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Abstract:

The article presents an overview of the reception of S.A. Esenin in the Czechia from the 1920s to the present day. As a part of the study of Russian-Czech literary ties, the perception of Esenin was studied from the following aspects: the historical and literary reasons for his exceptional popularity in Czechia throughout the 20th century, the poetics of translations of his poetry into Czech in different eras, Esenin’s influence on Czech poetry and the effect of “Eseninism” in the Czech environment. The article also examines the history of translations and publications of Esenin’s poetry in Czechia — the number of its volumes currently exceeds forty items, as well as translation approaches in different eras, the features of which were conditioned by the specifics of the development of the Czech literary language and the change of cultural and ideological paradigms. In addition, Esenin’s influence on his main translators and, at the same time, the greatest Czech poets of the 20th century is described — J. Hora and J. Zábrana, and a review of works of art in which the Russian poet acts as an inspiration and a hero (for example, the poem by J. Kainar “Esenin” (1953), the novel by J. Navrátil “Blue Evening” (2000), the prose by B. Hrabal) is made. The article concludes with a panorama of the reception of Esenin by literary criticism (mainly in periodicals) from the 1920s to the present day.