On May 2, 1922, the poet Sergei Yesenin and the world famous dancer Isadora Duncan became husband and wife. AiF.ru tells tragic story love, in which there were scandals, and jealousy, and an 18-year age difference, and even assault.

Don't look at those wrists
And flowing silk from her shoulders.
I was looking for happiness in this woman,
And accidentally found death ...
I did not know that love is an infection,
I didn't know that love is a plague.
Came up with a slitted eye
The bully went crazy.

Sergei Yesenin and Isadora Duncan, 1923

Sergey Yesenin did not recognize any other language than his native. Isadora Duncan spoke only English. Her Russian vocabulary was limited to about two dozen words - but this was enough for the poet and dancer to get married and travel around the world.

Tragedy Duncan

The dance style of Isadora Duncan - without pointe shoes, tutu and corset, but barefoot, in a light Greek chiton - made a real revolution in choreography. The dancer was called the "divine sandal" and adopted her plasticity, and at fashionable parties the girls tried to move like Duncan.

She is considered the founder of modern dance, but few people know that the creative life of the “divine sandal” was much happier than her personal one. A committed feminist, Duncan made a vow to never marry, and by the age of 44, she had several unsuccessful romances behind her. The dancer gave birth to children out of wedlock three times, but they all died. First, there was a terrible car accident: the car, in which the older boy and girl were, fell off the bridge into the Seine and drowned, burying the children and the governess with them. The doors jammed - none of the passengers could get out of the death trap. The tragedy shook the whole of Paris, but at the trial Duncan interceded for the driver - because he was a family man.

After some time, Isadora decided to become a mother again. She gave birth to a son, but he lived only a few hours. After another tragedy, the dancer never again had children: all her time was now occupied by dancing and teaching - Duncan taught the girls choreography. Therefore, when she received a telegram from the People's Commissar of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky with an invitation to come to Soviet Union and establish their own school there, Duncan was surprised, but agreed. Sailing to Moscow, the dancer met a fortune-teller on a steamboat - she promised a red-haired passenger a wedding in a foreign country. Isadora, made wise by her difficult life experience, only laughed.

"Za-la-taya ga-la-va"

Sergei Yesenin by that time was already considered a national poet. In his incomplete 26, he also had a “stormy” biography: at the age of 18 he first became a father (the poet was not married then), and a few years later he had two more children - already in an official marriage.

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, from the very first meeting, Yesenin and Duncan behaved as if they had known each other for a long time. When at the artist's party George (George) Yakulova a world dance star appeared in a flowing red chiton, Yesenin immediately surrounded her with attention. According to the testimony of one of the journalists, soon Isadora was already imposingly reclining on the sofa, and the poet was kneeling beside her. She stroked his hair and spoke in broken Russian: "Za-la-taya ha-la-va ...". All her communication with the temperamental stranger that evening was limited to these words: “Zlataya galava”, “Angel” and “Tchort”. Then the dancer kissed him for the first time - and soon Yesenin moved to her mansion on Prechistenka. Neither the language barrier nor the solid age difference stopped them.

Sergei Yesenin and Isadora Duncan. 1922

Beats - does it mean love?

After some time, Duncan realized that her creative career in the Soviet Union was not developing very successfully. The dancer decided to return home to America. She wanted to take her “golden-headed” lover with her, but there could be problems with a visa for him. And then Isadora (as Yesenin called her) retreated from her main principle: the couple got married. It happened six months after they met.

The newly-made spouses signed at the Khamovniki registry office in Moscow. According to Duncan's secretary and interpreter, on the eve of the ceremony, she asked him to slightly correct the date of birth in her passport. “This is for Ezenin,” she replied. “We don’t feel these fifteen years of difference, but it’s written here ... and tomorrow we will give the passports into the wrong hands ... It may be unpleasant for him ... I won’t need a passport soon. I'll get another one" approx. ed. - the age difference between the spouses was not 15, but 18 years). And the translator agreed. So the wife of the poet was a woman "only" 9 years older.

but family life the Yesenin-Duncan couple (and both spouses took a double surname) was not cloudless. Soon, the poet, who was addicted to alcohol, "woke up" his stormy character: he began to be jealous, beat Isadora and leave home, taking all his things. True, he soon returned - and everything began anew. Duncan forgave him every time.

Russian husband of Isadora Duncan.

