A Page of the Poetic Dialogue Between S.A. Yesenin and N.A. Klyuev: About the Dating of the Poem “Beloved Land! My Heart Dreams of...”

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-8297-2025-35-209-222
EDN:

https://elibrary.ru/YQRYWM
УДК / UDK: 821.161.1.0; 801.73
Publication Type: Research Article
Issue:

no. 1 (35), 2025
Author: Svetlana A. Seregina
About the author:

Svetlana A. Seregina, PhD in Philology, Senior Researcher, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya St., 25A, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1695-5464

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Author 2: Sergey I. Subbotin
About the author 2:

Sergey I. Subbotin, PhD in Philology, Leading Research Fellow, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya St., 25A, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7865-9724

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Funding Sources:

The research was carried out at A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences with the financial support of the Russian Science Foundation, project no. 25-28-01038 “N.A. Klyuev and S.A. Yesenin in Dialogue with Classics and Contemporaries: Traditions and Innovations.”
Abstract:

The article consistently examines the stages of the creative history of S.A. Yesenin’s poem “Beloved Land! My Heart Dreams of...”. For the first time, we reproduce a facsimile of the autograph of the first version of the work (from the album of the writer I.V. Repin), revealing discrepancies not taken into account in the Complete Works of S.A. Yesenin (1995–2001). The article puts forward a hypothesis about the dating of the poem from 1914 to 1915. The basis for the hypothesis is, first of all, the date with which the poet signed his poem in Repin’s album — October 1, 1915, as well as the fact of the first lifetime publication in December 1915 (Birzhevye Vedomosti newspaper). Using the method of comparative analysis of the currently known versions of the text of Yesenin’s poem with the works of N.A. Klyuev in the spring and summer of 1915, the article identifies specific textual comparisons, and concludes that these works served as sources of the poem “Beloved Land! My Heart Dreams of...”. The article argues that Yesenin elaborated the final version of the first two lines of the text in 1920 as a result of his desire to free himself from “religious symbols” in his work, which appeared in the 1910s, partly under the influence of Klyuev.
Keywords: S.A. Yesenin, N.A. Klyuev, poem, image, dating.
For citation:

