Yesenin's story dedicated to his sister Catherine. Ryazan exile of Ekaterina Yesenina
Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Yesenina (1905 - 1977) is the eldest of the two sisters of the poet Sergei Yesenin. Readers mainly knew about her as her brother’s personal secretary, the keeper of part of his archive. And very little was written about her as the wife of Vasily Nasedkin, a close friend of Yesenin, a poet who was repressed in 1937 and executed by the NKVD in the fabricated “case of writers.”
Sister! Sister!
There are so few friends in life!
Like everyone else,
I have a stamp on me...
If your heart is tender
Wearily,
Make him forget and shut up.
From S. Yesenin’s poem “Letter to my sister,” dedicated to E. Yesenina.1925.
Sister Ekaterina was 10 years younger than Sergei Yesenin. In 1911, when Sergei was already 15, his younger sister Alexandra was born. A year later, Sergei moved from his native village of Konstantinov, Ryazan province, to his father in Moscow and began to see his sisters rarely. However, he was interested in their lives and asked about them in letters to his mother. When Catherine in 1917-18 studied in Moscow, visited her often. Finally, in 1922, Catherine finally moved to Moscow and since then her fate has been inextricably linked with the fate of her brother.
Sergei Yesenin with his sisters Katya and Shura. 1912
Ekaterina became Sergei’s assistant in his literary and publishing affairs. Their relationship was not easy: Sergei monitored the “moral character” of his sister and her hobbies, and she, a smart, lively and beautiful girl, could be frivolous, and even believed that her brother should support her. However, Catherine, who was not even twenty, really took care of her brother: she pulled him out of drunken companies, talked to editors, and “extorted” fees. In 1925, she married Sergei’s close friend, the poet Vasily Nasedkin. After the death of her brother, she began preserving his legacy.
Ekaterina Yesenina. OK. 1922
In 1930, Nasedkin was summoned to the OGPU in the Lubyanka. They questioned why he left the Bolshevik Party in 1921. Vasily Nasedkin did not hide the fact that he “disagrees with the politics in the countryside and in literature.” “Despite the party’s decision to put an end to excesses in the collectivization of agriculture, these excesses exist. It needs to be done more carefully. I approve of the liquidation of the kulaks as a class, but without the mistakes of dispossessing the middle peasants. I do not agree with the party’s policy in the field of literature: it pushes a number of fellow travelers towards hackwork and opportunism. This is caused by the party’s excessive ideological pressure on the writer - to write only on topical topics. In my speeches, including in Herzen’s house, when speaking about ideology, I pronounced “idiotology”* (*Archival criminal case of V.F. Nasedkin R-1. No. 9650. URAF FSB of Russia). No punitive sanctions were imposed against him then. But the regime was getting tougher, and having such a fact in your biography was risky. This automatically placed Nasedkin in the ranks of a politically suspicious element...
Ekaterina and Sergei Yesenin. 1925
Ekaterina Yesenina's husband was arrested on October 26, 1937. The NKVD falsified the so-called “case of the writers” - “a terrorist group of writers associated with the counter-revolutionary organization of the right.” They were charged, among other things, with preparing an assassination attempt on Stalin.
Ekaterina Yesenina with her husband Vasily Nasedkin and children Natalia and Andrey. 1937
A long list of “underground workers”, famous and not so well-known, headed by the writer Valerian Pravdukhin, fell under the rink of repression: Alexey Novikov-Priboi (Novikov), Ivan Pribludny (Yakov Ovcharenko), Sergei Klychkov, Yuri Olesha, Yesenin’s very young son Yuri, and many other. Their whole fault was that, gathering at different times and in different companies in coffee shops and apartments, poets and writers talked, including on seditious topics. They gossiped about what was happening in the country, of course, they allowed themselves to disagree with something and criticize the order.
On March 15, 1938, the military collegium of the Supreme Court (VKVS) sentenced Ekaterina Yesenina’s husband to death. On the same day he was shot. The Yesenin family learned about this only many years later - then, in 1938, the NKVD presented them with false information about the sentence “to 10 years without the right of correspondence.”
***
Before his arrest, he worked as a literary editor in the magazine “Kolkhoznik”, Vasily Nasedkin provided for his family, as Ekaterina kept house and raised children - Andrei and Natalia. Now, after her husband’s arrest, Ekaterina had to get a job as a receptionist at a clinic, then as a Mosconvert envelope counter in order to somehow feed her children.
Soon the security officers came to Ekaterina Yesenina with an arrest warrant and a search warrant for her apartment on Arbat, signed by Beria himself. The operative who was in charge of Yesenina-Nasedkina’s case kept asking more and more about the anti-Soviet activities of her husband (who had already been executed).
From the interrogation report:
<...>“Answer: Vasily Fedorovich Nasedkin was my husband from December 1925 to October 27, 1937. I know nothing about his anti-Soviet activities.
Question: You are not telling the truth. You have hidden and continue to hide the facts known to you. We encourage you to give candid testimony.
Answer: I declare once again that I know nothing...”
The investigation was completed in less than a month. There was no trial at all. From the Resolution of the Special Meeting (OSO) under the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR dated November 1, 1938: “E. A. Yesenin, as a socially dangerous element, shall be deprived of the right to reside in 15 points for a period of 5 years...” (Archival criminal case E. A. Yesenina No. 18098. URAF FSB of Russia).
Ekaterina Alexandrovna spent two months in Butyrka prison. A group of cellmates - the wives of ambassadors and military leaders, the wife of Yezhov, under whom her husband was executed. The children were first sent to the Danilovsky reception center, and then sent to different orphanages in Penza, in accordance with the then-current special order to separate brothers and sisters - children of “enemies of the people.”
***
Due to a serious illness - severe asthma attacks, Ekaterina Yesenina was allowed to settle in the Ryazan region and take her children from orphanages. 11-year-old Andrei and 5-year-old Natalia were brought to Konstantinovo.
Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Yesenina herself wrote about this time: “In 1939, I was exiled from Moscow to Ryazan along with other wives of “enemies of the people.” There were a lot of us. I remember when our train arrived in Ryazan, we walked from the station through the city streets in a continuous stream to the large NKVD building. We were registered there, then everyone [those expelled] somehow settled in Ryazan.”
Ekaterina Yesenina’s daughter, Natalia Vasilievna, recalled: “Mom was ordered to report to the NKVD in Ryazan on the 15th of every month. There she was told to urgently get a job. She joined the Konstantinovsky collective farm “Krasnaya Niva” (she worked at the playground at the collective farm - approx.).
Then she found a job in the city, took her son Andrei and left for Ryazan, where they lived on the outskirts of the city [on the 2nd line of the Lennoselka Ryazan] in the Zerechensky family, and on Sundays they came to us [in the village. Konstantinovo]. Mom worked as an accountant at the Ryazselmash [plant] until the war began..."
***
“Mom became a donor - she donated blood for wounded soldiers. During this three years I received a work card instead of an employee and a good lunch on the day of donating blood, until I discovered that I was losing my eyesight. Then donation was banned for her, but for the four of us (my grandmother, Tatyana Fedorovna, came to visit them from Konstantinovo - approx.) it was a source of livelihood. They also gave me vodka for my work card, which my mother exchanged for milk and other products.”
