For almost a century, the poet’s passing has haunted historians, researchers and admirers of his work.
Protocol with violations
Many accusations are being made against the local police officer of the 2nd police department, Nikolai Gorbov. The act of discovery of Sergei Yesenin’s body, signed by Gorbov, does not inspire confidence either from a grammatical or professional point of view. A person who worked in an active-secret criminal investigation department should know that this document is called a protocol and is drawn up according to a model. According to all rules, removing the body from the noose, as well as describing the scene of the incident and evidence, must be done in the presence of witnesses. Gorbov’s act (or just signed with his last name?) does not give a clear picture of what happened. And it’s hard to imagine that this local police officer was so illiterate, because 19 years before that he worked as a typesetter in a printing house. The handwriting and signature of this person can be reconstructed from his surviving documents: a statement and autobiography. Neither the handwriting nor the signature match.
No hotel registration
Not a single document has been found confirming that Yesenin lived at the Angleterre Hotel in December 1925. And it is unclear why the poet had to stay there if he could have stayed with his close friends. Probably Yesenin never lived in Angleterre. Then the version that he was killed in another place, and only then the suicide story was played out in a hotel room, looks more convincing.
Incomplete medical examination
The medical examination report drawn up by forensic expert Gilyarevsky also seems dubious. His conclusion reads: “Based on the autopsy data, it should be concluded that Yesenin’s death was due to asphyxia caused by compression of the respiratory tract through hanging. Indentation on the forehead could have occurred from pressure during hanging. Dark purple color lower limbs, the pinpoint bruises on them indicate that the deceased was hanging for a long time." However, for some reason, this act does not indicate all the injuries that were on the poet’s face. This is confirmed by Yesenin’s photo, preserved in the National Public Library in St. Petersburg in special department. In this photograph, a bullet hole in the poet’s forehead and a mark from a blow under his right eye are clearly visible. This blow could have been inflicted with the handle of a pistol, which, by the way, the poet himself had.
Predicament
Then the question arises: why was Yesenin hanged? Wouldn't it have been easier to shoot him to make it look like suicide? Many historians are inclined to believe that Trotsky personally approved the poet’s murder. And the menial work was entrusted to the famous revolutionary Yakov Blumkin, who found himself in a difficult situation during the murder, and therefore had to play out the hanging option.
Why hanging?
The question arises, why then was it necessary to “hang” the poet, if everything could be attributed to death from a shot from a revolver, which Yesenin himself had? Although, on the other hand, why did the poet himself, if you believe the official version, hang himself and not shoot himself?
Valuable Witness
The magazine "Miracles and Adventures" published a letter from retired military man Viktor Titarenko from Khabarovsk Territory, in which he recounted his conversation in the mid-70s with former prisoner Nikolai Leontiev. According to him, in 1925 he served in the OGPU together with Blumkin. One day, Blumkin received an order from Trotsky to adequately physically punish Yesenin. The security officers planned to deprive the poet of his masculinity and, seemingly jokingly, began to pull off his trousers. The poet grabbed a copper candlestick and hit Blumkin on the head with it. He fell unconscious, and the frightened Leontyev pulled out his revolver and shot at Yesenin. Titarenko says that Blyumkin, having woken up, hit Yesenin in the forehead with the handle of a revolver, and then contacted Trotsky and agreed with him about staging a suicide and about measures to eliminate the bloody traces. And Nikolai Leontyev was sent to prison a few days later Far East for underground work at Ataman Semenov's headquarters. There, after the war, he received a 25-year sentence for treason against the KGB cause. It is difficult to rely on one letter for reasoning. But in the drawing by V. Svarog, made on the morning of December 28, 1925, the poet’s trousers are unbuttoned and lowered. The artist also reports that he noticed traces of a struggle in the room and a lot of carpet fluff on the poet’s shirt and hair. V. Svarog even then suggested that Yesenin was wrapped in a carpet after the murder.
Bullying
Living in the USSR in 1923-1925 was not easy. Trotsky considered murder a justifiable means of establishing the communist idea. “We must,” he wrote, “turn Russia into a desert inhabited by white blacks, to which we will give such tyranny that even the inhabitants of the East have never dreamed of. Through bloodbaths we will bring the Russian intelligentsia to complete stupefaction, to idiocy, to an animal state... " Yesenin seemed to know what was interfering with the plan:
And I should be hanged first, with my arms crossed behind my back, Because with a hoarse and sick song I prevented my native country from sleeping.