Seregina, S.A., and S.I. Subbotin. “A Page of the Poetic Dialogue Between S.A. Yesenin and N.A. Klyuev: About the Dating of the Poem ʽBeloved Land! My Heart Dreams of...’.” Literaturnyi fakt, no. 1 (35), 2025, pp. 209–222. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-8297-2025-35-209-222
References:
  1. Akhmatova, A.A. “Sergei Esenin” [“Sergey Esenin”]. Nash sovremennik, 10, 1990, pp. 156–160. (In Russ.)
  2. Bel’skaia, L. Pesennoe slovo: poeticheskoye masterstvo S. Esenina [The Song Word. Poetic Mastery of S. Esenin]. Moscow, Prosveshchenie Publ., 1990. 144 p. (In Russ.)
  3. Esenin, S.A. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii: v 7 t. (9 kn.) [Collected Works: in 7 vols. (9 books)], by Iu.L. Prokushev. Moscow, Nauka Publ., Golos Publ., 1995–2001.
  4. Esenin, A. Sobranie stikhotvorenii: v 4 t. [Collected Poems: in 4 vols.], vol. 4, introd. article and comp. by I.V. Evdokimov. Мoscow, Leningrad, Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo Publ., 1927. 502 p. (In Russ.)
  5. Kiseleva, A. “Esenin i Kliuev: skrytyi dialiog (popytka chastichnoi rekonstrukt- sii)” [“Esenin and Klyuev: Hidden Dialogue (An Attempt of Partial Reconstruction)”]. Nikolai Kliuev. Issledovaniia i materialy [Nikolai Klyuev: Research and Materials]. Мosсow, Nasledie Publ., 1997, pp. 183–198. (In Russ.)
  6. Kliuev, A. Serdtse Edinoroga: Stikhotvareniia i poemy [The Unicorn’s Heart: Lyrics and Poems], introd. articles by N.N. Skatov and A.I. Mikhailov, comp. and notes by V.P. Garnin. St. Petersburg, Russian Christian Institute for Humanities Publ.,1999. 1072 p. (In Russ.)
  7. Kozlovskii, A. “Kommentarii” [“Comments”]. Esenin, S.A. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii: v 7 t. (9 kn.) [Complete Works: in 7 vols. (9 books)], vol. 1. Moscow, Nauka Publ., Golos Publ., 1995, pp. 385–664. (In Russ.)
  8. Letopis’ zhizni i tvorchestva S.A. Esenina: v 5 t. [Chronicle of the Life and Work of S.A. Yesenin: in 5 vols.]. Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2003–2018. (In Russ.)
  9. Mikhailov, I. Puti razvitiia novokrest’ianskoi poezii [Ways of Developing Novokrestyan Poetry]. Leningrad, Nauka Publ., 1990. 277 p. (In Russ.)
  10. A. Esenin v vospominaniiakh sovremennokov: v 2 t. [S.A. Esenin in the Memoirs of Contemporaries: in 2 vols.], vol. 1, introd. article, comp. and notes by A.A. Kozlovskii. Мoscow, Khudozhestvennaia literatura Publ., 1986. 511 p. (In Russ.)
  11. Seregina, S.A. “Diptikh S.A. Esenina o zvuke ʽPod krasnym viazom kryl’tso i dvor’ i ʽTvoi glas nezrimyi, kak dym v izbe…’: kontekst, poetika, datirovka” [“S.A. Yesenin’s Diptich About the Sound: ʽUnder the Red Elm, the Porch and the Yard...’ and ʽYour Voice Is Invisible, Like Smoke in a Hut...’: Context, Poetics, Dating”]. Studia Litterarum, no. 1, 2023, pp. 302–323. https://doi.org/10.22455/2500-4247-2023-8-1-302-323 (In Russ.)
  12. Seregina, S.A. Nikolai Kl’uev i Sergei Esenin: dialog s epokhoi [Nikolay Klyuev and Sergey Yesenin: Dialogue with the Epoch], acad. ed. by S.I. Subbotin. Мoscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2024. 816 p. (In Russ.)
  13. Subbotin, S.I. “Avtorskie datirovki v ʽSobranii stikhotvorenii’ Sergeia Esenina (1926): Nevostrebovannye dokumental’nye materialy” [“The Author’s Dates in the ʽCol- lected Poems’ by Sergey Esenin (1926): Unclaimed Documentary Materials”]. De visu, no. 11, 1993, pp. 58–61. (In Russ.)
  14. Subbotin, S.I. “Esenin i Kliuev: k istorii tvorcheskikh vzaimootnoshenii” [“Es- enin and Klyuev: Towards the History of Creative Relationships”]. O, Rus’, vzmakhni krylami. Eseninskii sbornik [Oh, Rus, Flap Your Wings. The Yesenin Collection]. Мoscow, Nasledie Publ., 1994, pp. 104–120. (In Russ.)
  15. Titova, V.S. “Al’bom I.V. Repina v fondovom sobranii Gosudarstvennogo muzeia-zapovednika S.A. Esenina” [“I.V. Repin’s Album in the Stock Collection of the S.A. Yesenin State Museum-Reserve”]. Sergei Esenin i russkaia istoriia: sbornik trudov po materialam Mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii, posviashchennoi 117-i godovshchine so dnia rozhdeniia S.A. Esenina i Godu rossiiskoi istorii [Sergey Yesenin and Russian History: Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference Dedicated to the 117ᵗʰ Anniversary of S.A. Yesenin’s Birth and the Year of Russian History]. Moscow, Konstantinovo, Ryazan, [IWL RAS Publ.], 2013, pp. 427–451. (Series “Esenin v XXI veke,” issue 1)