One day, Yesenina’s friend, writer Lydia Seifullina, wife of the repressed Valerian Pravdukhin, sent her some money to Ryazan, which was very helpful. “Mom didn’t have a penny left, she was in despair. At this time there was a knock on the door - the postman brought a transfer, and we were saved,” recalls Ekaterina Yesenina’s daughter.
***
The Yesenins’ then neighbor, Ryazan resident Vasily Pervushkin, who studied at Ryazan School No. 17 together with Ekaterina Alexandrovna’s son Andrey, recalled: “... Ekaterina Alexandrovna was cheerful in public, always cheerful, loved to joke. Who would have thought what she had to endure? She dressed simply - in a sweatshirt, felt boots, and smoked goats' legs.<...>
Andrei, by the way, was very similar to his uncle. And several times, when he and I were alone, he recited Yesenin’s poems to me by heart. He sincerely admired his uncle and once told me: “Now they have forgotten about him, but you will see, the time will come and the whole world will read him!”
Ekaterina Alexandrovna's term of exile ended in 1943. In 1944 she was getting ready to leave<...>: “I’ll go restore my brother’s name and ours, we suffered innocently.”
***
In 1945, Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Yesenina and her children, at the request of her and Yesenin’s friend, party worker Pyotr Chagin, were allowed by Beria to return, but not to Moscow, to the Moscow region, to Skhodnya.
Yesenina acquired part of the hut with difficulty. Chagin helped her find a job. But soon her health completely weakened: prison and exile, poverty, humiliation, and the shocks she experienced took their toll. At forty-two, Ekaterina Alexandrovna became a disabled person of the 2nd group.
She waited fifteen years for her repressed husband Vasily Nasedkin. She refused the offer of the writer Sergei Gorodetsky, a close friend of Yesenin, to marry him and thereby improve her situation. Only in the mid-1950s did Ekaterina Alexandrovna learn about the execution of her husband.
In August 1956, at the request of Ekaterina Yesenina and the petition of the Deputy Secretary of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR K. Voronkov, writer Yu.N. Libedinsky and Leo Tolstoy’s granddaughter, Yesenin’s last wife Sofia Tolstoy, managed to achieve the complete posthumous rehabilitation of Vasily Nasedkin. Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Yesenina herself was rehabilitated in September 1956.
Ekaterina, Konstantin and Alexandra Yesenin
In all subsequent years, Ekaterina Alexandrovna restored her husband’s creative heritage, including his previously banned work “One Year with Yesenin,” and she herself wrote memoirs about her brother Sergei Yesenin. She was one of the initiators of the creation of the Literary and Memorial Museum of S. A. Yesenin in the village of Konstantinovo, Rybnovsky district, Ryazan region. In the 1960-1970s, Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Yesenina took part in the preparation of collected works and many collections of her brother’s poems. She died of a myocardial infarction in 1977 in Moscow.
From: Esenin.ru
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Yuri Bludov, Ilya Khludenev
RYAZAN LINK OF EKATERINA ESENINA
“Katya has grown up, let her do this! I’ll write, and you and Katya talk to the editors and publishers!” - Yesenin said to his guardian angel, former employee of the Cheka Galina Benislavskaya. Katya - Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Yesenina, the eldest of the two sisters of the famous poet. The general public knows about her mainly as her brother’s personal secretary, the keeper of part of his archive and the wife of Vasily Nasedkin, a close friend of Yesenin, a poet who was repressed in 1937 on a fabricated case. Several years ago, a small publication appeared in one of the city newspapers about Ekaterina Alexandrovna’s exile in Ryazan. The fact is certainly interesting. After all, very little was written about her life, about her tragic fate (until the publication of her daughter Natalia Yesenina-Nasedkina’s book “In the Native Family” in a small edition in 2001). Meanwhile, thanks to her efforts, the memory of Yesenin is alive, the relics are intact, which can now be seen in the museum in Konstantinov. In the archives of the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, we were able to find documents that shed light on the events of those years and related to the personal drama of the Nasedkin family.
runaway Bride
Ekaterina - in her youth, beautiful, graceful, with an intelligent face. She is ironic and funny - this is how one of her contemporaries describes her. “Nimble”, as my brother puts it, girl. Yesenin, who himself loved to dress well and carefully looked after himself, valued this trait in close people, and therefore approved, and was even proud of his sister’s appearance. Sergei dedicated the story “Bobyl and Druzhok” to her, and the poem “Letter to a Sister” was addressed to her. It's 1925, the last year of Yesenin's life. Katya is not even twenty. Vasily Nasedkin, a recent Red Army soldier and now a young poet making his way, is a frequent guest. He had known Yesenin since the pre-revolutionary years; they studied together at the People's University. A. L. Shanyavsky. In his last autobiography, Yesenin wrote: “At the university I met the poets Semenovsky, Nasedkin, Kolokolov and Filipchenko.” But their acquaintance at that time was almost casual. They later became close friends when Yesenin returned from a voyage abroad. If in 1915 Nasedkin and Yesenin parted as promising peasant youths, now Vasily Fedorovich had a great poet in front of him. And, blinded by the unusually bright, tragic luminary that suddenly burst into literature and flared up in it, Nasedkin, without realizing it, for some time found himself in the tail of this star, rapidly rushing to the heights of poetry. From that time on, Nasedkin’s name often appeared in various projects of a magazine or almanac that Yesenin intended to publish. He wrote that he was thinking of publishing the magazine in Moscow, and not in Leningrad, because “all the same, it’s not me who will be messing around, but Nasedkin. I believe him and can sign my name without being present.” Shortly before his death, Yesenin nominated him as the secretary of the anthology “Polyany”, and then as the head of the editorial office of the literary magazine. For the first issue, Sergei planned to collect his new poems, poems by Gruzinov and Nasedkin. Like many other “peasant” writers from Yesenin’s circle, Nasedkin admired his talent, considered him the greatest lyricist of our time and felt in the shadow of Sergei Alexandrovich, although he himself wrote good poetry. Let’s make a reservation: Nasedkin will not have time to reach great heights in literature. But friends and acquaintances noted his excellent human qualities, and Yesenin greatly appreciated Nasedkin’s decency. In the preface to the poet’s collection, written by S. A. Yesenin’s close friend P. I. Chagin, we read: “In the twenties and early thirties, one could quite often find poems on the pages of our literary magazines signed: V. Nasedkin. They attracted attention with their warmth and soulful lyricism... His favorite landscapes were echoed in his poems by memories of his childhood spent in the village. Nasedkin was considered in the early twenties one of the best, most capable students at the Literary Institute, which was headed by Valery Bryusov. This was noted by Bryusov himself, his older brother and at the same time, one might say, “godfather.”
Vasily Fedorovich also helps Yesenin in financial matters when he became entangled in debts after traveling abroad, but due to his nature he could not resolve such issues on his own. The practical and experienced Nasedkin helped Yesenin achieve the largest fees at that time - a ruble per line - when selling his works to Gosizdat. In general, it was no coincidence that Yesenin literally married his sister to such a man.