It is also known that in last years During the poet's life, the authorities subjected him to massive psychological persecution. The truth about the death of the last poet of the village will be revealed only together with the archives of the NKVD (
On the morning of December 28, 1925, Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin was found hanged in his Angeleterre hotel room. Soon the investigation ruled the incident a suicide. However, there are many circumstances in Yesenin’s death that allow us to question this version. So what is it: murder or suicide? Let's look at all the theories and versions of the mysterious death of the national poet.
It's no secret that the poet for a long time suffered from alcoholism. This illness forced him, shortly before his death, to agree to treatment at the psychiatric clinic of the 1st Moscow state university. Yesenin’s treatment ended a week before his death, and three days after his discharge, the poet went to Leningrad, where he stayed at the Angeler Hotel. Friends of the author also claimed that he was deeply depressed, and scholars of his work say that there were more than 100 references to death in the last two years of his work. It is prolonged depression that is the reason for the poet’s suicide.
The day before the tragic events, his friend Wolf Elrich came to visit the poet. Yesenin complained to him that there was no ink in the hotel and gave him a poem written in his own blood, and then asked him to read it only when Elrich was left alone. It was the now famous poem “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye...”. It can well be considered as the poet's suicide note. By the way, Yesenin’s friends noted that he often wrote in blood when there was no ink at hand. This was part of his shocking presentation, because the author would be a big fan of making an effect on the public.
And here is other evidence of this version:
- According to the results of the autopsy, the poet died precisely from oxygen starvation, that is, from the effect of suffocation.
- Before his death, he asked his receptionist not to allow anyone into his room. This is probably so that no one will stop him from killing himself.
But, in addition to signs of suffocation, numerous abrasions, cuts on the wrists and a dent on the forehead, which could only have been formed by a blow, were found on the body. Cuts on the wrists may be the first and unsuccessful attempt at suicide or the result of there being no ink in the room. But where did the rest of the damage come from? To find the answer, let's turn to the version of Yesenin's death.
Version 2. Murder
However, there are a number of oddities that indicate that official version may be wrong. The suicide was easy to stage, because neither cameras nor a fingerprint identification system existed then.
- Firstly, Yesenin simply physically could not hang himself. He was quite short - his height was 168 centimeters, while the ceilings in his room reached a height of almost 4 meters. To tie the rope, the man had to substitute an object at least two meters high, but nothing similar was found nearby. The only things that were out of place were an overturned candelabra and a small cabinet.
- Secondly, we are, of course, interested in the previously mentioned abrasions, cuts and dent on the forehead. Where did they come from on the poet’s body? There are two versions about the occurrence of the cuts, which were also mentioned earlier: either Yesenin made the cuts to write a poem, or it was his first and unsuccessful suicide attempt. But if the second version is true, then the poet would have to tie a rope and move objects with bleeding hands, which is very difficult to imagine, and besides, traces of blood would remain on the floor and on the furniture of the room. The beatings and dents on the forehead had to be inflicted by another person; Yesenin could not have inflicted them on himself. Then who did it? Unfortunately, the investigation never answered this question.
- Thirdly, the poem “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye...”, which is considered to be Yesenin’s suicide note, most likely has nothing to do with the poet’s death. Sergei Alexandrovich's mother claims that the poem was written months before the tragedy and dedicated to Yesenin's friend Alexei Ganin, who was sentenced to death.
- There are classified materials in the Yesenin case that should have become public knowledge, since most state secrets have a statute of limitations, after which they are declassified. 70 years have long passed - this is the period established by law. But so far, none of these materials have left the secret archive, and interested people just shrug their shoulders and wait.
- Many poets silver age died a violent death, and the indirect reason for their decision in all cases can be called the political situation in the country. V. Mayakovsky shot himself, M. Tsvetaeva hanged herself, O. Mandelstam died in the camps, N. Gumilev was shot, etc.
Today it is quite difficult to reconstruct the picture of what happened and find the possible culprit. This is largely the fault of investigator Nikolai Gorbov, who was the first to arrive at the scene and incorrectly drew up the report: he did not describe important elements of the crime scene. But if it was not suicide, then who killed Yesenin?
Yesenin did not suit the Soviet government in many ways. Nikolai Bukharin, a member of the party's Central Committee who then had considerable power, repeatedly spoke unflatteringly about him. Possible reason The government's revenge could be the poem "Land of Scoundrels", which contains an allusion to Leon Trotsky. Even then, politicians realized that the peasants were only “fellow travelers” of the party; village riots shook the entire country during the famine years.