The couple signed on May 2, 1922 and left the Union the same month. Isadora was to go on tour - first to Western Europe and then to the States. Yesenin accompanied his wife everywhere. However, the trip did not work out: it turned out that abroad everyone perceived the poet only as an “attachment” to the incomparable Duncan, although at home he was almost idolized. Quarrels and scandals arose more and more often - once Isadora called the police to calm down the brawler. Apparently, the poet’s passionate love began to fade away - he allowed himself to speak unflatteringly about his wife, for example, he could complain to friends: “Here it stuck, it sticks like molasses!”

In 1923, a little over a year after the wedding, the couple returned to Moscow. By that time, relations had already become very tense, and a month later Isadora left the Union - this time alone. Soon she received a telegram: “I love another. Married. Happy. Yesenin. It was about Galina Benislavskaya - the woman with whom he lived before meeting Duncan and with whom he settled immediately after his return. True, Yesenin never married Benislavskaya - but Isadora did not know this.

Thus ended this complex and confusing love story. Isadora Duncan never allowed herself a single bad word about her only husband. Two years after the breakup, Sergei Yesenin hanged himself - but during this time he managed to become a father again and marry again. A year and a half after the death of the poet, Isadora also passed away. She rode in a convertible in a long flowing scarf, the edge of which accidentally fell into the wheel axle. Like her children, Duncan died in a car accident, and, like in the case of her beloved Yesenin, the cause of death was suffocation.

Sergei Yesenin and dancer Isadora Duncan. 1922

Beloved of Sergei Yesenin and Isadora Duncan

Duncan

Oscar Take Care. The first serious hobby of Isadora was the actor of the Royal National Theater Oscar Berezhi, but the romance did not last long - the artist preferred his career to his beloved.

Edward Gordon Craig. From a theater director-modernist, the dancer gave birth in 1904 to a daughter, Derdre (in another version, Didra). But soon the couple broke up and Craig married another.

Paris Eugene Singer . From the heir to the Singer sewing machine company, Duncan gave birth to a son, Patrick, in 1910. Life together did not work out, but for many years the dancer and the manufacturer maintained a warm relationship.

Irma Duncan (the dancer's adopted daughter), Isadora Duncan and Sergei Yesenin, 1922.

Yesenin

Anna Izryadnova. Together with the proofreader Anna Izryadnova, the poet lived for several years, but the couple was not married. In 1914, their son Yuri was born, but soon the couple broke up at the initiative of the newly-made father.

Zinaida Reich . With an actress German descent Yesenin got married in 1917. The couple had two children: a year after the wedding, daughter Tatyana was born, and two years later, son Konstantin. After another year, the couple divorced.

Galina Benislavskaya. Sergei Yesenin lived with a journalist and literary worker until he met Isadora Duncan. After a divorce from Duncan, the poet again moved to Benislavskaya, but the matter never came to a wedding. Yesenin broke off relations with the journalist twice, and after both times she ended up in a clinic for nervous disorders. A year after the death of the poet, Benislavskaya shot herself at his grave.

Sofia Tolstaya. The granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy became Yesenin's last wife. The writer died a year after the wedding; they had no children.

http://www.aif.ru/culture/person/1161182

Verse from the spirit of Yesenin. Isadora Duncan

Isadora Duncan

I met her
On a wonderful spring day,
I stood crying
On her knees in front of her.

She was a dream
My depraved life
And with its beauty
Brought joy.

She danced
Fluttering across the stage
Took me drunk
Her for a ghost.

And from such a life,
what makes a mess,
I went to drink
And wept for no reason.

We parted in love
There is no more pain than separation
They are still freaking out
Those heartaches.

Our destinies intertwined
When lives have been lived
We only agree on one thing:
We were both strangled.

Her scarf is like a snake
Spinning in a wheel
And my rope
Curled around the neck.

We are in heaven now
Let's celebrate Easter together
In incorruptible tears
We remember our lives.

We are not the same halves.
that they found each other
Two pieces of ice touched
Slipped, slipped.

And now we're wandering
From star to star
We heal our wounds
We are in the rays of beauty.

It is difficult to say which of them was more famous - the American dancer Isadora Duncan or the great Russian poet Sergei Yesenin. They had almost nothing in common, they did not even speak the same language - and yet, from the first meeting they were drawn to each other. Their relationship was stormy and uneven. As usual, the passion of two outstanding people turned into a drama...

