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Abstract:

The article analyzes the image of a hooligan in the works of Esenin in the context of the epoch, which largely determined the reader’s perception and the attitude of contemporaries to the author and his hero. The creation of the artistic image of a hooligan in Russia of the early 20th century is connected not with the development of a long-standing stable meaning, but with the formation of a new one, since the word “hooligan” itself is just entering the wide use and is used to denote a new phenomenon. This phenomenon is sharply negative, so both in literature and in public thought the image of a hooligan-beast becomes dominant, and hooliganism is seen as “the result of psycho-physical degeneration of personality, undeniable proof of the extreme degree of its decomposition” (Gorky). This is confirmed by the works of L. Andreev, A. Grin, V. Rozanov, F. Sologub and others. Esenin creates a different image of the hooligan, which has largely determined our modern understanding of the word and the perception of the image. He does not claim that the lyrical hero of his poems is a hooligan in the generally accepted sense at the time, but rather denies it. His hooligan is a “mischievous man” to whom the hooligan was opposed by the publicists of the early 20th century, who also has the features of two other fairly common interpretations of the image as a “transforming hooligan” associated with “masquerade” in the literal and figurative sense. One of them — a hooligan-apache in love — can be referred to the definition of “gentle hooligan”, which was used by contemporaries reflecting on Esenin’s work.