Russia: The Unconquered

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In 1949 the Soviet regime packed Yesenin-Volpin off to an asylum for "irresponsibility," then sent him on for further therapy at a Siberian prison camp. After Stalin's death, he was freed in a general amnesty, but this did not ease his black despair. He raged:

O fellow citizens, cows, and oxen Just look at what the Bolsheviks have done to you! . . . Drunk from despair, I'll shoot myself, So as not to watch the ruthless simplicity Of man's dismal, everyday existence, And with all the holy bitterness of gloom Not spoil the life of some young person; And, in addition, make absolutely sure That Russia gets no vestige of my ashes.

Such poems—never published in Russia but circulated among friends—caused the Soviets to jail Yesenin-Volpin in 1959. But he had made elaborate plans to smuggle his work out. "When these works are finished and publication arranged," he wrote, "I shall calmly go to jail in the knowledge that they have failed to conquer me."