Katya did not oppose the marriage, quite the contrary. However, immediately after registration, on December 19, 1925, an incident occurred. As Natalia Yesenina says in her book, on the way from the registry office the bride suddenly jumped out of the sleigh and ran away. A completely upset groom came to Yesenin and asked what he should do now... Yesenin became terribly angry with his sister and advised him to go to Konstantinovo for her. Nasedkin did just that, taking Katya back to Moscow.
On December 21, Yesenin left the psychiatric clinic, where he went on the advice of Catherine in order to avoid police proceedings about insulting an official, and, having quarreled with his wife, Sofia Tolstoy, left for Leningrad. It had already been decided that the newly minted Nasedkin couple would soon follow him. They will all live together and work on the magazine. Finally, the wedding will be celebrated. However, the plans were ruined by the tragic death of Yesenin...
According to the memoirs of Ekaterina Alexandrovna, Vasily Fedorovich “was Yesenin’s closest friend. Meetings and conversations with him made it possible to better and more acutely feel the past years of the revolution and all the events of those years.” In June 1926, Nasedkin was one of the organizers of a trip of a writing delegation to the village of Konstantinovo to collect biographical materials about Sergei Yesenin. In his memoirs about this trip on the pages of the Krasnaya Niva magazine, he wrote that on one of the doors of the church house of the local priest, 80-year-old Ivan Smirnov, there was kept a poem written by Yesenin in 1915, which, unfortunately, cannot be deciphered, except for the last line “ Without a boat we went to the rocky shore.” According to his wife: “The materials he collected, Yesenin’s letters to Panfilov, early poems, all documents about his education and materials written by him personally currently serve as the main source for Yesenin’s biography.” In 1927, Vasily Fedorovich published a small book of memoirs, “One Year with Yesenin,” where he wrote: “From the time I acquired the thin notebook book “Confession of a Hooligan,” I fell in love with Yesenin as the greatest lyricist of our days”:
“I have never heard a more familiar cry:
From childhood, when away:
At the dawn of the steppe, kurlycha,
Cranes flew by.
…………………………………
Just yesterday, at the hour of spring laziness,
Suddenly in the sky, like strokes,
And they make such a noise.
It’s like Sergei Yesenin again
He read his poems to me.”
The common grief of the loss of a beloved and adored friend and brother brought Vasily and Katya even closer together. “From then on, my parents never separated again until my dad’s arrest,” writes Natalia Vasilievna.
"The Case of Writers"
The first alarm bell rang in 1930, when Nasedkin was summoned to Lubyanka, 2. The OGPU suddenly became interested in why he, a Bolshevik since 1917, an active participant in the October Revolution in Moscow, commissar of an engineering regiment, assistant battalion commander during the liquidation of the Mamontov breakthrough, participant fight against the Basmachi in Turkestan, left the party in August 1921? “Because of disagreement with her policies in the countryside and in literature,” Nasedkin admitted out of simplicity. The reason was that, being in his homeland in a Bashkir village, he had the opportunity to observe with his own eyes real pictures of surplus appropriation and dispossession: “Despite the party’s decision to put an end to excesses in the collectivization of agriculture, these excesses exist. It needs to be done more carefully. I approve of the liquidation of the kulaks as a class, but without the mistakes of dispossessing the middle peasants. I do not agree with the party’s policy in the field of literature: it pushes a number of fellow travelers towards hackwork and opportunism. This is caused by the party’s excessive ideological pressure on the writer to write only on topical topics. In my speeches, including at Herzen’s house, when speaking about ideology, I pronounced “idiotology”* No punitive sanctions were imposed against him then. But the regime was getting tougher, and having such a fact in your biography was risky. This automatically placed Nasedkin in the ranks of a politically suspicious element...
Like his fellow writers, Nasedkin, during interrogations, “quickly admitted” to what the investigators demanded of him. Over and over again he “remembered” new details of his “crimes.” That “from 1930 to 1935. was a member of an anti-Soviet group of writers, which included Voronsky, N. Smirnov, Guber, Zarudin, Zazubrin, Pravdukhin, Permitin, Kalinenko.” And now he was no longer just “being embittered against the Soviet regime, conducting counter-revolutionary conversations” and expressing dissatisfaction with “the party’s policies in literature,” but was also ready to overthrow the regime by any means, including terrorism. “Getting together and discussing the policies of the CPSU(b) and the Soviet government in a counter-revolutionary spirit, we came to the conclusion that a decisive struggle against the party was necessary. Subsequently, we took the terrorist path; we considered the only remaining means of struggle to be terror against the leaders of the CPSU(b) and, first of all, against Stalin.” In addition, he was allegedly a supporter of the Trotskyists, Zinovievites and Bukharinites, “representatives of all the best, standing up for the interests” of the common people. His “decadent, counter-revolutionary” poem “Buran” was also blamed, “full of absolute disbelief in the strength of the party and the Soviet people, deep hopelessness that the country is perishing as a result of the policies of foreigners.” In 1936, when P. Vasiliev wanted to write poems condemning the Trotskyists, he told him: “I would be ashamed to write such poems. You know what kind of people were shot - Lenin’s best students.” Allegedly had a strong counter-revolutionary influence on the convicted organizer of a terrorist youth group, Yuri Yesenin. “We were all people of a dark, black conscience, who had lost our human mind and sense of proportion due to malice.” Under pressure, Vasily Fedorovich writes additional “testimony” and a repentant statement to the “people’s” commissar Yezhov: “Remembering my past, I state that for 8 years I maintained connections with the enemies of the people and I myself became an enemy of the people. I tried with maximum truthfulness and purity to reveal and disarm myself, because I do not lose faith that with the help of the best people of the Soviet country I can correct myself and with honest work atone for my terrible guilt before the people.”* (*Archival criminal case of V.F. Nasedkin R-1. No. 9650. URAF FSB of Russia).
He didn't say a word about his wife.
The trial in the Nasedkin case took place on March 15, 1938 and took just one day. The usual scenario. “Troika” of the military collegium of the Supreme Court, there are no participants in the prosecution and defense, no witnesses (most of them are already dead). Nasedkin declares that he does not admit guilt, that the confessional testimony is false, given under the influence of the investigation. The group of writers he listed in his testimony was never anti-Soviet. And he hasn’t seen the person involved in the case, Klychkov, for more than 10 years. However, this did not change anything. The process is just a formality with a predetermined result. A short, just one and a half pages, sentence under Art. 58-8, 58-10 and 58-11 of the Criminal Code - to capital punishment with confiscation of property, final and with immediate execution. On the same day, Nasedkin was shot.
I will not take away the joy of earth
And the golden sheaves of the evening dawn.
Feel those left behind me
I am not given to being childishly superstitious.
And I won't take anything with me
At the sunset hour of the last farewell,
Will cast peace and darkness over your eyes
Cold, high silence.
As for my land and my house,
When the starry garden fades at night,
Oh, if only it were midday blue,
I'm going to choke on my greedy eyes.
And splash in the smoky blue,
And burst into tears with the wind in the autumn hour,
But if only I could become native to the earth’s foliage, -
As before, to see the links of the sun...