In July 1921, a fortune-teller predicted to Isadora: "You are going to make a long journey to a country under a pale blue sky. You will be rich, very rich. You will marry ..." The dancer just burst out laughing. After many unsuccessful romances and marriages, she did not even think about a new relationship. Especially in Russia, where she went at the invitation of the People's Commissar Lunacharsky to open a dance school.

At one of the receptions in the studio of the artist Georgy Yakulov, Duncan performed her signature dance with a scarf to the accompaniment of the Internationale. 26-year-old Sergei Yesenin, who was dragged here best friend, imagist Anatoly Mariengof, without looking up, looked at a plump blue-eyed woman with red-dyed hair, circling the parquet in a red translucent chiton. "Goddess!" he breathed.

Anatoly Mariengof recalls the first meeting between the poet and the dancer: "Duncan arrived at one o'clock in the morning ... Isadora lay down on the sofa, and Yesenin at her feet. She dipped her hand into his curls and said:

— Solotaia head!

It was unexpected that she, knowing no more than a dozen Russian words, knew exactly these two. Then she kissed him on the lips. And for the second time her mouth, small and red, like a wound from a bullet, pleasantly broke the Russian letters: - Anguel!

She kissed me again and said:

— Tshort! At four o'clock in the morning, Isadora Duncan and Yesenin left ... "

Duncan knew nothing about the poetic glory of her chosen one. But she soon realized that she was in love as much as he was. The lovers were not stopped by either the age difference, which was almost 18 years old, or the fact that she practically did not speak Russian, and he did not speak English. Soon, Yesenin moved to Isadora's mansion on Prechistenka.

Gradually, Isadora learned several dozen Russian words. She called her beloved "Sergey Alexandrovich", but even more often - "Angel", Yesenin called her "Izadora". The couple attended receptions and literary evenings, where Duncan danced and Yesenin read poetry. They usually return home in the morning.

Incendiary dances of Isadora, her spontaneity drove Yesenin crazy. She treated the poet with quivering tenderness, he seemed to her a weak, unprotected child ... Without a doubt, they were connected by a real feeling!

However, Duncan's Russian career did not work out - or rather, Soviet authorities did not provide her with such a wide field for activity as she expected. After Isadora's mother died in Paris in April 1922, the dancer decided to leave Russia for a while. But she did not want to part with Yesenin, and so that he could get a visa to travel with her, they had to register a marriage. The newly-made spouses wished to bear a double surname - Duncan-Yesenin.

After spending two happy months in Paris, the couple went to America. However, the love idyll did not last long. Although Duncan tried in every possible way to create PR for her husband - she organized the translation and publication of his poems, arranged poetry evenings, he was perceived abroad only as an "application" to the famous dancer. He felt like no one needed, yearned, he began to feel depressed ...

Yesenin began to drink, heartbreaking scenes with quarrels, departures and subsequent reconciliations played out between him and Isadora ... At one of Isadora's concerts, the poet once again got drunk and began to rage. Duncan herself called the police, and Sergei was sent to a psychiatric hospital. True, three days later he was discharged from there. Returning home, for the first time he looked at his wife with different eyes: he saw in her not his beloved, but an aging, already not very attractive woman ...

In August 1923, the couple returned to Russia. But Yesenin's attitude towards his wife had changed a lot by that time. If earlier he admired her, now he complained to his friends: "Here she stuck, sticks like molasses!" Having drunk, he made scandals and sometimes beat Isadora. Tired of all this, she said: "Sergey Alexandrovich, I'm leaving for Paris."

She left alone. And soon I received a telegram from Yesenin: "I love another period, married period, happy period." So he tried to throw her out of his life.

Mariengof recalls: "Yesenin left Prechistenka - broken. And from his fateful honeymoon trip to Europe and the two Americas (damn it, this is a honeymoon!) He returned to Moscow in 1923 - broken ... ".

Their relationship was difficult, whether it was love, and what it meant for Sergei Yesenin, is not for us to judge. Someone believed that Yesenin was flattered by the attention of the famous American woman, the opportunity to discover world horizons. Maybe there is some grain of truth in this. But the fact that the feelings were albeit short-lived, but sincere, there is no doubt about it.

So, Mariengof claims: “Yesenin fell in love not with Isadora Duncan, but with her fame, with her world fame. He married her fame, and not her - not an elderly, somewhat heavy, but still beautiful woman with dyed hair ... Isadora was a woman with a subtle mind: graceful, sharp and bold ... Yesenin was never in love with this fifty-year-old woman ... "

😉 Hello my dear readers! The article “Yesenin and Isadora Duncan: a love story and facts” contains interesting information about the life of this famous couple.

