Our Notes & References

The scarce first edition of Esenin’s first-published book. WorldCat locates no copy in public collections outside of Russia; not in Kilgour (and not in Harvard).

Among the towering figures of early twentieth-century Russian poetry, Esenin has always been the people’s choice. Even before the 1916 appearance of his first collection Radunitsa he was hailed as a rising star – having published more than 100 poems in various periodicals. His fame spread quickly, bringing him to the imperial palace to read for the Empress and her daughters. Mirsky observed that Esenin “has a rare gift of song. He is genuinely akin to the spirit of the Russian folk song, though he does not adopt its meters”. The great Symbolist poet Alexander Blok praised his “fresh, pure, clamorous” verses, while Maxim Gorky quipped that critics had received Esenin the way a “glutton greets wild strawberries in January.”

Radunitsa takes its title from an Orthodox ritual – with pagan East Slavonic roots – honouring the souls of departed ancestors. It consists of 33 lyrics under two headings: ‘Rus’ and ‘Makovye pobaski’ [Poppy Tales]. Most of these were written no earlier than 1914. The collection was reprinted twice in the author’s lifetime (1918 and 1921), in both cases with significant changes in the selection of poems.

These verses cement Esenin’s reputation as a leading voice among the Russian peasant poets, with their “peculiar blend of folk poetics and the modernistic literary trends of the Russian Silver Age” (Pavlovszky).

Hopeful of the Revolution, at first, Esenin became increasingly despondent and his mental health deteriorated; after five marriages in quick succession, one of them to Isadora Duncan, Esenin allegedly committed suicide aged 30, leaving a farewell poem written in his own blood.

Provenance

?Mordvintsev (title inscription in purple pencil, dated Leningrad, 23 July 1945); Eden Martin (b. 1940; American lawyer and noted collector of Russian, British and American literature works).

Bibliography

Lesman 846; Okhlopkov p. 73 (mentioning the [2] pp. ads; 930 copies); Rozanov 2715; Mirsky, p.265; Blok, A. Sobranie sochinenii v 8 t. (Moskva, 1963), 8: 441; Gorkii, M. Sobranie sochinenii v 30 t. (Moskva, 1955), 29: 459; Pavlovszky, M. “All Souls’ Day,” in Neil Cornwell, ed., Reference Guide to Russian Literature (London, 1998), 190.

Cf. Kilgour 301 (the 1918, second edition only).