{"id":309,"date":"2018-09-25T20:57:01","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T00:57:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/?p=309"},"modified":"2018-09-25T20:57:51","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T00:57:51","slug":"longing-for-the-old-russia-in-sergei-esenins-selected-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/nature-culture-russia\/longing-for-the-old-russia-in-sergei-esenins-selected-poems\/","title":{"rendered":"Longing for the “old” Russia in Sergei Esenin’s selected poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the theme of the countryside and village life in times of change <\/em>in mind, while reading Esenin\u2019s poems I sensed a certain longing for the Russian homeland before the changes occurred and a certain resistance toward the industrialization and deforestation that was rapidly altering the natural state of the country. \u201cHey there, Russia, mother country\u2026\u201d really captured this resistance. The last stanza reads:<\/p>\n

\u00a0If the heavenly host should beg me:<\/p>\n

\u201cCome to live in heaven above!\u201d<\/p>\n

I shall say: \u201cDon\u2019t give me heaven<\/p>\n

But the Russia that I love.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Using religious metaphor to emphasize the poet\u2019s desire for the Russia that he once knew, by turning down the theoretical offer of the Lord to return to Heaven, we get a glimpse of the sadness and longing the poet feels. A similar idea is portrayed in \u201cIt can\u2019t be dispelled, can this sorrow\u2026\u201d. The third stanza read:<\/p>\n

Familiar views and expanses<\/p>\n

By moonlight now seem not so fine.<\/p>\n

Ravines \u2026 tree-stumps \u2026 bare slopes have saddened<\/p>\n

These Russian horizons of mine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What the poet once appreciated about their homeland is now less attractive and is seemingly \u201cunfamiliar\u201d. After describing the new landscape, the poem reads in the sixth stanza:<\/p>\n

All of this is what we call the homeland,<\/p>\n

Because of all this we meanwhile<\/p>\n

In rainy days cry and drink vodka<\/p>\n

While waiting for heaven to smile.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This stanza really conveys how disheartened the people of Russia are through the changes brought upon their once worshipped homeland. Lastly, the poem \u201cThe disquiet of vaporous moonshine\u2026\u201d directly references the industrialization and deforestation of the Russia countryside and village land by referencing \u201cthings made of steel and of stone\u201d and the soil-tilling, primitive plough, and poplar and birch trees suffering anguish in the fifth stanza. The sixth stanza really stuck out to me:<\/p>\n

For myself, I don\u2019t know my own future\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve no place in the new life, I feel,<\/p>\n

Yet still wish to see poor drab Russia<\/p>\n

A prospering country of steel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These lines accurately portray the loss of identity and belongingness residents faced as a result of industrialization and deforestation. Suddenly people are unsure of their future and the role they play in their rapidly-changing homeland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the theme of the countryside and village life in times of change in mind, while reading Esenin\u2019s poems I sensed a certain longing for the Russian homeland before the changes occurred and a certain resistance toward the industrialization and deforestation that was rapidly altering the natural state of the country. \u201cHey there, Russia, mother […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":705,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature-culture-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/705"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}