Sergei Yesenin - I have one fun left: Verse. “The notoriety has swept that I am a bawdy and a brawler”

In 1923, Yesenin was at a difficult and, as it turned out later, fatal crossroads for him. The old shirt guy is almost gone, yesterday's ideals are destroyed, and looking ahead catches emptiness. Many friends have been lost, the conflict with the Soviet authorities is growing, and therefore Sergei is increasingly writing confessional verses, trying to draw a line over the stage of life he has passed.

Yesenin's confession

At this time, "I have only one fun left" is written, which will replenish the golden fund of the poet's work. A confessional poem should open the eyes of others to Yesenin's life and explain to them what caused the not always understandable actions of the poet and man.

And I was rude and scandalous
To burn brighter.

Burned for you, says Sergei, so why don't you understand me?

Tired of addressing others who do not understand him (this is not the first Yesenin poem-confession), Sergei recalls God, which is rare for his work.

A Matter of Faith

The first line is easily explained - the poet is ashamed that he did not believe in God before, that he exchanged faith for his own burning. The second line shows that there is no faith even today, but this only makes us bitter. Maybe Yesenin wants to get closer to God, but "sins are not allowed into heaven," maybe it's just a shame to go to him because of past sins.

So the angels lived in it.

Can be classified as autobiographical. It is rare for any of the poets to meet such an interweaving of angels and devils - gentle lyrics and dashing sprees in taverns, passionate love and violent hooliganism. So much black and white, light and dark are mixed in Yesenin that an earthly person cannot realize where his truth is.

Repentance?

At the end of the poem, Sergei Yesenin does not beg to forgive him, but asks:

Under the icons to die.

We do not know what God said to the poet after his death, but the church allowed him to be buried in the cemetery, which cannot be done with suicides (this is the official version of death). Perhaps this is a gesture by which the church accepted his repentance, but the admirers of the poet do not need to forgive him - he opened their eyes to the Russian soul and deserves only applause.

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'm 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.

The poem "I have only one fun left" performed by S. Bezrukov from the film "Sergey Yesenin".

He went from a village cherub boy to the most famous brawler and swindler in Russia. At the performances of the blue-eyed shepherdess, who read something about the simple joys of rural life, the girls squealed in chorus: “Darling Yesenin!” Mayakovsky called the early Yesenin a “decorative peasant”, too sugary, insincere, and his poems “revived lamp oil”. But "bast shoes and cockerels-combs" did not occupy the poet for long. Yes, and there was little angelic in him: he wrote obscene poems on the wall of the Passion Monastery and, having split the icon, he could heat the samovar with it, he could easily light it from the lamp.

His behavior was invariably found defiant, outrageous, shocking. His poems are a special page of Russian poetry. Yesenin cannot be driven into the narrow framework of the literary trends of the early twentieth century, he is on his own, rebellious, passionate, with a huge Russian soul wide open. This is probably why the poetry of Sergei Yesenin leaves no one indifferent: they either adore it or refuse to accept and understand it.

Sergei Yesenin with sisters Katya and Shura

Yesenin's education

A famous poet could become a teacher: Sergei Yesenin graduated with honors from the Konstantinovsky Zemstvo School in 1909, then entered the church teacher's school, but after studying for a year and a half, he left it - the profession of a teacher did not attract him much. Already in Moscow, in September 1913, Yesenin began to attend the Shanyavsky People's University. A year and a half of university gave Yesenin the foundation of education that he so lacked. Subsequently, the poet was engaged in self-education, read a lot and was known for his erudition.

Sergei Yesenin and Anna Izryadnova among the workers of the printing house "Partnerships of I.D. Sytin"

The first Moscow muse

When Yesenin arrived in Moscow, he was only seventeen years old. He had one goal: to become the most famous poet in Russia. A year later, he fell in love with Anna Izryadnova, who worked with him as a proofreader in a printing house.

Civil marriage with Anna from the first days seemed to the poet a mistake. At this point, he was more concerned with his career. He left his family and went to seek his fortune in Petrograd. In her memoirs, Izryadnova writes: “I saw him shortly before his death. He came, he said, to say goodbye. When I asked why, he said: “I’m washing off, I’m leaving, I feel bad, I’m probably going to die.” He asked not to spoil, to take care of his son.

