July 13: the birthday of Sergei Klychkov, the "peasant Fet" and Yesenin's friend
On July 13, 1889, Sergei Klychkov was born—poet, prose writer, translator, and one of the leading voices of the new peasant poetry movement. A friend of Sergei Yesenin, he was a "quiet lyricist" whom Anna Akhmatova called "a man of dazzling beauty."
My mother told me that in a pink shirt
I was born into this world at the crimson dawn,
And I live only from line to line
Childhood in a raspberry patch
Klychkov was born in the Tver province, to Anton Klychkov, an Old Believer peasant. His mother gave birth to her son right in a raspberry patch—she was out picking berries and unexpectedly gave birth.
Ah, that's right, that's why I'm wild,
That's why my songs are -
Like a body of wild strawberries
Between the berries with pine needles
The family in the village had a nickname, "Leshenkovs," from the word "leshy." Seryozha liked it very much, and later used it as a pseudonym. His grandmother eagerly introduced the boy to stories about all sorts of evil spirits—she showed the future author of "Chertukhinsky Balakir" the way into the world of fairy tales and images created by nature.
Klychkov's prose reveals his original connection with the traditional world of the peasantry and peasant demonology, as well as the influence of Gogol, Leskov and Remizov.
(Wolfgang Kazak)
Spanking and a lucky break
Klychkov didn't immediately immerse himself in the world of literature. His father, who had built a cobbler's workshop and managed to escape poverty, dreamed of an engineering career for his son. He sent him to enroll in a Moscow realschule. During the exam, the boy became flustered and didn't utter a word—his father gave him a spanking right there on the street. The director of another school, Ivan Fidler, happened to be passing by and suggested that the boy retake the exam. The boy calmed down, passed with flying colors, and stayed on to study in Moscow.
There is one alarm ahead
And the anxiety is behind us
Sit with me for a while,
For God's sake, sit down!
Sit down next to me, give me your hand,
Don't frown, don't squint your eyes,
My God, what torment!
And it’s all to blame: stupidity!
Barricades, poetry and an unfulfilled death
In 1905, Klychkov went to the barricades. In 1906, he began publishing revolutionary poetry. In 1908, he nearly committed suicide: his lover, a merchant's daughter, was married off to someone of higher status.
And that's why it's more scary
There is nothing tricky about it
When on your neck
They put a loop of rope
A chance passerby once again saved him from disaster. Modest Tchaikovsky stopped by to find out what had happened. Touched by the story, he arranged for Klychkov to travel to Italy ("to forget his grief") and introduced him to Gorky and Lunacharsky. Later, he helped publish his first books.
For a bright smile
For ringing laughter scattered all over the place
I would set a fee
I would found a chamber
Where in coin
They would pay for this...
But we are not so rich:
There is no such chamber!
War, Yesenin and "new peasant" poetry
Klychkov fought in World War I. He would later describe his experiences in the trenches and the horror of murder in his mystical and philosophical novel, "Sugar German."
After the October Revolution, Klychkov lived in Moscow, in the Proletkult building, sharing a room with Yesenin. Yesenin dedicated his famous poem "I Don't Regret, I Don't Call, I Don't Cry" to him. In 1918, together with Yesenin, Bely, and Oreshin, Klychkov founded the publishing house "Moscow Labor Artel of Artists of the Word." He published several collections resonating with the "new peasant" poetry.
Bullying and silence
Klychkov criticized literary formalism and the mutilation of living language. By the 1930s, along with other "new peasant" poets, he was persecuted for idealizing peasant Russia during the period of collectivization.
I must be crippled
I must be a freak:
Me for a human being
The people do not recognize it!
…I have the gift of clear speech
And I honor our language
I'm not a sheep's bleat
And not a cow's moo!
I will say this without any annoyance.
What, having lived out my life
Among the human herd,
I will die like a man!
He wasn't hired. To support his family, Klychkov translated from Mari, Georgian, and Kyrgyz.
Arrest and execution
In 1937, Klychkov was arrested as a member of the fictitious “Peasant Labor Party”.
He lit a candle, read the arrest and search warrant... and remained sitting there in his white nightclothes, barefoot, his head bowed in thought... In the uneven, weak light of the guttering candle there was something so piercingly bitter, inescapably Russian, irreparable in him.
(from the wife's memoirs)
Two months later, he was sentenced to death by firing squad. The trial lasted 25 minutes, and the sentence was carried out that same evening. In 1956, Sergei Klychkov was exonerated "due to lack of evidence of a crime."
Don't dream of a bright miracle:
There will be no resurrection!
Night came, the lights went out
The world has disappeared...there is no world
Only in the field because of the forest
Behind the whitish gray haze
Either people or demons
On the ground and above the ground