Everyone knows that at that time total control was exercised over all spheres of the country’s life, and this did not bypass culture. The Soviet government tried to avoid counter-revolution by any means. But it is impossible to execute a national poet, people will not understand, because Yesenin was known to everyone. And the direction of his work did not outwardly contradict the interests of the party.
Indirect evidence can be considered that Yesenin was posthumously awarded the label of “kulak poet”. Propaganda attacked the author's memory with the frenzy of a hungry wolf. His poems began to be published in limited editions, this once again indicates that Yesenin had a very difficult relationship with the authorities.
Version 2.2. The poet was killed by Georgy Ustinov
There is another version. It was suggested by Dana Kurskaya (poet and literary critic). She claims that it was not just an imitation of suicide, but also an unprofessional imitation.
Yesenin had a difficult year: he realized that Sofya Tolstaya was not his woman, he was completely disillusioned with the ideas of imagism, and was in a psychiatric hospital. However, he still recovered from alcoholism.
On the evening of December 27, Yesenin called his friends: Wolf Ehrlich (to whom he gave the poem) and Elizaveta and Georgy Ustinov. They argued for a long time whether Sergei could drink, but then they brought a couple of bottles of wine.
At night, Yesenin knocked on the Ustinovs’ room, but Elizaveta replied that they were sleeping, and the poet left. But this is known only from the words of the Ustinov spouses themselves. Afterwards, the hotel commandant admitted that he heard only one sound: something heavy, like a cabinet, fell. In 1925, Georgy Ustinov began to drink a lot, while Yesenin himself stopped drinking. Empty wine bottles were found in the room, but upon opening it turned out that Sergei Alexandrovich hardly drank that evening. According to Dana Kurskaya, something angered George, and in a drunken stupor he attacked Yesenin. After realizing what he had done, he imitated the poet’s suicide, and his wife covered him up.
Conclusion
It is not possible to find out what happened to Yesenin. What is known for certain is that the national poet Sergei Aleksandrovich Yesenin died in 1925 at the age of 30. He was buried on December 31, 1925 in Moscow at the Vagankovskoye cemetery.
A little later, at the poet’s grave, Galina Benislavskaya, who for many years was good friend Yesenina. But she was not the only one who yearned for the poet. His death was mourned by the entire nation. Perhaps all these theories were born precisely because many could not come to terms with Yesenin’s too early death. But we can only honor his memory and love his work.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!Many are convinced: Sergei Yesenin could not voluntarily die. Hanging himself is too trivial and... unpoetic for the legendary poet.
So was Yesenin killed or not?
Versions of murder
There are many versions claiming that Yesenin was killed. Some believe that in room 5 of the International Hotel (formerly Angleterre), where the poet settled, he was first severely beaten, and only then, unconscious, was hung in a noose.
Another version. They put Yesenin on the sofa, hit him on the forehead with the butt of a pistol, where a dent had formed, then they wrapped him in a carpet, and tried to drag him out onto the balcony in order to take him down and take him out. But the door jammed, then the killers sat down to drink, made mischief in the room, dragged the body back and, cutting the tendon to straighten the already frozen right arm, hung it in a noose (in the picture the right arm is actually bent at the elbow joint, there is a wound on it).
All these conflicting versions are based on the same documents: the inspection report of the scene of the incident, drawn up by the local warden of the 2nd police department of Leningrad N. Gorbov and the report of the forensic medical examination of the corpse by Professor G. Gilyarevsky, post-mortem photographs and face masks poet. It is worth noting that among the enthusiasts trying to unravel the mystery of Yesenin’s death, there were poets, journalists, doctors, philosophers, teachers, artists, even a pathophysiologist and a former investigator, but there was not a single professional - a forensic doctor or criminologist.
All this prompted the All-Russian Yesenin Writers' Committee to seek help from the Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination of the Moscow Health Committee with a request to create a commission to clarify the circumstances of the poet's death. Later, professionals from the Russian Ministry of Health and leading experts in the field of forensic medicine were involved in the case.
Investigative experiment
The inspection report of the scene of the incident was drawn up by N. Gorbov superficially and unprofessionally: the situation in the room, the condition of the door and window locks, cadaveric changes, etc. were not described.
According to the protocol, Yesenin’s body was hanging right near the ceiling - this gave reason to doubt suicide, since the height of the ceiling in the room was supposedly 4-5 m, and the size of the overturned cabinet was 1.5 m and the poet’s height was 168 cm.
