The poem was written by the hand of Sophia Tolstaya-Esenina, the poet’s last wife and granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy. She described the impressions from her first meeting with Esenin: “Once I spent time with my literary friends at the Pegasus Stable. There was much talk about this literary cafe of the Imagists at the time… We were clearly lucky: soon after we arrived, Esenin began to read poetry. I had already heard about Esenin, whose name was starting to get woven into most contradictory “legends” even during those years. I had also come across some of his poems. But I saw Esenin for the first time. It is hard for me to remember what poetry he read then. Besides, I do not want to fantasise. Why bother? From that time on, my memory keeps something else: the ultimate nakedness of Esenin’s soul, the insecurity of his heart’.
Esenin’s acquaintance with Tolstaya took place on March 10th, 1925. Sophia made an entry in her desk calendar on the subject. ‘Writers, friends, and comrades of Sergei and Galya once gathered at Galya Benislavskaya’s apartment in Bryusov Lane, where Esenin and his sister Katya had once lived. Boris Pilnyak was also invited, and I came with him. We got introduced. Pilnyak needed to go somewhere that evening, and so he left early. I stayed. We were up late. I was feeling somehow particularly joyful and easy throughout the entire evening. We got into a conversation with Galya Benislavskaya and Sergei’s sister Katya. Finally, I started packing. It was very late. We decided that Esenin would go to see me out. We went outside together and wandered around Moscow at night for a long time… This meeting sealed my fate…’, Tolstaya noted on that momentous encounter.
On July 2nd, 1925, Tolstaya wrote to her friend Anatoly Koni: ‘During this time I have undergone great changes — I am getting married. Now the case of my divorce is underway, and by the middle of the month I am marrying another person… My fiancé is the poet Sergei Esenin. I am very happy and very much in love’.
However, the couple’s relationships were challenging. Esenin decided to leave his wife shortly before his demise. Having found out about Esenin’s death, Tolstaya travelled to Leningrad. Then, she headed S.A. Esenin Museum in Moscow under the All-Russian Union of Writers in 1926. After the museum had been closed in 1929, she was appointed a lifetime keeper of Esenin-related items.
First publication of The Sorceress happened in The Entire World magazine in 1915. Sophia Tolstaya’s handwriting at the bottom of the page reads as follows: “An extract from some magazine. Neither the year, nor the name of the magazine is stated. On the back of the leaflet (extract) one could read the end of an article about a cannon, which is “now usually carried by six horses” and which “shoots 15-pound shells”, the beginning of the article “History of the machine gun”, and a scrap of the photo called “Chest telephone for pilots”. Given the content of the articles, I suppose that this is one of the post-Russo-Japanese-War years and post-Balkan-Campaign as well (1913?). Perhaps, the beginning of 1914? And maybe even later’.
Esenin’s acquaintance with Tolstaya took place on March 10th, 1925. Sophia made an entry in her desk calendar on the subject. ‘Writers, friends, and comrades of Sergei and Galya once gathered at Galya Benislavskaya’s apartment in Bryusov Lane, where Esenin and his sister Katya had once lived. Boris Pilnyak was also invited, and I came with him. We got introduced. Pilnyak needed to go somewhere that evening, and so he left early. I stayed. We were up late. I was feeling somehow particularly joyful and easy throughout the entire evening. We got into a conversation with Galya Benislavskaya and Sergei’s sister Katya. Finally, I started packing. It was very late. We decided that Esenin would go to see me out. We went outside together and wandered around Moscow at night for a long time… This meeting sealed my fate…’, Tolstaya noted on that momentous encounter.
On July 2nd, 1925, Tolstaya wrote to her friend Anatoly Koni: ‘During this time I have undergone great changes — I am getting married. Now the case of my divorce is underway, and by the middle of the month I am marrying another person… My fiancé is the poet Sergei Esenin. I am very happy and very much in love’.
However, the couple’s relationships were challenging. Esenin decided to leave his wife shortly before his demise. Having found out about Esenin’s death, Tolstaya travelled to Leningrad. Then, she headed S.A. Esenin Museum in Moscow under the All-Russian Union of Writers in 1926. After the museum had been closed in 1929, she was appointed a lifetime keeper of Esenin-related items.
First publication of The Sorceress happened in The Entire World magazine in 1915. Sophia Tolstaya’s handwriting at the bottom of the page reads as follows: “An extract from some magazine. Neither the year, nor the name of the magazine is stated. On the back of the leaflet (extract) one could read the end of an article about a cannon, which is “now usually carried by six horses” and which “shoots 15-pound shells”, the beginning of the article “History of the machine gun”, and a scrap of the photo called “Chest telephone for pilots”. Given the content of the articles, I suppose that this is one of the post-Russo-Japanese-War years and post-Balkan-Campaign as well (1913?). Perhaps, the beginning of 1914? And maybe even later’.