The wife of the "enemy of the people"
Regarding her husband’s fate, Ekaterina Alexandrovna was in complete ignorance. It was officially announced that Nasedkin was sentenced to “10 years without the right to correspondence.” Already at that time, many guessed what this formulation actually meant. But the wife did not lose hope of ever seeing her loved one alive.
Before his arrest, he worked as a literary editor for the magazine “Kolkhoznik”, Nasedkin fully provided for his family. Ekaterina ran the household and raised children - Andrei and Natalia. Now she had to get a job as a receptionist at a clinic, then as a Mosconvert envelope counter in order to somehow feed herself.
They came for her on October 2, 1938. With an arrest warrant and search of an apartment on Arbat signed by the People's Commissar of the NKVD Beria himself. Catherine was interested in the authorities only insofar as she was the wife of an “enemy of the people.” The young state security operative who was in charge of Nasedkina’s case kept asking more and more about the anti-Soviet activities of her husband (now deceased).
“Answer: Vasily Fedorovich Nasedkin was my husband from December 1925 to October 27, 1937. I know nothing about his anti-Soviet activities.
Question: You are not telling the truth. You hid and continue to hide the facts known to you... We invite you to give frank testimony.
Answer: Once again I declare that... I don’t know anything.
The investigation was completed in less than a month. There was no trial at all. And here is the resolution of the Special Meeting of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR dated November 1, 1938: “E. A. Yesenin, as a socially dangerous element, shall be deprived of the right to reside in 15 points for a period of 5 years...”* (*Archival criminal case of E. A. Yesenina No. 18098. URAF FSB of Russia). Ekaterina Alexandrovna spent two months in Butyrka. The group of inmates was an intelligent one - the wives of ambassadors and military leaders, the wife of Yezhov, under whom her husband was killed... The children were first sent to the Danilovsky detention center, and then sent to different orphanages in Penza, in accordance with the special order in force at that time to separate brothers and sisters - children of “enemies of the people.”
In Ryazan
Due to severe asthma attacks, Yesenina was allowed to settle in the Ryazan region and take her children. 11-year-old Andrei and 5-year-old Natalia were brought to Konstantinovo. Ekaterina Alexandrovna herself recalled about this time: “In 1939, I was exiled from Moscow to Ryazan along with other wives of “enemies of the people.” There were a lot of us. I remember when our train arrived in Ryazan, we walked from the station through the city streets in a continuous stream to the large NKVD building. We registered there, then everyone settled in Ryazan.” Natalia Vasilievna recalls: “Mom was ordered to report to the NKVD in Ryazan on the 15th of every month. There she was told to urgently get a job, and she joined the Konstantinovsky collective farm "Krasnaya Niva" (worked at a playground on a collective farm - author). Then she found a job in Ryazan, took Andrey and left for Ryazan, where they lived on the outskirts of the city in the Zerechensky family, and came to us on Sundays. Mom worked as an accountant at Ryazselmash until the war began... She became a donor - she donated blood for wounded soldiers. During this three years I received a work card instead of an employee and a good lunch on the day of donating blood, until I discovered that I was losing my eyesight. Then she was banned from donating, but for the four of us (grandmother, Tatyana Fedorovna, came to see them - author) it was the only source of existence. They also gave me vodka for my work card, which my mother exchanged for milk and other products.”
One day, Yesenina’s friend, writer Lydia Seifullina, wife of Valerian Pravdukhin, sent her some money, which was very helpful. “Mom didn’t have a penny left, she was in despair. At this time there was a knock on the door - the postman brought a transfer, and we were saved.”
Those years are well remembered by the Yesenins’ neighbor, now retired Vasily Pervushkin, with whom we met. In 1940, his family moved to Ryazan and settled on Shkolnaya Lenposelka Street. The Yesenins lived nearby, on the 2nd Line. Vasya and Andrey, almost the same age, studied together at school No. 17 and quickly became friends.
“We boys didn’t communicate much with adults, we spent more and more time chasing along the street,” says Vasily Nikolaevich. - Who the Yesenins were, why they were here, we didn’t know then, but they didn’t say - they were probably afraid, it was such a time. All the neighbors stuck together: after all, they all lived equally poorly, especially during the war, and they tried to help each other as much as they could. Ekaterina Alexandrovna was cheerful in public, always cheerful, and loved to joke. Who would have thought what she had to endure? She dressed simply - in sweatshirts, felt boots, and smoked “goat’s legs”. She invited us to Konstantinovo for raspberries and tea. Andrei grew up a self-possessed guy, he never behaved like a hooligan, by the way, he was very similar to his uncle. And several times, when he and I were alone, he recited Yesenin’s poems to me by heart. He sincerely admired his uncle and once told me: “Now they have forgotten about him, but you will see, the time will come and the whole world will read him!” It was from Andrey that I first learned about Yesenin.
In 1944, Ekaterina Alexandrovna was preparing to leave (her period of exile ended in 1943). She started looking for someone to sell the house to and offered to sell it to us. In my opinion, she transported house No. 15 to Ryazan in disassembled form from the village, as many did. We lived with my uncle's family, it was a bit cramped. My father, a shoemaker, with great grief, collected money and bought this house. It stood until 1978, when it fell into disrepair and was demolished. And Ekaterina Alexandrovna explained then: “I’ll go to restore my brother’s name and ours, we suffered innocently.” I relied on my Moscow acquaintances and connections.
Yesenina couldn’t take all her things away right away, so she left two chests for Pervushkin’s storage. One with belongings, and the second contained the main thing that she managed to protect from the eyes of detectives - books and a small archive. Finally she warned: “Here, Vasya, is all my wealth. Take it, read it, but don’t waste it.” Among the contents of the chest were Yesenin’s manuscripts - the poems “The Moon is Shining”, the “hooligan” cycle, the story “Yar”. A year later, she retrieved the property safe and sound.
Rehabilitation
In 1945, Ekaterina Alexandrovna and her children, at the request of her party worker and friend of Yesenin, Pyotr Chagin, were allowed by Beria to return - no, not to Moscow, but to the Moscow region, to Skhodnya. She acquired part of the hut with difficulty. The same Chagin helped her find a job. But soon her health completely weakened: prison and exile, poverty, humiliation, and the shocks she experienced took their toll. At the age of forty-two, Ekaterina Alexandrovna became a group 2 disabled person, almost completely losing her ability to work.
She waited for Vasily for fifteen years. She refused the offer of the poet and prose writer Sergei Gorodetsky, a close friend of Yesenin, to marry him and thereby improve her situation. And only in the mid-50s Ekaterina Alexandrovna learned about the death of her husband.
In August 1956, on a personal statement, at the request of the Deputy Secretary of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR K. Voronkov, the writer Yu. N. Libedinsky and the granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy, Yesenin’s last wife Sofia Tolstoy, she seeks the complete rehabilitation of Nasedkin, alas, posthumously. Due to health reasons, Ekaterina Alexandrovna could not even obtain a certificate of her husband’s innocence; it was handed to Andrei. She herself was rehabilitated in September 1956. At that time, in the central state archive of literature and art of the USSR, from the literary heritage of Nasedkin there were the following examples of the work of the forgotten poet: collections of poems “Songs of Love”, “Warm Talk”, “Sogdiana”, poems “Spring”, “In the City”, “Not Is it joy for you”, “Bay Poems”.