It was necessary to find out the real height of the ceiling. The matter was complicated by the fact that in 1986 the Angleterre Hotel was reconstructed. But a photograph of the 5th issue has been preserved with the inscription on the back: “May 18, 1926, 5th issue of the GOST. "Leningradskaya", formerly "Angleterre", where Yesenin lived and died." The photo was taken through open door, a vertical steam heating pipe is visible, a carpeted floor, a fragment of the ceiling, a desk, a lamp, a chair, a wardrobe.
Using well-known formulas and guidelines (in particular, based on the back of the table, which is closest to the wall plane), forensic scientists calculated the ceiling height to be... no more than 352 cm!
But there remained one more “weighty” argument from supporters of the poet’s murder. Thus, former investigator E. Khlystalov writes that it is impossible to tie a rope to a vertically standing pipe: under the weight of the body it will certainly slide down. To confirm his words, he recalls an experiment conducted by students of the Literary Institute in Angleterre, when the hotel was still intact: a rope tied to a vertical pipe was pulled down with a jerk of the hand.
And although judicial practice shows that you can hang yourself not only on such a pipe, but also on a door handle, the back of a chair, special experiments had to be carried out: a 169 cm tall extra was tied alternately to painted oil paint pipes of different diameters, twisted ropes made of hemp, cotton, silk with a thickness of 0.6 to 1.0 cm. Making from 1 to 6 turns and tying with all kinds of knots, he unsuccessfully tried to pull the rope off the vertical. Its freely hanging end could withstand a weight load of more than 100 kg.
Is it possible to jump out of a loop?
Proponents of the murder were confused by the fact that the noose did not cover the entire surface of the neck - the groove was directed obliquely upward and was not closed. When hanging, the groove is always directed this way, since one end of the rope is attached to an object, in this case a pipe, and the other is pulled down by the weight of the body, and the greatest pressure is placed on this place of the neck.
Could Yesenin jump out of an open loop? Is self-help possible in a loop? No. Professors of forensic medicine Minovich from Romania and Fleichmann from Germany, independently of each other, wanting to study the phenomena of asphyxia (suffocation caused by a lack of oxygen in the blood), conducted experiments on themselves: assistants suspended them on a soft rope, and Minovich managed to stay in the loop for up to 26 seconds ! Scientists noted terrible pain in the neck, excessive heaviness in the head, whistling in the ears, turning into bell ringing, and mortal melancholy. But, most importantly, from the very first seconds there is a desire to throw off the loop and... the impossibility of even lifting a finger! When asphyxia occurs, muscle adynamia occurs. Even if a person hangs himself from a door handle, he cannot straighten his knees.
What did the masks say?
Most of the versions were generated by the entry in the act: “In the middle of the forehead... a depressed groove 4 cm long and 1.5 cm wide.” Gilyarevsky himself explained it by the pressure difference in the skull during strangulation. Proponents of the murder theory interpreted the depression as a blow with the handle of a pistol, an iron, or a blunt heavy object “with terrible force.”
According to the examination of the corpse, it is clear that the bones of the skull are not damaged and there is no fracture. But the “pathfinders” doubted Gilyarevsky’s impartiality. Then forensic experts examined five of the poet’s death masks, establishing that the “slightly arc-shaped” depression had a depth of 0.4-0.5 mm (this is the thickness of the skin) without mechanical damage to the bones of the skull. So, it is obvious that this is a trace from the pipe: since the loop node was on the left, the head deviated to the right and was leaning against the pipe at the time of death.
To confirm the conclusion, plasticine casts were made from plaster masks, which were struck in the frontal part with cylindrical objects. As the experiment showed, the object should have a diameter of 3.7 cm, which exactly corresponds to the parameters of a water pipe.
"And, bleeding..."
The version that Yesenin’s veins were first cut, and then the poet was hung in a noose, is found among many. It is known that during the examination the district police officer found a cut “on the right arm above the elbow on the palm side” and “scratches on the left arm on the hand.” Is it possible to move a cut arm, tie a rope to a pipe, or move furniture while losing blood? Forensic experts have more than once encountered the fact that people did the wrong thing with cut veins and arteries. But what kind of “blood loss” we're talking about? No traces of her were found in the room, and from the report it follows that all the wounds are superficial and do not penetrate the thickness of the skin. This means that Yesenin’s veins were not cut. From various sources it is known that from December 26 to 27 Yesenin was composing, but, not finding ink in the issue, he decided to write down the poems in blood and made an incision. Already today, experts have established the authenticity of Yesenin’s handwriting and the fact that the poem “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye” was written in blood in an amount ... no more than 0.02 ml.
