about the process of writing it. All details are thought out to the smallest detail. Therefore, the work is of extraordinary value!

Option 2

Nikolai Gogol began working on the creation of the poem “Dead Souls” in 1835. The author finished his creation only towards the end own life. Initially, the author planned to create a work in 3 volumes. The main idea Gogol took the books from Pushkin. The author wrote the poem in his homeland, in Italy and Switzerland, and also in France. The writer finished the first part of the book in 1842. Gogol called this volume “The Adventures of Chichikov or Dead Souls.” IN next volume the writer intended to depict changing Rus' and people. In this volume, Chichikov tried to correct the landowners. In the third volume, the author wanted to describe a changed Russia.

The title of the book reflects the main idea of ​​the poem. With a literal meaning, readers understand the essence of Chichikov’s deception. The hero was engaged in acquiring the souls of deceased peasants. The poem has a deeper meaning. At first, the author decided to compose a poem based on the work “The Divine Comedy” by Dante. Gogol intended for the characters to go through the circles of purgatory and hell. At the end of the work, the heroes must ascend and rise again.

Gogol was unable to realize his own plan. Gogol was able to complete only the first part. In 1840, the author wrote several versions of the second volume. For unknown reasons, the author himself destroyed the second part of the book. The poem has only draft manuscripts of the second part.

The writer in his works highlights the soullessness and ruthlessness of the characters. Sobakevich was very soulless, like Koschey the immortal. Apart from him, all the city officials depicted in the book had no souls. The beginning of the book describes the active and interesting existence of the city's inhabitants. In the book, a dead soul is a simple phenomenon. For characters, the human soul is considered distinctive feature living person.

The title of the work is closely related to the symbolism of the district town N. And the city K represented the whole country. The author wanted to show that decline had set in in Russia and that the souls of the inhabitants had faded away. Gogol showed all the meanness of the existence of the fallen town. In one of his speeches, reading the names of the deceased, Chichikov revives them in his own fantasy. In the poem, the living souls are Plyushkin and Chichikov. Plyushkin's image differs from other heroes. In chapter 6 the author gave Full description Plyushkin's garden. The garden is a comparison of Plyushkin’s soul.

The world described in “Dead Souls” is considered the complete opposite of the real world. WITH " dead souls“The social direction of creation is connected. Chichikov's plan is impossible and at the same time simple.

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