This love story with a great start and a sad end wouldn't be so attractive if He wasn't famous poet and She is a famous dancer. In addition, eighteen-year age difference between lovers adds fuel to the fire.

Sergei Yesenin and Isadora Duncan

According to witnesses, on the first day of their acquaintance, they communicated with signs, gestures, smiles. The poet spoke only Russian, the dancer only English. But they seemed to understand each other perfectly. The novel broke out immediately and violently. The lovers were not embarrassed by anything: neither the language barrier, nor the age difference.

There was everything in these relations: passion, jealousy, showdown, each in his own language, stormy reconciliations and sweet lulls. Later they created an alliance in which it was boring without each other, but together it was hard.

This love seemed to have descended from the pages of a novel that interferes with the features of sadism, masochism, and some kind of transcendent sensuality. Sergei was fascinated by Isadora, and probably in love not only with her, but also with her fame, and the ghost of his world fame. He fell in love with her, as in a certain project, as in a lever leading from all-Russian glory to the world.

The dancer often held lessons not in the hall, but in the garden or on the seashore. I saw the essence of dance in merging with nature. Here is what she wrote: “I was inspired by the movement of trees, waves, clouds, the connection that exists between passion and a thunderstorm, between a light breeze and tenderness, rain and a thirst for renewal.”

Sergey did not stop admiring his wife - a wonderful dancer, asked her to perform in front of his friends, and in fact, was her main admirer.

A trip to the hated America finally put everything in its place. There was irritation, and then open discontent on the part of Sergei. She has lost her image beautiful lady and became a bargaining chip in the hands of the poet.

Nevertheless, after heated quarrels, Sergei lay at the feet of his beloved, asking for forgiveness. And she forgave him everything. Tensions broke down after returning to Russia. Isadora left the poet's homeland a month later and they did not see each other again. Their official marriage (1922-1924) broke up.

Age difference

• she was born May 27, 1877 in America;
• he was born October 3, 1895 in Russian Empire;
• the age difference between Yesenin and Duncan was 18 years;
• when they met, she was 44 years old, he was 26;
• the poet died at the age of 30, two years later the dancer died, she was 50.

You can have different attitudes to this relationship, where passion and creativity are intertwined. They will arouse interest not only among admirers of the talent of the dancer and poet. Bright as a flash, love will be attractive to everyone who is open to high, real, albeit short-lived, feelings.

Yesenin and Isadora Duncan: a love story

May 27, 1877 was born Isadora Duncan. The first and probably the only association with this name among our compatriots is: “Wife Sergei Yesenin". And although in this capacity she spent only 4% of her life - 2 years out of 50, from 1922 to 1924. - the memory of her in Russia is alive only for this reason.

True, at the moment when they met, everything was exactly the opposite. The stunning world fame of an innovator dancer, the founder of free dance. Big money, brilliant status, a dubious past that only adds to the charm. All in all. "scandals, intrigues, investigations". The glory of Isadora was so loud that in Soviet Russia Duncan has become a kind of absolute in everything that staggers the imagination. Remember how in "Heart of a Dog" Bulgakov Domkom come to seal Professor Preobrazhensky? “No one has canteens in Moscow,” the woman shouted loudly. “Even Isadora Duncan!”

cow eyes

And what about Yesenin? The local fame of the Russian poet, who has not yet completely got rid of the somewhat humiliating status of a “peasant nugget”.

Approximately this is evil, but the poet spoke in his own way Sergei Gorodetsky, friend Nikolai Gumilyov and once the patron of Sergei Yesenin: “It was a way out of his shepherding, from a peasant, from a jacket with an accordion. This was his revolution, his liberation. With this mischief, Yesenin raised himself above Klyuev and over the other poets of the village."

In general, there was a lot of gossip about this union and not always favorably. Everything hurt. And the 18-year age gap - that's how much Duncan was older than Yesenin. And the fact that an American left the stage of the leading theaters of the world for the sake of a poor, but such a free and attractive Soviet Russia. And, of course, in all this there was a poorly hidden interest: “What did she find in our Ryazan boy?”