And yet asphyxia
So, Yesenin’s death was caused by asphyxia - compression of the neck organs by a noose tightening under the weight of the body. He could have hanged himself at that height. There were no deep cuts on the hands. There is a pipe mark on the forehead. It is safe to say that there are no marks on Yesenin’s body characteristic of fighting or self-defense.
It is worth noting that all experiments were carried out in the presence of a prosecutor-criminologist of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation.
“Kill” at any cost?
It would seem that the Yesenin case has been put to rest. But versions of contract murder continue to multiply and take root in the consciousness of ordinary people: the recent television series of the father and son Bezrukov is an eloquent confirmation of this.
Why do they continue to “kill” Yesenin so persistently? Because he is a truly Russian poet, and the church, to put it mildly, does not welcome suicide? Or maybe, as T. Flor-Yesenin, however, accurately put it about another person: “Someone else’s fame is always attractive because it makes it possible... to “break the blockade” of one’s own obscurity”?
“You can so easily leave this life,
Burn out mindlessly and painlessly.
But not given to the Russian poet
To die such a bright death.
More likely than lead, the winged soul
The heavenly borders will open,
Or hoarse horror with a shaggy paw
The life will be squeezed out of the heart like from a sponge.”
Poem by Anna Akhmatova “In Memory of Sergei Yesenin”
Biography
The biography of Sergei Yesenin is a controversial life story of the great Russian poet. It is difficult to find another person who would write about Russia with such love and at the same time pain. The poet’s difficult character, his rebellion, restlessness, and tendency to shocking people and conflicts created considerable difficulties in Yesenin’s life. But even after his tragic departure, the “street rake”, “mischievous reveler” and “scandalist” Yesenin, as he called himself, was able to remain forever in the hearts of those who once heard his poetry and fell in love with it.
Sergei Yesenin was born in the Ryazan region into a simple peasant family. Even as a child, he fell in love with reading, having special feelings for Russian folklore, fairy tales, epics, ditties and Russian poetry. Pushkin, Lermontov, Koltsov were Yesenin’s favorite writers. As a young man, he moved to Moscow, where he worked in a printing house, and was soon accepted into the literary and musical circles of the capital and began publishing his poems. First Moscow, and then Petrograd, greeted Yesenin with open arms; he was considered “the envoy of the Russian village.” Yesenin’s personality also played a big role - he read his poems with such fervor, with such expression and sincerity that everyone - from ordinary people to famous writers - fell in love with the golden-haired peasant poet.
Yesenin greeted the coming of power by the workers and peasants with enthusiasm. But over time, delight gave way to disappointment, fear, and indignation. Because of his directness, the poet often became the object of surveillance by the authorities, especially during Sergei Yesenin’s relationship with Isadora Duncan, an American dancer. When, finally, Yesenin openly expressed his sharp condemnation of the actions of the Soviet authorities in the poem “Land of Scoundrels,” the real persecution of the poet began. The already hot-tempered and alcohol-addicted poet was often provoked. Every scandalous episode of his biography was described in the newspapers. Yesenin was forced to hide - he lived in the Caucasus, in Leningrad, in Konstantinovo, where he was born. Last wife Yesenina, Sofya Tolstaya, in attempts to save her husband from alcohol addiction and persecution hospitalized him in a neurological clinic. Which Yesenin secretly left, allegedly in an attempt to evade the authorities, and went to Leningrad, where he stayed at the Angleterre Hotel. Five days later, his body was found in the Angleterre room. The cause of Yesenin's death was suicide - the poet committed suicide by hanging himself from a pipe. His last words there was a poem written in blood instead of ink:
"Goodbye, my friend, goodbye,
My dear, you are in my chest.
Destined separation
Promises a meeting ahead.
Goodbye, my friend, without a hand and without a word,
Don’t be sad and don’t have sad eyebrows, -
Dying is nothing new in this life,
But life, of course, is not newer.”
Yesenin's funeral took place on the last day of 1925 - December 31. Not a single Russian poet was seen off with such honors and scope - about two hundred thousand people came to Yesenin’s funeral. Yesenin's death was a huge loss and shock for Russia.
Life line
October 3, 1895 Date of birth of Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin.
