Review

In this accessible translation of the works of Sergei Esenin, Roger Pulvers shows why he remains Russia's favourite poet

By Kyle Wilson
January 9 2021 - 12:00am
"Russia's most popular poet", Sergei Esenin. Picture: Getty Images
"Russia's most popular poet", Sergei Esenin. Picture: Getty Images
  • Wholly Esenin: Poems by Sergei Esenin, translated by Roger Pulvers. Balestier Press. $49.27.

In 2016 a Russian public-opinion pollster not yet taken over by the authorities asked a representative sample of 1600 Russians, in face-to-face interviews (few Russians being likely to speak candidly over an open line about anything controversial), to name the 20 most significant figures in world history. Stalin came first, but no less noteworthy was the nomination of three poets: Pushkin, Lermontov and Esenin. In Russia poets matter. The reasons have to do with the authoritarian impulse to control what people think, and the "weaponising" of literature that has been a feature of Russian life since a genuinely Russian literature first emerged in the late 18th century. In Russia, words are actions, and poetry can be a dangerous, even fatal vocation. Esenin is among a constellation of outstanding Russian writers of the Soviet period (1917 to 1991) in whose deaths the state was either directly responsible or complicit.

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