The reverse question - "What did he find in her?" - are asked less often. It is even more interesting to look at world celebrity provincial eyes. Fortunately, there are enough witnesses - the romance and family life of the couple, who, after registering at the Khamovniki registry office in Moscow, took the double surname "Duncan-Yesenin", passed in front of everyone. And there were plenty of hunters to convey to the public details about the scandalous couple.

Sometimes it sounds poignantly touching. Like u Irina Odoevtseva who met them in Berlin. Here is what Yesenin says: “At the age of ten, I had not kissed a single girl. He did not know what love was, but, kissing the cows on the face, he simply trembled with tenderness and excitement. And now, when I like a woman, it seems to me that she has cow's eyes. So big, thoughtless, sad... Just like Isadora's. Backhanded compliment. Comparing a woman to a cow is on the verge of a foul. But in our own way, and, most importantly, effectively. Which is confirmed literally a minute later: “Often we quarrel with her. An absurd woman, besides a foreign one. She doesn’t understand me, she doesn’t put a penny on me ... If she turns up her face and turns her face, paste a compliment on her for the female part. She loves it. It melts right away. She is, in fact, not bad and even very nice sometimes.

Mother or witch?

Sometimes aggressive and very hard. Under the drunken hand of Yesenin, it seems that Duncan is almost a witch, a satanic offspring, a devilish obsession. Another female witness, poet Elizabeth Styrskaya gives an excellent transcript of Yesenin's not quite sober revelations: "Do not know. Nothing like what happened in my life so far. Isadora has a diabolical power over me. When I leave, I think that I will never return, but the next day or the day after tomorrow I return. I often feel like I hate her. She is a stranger! You know, completely different. What is she to me? What am I to her? My poems... My name... After all, I'm Yesenin... I love Russia, cows, peasants, the village... And she loves Greek vases... ha... ha... ha... My milk will turn sour in Greek vases... She has such empty eyes... Someone else's face... gestures, voice, words - everything is alien! .. All this offends me. I'm cold to everyone! She's old... well, if... But I'm interested in living with her, and I like it... You know, sometimes she's very young, very young. She satisfies me and loves and lives young. After her, the young seem boring to me - you won't believe it. And how tender she was with me, like a mother. She said that I look like her dead son. There is a lot of tenderness in it in general. Delusion. She bewitched me ... ".

Understand nothing. Either she is a Russian soul, or she is completely alien. Either crazy passion, or barely disguised cynicism with “cow” compliments ... Either a witch, or a mother. And yet, one thing cannot be ignored. Duncan was important to Yesenin. At least for the reason that he saw in her a figure at least equal in size to himself.

Poet's victory

Imagist poet Nadezhda Volpin, which, to put it mildly, did not like Isadora, nevertheless recognized an important thing: “Yes, there was a strong sexual attraction. But you can't call it love. It is often said that he was in love with her surroundings - fading, but ready to resurrect glory, imaginary huge wealth ... Everything is true, but I will add - not the last was here that Yesenin appreciated the bright Duncan, strong personality. His words are involuntarily recalled: "Where there is no personality, art is impossible."

It was with this person that Yesenin waged a cruel war. Glory should have gone only to him, to him alone. translator Lola Kinel left a transcript of the dialogue between Yesenin and Duncan. And, getting to know him, you can’t even imagine that this is what a husband and wife are saying. More like irreconcilable opponents.

Here is Yesenin:

- Dancers are like actors: one generation remembers them, the next reads about them, the third knows nothing. You are just a dancer. People can come and admire you, even cry. But when you die, no one will remember you. In a few years your great glory will evaporate. And - no Isadora! And poets live on. And I, Yesenin, will leave poetry behind me. The poems also live on. Poems like mine will live forever.

Here is Isadora's answer:

- Tell him he's wrong, tell him he's wrong. I gave beauty to people. I gave them my soul when I danced. And this beauty never dies. She exists somewhere... - She suddenly had tears in her eyes, and she said in her pitiful Russian: - Beauty never die!

Maybe it's cruel, but in a family dispute, you have to admit that your husband is right. And go back to the very beginning. If not for Yesenin, Russia would hardly remember who Isadora Duncan is.

Both critics and readers often idealize their idols: poets and writers. But this ordinary people with their passions, sins, weaknesses and vices, which are reflected in their work. In obscene verses, for example. Today, when icons are made of classics, forgetting about their earthly essence, these verses are tried not to be remembered either in school or university classrooms. In addition, profanity is prohibited by law. If things go on like this, and the State Duma continues to ban everything, then we will soon forget that in Russian literature there were such popularly beloved authors as V. Erofeev, V. Vysotsky, V. Sorokin, V. Pelevin and many others. Mayakovsky, Lermontov, Pushkin, and, of course, Sergei Yesenin, who himself called himself a hooligan, brawler and bawdy, have verses with profanity.