The fate of Yuri, the son of Sergei and Anna, was tragic: on August 13, 1937, he was shot on charges of preparing an assassination attempt on Stalin.

Yesenin with friends of youth

Yesenin and paper

In 1918, the publishing house "Labor Artel of Artists of the Word" was organized in Moscow. It was organized by Sergey Klychkov, Sergey Yesenin, Andrey Bely, Petr Oreshin and Lev Povitsky. I wanted to publish my own books, but paper in Moscow was under the strictest control. Yesenin nevertheless volunteered to get the paper.

He put on a long-skirted undershirt, combed his hair in a peasant manner and went to the duty member of the Presidium of the Moscow Soviet. Yesenin stood in front of him without a hat, began to bow and, diligently ok, asked "for Christ's sake to make God's mercy and release papers for peasant poets."

For such an important purpose, paper, of course, was found, and the first book of Yesenin's poems "Radunitsa" was published. "Artel", however, soon broke up, but managed to release several books.

Yesenin reads his mother's poems

"To be a poet means the same,
If the truth of life is not violated,
Scarring your soft skin
To caress other people's souls with the blood of feelings.

poetry reading

At the end of 1918, Yesenin lived for several weeks in Tula, fleeing the Moscow famine. Every evening, an educated audience gathered in the house where he lived, and Yesenin read his poems, which he remembered by heart - every single one. Yesenin accompanied the recitation with very expressive gestures, which gave his poems additional expressiveness and strength.

Sometimes Yesenin imitated Blok and Bely. He read Blok's poems seriously and with respect, and Bely's poems with mockery, parodying him.

Zinaida Reich

"Do you remember,
Of course, you all remember
How I stood
Approaching the wall
You excitedly walked around the room
And something sharp
They threw it in my face.
You said:
It's time for us to part
What tormented you
My crazy life
That it's time for you to get down to business,
And my destiny -
Roll on, down.
Darling!
You didn't love me.
You did not know that in the host of people
I was like a horse driven in soap
Spurred by a brave rider."

Beautiful Zinaida

One of the most beautiful women in Yesenin's life was Zinaida Reich, a famous actress. She was so pretty that the poet simply could not help but propose to her. They got married in 1917, Zinaida gave birth to two children - Tatyana and Konstantin, but Yesenin was never distinguished by fidelity. Reich endured for three years, then they broke up. The most famous poem about her is "Letter to a Woman".

Sergei Yesenin and imagist Anatoly Mariengof

Yesenin's fears

Sergei Yesenin suffered from syphilophobia - the fear of contracting syphilis. A friend of the poet Anatoly Mariengof said: “It used to pop up on his nose a pimple the size of a bread crumb, and he already walks from mirror to mirror stern and gloomy. Once I even went to the library to read the signs of a terrible ailment. After that, it got even worse, just a little bit: the whisk of Venus!”

But policemen caused no less fear in Yesenin. One day, while walking with Wolf Ehrlich past the Summer Garden, the poet noticed a law enforcement officer standing at the gate. “He suddenly grabs my shoulders so that he himself becomes facing the sunset, and I see his yellowed, eyes full of incomprehensible fear. He breathes heavily and wheezes: “Listen, ah! Just don't say a word to anyone! I'll tell you the truth! I'm afraid of the police. Understand? I'm afraid! .. ", - Erlich recalled.

Isadora Duncan and Yesenin

“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 hooligan was driven insane."

Isadora

In the early 1920s, Yesenin led an idle life: he drank, quarreled in taverns, and was easy on casual relationships until he met her, the famous American dancer Isadora Duncan. Duncan was 18 years older than the poet, did not know Russian, and Yesenin did not speak English. They got married six months after they met. When they were asked what surname they choose, both wished to have a double surname - Duncan-Yesenin. So they wrote down in the marriage certificate and in their passports. “Now I am Duncan,” Yesenin shouted when they went out into the street.

This page of the life of Sergei Yesenin is the most chaotic, with endless quarrels and scandals. They diverged many times and converged again, but in the end they could not overcome the “mutual misunderstanding”. It is this passion that is dedicated to the poem “Rash, harmonica! Boredom… Boredom…”.