P.S. The specified material and copies of individual discovered documents were sent by the authors to Natalia Vasilievna Yesenina in Moscow. In response, a letter was received: “Thank you for the interesting documents that you found in the archives, documents about the terrible fate of my parents, and also for their publication. As for me and my brother Andrey, we have known all this since childhood. I grew up as the daughter of an “enemy of the people.” After graduating from school, she could not get a job at a university or work at a factory as a laboratory assistant. By my nature, I could not hide the fact that my parents were repressed. I paid for this with my health. I consider my book “In the Native Family” to be a book about S. A. Yesenin and his blood relatives. I thought it possible to give my mother’s stories in the book that present her as a creative person. If she had not been arrested, she might have been a good children's writer. If you want to know anything else about my family, call me, and if you’re in Moscow, I’ll be glad to meet you.” Correspondence and telephone conversations ensued.
This means that the topic is not closed. After all, Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Yesenina, “the prince of the Russian sister of song,” as Pavel Vasiliev poetically described her, is worthy of gratitude and respect from her descendants, and her fate and legacy are worthy of further study.
"Modern Yesenin Studies", 2005, No. 3.
Galina Benislavskaya and Ekaterina Yesenina
The relationship between Yesenin and Benislavskaya with Ekaterina, who was 10 years younger than her brother, was not cloudless.
After graduating from the Konstantinovskaya four-year school, Katya moved to Moscow to live with her father and studied at a private gymnasium on Maroseyka. In 1918, the private gymnasium was closed. Ekaterina returned to Konstantinovo and continued her studies in the 5th grade of a rural school. Joined the Komsomol. I saw my brother during his visits to Konstantinovo.
In 1922, Katya moved to Moscow to continue her studies at school. They rented a room for her in Zamoskvorechye.
I met Benislavskaya after Yesenin was detained at the police station. “In the evening I didn’t go home from school,” recalled E. A. Yesenina, “but went to Sergei. He was still missing. Then I found him in Bogoslovsky with Galina Arturovna Benislavskaya. Galya, as she called herself, was a young woman. She was dressed in a modest woolen dress. Two heavy braids adorned her head. Her large eyes, framed by long curved eyelashes, were beautiful. With a small, elastic hand, she shook my hand firmly in farewell. “Now come here to Sergei,” she said.”
After Yesenin moved in, Galina agreed to Katya’s move. She realized how much family means to Yesenin and how strongly he has a developed sense of blood kinship. “The three of us had to live (me, Katya and Sergei Alexandrovich) in one small room,” wrote G. Benislavskaya, “and in the fall of 1924 a fourth was added - Shurka.” Yesenin adored his sisters and constantly showed concern for them. “He enjoyed looking at Katya,” recalled A. A. Yesenina, “when she was well dressed. He loved her, and Katya in those years was pretty, slender, and Sergei was pleased with her appearance.”
Catherine was always ready to defend her brother. Not only Benislavskaya, but also her friends quickly became convinced of this. Anya Nazarova recalled her first meeting with Katya in the fall of 1923. Yesenin decided to celebrate his birthday in the Pegasus Stable. They were afraid that at the name day Sergei would get drunk again and start making trouble. Augusta Miklashevskaya decided to help. I agreed with Yesenin that during the toasts he would only clink glasses, and Miklashevskaya would drink for him. Everything was going well, but suddenly Nadezhda Volpin began rushing to Yesenin to have a drink with him. And then Katya, a clumsy, poorly dressed girl, rushed with her fists to defend Yesenin from the annoying attacks of Nadezhda Volpin.
Having learned that Katya was careless in her studies, S. Yesenin threatened that if she did not improve, he would not help her financially.
Catherine took care of her brother and often pulled him out of drunken groups. She was his confidant and was involved in publishing matters. “I will write, and you and Katya talk to the editors, to the publishers!” said the poet Benislavskaya. “I am little by little fulfilling your instructions: I gave poems to Gruzinov, but only two (“Rowan” and “Soviet Rus'”), and I don’t have the third. After all, you also promised him “Son of a Bitch,” but you don’t send anything,” Catherine wrote to her brother in September 1924.
Having gotten to know Ekaterina better, Anya Nazarova gave her the following description in her memoirs: “Her attitude towards her brother is difficult to determine. Did she love him? Yes, I did. But this love was of little use to Yesenin. Knowing that Yesenin had no money, that he himself was in need, she, with the air of an offended queen, demanded it for herself. Living separately, spending money without control, without accounting - she got used to spending it, without thinking for a minute that it was not hers, that she had no right to it. I studied poorly, was lazy not only to prepare my homework, but even to read.”
Galina, at Sergei's request, looked after Katya. A note dated December 21 has been preserved, in which the girl sternly warns: “5 o’clock. Let's go to Lina. Kate. Don't leave without us - Shura also wants to go with you. But if you leave, make sure you’re home by 12:30, otherwise don’t get angry, I’ll write to Sergei. Remember. I will keep my promise. Galya."
The threats were not carried out. Galina tried to maintain the warmest relationship with Katya, without hiding any details in her personal life. In the summer of 1924 I wrote to Catherine in Konstantinovo: “Dear Katenoko, I’m sorry I didn’t write, or rather, I wrote to you, but I put the letter in a book and couldn’t find it there. No news. Sergey in St. Petersburg. He is going to come to Moscow. Rita is also in St. Petersburg. Pokrovsky somehow found out about Volpin (her parents spread this), and when he found out that Rita was going there, he burst out laughing and said that she, too, went for the “baby”. (...) I miss Sergei very much, but seeing him “in winter” is hard and I’m afraid. I have a vacation soon. I want to take an advance for two months and go to Crimea.”
On September 17, 1924, Yesenin sent Catherine a letter with many questions, urgently demanding: “Ekaterina, send me a letter quickly and describe what is happening in Moscow.” He was interested in the widespread criticism of the magazine “Krasnaya Nov” for the ideological mistakes made by the editor A.K. Voronsky, who in his work was guided by “fellow travelers.” F. F. Raskolnikov was sent to the editorial office for strengthening. Yesenin did not wait for a detailed answer from Katya. She only warned her brother: “Don’t give any orders behind your back. Remember, you are the trump card that decides the fate of the players. Beware."
Not very understanding of the complex political and social situation in the country, Catherine, protecting her brother, persuaded him not to interrupt his stay in the Caucasus. “Then it seems to me that you are thinking about going to Moscow,” she wrote. - You know, it’s better not to go, because there’s such a squabble here now about everything, God forbid. The literary fraternity is always squabbling over something. Almost everyone looks askance at each other. The politicians are going crazy."
Benislavskaya had to answer the questions asked by her sister: “Well, Sergei Alexandrovich, you asked Katya to find out how the matter turned out. I will answer for her." She wrote the letter with caution, resorting to hints, warning Yesenin not to do anything rashly, but also not to shelve it. “I didn’t dare to write about this for two reasons. First and most importantly: I wasn’t sure (and I’m still not sure either) that no one would be able to read this letter before you, and therefore, would be able to take all sorts of countermeasures. Secondly, and “most importantly” - I didn’t want to disturb your rest, especially since I don’t know how you are.”