I have one fun

I have only one fun:

Fingers in the mouth and a cheerful whistle.

Bad fame swept

That I am a brawler and a brawler.

Oh! what a ridiculous loss!

There are many funny losses in life.

I am ashamed that I believed in God.

I'm sorry that I don't believe it now.

Golden, distant distances!

Everything burns worldly dream.

And I was rude and scandalous

To burn brighter.

The poet's gift is to caress and scratch,

Fatal seal on it.

White rose with black toad

I wanted to get married on earth.

Let them not get along, let them not come true

These thoughts of pink days.

But if the devils nested in the soul -

So the angels lived in it.

That's for this fun turbidity,

Going with her to another land,

I want last minute

Ask those who will be with me -

So that for everything for my grave sins,

For disbelief in grace

They put me in a Russian shirt

Under the icons to die.

Why are you looking so blue splashes?

A favorite of women in a drunken stupor, more than once recited in public verses of very dubious content. Although I rarely wrote down. They were born spontaneously and did not linger in the poet's memory. Nevertheless, there are still a few poems left in the drafts, where the author expressed his thoughts and emotions, resorting to taboo vocabulary.

Yesenin was seriously mentally ill, and almost all of his frivolous verses belong to this period. The poet lost faith in love, in social justice, in the new order. He was confused, lost the meaning of existence, disappointed in his work. The world appeared before him in shades of grey.

This is clearly seen in the poem, full of drunken bravado and deep despair.

Rash harmonica. Boredom… Boredom

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

The harmonist pours his fingers in a wave.

Drink with me, you lousy bitch.

Drink with me.

Loved you, scourged -

Unbearable.

Why are you looking so blue splashes?

Do you want it in the face?

In the garden you would be stuffed,

Frighten crows.

Tormented me to the liver

From all sides.

Rash, harmonica. Rash, my frequent.

Drink, otter, drink.

I'd rather be that one, boobs -

She is dumber.

I'm not the first among women...

a lot of you

But with one like you with a bitch

Only for the first time.

The more it hurts, the louder

Here and there.

I won't end myself

Go to hell.

To your pack of dogs

It's time to forgive.

Darling I'm crying

Sorry Sorry…

Here, the Ryazan rake seeks to prove to everyone, and first of all, to himself, that his chaotic life was not in vain. And although the motives for suicide are increasingly breaking through into him, Yesenin still has hope that he will be able to escape from the deep and vicious pool of drunkenness and riotous life. He exclaims: "I'm not going to kill myself, go to hell."

A favorite of women in a drunken stupor has repeatedly recited in public verses of very dubious content

The wind blows from the south

The poet wrote the poem “The Wind Blows from the South” after he invited a girl to visit, who refused to continue her acquaintance, knowing about the difficult character and far from secular manners of her gentleman.

The wind blows from the south

And the moon has risen

What are you, motherfucker

Didn't you come at night?

The poem is sustained in an aggressive and harsh form, and its meaning is that lyrical hero he will easily find a replacement for the intractable young lady, and will be able to drag any other beauty into bed.

Sing, sing. On the damn guitar

A similar leitmotif is contained in the stanzas of the work “Sing, sing. On the cursed guitar”, where the poet again returns to the theme of death.

Sing, sing. On the damn guitar

Your fingers dance in a semicircle.

Would choke in this frenzy,

My last, only friend.

Don't look at her wrists

And flowing silk from her shoulders.

I was looking for happiness in this woman,

And accidentally found death.

I didn't know love was contagious

I didn't know love was a plague.

Came up with a slitted eye

The bully went crazy.

Sing, my friend. call me again

Our former violent early.

Let her kiss each other

Young, beautiful bastard.

Ah, wait. I don't scold her.

Ah, wait. I don't curse her.

Let me play about myself

Under this bass string.

The days of my pink dome are pouring.

In the heart of dreams of gold sums.

I touched a lot of girls

Many women pressed in the corner.

Yes! there is the bitter truth of the earth,

I peeped with a childish eye:

Males lick in line

Bitch dripping juice

So why should I be jealous of her.

So why should I hurt like this.

Our life is a sheet and a bed.

