The final lecture of the cycle dedicated to the life and career of Sergei Yesenin held at the Presidential Library

January 19, 2021 at 12:00 Moscow time, the Presidential Library hosted a video lecture entitled "Sergei Yesenin and the American Literary Tradition" as part of the Knowledge of Russia project. This was the final of three lectures in a cycle dedicated to the life and career of Sergei Yesenin (1895-1925) and timed to coincide with the 125th anniversary of the birth of one of the most famous poets of the Silver Age.

The event was organized jointly with the Ryazan Regional Center of the Presidential Library in partnership with the Gorky Ryazan Regional Universal Scientific Library and the Yesenin Ryazan State University.

The video lecture was free. The meeting was held remotely and was broadcast live on the Presidential Library's portal in Live broadcasts section in accordance with the program of live events, on the institution's YouTube channel, and also on the page on the VKontakte social network.

Sergei Yesenin was born on October 3, 1895. He lived only 30 years, but managed to make a huge contribution to the development of Russian poetry and became famous all over the world for his extraordinary talent.

Olga Voronova, a member of the Commission on Culture of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, Deputy Chairman of the Public Chamber of Ryazan Region, head of the Yesenin Scientific Center, Doctor of Philology, Professor of the Yesenin Ryazan State University, editor-in-chief of the magazines Sovremennoye Yeseninovedenie and Yeseninsky Vestnik, a member of the Writers' Union of Russia addressed the audience. She told about the attitude of Sergei Yesenin to the work of American writers Henry Longfellow, Edgar Poe, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain and others in the context of Russian-American literary ties.

A cycle of three lectures dedicated to the life and career of Sergei Yesenin was launched at the Presidential Library on October 1, 2020. The first educational event was dedicated to the poet's journey with Isadora Duncan across Europe and the USA. At the second lecture, the participants discussed the topic "Sergei Yesenin in the Russian-German Cultural Dialogue".

One of the main directions of the Presidential Library's activity is the digital preservation of the most important documents on the history, theory and practice of Russian statehood. The volume of the institution's electronic collections today is about a million depository items. The video recording of this cycle of lectures will also enter the Presidential Library’s collections.

The institutions’ portal provides access to the new electronic collection dedicated to Sergei Yesenin. It includes digital copies of archival documents, books, periodicals, visual materials, video films. In particular, the letters of the poet's last wife, Sophia Yesenina-Tolstaya, which contain information about the Yesenins' honeymoon and family life, are of great interest.