“The Ballad of Twenty-Six” by S.A. Esenin: Literary and Political Contexts

“Ballad of Twenty Six” – a response of Sergei A. Esenin to the actual political event – the sixth anniversary of the shooting of the leaders of the Baku commune in 1918. In the days when the communards were remembered in Azerbaijan, Esenin came to Baku at the invitation of Pyotr I. Chagin – the second secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, editor of the newspaper “Bakinskii rabochii”. Esenin agrees to write a poem on a topical subject and receives a large number of materials from Chagin. They characterize the history of the commune, contain biographical information about its leaders and reminiscences. Also in Esenin’s fi eld of vision are artistic works dedicated to the commune’s fi gures, including a poem by Vladimir V. Mayakovsky, “The rumble of uprisings, on the echo multiplied, about this will give a real verse, but I only what I can say today about the case of 26”. Esenin works very quickly and effi ciently – on the night of September 20–21, 1924, he writes a ballad. Already on September 22, the ballad is published in the newspaper “Bakinskii rabochii”. The analysis of the publications of 1922–1924 allowed us to establish the main sources that Esenin used to obtain information about the communards and the circumstances of their deaths. The work is dedicated “with love – to the wonderful artist Georgy Yakulov” – painter, graphic artist and theater artist, one of the founders of Imagism. The newspaper “Bakinskii rabochii” published a sketch of a monument to twenty-six communards, which he had developed. The poet mentions only two communards – Stepan G. Shaumyan and Prokofi y A. Japaridze, who founded the newspaper “Bakinskii rabochii” in 1906. Their names were published on the front page of the publication. For Esenin it is important that the cause of the Baku communards, for the defense of which they gave their lives, is alive and successful. The heroes of Esenin’s ballad enter into a posthumous dialog, rejoicing in the successes of Soviet Azerbaijan.