Sergei Yesenin

Sergei Esenin achieved worldwide notoriety in 1922 when he married the dancer Isadora Duncan. Brought up in peasant traditions and initially influenced by the symbolists, Esenin filled his early works with folk and religious themes. After the October Revolution, Esenin's hopes for a new Russia brought to his writing strong messianic expectations. He became leader of a group that emphasized bold, often outrageous imagery as the key to poetry. His works are often rough in both language and imagery, and their contents echo Esenin's bohemian life-style, as in the poetic cycle Moscow of the Taverns (1921-1924). Even though the authorities and other writers often harshly criticized Esenin, he was popular with readers. Personal instability, especially his alcoholism, and doubts about his role in the new society led to Esenin's suicide in 1925 by hanging in a Leningrad hotel.