Ekaterina, together with Galina Benislavskaya, took part in the publication of “Persian Motifs”. Yesenin trusted her to receive his fees. “I really need money,” he wrote to A. Berzin, “and therefore I am sending Ekaterina to you with this letter. Help her get the money that was written out to me on Saturday. I am enclosing her power of attorney to this letter.” During his stay in the Caucasus, he wrote to Catherine: “I will soon send you poems, sell them to Kazin or Flerovsky, and that’s enough for you for now.” But sometimes he broke down, especially when money was delayed. Telegraphed Catherine from Batum: “Do you think or not. I’m sitting without money,” then from Baku: “Sergey is sick of money.”
S. Yesenin monitored his sister’s morality. He condemned her desire to join bohemian life. He scolded me when he found out that she secretly started smoking at the age of fourteen. He was worried that Catherine was a witness to his scandals, especially when his sister sometimes had to testify to the police in defense of her brother.
Katya was of the opinion that Yesenin earned good money, that she had every right to freely dispose of his funds. G. Benislavskaya recalled: “How many times have I explained to her that she has no rights to his money and things and therefore must be content with the minimum, that it is a crime to waste his money. That S.A. earns money not with his hump, but with sweat and blood. And if he himself can litter with them, then no one except him has this right. Katya could not understand this. Because from childhood, probably thanks to my parents, I acquired completely different views. And she still came, demanded money and money, and even at 20 she didn’t think: isn’t it time to start earning money myself?”
Having learned that Katya was careless in her studies, Yesenin began to reprimand her sharply and rudely:
Do you think it’s time to start earning your own bread? A? I won't give you any more money. Live until autumn, and then please take care of it yourself. I’ll teach and feed Shura for six years, but it’s time for you to think for yourself...
“I remember how six months before the death of Sergei Alexandrovich,” wrote G. Benislavskaya, “seeing that Katya had deliberately gone into cunning, that she naively considered this the main thing in life, I explained to her that she had to be good, that cunning is not the goal, but there is something else - more important than cunning. “If you have something in your soul, you can, you have the right to be cunning and fight. And so, for the sake of existence, only scum fights and cheats.”
After graduating from school in 1925, Ekaterina decided to enter the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University, but did not pass the competition and was enrolled as a free student. This failure upset S. A. Yesenin.
“Marry Nasedkin, he loves you, but I won’t feed you all,” he advised his sister.
Catherine did not go against her brother’s will; on December 19, 1925, she registered her marriage with V. Nasedkin.
After the death of S. Yesenin, G. Benislavskaya openly expressed her opinion about her to Catherine:
“While you were growing, taking shape, crystallizing, I, feeling all your bad qualities, knew that you had talent, that there were impulses in your soul, that you were akin to Sergei, from this side, and not just from the side of weaknesses.
You know how a rosehip sprout grows; there are thorns on it, but that’s okay, as long as you think that over time it will bloom with joyful bright roses, but when the flowers bloom and there are only five petals on it, it smells, but it’s not a rose, but the simplest rose hip, it becomes funny and sad - but I was expecting God knows what!
That’s how it is with you, I was waiting for what you would blossom into, I tried to save you, I tried to develop all the petals in you, many petals, but you are only a rosehip and you feel good, blooming in a dirty ditch, and you needed a little so that you she humbled herself and bowed her “once proud” head. You say: “for a while,” but I’m not sure that this “time” won’t last the entire 20–30 years of your life, now you’ve gone for it and you’re content and, in essence, quite happy with these small benefits, and then you’ll be too make concessions, little by little, one by one, handing over all your dreams and plans to the archives.
You are probably to blame for only one thing here: not knowing yourself, not knowing your strengths, you verbally promised yourself and others to be a heroine in the struggle of life and so quickly and so pitifully gave up from the very first steps. You see, everyone can do this. There is no girl who, at 17–18 years old, would not build her own image in the likeness of Joan of Arc, etc. And everyone, almost everyone, turns out to be Natasha, Dolly and others, their name is legion.
And I thought you weren't like that. That's why it hurts so much. That's why I was so offended by you and that's why I began to be indifferent to your fate - the goods turned out to be rather weak, well, what interest. And I still understand even better - before, I more than once mistook your words for actions, but now I know where words end and where actions begin. I know that you are also sad about this, that it was warmer and easier for you when you knew: whenever you come to me, I will always, like a loving older sister, understand everything, figure it out and help you figure it out. If, perhaps, I forget the image of Katya that you yourself painted for yourself, for me and for others, if this is forgotten, the requirements for you will drop to the general level, then maybe I will just be with you as before...
But remember that you have more shortcomings than ordinary ordinary girls, so you need to have more in your soul to recoup it, so that you, whether I or anyone else, can be loved with that good love, without which, oh, how difficult it becomes sometimes live. This warmth and cordiality are needed most of all - without them, no success, no material wealth will give real joy. You will charm outwardly, they will be kind and friendly to you, but in difficult times you will find yourself alone. And remember how you and I endured all the worries thanks to the fact that there was this simplicity, cordiality.
Well, that's all for now. I kiss you deeply. Remember - promise yourself and others less, do more. 2. VIII.26. Galya."
Galina had four months to live. Catherine had a difficult life ahead of her, which she lived with dignity.
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Parents
Alexander Nikitich Yesenin(1873-1931) and Tatyana Fedorovna Yesenina (Titova) (1865-1955).
Sergei Yesenin's father Alexander Nikitich sang in church as a boy. He worked as a senior clerk in a butcher shop on Shchipok Street, and where Sergei Yesenin went to work as a clerk in 1912, when he moved from his village of Konstantinovo to Moscow. And he lived with his father not far from Shchipok Street in Bolshoi Strochenovsky Lane, in Krylov’s house, 24, in a hostel for “single clerks”...
Fedor Andreevich(1845-1927) and Natalya Evtikhievna (1847-1911) Titovs- Yesenin’s maternal grandfather and grandmother (parents of Tatyana Fedorovna). Titov Ivan Fedorovich, Yesenin’s maternal uncle. Yesenin Ilya Ivanovich (1902-1942) cousin of the poet.
Here is what Yesenin writes about his childhood: “From the age of two, I was given up to be raised by a rather wealthy maternal grandfather, who had three adult unmarried sons, with whom I spent almost my entire childhood. My uncles were mischievous and desperate guys. Three and a half years old "They put me on a horse without a saddle and immediately started galloping. Then they taught me to swim. Uncle Sasha took me into a boat, drove away from the shore, took off my underwear and threw me into the water like a puppy."
Sisters
The poet's wives and beloved women
Sardanovskaya(married Olonovskaya) Anna Alekseevna(1896-1921), Yesenin’s youthful hobby, teacher, relative of the Konstantinovsky priest Father Ivan (Smirnov). Perhaps Yesenin’s acquaintance with Sardanovskaya dates back to 1906
She died in childbirth on April 7, 1921. It is possible that Yesenin’s story is connected with the news of her death: “I had true love. For a simple woman. In the village. I came to her. I came secretly. I told her everything. No one knew about it.” knows. I've loved her for a long time. I'm sad. I'm sorry. She died. I never loved anyone like that. I don't love anyone else."