1904 Admission to the Zemstvo School in Konstantinovo.
1909 Graduation from college, enrollment in a church teaching school.
1912 Graduation from school with a diploma as a literacy teacher, moving to Moscow.
1913 Marriage to Anna Izryadnova.
1914 Birth of Sergei Yesenin's son, Yuri.
1915 Meeting Alexander Blok, joining the ambulance train.
1916 Release of the first collection of poems “Radunitsa”.
1917 Marriage to Zinaida Reich.
1918 Birth of daughter Tatyana.
1920 Birth of son Konstantin.
1921 Divorce from Zinaida Reich, meeting Isadora Duncan, release of the collections “Treryadnitsa”, “Confession of a Hooligan”.
May 2, 1922 Marriage to Isadora Duncan.
1923 Release of the collection “Poems of a Brawler”.
1924 Divorce from Isadora Duncan, the publication of the poem “Pugachev”, the collection “Moscow Tavern”, the birth of an illegitimate son from the translator and poetess Nadezhda Volpin.
September 18, 1925 Marriage to Sofia Tolstoy.
December 28, 1925 Date of death of Yesenin.
December 31, 1925 Yesenin's funeral.
Memorable places
1. The village of Konstantinovo, where Yesenin was born and where the Yesenin Museum-Reserve is located today.
2. Yesenin Museum (former church and teachers' school, from which Yesenin graduated) in Spas-Klepiki.
3. Tsarskoe Selo, where Yesenin’s regiment was quartered and where the poet spoke to Empress Alexandra.
4. Yesenin and Duncan’s house in Moscow, where the couple lived and where Isadora’s dance school was located.
5. Moscow State Museum of S. A. Yesenin.
6. Yesenin’s house in Mardakan (now a memorial house-museum on the territory of the arboretum), where the poet lived in 1924-1925.
7. House-museum of Sergei Yesenin in Tashkent, where he stayed in 1921.
8. Monument to Yesenin in Moscow on Yeseninsky Boulevard.
9. Monument to Yesenin in Moscow on Tverskoy Boulevard.
10. Hotel Angleterre, where Yesenin’s body was found.
11. Vagankovskoe cemetery, where Yesenin is buried.
Episodes of life
Despite the fact that Yesenin abused alcohol in the last years of his life, he did not write poetry while drunk. The poet’s memoirs also talk about this. One day Yesenin admitted to his friend: “I have a desperate reputation as a drunkard and a hooligan, but these are just words, and not such a terrible reality.”
Dancer Duncan fell in love with Yesenin almost at first sight. He was also very interested in her, despite the noticeable age difference. Isadora dreamed of glorifying her Russian husband and took him with her on a tour - around Europe and America. Yesenin explained his scandalous behavior during the trip in his characteristic manner: “Yes, I caused a scandal. I needed them to know me, so they would remember me. What, am I going to read poetry to them? Poems for Americans? I would only become ridiculous in their eyes. But stealing the tablecloth and all the dishes from the table, whistling in the theater, disrupting the traffic order - this is understandable to them. If I do this, I'm a millionaire. That means it’s possible for me. So respect is ready, and glory and honor! Oh, they remember me better than Duncan!” In fact, Yesenin quickly realized that abroad he was just “husband Duncan” to everyone, broke off relations with the dancer and returned home.
Speculation that Sergei Yesenin’s death was violent appeared many years after the poet’s death. The author of the version of the murder and its popularization was the Moscow investigator Eduard Khlystalov - his point of view on what happened to the poet is shown in the serial film “Yesenin”. Other researchers found it unconvincing.
Covenant
“In thunderstorms, in storms, in everyday shame,
In times of bereavement and when you feel sad,
Seem smiling and simple -
The highest art in the world."
A plot from the series “Historical Chronicles”, dedicated to Sergei Yesenin
Condolences
“Let's not blame him alone. All of us - his contemporaries - are more or less to blame. This was a precious man. We had to fight harder for him. We should have helped him in a more brotherly way.”
Anatoly Lunacharsky, revolutionary, statesman
“Yesenin was saddened by the end, usually saddened in a human way. But right away this ending seemed completely natural and logical. I found out about this at night, the grief would have remained sadness, it would have dissipated by the morning, but in the morning the newspapers brought the dying lines: “In this life, dying is not new, but living, of course, is not new.” . After these lines, Yesenin’s death became a literary fact.”
Vladimir Mayakovsky, poet
“He lived terribly and died terribly.”
Anna Akhmatova, poetess
