Yesenin

Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin (Russian: Сергей Александрович Есенин; also transliterated Esenin) was a Russian lyric poet of the early 20th century. Born October 21, 1895, in Konstantinovo, Ryazan Governorate, Russian Empire, he rose to be one of the most popular and influential poets of the Silver Age. Yesenin is best known for a highly musical, emotionally direct style that often drew on rural life, nature, and love, while engaging with the social upheavals of his era.

Yesenin began publishing as a teenager and quickly developed a distinctive voice that blended folk speech with refined verse. His early work celebrated the simplicity and vitality of village Russia, while later poetry reflected themes of exile, longing, and disillusionment with rapid social change following the 1917 Russian Revolution. He traveled extensively within Russia and abroad, which broadened his perspectives but also intensified his sense of cultural dislocation. His poetry is characterized by a lyrical cadence, vivid imagery, and an openness to folk influences alongside modern formal experimentation.

During the 1920s, Yesenin’s relationship with Soviet society was complex; he supported some social ideals while frequently expressing personal and artistic estrangement. He died by suicide on December 28, 1925, in Saint Petersburg (then Leningrad). Yesenin’s work left a lasting imprint on Russian poetry, and he remains a central figure in studies of the Silver Age, celebrated for voices that combine immediacy, folk sensibility, and technical craft.