Anna Romanovna Izryadnova(1891-1946) - Yesenin entered into a civil marriage with her in the fall of 1913, who worked with Yesenin as a proofreader in a printing house. On December 21, 1914, their son Yuri was born, but Yesenin soon left the family.
Yesenin Yuri (George) Sergeevich was born in 1914 in Moscow. Graduated from the Moscow Aviation Technical School. On April 4, 1937, Yuri Yesenin was arrested in the Far East (where he served in the military) as “an active participant in a counter-revolutionary fascist-terrorist group,” by order of the deputy. People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Y. Agranov. On May 18, Yesenin was taken to Moscow to the Lubyanka. He was subjected to massive psychological treatment by NKVD officers and signed all the accusations against him. On August 13, 1937, Yu. Yesenin was shot. In 1956, Yuri Yesenin was posthumously rehabilitated.
Zinaida Nikolaevna Reich(1894-1939) with children - Tanya and Kostya.
On July 30, 1917, Yesenin married the beautiful actress Zinaida Reich in the Church of Kirik and Ulita, Vologda district. On May 29, 1918, their daughter Tatyana was born. Yesenin loved his daughter, blond and blue-eyed, very much. On February 3, 1920, after Yesenin separated from Zinaida Reich, their son Konstantin was born. On October 2, 1921, the people's court of Orel ruled to dissolve Yesenin's marriage to Reich.
Children: Konstantin Sergeevich (02/03/1920, Moscow - 04/26/1986, Moscow, buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery. He was a famous football statistician. Daughter Marina). Tatyana Sergeevna (1918 - 1992. Member of the Writers' Union. Lived in Tashkent. Director of the Sergei Yesenin Museum. Two sons Vladimir and Sergei)
In 1920, Yesenin met and became friends with the poetess and translator Nadezhda Davydovna Volpin. Nadezhda wrote poetry from her youth and took part in the work of the Green Workshop poetry studio under the leadership of Andrei Bely. In the fall of 1920 she joined the Imagists. Then the friendship with Sergei Yesenin began. She published her poems in collections, read them from the stage in the “Poets Cafe” and “Pegasus Stable” - this is the name of the “coffee” period of poetry. On May 12, 1924, after a break with Yesenin, the illegitimate son of Sergei Yesenin and Nadezhda Davydovna Volpin was born in Leningrad - a prominent mathematician, a famous human rights activist, he periodically publishes poetry (only under the name Volpin). A. Yesenin-Volpin is one of the founders (together with Sakharov) of the Human Rights Committee. Now lives in the USA.
On November 4, 1920, at the literary evening “The Trial of the Imagists,” Yesenin met Galina Arturovna Benislavskaya (1897-1926).
Galina was the daughter of a French student, Arthur Carrier, and a Georgian woman. The parents separated soon after the girl’s birth, the mother became mentally ill, and the girl was adopted by relatives, the Benislavsky family of doctors who lived in the Latvian city of Rezekne. Galina Benislavskaya studied at the women's Preobrazhenskaya gymnasium in St. Petersburg and graduated with a gold medal in 1917.
Their relationship, with varying success, lasted until the spring of 1925. Returning from Konstantinov, Yesenin finally broke up with her. It was a tragedy for her. Insulted and humiliated, Galina wrote in her memoirs: “Because of the awkwardness and brokenness of my relationship with Sergei, I more than once wanted to leave him as a woman, I wanted to be only a friend. But I realized that I couldn’t leave Sergei, I couldn’t break this thread. ..". Galina Benislavskaya shot herself at Yesenin’s grave. She left two notes on his grave. One is a simple postcard: “December 3, 1926. She committed suicide here, although I know that after this even more dogs will be blamed on Yesenin... But he and I don’t care. Everything that is most dear to me is in this grave.. "She is buried at the Vagankovskoye cemetery next to the poet's grave.
In the autumn of 1921, Yesenin became acquainted with the “sandal shoe” Isadora Duncan(1877-1927). According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Isadora fell in love with Yesenin at first sight, and Yesenin was immediately carried away by her. On May 2, 1922, Sergei Yesenin and Isadora Duncan decided to consolidate their marriage according to Soviet laws, since they were about to travel to America. They signed at the registry office of the Khamovnichesky Council. When they were asked what surname they would choose, both wanted to have a double surname - “Duncan-Yesenin”. This is what was written down on the marriage certificate and in their passports.
This page of Sergei Yesenin’s life is the most chaotic, with endless quarrels and scandals. They diverged and came back together many times. Hundreds of volumes have been written about Yesenin’s romance with Duncan. Numerous attempts have been made to unravel the mystery of the relationship between these two such dissimilar people.
In August 1923, Yesenin met with an actress of the Moscow Chamber Theater Augusta Leonidovna Miklashevskaya. Augusta soon became Duncan's happy rival. But despite her passionate passion for the young poet, she was able to subordinate her heart to her mind. Yesenin dedicated 7 poems from the famous cycle “The Love of a Hooligan” to Augusta Miklashevskaya.
In the winter months of 1924/25, when Yesenin lived in Batum, he met a young woman there, then a Russian language teacher - Shagane (Shagandukht) Nersesovna Talyan (married Terteryan)(1900-1976), they met several times, Yesenin gave her his collection with a dedicatory inscription. But with his departure from Batum, the acquaintance was broken off, and in the following months he made no effort to renew it, although the name Shagane appeared again in poems written in March and then in August 1925.
March 5, 1925 - meeting the granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy(1900-1957). She was 5 years younger than Yesenin, and the blood of the world’s greatest writer flowed in her veins. Sofya Andreevna was in charge of the library of the Writers' Union. On October 18, 1925, the marriage with S.A. Tolstoy was registered. Sofya Tolstaya is another of Yesenin’s unfulfilled hopes of starting a family. Coming from an aristocratic family, according to the recollections of Yesenin’s friends, she was very arrogant and proud, she demanded adherence to etiquette and unquestioning obedience. These qualities of hers were in no way combined with Sergei’s simplicity, generosity, cheerfulness, and mischievous character. They soon separated.