Our life is a kiss and a whirlpool.

Sing, sing! On a fatal scale

These hands are a fatal misfortune.

Just know, send them to * er

Alas, the poet's prophecy regarding himself did not come true. The last day of December 1925 turned out to be a holiday with tears in our eyes.

The poet lost faith in love, in social justice, in a new system

On this day, Muscovites and numerous guests of the capital buried Sergei Yesenin. An hour before the solemn chimes, his best friend, the poet Anatoly Mariengof, was crying in his room on Tverskoy Boulevard.

He could not understand how people who recently walked with a mournful look behind the coffin of the poet are now preening, spinning in front of a mirror, tying their ties. And at midnight they will congratulate each other on the New Year, clink glasses of champagne.

He shared these mournful thoughts with his wife. His wife then philosophically said to him:

This is life, Tolya!

Living heating pad

All night long they sat on the couch, sorting through photographs, in which there was a young, perky, mocking Sergei. Read by heart his magic. And Anatoly Borisovich recalled how, before his marriage, he and Yesenin lived in Moscow, without having their own roof over their heads.

By the way, the great poet never received a capital apartment, despite his crazy fame. “After all, he’s spending the night somewhere now, well, let him live there,” an official of the administration of the Krasnopresnensky district spread his hands with irresistible logic, where, having passed five bureaucratic instances, a paper was received from Trotsky’s apparatus with a proposal to provide housing to Yesenin. “How many do we have in Moscow, and what - to give everyone an apartment?”

Yesenin was saved from "homelessness" by friends. But mostly friends. At first, Yesenin lived together with Anatoly Mariengof, huddling with friends or renting a corner for a while. Brothers in the literary workshop were separated so rarely that they gave rise to all of Moscow to talk about intimacy with each other.

The great poet never got an apartment in the capital, despite his crazy fame

In fact, they even had to sleep in the same bed! And what do you want to do if there is nothing to heat the apartment with, and poetry can only be written with warm gloves!

One day, a little-known Moscow poetess asked Sergei to help her get a job. The girl was rosy-cheeked, round-thighed with lush, soft shoulders. The poet offered to pay her the salary of a good typist. To do this, she had to come to friends at night, undress, lie down under the covers and leave when the bed was warm. Yesenin promised that they would not look at the girl during the procedure of opening and dressing.

Three days already known at that time poets in a warm bed. On the fourth, the young writer could not stand it and indignantly refused an easy, but strange service. To the bewildered question of true gentlemen: “What is the matter?”, She angrily exclaimed:

I wasn't hired to warm the sheets of the saints!

They say that Mariengof, out of friendly motives, incited Yesenin against Zinaida Reich, aroused unreasonable jealousy in him. As a result, Sergei divorced his beloved woman. Since then, his family life has not worked out.

Although Zinaida and Reich and his children are a poet. However, it is difficult to imagine Sergei Yesenin, the owner of a light gait and a lover of noisy feasts, as a respectable father of a family and a faithful husband.

Mariengof, out of friendly motives, incited Yesenin against Zinaida Reich

He walked forward through life with long strides, as if in a hurry to go through it as soon as possible. Isadora Duncan even gave the poet a gold watch, but he still remained at odds with the times.

Dancer Isadora Duncan

The marriage to the famous French dancer Duncan was perceived by the poet's entourage as his desire to finally solve the housing problem. Then a caustic ditty immediately sounded on the Moscow streets:

Tolya walks unwashed,

And Seryozha is clean.

Because Seryozha is sleeping

With Dunya on Prechistenka.

Meanwhile, Yesenin's feeling, which flared up sharply before everyone's eyes, can only be called love.

But that heavy love, in which passion prevails. Yesenin surrendered to her without hesitation, without controlling his words and deeds. However, there were few words - he did not know either English or French, and Isadora spoke Russian poorly. But one of her first sayings about Yesenin was "". And when he rudely pushed her away, she joyfully exclaimed: “Russian love!”

The seductress of many European celebrities with refined tastes and manners, the behavior of the explosive Russian poet with a golden-haired head was to her heart. And he, yesterday's provincial peasant, the conqueror of the capital's beauties, apparently wanted to reduce this refined woman, caressed by salon life, to the level of a village girl.

It was no coincidence that he called her behind her back in the circle of friends "Dunka". Isadora knelt before him, but he preferred the restless life between heaven and earth to her sweet captivity.

