Sergei Yesenin's Reputation in the USSR (1925-1945)

The work is dedicated to studying the process of the posthumous reputation of Sergei Yesenin in the USSR from 1925 to 1945. It contains fragments from articles, books, and statements of literary and political persons who reflected the official attitude of the Soviet leadership toward the poet. Diaries, memoirs of Russian soldiers in World War II, handwritten collections of Yesenin’s poems, and unpublished poems as parodic or imitative Yesenin's poetry style written in this period are used to analyze the unofficial opinion of Soviet citizens of different ages and social groups toward Yesenin as a person and a poet. The paper also contains articles published in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union during World War II, in which the image of the poet and his lyrics were often used by collaborators to call for the overthrow of the Soviet Union.