Children
ESENIN SERGEY ALEXANDROVICH 1895-1925
Born in the village of Konstantinov, Kuzminsk volost, Ryazan province, into a peasant family. The Yesenins and Titovs (Sergei’s relatives on his mother’s side) belonged to hereditary Konstantinovites. Sergei's father, Alexander Nikitich Yesenin (1875-1932); mother - Tatyana Fedorovna Titova (01/25/1877-07/3/1955); Sergei's sisters - Ekaterina and Alexandra. Sergei's grandfather - Nikita Osipovich Yesenin - in his youth was going to become a monk, for which he was nicknamed "monk" in the village. At the age of 28, he married a 16-year-old girl - Agrafena Pankratievna - and his young wife began to be called “nun”. Since then, according to Sergei’s sister, Ekaterina Alexandrovna, the entire generation of Yesenins bore the nicknames “monks” and “nuns.” Nikita Osipovich Yesenin was literate, wrote various kinds of petitions to his fellow villagers, was a village elder for many years, and was highly respected in the village. As a result of the division of property between the brothers, Nikita Osipovich did not receive land and decided to open a small shop on the first floor of his house. At forty, in 1887, he died, leaving his wife and six children. Father of Sergei Yesenin - Alexander Nikitich Yeseni n - was the eldest child. At the age of 11-12, Alexander was sent to study butchery with the merchant Krylov in Moscow, and later he became a clerk in his store. In 1893, eighteen-year-old Alexander Nikitich Yesenin married his fellow villager Tatiana Fedorovna Titova, who was sixteen and a half years old. She had a good voice, a good memory, she knew many songs and ditties. For this she was invited to sing along with the daughters of the owners. From them she learned many good poems and romances. After the wedding, Alexander returned to Moscow, and his wife remained in the house of her mother-in-law, who from the first days disliked her daughter-in-law. The grandmother was the full owner, in whose house many guests constantly lived. For them it was necessary to cook, wash, carry water, clean up after everyone, and almost all the work fell on the shoulders of the young daughter-in-law, who received only sidelong glances from her mother-in-law as a reward. When Sergei was born in 1895, Tatyana Fedorovna’s first surviving child, Alexander Nikitich was not in the village; “They let my father know in Moscow, but he couldn’t come.” As before his marriage, Alexander Nikitich sent his salary to his mother. A quarrel broke out between the young couple - Sergei's mother and father - and they lived separately for several years: Alexander Nikitich in Moscow, Tatyana Fedorovna in Ryazan.
When Sergei was three years old, his mother left the Yesenins. Sergei was taken to live by his second grandfather, Fyodor Andreevich Titov, who had quarreled with the Yesenin family back when his daughter was a bride. According to Sergei’s reviews, his grandfather was “a bright personality and broad-minded, had an excellent memory and knew by heart many folk songs and spiritual poems.” They lived in that part of the village, located on the high bank of the Oka and stretching for several kilometers, which was called Matovo. Fedor Andreevich sent Sergei’s mother to live in Ryazan so that she could try to get a piece of bread for herself and her son. When sending his daughter, Sergei’s grandfather ordered her to send three rubles a month to support his grandson. For five years, Sergei’s parents lived separately, and the boy lived in the house of his grandfather, Fyodor Andreevich, and grandmother, Natalya Evteevna. At the insistence of his grandfather, Sergei began reading at the age of five, learning to read and write from church books. He began writing poetry at the age of 8. In 1904, Sergei’s mother returned to Konstantinovo, and his father still worked in Moscow as a clerk, but came to visit the family several times a year. Sergei again began to live with his mother in the Yesenins’ house
In 1912 he moved to Moscow, where his father worked for a merchant.
“From his first collections (Radunitsa, 1916; Rural Book of Hours, 1918) he appeared as a subtle lyricist, a master of deeply psychologized landscapes, a singer of peasant Rus', an expert in the folk language and the folk soul. In 1919-23 he was a member of the Imagist group. A tragic attitude and mental confusion are expressed in the cycles “Mare’s Ships” (1920), “Moscow Tavern” (1924), and the poem “The Black Man” (1925). In the poem “The Ballad of Twenty-Six” (1924), dedicated to the Baku commissars, the collection “Soviet Rus'” (1925), and the poem “Anna Snegina” (1925), Yesenin sought to comprehend “the commune-raised Rus',” although he continued to feel like a poet of “the passing Rus' ", "golden log hut". Dramatic poem "Pugachev" (1921).
1923 - lived in Moscow, Kozitsky lane
In a state of depression, he committed suicide.”
He was buried in section 17 of the Vagankovsky cemetery, Moscow. Relatives and friends are buried nearby: mother Tatyana Fedorovna 1875-1955, Zinaida Reich, son Konstantin, Galina Arturovna 1897-1926, poet Shiryaevets-Abramov Alexander Vasilyevich 1887-1924, journalist Ustinov Georgy Feofanovich 1888-1932, writer and party leader Petr Ivanovich Chagin 1 898 -1967, poet Nikolai Konstantinovich 1887-1930
Wives ZINAIDA NIKOLAEVNA, ISADORA DUNCAN (1877-1927). Children:
- YURI (GEORGE) SERGEEVICH (1914-1937). Son of SA Yesenin and IZRYADNOVA Anna Romanovna. He had no children.
- KONSTANTIN SERGEEVICH 02/03/1920, Moscow
- 04/26/1986, Moscow. He was a famous football statistician. He was buried in section 17 of the Vagankovsky cemetery, Moscow. Daughter MARINA. (Graduated from the Polygraphic Institute. She writes poetry, prose, is published in newspapers and magazines. She looks like Reich, her grandmother. She is still beautiful. She has a son - Dmitry Polyakov - the great-grandson of S. A. Yesenin. At 24 years old he is a doctor Philosophical Sciences, Professor. Handsome, curly, light brown-haired. Tall. Lives and works abroad.)
- TATYANA SERGEEVNA (Died in 1992. Member of the Writers' Union. Lived in Tashkent. Director of the Sergei Yesenin Museum. Two sons: VLADIMIR Kutuzov and SERGEY Yesenin. Vladimir has a son, Ivan, graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute, is now engaged in business. Sergei has daughters: Zinaida and Anna)
- ALEXANDER SERGEEVICH. Son of SA Yesenin and Volpin Nadezhda Davydovna. Mathematician, Candidate of Sciences. As a human rights activist, he was forced to leave the USSR for the USA. He has lived there since 1971. Have no children.
Yesenin's sisters:
*ESENINA EKATERINA ALEXANDROVNA (1905-1977). She died of a heart attack. Husband - Yesenin's friend, poet NASEKIN VASILY Fyodorovich (01/1/1895 - executed 03/15/1938). The marriage took place in December 1925. Son ANDREY 1927-1965 (buried in section 22 of the Vagankovsky cemetery in Moscow). Daughter - NATALIA, graduated from the Agricultural Academy. K. A. Timiryazev, majoring in agrochemistry and soil science. Completed an internship at Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov at the Department of Analytical Chemistry. She worked as a chemist in a soil expedition on the Northern Dvina, in a geological party in Transbaikalia, and for about 30 years at the GIREDMET Research Institute. PhD in Chemistry. Veteran of labour. Currently disabled of the first group. Have no children
*ESENINA ALEXANDRA ALEXANDROVNA (1911-1981). Husband Peter and son Alexander ILIIN. Daughter FLOR TATIANA PETROVNA 1933-1993, journalist, graduated from the correspondence printing institute. (buried in section 19 of the same cemetery). Son-in-law. They were buried in section 20 of the Vagankovskoye cemetery. 2 daughter - Svetlana Petrovna, graduated from the correspondence pedagogical institute, employee of the State Museum of S. A. Yesenin in Moscow, in B. Strochenovsky Lane. Every year, since 1946, he spends all the summer months in Konstantinov.
Ryazan exile of Ekaterina Yesenina
Dminaev biography. Dmitry Minaev. Minaev Dmitry Dmitrievich
Magnus King of Mercia. Magnus I the Good. Breakup with Ivan the Terrible