Isadora died tragically two years after Yesenin's death, strangling herself with her own scarf.

Yesenin and Mayakovsky

"Oh, rash, oh, fry,
Mayakovsky is a mediocrity.
Erysipelas are fed with paint,
Robbed Whitman."

Eternal Enemies

The myth of mutual hatred between Sergei Yesenin and Vladimir Mayakovsky is one of the most famous literary movements in the history of the twentieth century. The poets were really irreconcilable ideological opponents and in public speeches were ready to endlessly pour mud on each other. However, this does not mean that one of them underestimated the power of the other's talent. Contemporaries confirm that Yesenin understood the significance of Mayakovsky's work and distinguished him from all the futurists: “Whatever you say, you can't throw Mayakovsky away. It will lie like a log in literature, and many will stumble over it.” The poet repeatedly read excerpts from Mayakovsky's poems - in particular, he liked the poems about the war "Mother and the evening killed by the Germans" and "War is declared."

In turn, Mayakovsky also had a high opinion of Yesenin, although he concealed this with all possible care. The well-known memoirist M. Roizman recalls that once, having come to an appointment with the editor of Novy Mir, he “sat in the waiting room and heard Mayakovsky loudly praise Yesenin’s poems in the secretariat, and in conclusion he said: “Look, Yesenin is not a word about what I said." The assessment that Mayakovsky gave Yesenin was unequivocal: “Damn talented!”

Yesenin on the beach in Venice


Yesenin very accurately remarked about himself: “The notoriety has swept that I am a brawler and a brawler.” This statement was true, since the poet, in a drunken stupor, liked to entertain the public with works of very obscene content. According to the recollections of eyewitnesses, Yesenin almost never wrote down obscene verses, they were born spontaneously from him and were immediately forgotten.

Yesenin had quite a few such momentary verses. For example, the poem “Do not grieve, dear, and do not gasp,” is attributed to his authorship, in which the poet urges his enemies to go to a well-known address, forestalling their desire to send Yesenin himself to hell.

Sergei Yesenin and Sofia Tolstaya

“It can be seen that this is the way it is forever -
By the age of thirty, having gone crazy,
All stronger, burnt cripples,
We are in touch with life.

Honey, I'll be thirty soon
And the earth is dearer to me every day.
That's why my heart began to dream
That I burn with pink fire.

Kohl burn, so burn burning,
And not without reason in the lime blossom
I took out the ring from the parrot -
A sign that together we will burn.

That ring was given to me by a gypsy.
I took it off my hand and gave it to you
And now, when the hurdy-gurdy is sad,
I can’t help but think, I can’t help but be shy.”

Last wife

In early 1925, Sergei Yesenin met Leo Tolstoy's granddaughter Sophia. She was 5 years younger than Yesenin, the blood of the world's greatest writer flowed in her veins. Sofya Andreevna was in charge of the library of the Writers' Union. The poet was timid to the point of trembling in the knees before her aristocracy. When they got married, Sophia became an exemplary wife: she took care of his health, prepared his poems for the collected works. And she was absolutely happy. And Yesenin, having met a friend, answered the question: “How is life?” - "I am preparing a collection of works in three volumes and I live with an unloved woman." The unloved Sophia was to become the widow of the scandalous poet.

“Goodbye, my friend, goodbye.
My dear, you are in my chest.
Destined parting
Promises to meet in the future.
Goodbye, my friend, without a hand, without a word,
Do not be sad and do not sadness of the eyebrows, -
In this life, dying is not new,
But to live, of course, is not newer.

Death of poet

On December 28, 1925, Yesenin was found dead in the Angleterre Hotel in Leningrad. His last poem - "Goodbye, my friend, goodbye ..." - according to Wolf Erlich, was handed over to him the day before: Yesenin complained that there was no ink in the room, and he was forced to write with his own blood.

The mystery of the poet's death still remains unsolved. The official generally accepted version is suicide, but there is an assumption that in fact Yesenin was killed for political reasons, and the suicide was just a staging.

"Life needs to be easier"

And yet Yesenin is not a tragic poet. His poems are a hymn to life in all its manifestations. A hymn to life unpredictable, difficult, full of disappointments, but still beautiful. This is the anthem of a bully and a brawler, an eternal boy and a great sage.