Sergei Yesenin and Isadora Duncan - a love story

In the Duncan mansion, they practically did not know what water was - they quenched their thirst with French wines, cognac and champagne. A heavy impression on Yesenin was made by a trip with "Dunka" abroad. The complacency of the well-fed, vulgar bourgeois, and against their background, noticeably heavier from drunkenness, in front of the dancer's eyes - all this oppressed Yesenin. After another scandal in Paris, Isadora imprisoned her "prince" in a private lunatic asylum. The poet spent three days with the “shiziki”, every second fearing for his mind.

He falls ill with persecution mania. In Russia, this disease will intensify, shatter an already too sensitive nervous psyche. Alas, even close people treated the poet's illness as a manifestation of suspiciousness, another eccentricity.

Yes, Yesenin was, in fact, suspicious, afraid of syphilis, the scourge of troubled times, and then donated blood for analysis. But they really followed him - there were secret agents of the Cheka in his entourage, he was often provoked into scandals and dragged to the police. Suffice it to say that five criminal cases were opened against Yesenin in five years, and recently he was wanted!

Diagnosis - persecution mania

In front of his nose, Dzerzhinsky's favorite, the adventurer and murderer Blumkin, waved a revolver, he was overtaken in the dark by some people in black and demanded huge money in return for peace of mind, his manuscripts were stolen, beaten and robbed repeatedly. What about friends? It was they who pushed Yesenin to. They ate and drank at his expense, envious, could not forgive Yesenin for what they themselves were deprived of - genius and beauty, only. The fact that he scattered handfuls of golden placers of his sonorous soul.

Plow the earth, write poetry

Yesenin's lifestyle and work were completely alien to the Soviet government. She was afraid of his colossal influence on the agitated society, on the youth. All her attempts to reason with and tame the poet were unsuccessful.

Then the persecution began in magazines and in public disputes, humiliation with the issuance of cut fees to him. The poet, who was aware of the uniqueness and power of his gift, could not bear this. His psyche was completely shattered, in Last year Yesenin had visual hallucinations.

What did he think shortly before his death, hiding in a Moscow clinic for the mentally ill from Themis blinded by the Bolsheviks?

He was surrounded by secret agents of the Cheka, he was often provoked into scandals and dragged to the police

Even there he was besieged by countless creditors. And what lies ahead - poverty, because Yesenin sent money to the village, kept his sisters, but where to lay his head? Not on prison bunks! Return to the village? Did Mayakovsky write: “He will plow the land, write poetry”?

No, Yesenin was poisoned by fame and life in the capital, and the poverty and greed of the peasants drove him to despair. Although in Moscow he was gnawed by a terrible loneliness, aggravated by the close and idle attention of the public, greedy for sensations. From this loneliness such painful forebodings were born:

I'm scared - because the soul passes,

Like youth and like love.

He has already said goodbye to love and youth, is it really yet to part - forever - with his soul? Perhaps one of the main tragedies of Yesenin's life is the loss of faith. He did not have outside support, and that he was losing confidence in his own abilities, being both mentally and physically ill by the age of 30.

Galina Benislavskaya - death

Nevertheless, there was support from the outside, but in December 1925 it also broke down. For five years, Galina Benislavskaya followed Esenin relentlessly. His executor, keeper of the poet's manuscripts and cherished thoughts, she forgave him all his betrayals. And she always let the homeless poet to her place, moreover, she looked for him all over Moscow when he disappeared from time to time. She pulled him out of the maelstrom of tavern life, for which Yesenin's "friends" almost killed her once.

But the Benislavskaya marriage could not forgive him - already the fourth! - to Sophia, the granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy (this marriage also ended in failure). Therefore, Galina did not want to come to the sick poet in the clinic for a very important conversation. Perhaps she could have saved her beloved Seryozha from a terrible act in the cold winter of 1925.

He has already said goodbye to love and youth, is it really that he still has to part with his soul?

After the death of Yesenin, a wave of suicides swept across Russia. But Galya wanted to live - in order to write the truth about her relationship with the great poet, in order to collect and prepare for publication the entire vast creative heritage of Yesenin. A year later, this work was completed.

Then Benislavskaya came to Vagankovo, smoked a pack of cigarettes, wrote a farewell note on it and. She had to play Russian roulette to the “victory end”, since there was a single bullet in the drum of her revolver. Next to Yesenin's mound, there are now two graves of the people closest to him: his mother and Galina.

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