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Berlin: Izd. I. T. Blagova (Tipografiia "Nakanune"), [1923]. Octavo (18 × 12.5 cm). Original publisher's wrappers printed in red; 57, [1] pp. Very good, save for small nick to lower spine extremity (see scans); empty first leaf detached; text toned due to stock. First edition of the rarest book of poems by Sergei Esenin (1895-1925), one of the most popular Russian lyric poets of the twentieth century. Esenin submitted the book to I. T. Blagov for publication in Berlin while en route to America with his third wife, the dancer Isadora Duncan. The collection "marked a transition to a darker theme of drunkenness and imminent death," a tendency continued in his subsequent critically acclaimed collection "Moskva kabatskaia" (Moscow Taverns, 1924). Four poems, including "Da! Teper' resheno! Bez vozvrata.," "Snova p'iut zdes', derutsia i plachut," "Syp', garmonika! skuka. skuka.," "Poi zhe, poi! Na prokliatoi gitare." appeared for the first time in this collection. Esenin faced many difficulties during and after the trip. He and Duncan were initially denied entry into the United States on accusations of intent to spread Bolshevik propaganda. Esenin was in turn arrested and interrogated several times on his return to the USSR. This collection was famously banned from being imported into the Soviet Union (Turchinskii, p. 190). Perhaps sensing the problems his book would face, Esenin wrote a short preface in Berlin that began with the words: "I feel myself to be a lord in Russian poetry and for this reason I drag all manner of language into poetry, there is no such thing as unclean language. There are only unclean notions." Known as a "peasant poet," Esenin was born to a peasant family in the Ryazan region. He claimed to have begun writing poetry at the age of nine, inspired by folk songs and ditties. In 1914, equipped with a teacher's diploma he moved to Moscow and worked at a printing house while trying to continue his education, unsuccessfully due to lack of funds. A year later he went to St. Petersburg, where he met major poets of the Russian Silver Age, Alexander Blok and Andrei Bely who were instrumental in his subsequent career and Nikolai Klyuev, another "peasant poet" with whom he formed a deep friendship. Esenin supported the 1917 Revolution and the rise of Bolshevism, but never joined the party, claiming to be further left of it. He had progressively more run-ins with the state toward the end of his life and was found dead in one of the rooms of Hotel Angleterre, at the age of 30, having left as a suicide note the poem "Do svidania, moi drug, do svidania," written in his own blood. Nevertheless, rumors that his suicide was in fact a murder continue to circulate. The poet published nearly two dozen collections of poems in his ten years of poetic activity, with this collection being the most scarce in the trade. We cannot trace any auction records in the West. A copy in comparable condition reportedly sold for $12,000 in Moscow (March 3, 2016, Litfond Auction no. 9). This edition was famously forbidden from being imported by Soviet authorities.
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