Information about the author:
Natalia I. Shubnikova-Guseva
Natalia I. Shubnikova-Guseva, DSc in Philology, Director of Research, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3753-2935
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Abstract:
The article contains new materials about A.M. Gorky’s notes on S.A. Yesenin’s books, belonging to him. The books were in A.M. Gorky’s Personal Library. The notes made by Gorky on S.A. Yesenin’s first volume of the Collection of Works (Berlin, 1922) is also taken into account (its whereabouts is unknown). Gorky’s notes are considered in the context of his judgments about Yesenin’s works and materials about the poet in periodicals and correspondence. The attention is paid to the judgments which Gorky makes about reviews on Yesenin’s death (by B.A. Lavrenev, L.D. Trotsky, V.F. Hodasevich, A.E. Kruchenyh and V.A. Dynnik). The notes in the book Sergey Yesenin (1926) by N.A. Kluyev and P.N. Medvedev are also analyzed. A close attention is given to the dialogue between Gorky and Medvedev about Yesenin’s works published after his death (the poems “Black Man and “Land of Scoundrels”). The article concludes that Gorky appreciated the importance of Yesenin’s poetic mastery.
Keywords: А.М. Gorky, S.A. Yesenin, A.M. Gorky’s Personal Library, notes on books, correspondence, memoirs.