“I have only one fun left ...” Sergey Yesenin

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'm 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.

Analysis of Yesenin's poem "I have only one fun left ..."

Life in Moscow radically changed Sergei Yesenin, who came to the capital as a simple village boy. However, after a few years, he felt the taste of freedom and the first literary successes, acquired fashionable clothes and turned into a dandy. However, there was also the other side of the coin - a strong longing for his native village of Konstantinovo, which the young poet tried to drown out with alcohol. Drunken fights, breaking dishes in restaurants, public insults of friends and complete strangers - all this became Yesenin's second nature. Having sobered up, he realized that he was behaving disgustingly, but he could not and did not want to change anything in his own life. In one of these moments of enlightenment, when the poet was undergoing treatment for alcohol addiction, his famous poem “I have only one fun left ...” was born, which today is known to many as a song included in the repertoire of various performers.

This work was written in 1923, several years before the tragic death of the poet. And between the lines one can read not only words of despair mixed with remorse, but also see that Yesenin considered his mission on this earth already completed by that time. He really said goodbye to everything that was dear to him, and prepared for death, realizing that a life consisting of continuous drunken brawls was not justified by anything. The poet is not embarrassed by the fact that he is “a bawdy and a brawler”, moreover, he is indifferent to the opinions of others on this matter. Yesenin is much more concerned about the salvation of his own soul. although he admits that he does not believe in God. Nevertheless, for a person who is ready to cross the last line, it is important to cleanse the soul of all that has accumulated in it. Therefore, this poem by Yesenin is considered by many to be his dying confession, which is replete with revelations. Only now the poet repents not before the Almighty, but before ordinary people, giving himself up to the judgment of readers and not at all counting on indulgence. Explaining his behavior, the author notes: "And I was obscene and scandalous in order to burn brighter." At the same time, the poet regrets that he never managed to "marry a white rose with a black toad ... on earth." The realization that it is impossible to change this world for the better with the help of poetry drove Yesenin to despair. Tired of fighting for his ideals, he simply decides to leave everything as it is, asking his relatives for only one thing - to put him "in a Russian shirt under the icons to die."

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'm 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.

Analysis of the poem "I have only one fun left" Yesenin

The last years of Yesenin's life were very difficult. The poet experienced difficulties in his personal life, his conflict with the Soviet authorities grew. Addiction to alcohol became an addiction, from which he was already forced to be treated. Periods of lumen were interspersed with severe depression. Paradoxically, at this time he creates beautiful poems. One of them is “I have one fun left ...” (1923).

Yesenin immediately declares his fame as a bawdy and brawler. His violent drunken behavior was known throughout Moscow. “Merry whistling” is a typical behavior for a poet who is already at a fairly mature age. But Yesenin already absolutely does not care. He crossed the line beyond which it is still possible to stop. Having experienced many sufferings and failures, the poet lost hope for a better future. Comparing his notoriety to a "ridiculous loss," he claims to have lost much more in his life.

The only thing that worries Yesenin is shame for the past faith in God. At the same time, he feels bitterness from the fact that he became an unbeliever. There is a deep philosophical meaning in this contradictory statement. The pure and bright soul of the poet, faced with all the dirt and abomination of the world, could not give a worthy rebuff. Yesenin acted according to the principle: “To live with wolves is to howl like a wolf.” But, having sunk to the very bottom, the poet realized that he had lost something very important, helping in life.

Yesenin claims that his crazy antics were aimed at "burning brighter." A real poet should be visible to the whole world. His work is bound to ignite the hearts of people. This is the only way to break through human indifference. To subtly feel the world around, the poet's soul must be full of contradictions. Along with the devils, angels are certainly present there.

Yesenin uses very vivid images to describe his highest calling - the wedding of a "white rose with a black toad." He believes that he could not combine these absolutely opposite images together, but he strived for this.

The poet's statements about a complete reassessment of his convictions are known. He became the author of a number of works in which he denies patriarchy and religion and advocates atheism and technological progress. But in the last lines of the poem “I have only one fun left,” it becomes clear that Yesenin hid deep in his soul, carefully kept from other people's interference. The last wish of the "hooligan" is to die "in a Russian shirt under the icons." In this, the poet sees the atonement for all his sins.