The history of the creation of the poem “To Kachalov’s Dog. The history of the creation of the poem “To Kachalov’s Dog Who was the poet’s muse after all?”
I think that among all the women close to Yesenin, Galina Benislavskaya occupies a special place. She was always, as it were, in the shadow of other, more famous names, she loved the poet as if from afar, and he - he either left or returned, and when he returned, she was happy:
Don’t send any more letters or telegrams to Yesenin. He is with me, he will never return to you. We must be considered. Benislavskaya
Galina Benislavskaya sent such a telegram to Isadora Duncan in October 1923. Then Galya recalled how she and Yesenin laughed: “Of course, such a defiant tone is not in my spirit, and if Duncan knew me at least a little, then, of course, she would understand that this is intimidation, and nothing more.”
But when he left, completely different lines fell on the paper:
He left, flew away with Isadora. She will return - this is what the studio said - in a year. So he does too. How can we wait when there is such a drought inside? I'm sick again. Again the longing for him, again a haunting feeling of him is added to every thought. Just like a faithful dog, when the owner left, he would lay his head and lie there, waiting for his return...
She, the daughter of a Frenchman and a Georgian, had a somewhat oriental face. Let us remember the famous lines written at the turning point of 1924 and 1925:
Shagane, you are mine, Shagane!
There, in the north, there is a girl too,
She looks an awful lot like you
Maybe he's thinking about me...
Shagane, you are mine, Shagane.
She was thinking. Yes, he thought too. But he didn’t spare her very much... In March 1925, he met Sofia Tolstoy, the granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy himself, and Benislavskaya received the following letter from him: “Dear Galya! You are close to me as a friend, but I don’t love you at all as a woman.” This was in March, and at the beginning of April Yesenin brought his poem addressed to... a dog to the editorial office of the newspaper "Baku Worker":
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Give me your paw, Jim, for luck, Please, darling, don't lick him. Your master is both nice and famous, |
You are devilishly beautiful like a dog, My dear Jim, among your guests She will come, I give you my guarantee. |
From the diary of Galina Benislavskaya:
Before Sergei, I didn’t love anyone. Here I clearly understood - I can give everything: my principles (not to get married), and my body (which until then I could not even imagine), and not only can I, but I want it. I know that I immediately put an end to my dream of independence, and I submitted. I didn’t know that in the future I would fight this feeling and inflate in myself the slightest affection for others, just to free myself from Sergei, from this blissful and painful illness...
The marriage of Yesenin and Sofia Tolstoy was not happy. He did not love her, but it was Sophia who had the sad fate of burying the poet, whose life was cut short at the very end of December 1925.
On the gloomy day of December 3, 1926, a lonely woman approached the grave of Sergei Yesenin at the Vagankovskoye cemetery. She stood by the grave, smoked a cigarette, quickly wrote something, and then took out a pistol and shot herself. Seriously wounded, she died on the way to the hospital. The note that was found next to her contained the following lines:
I committed suicide here, although I know that after this even more dogs will be blamed on Yesenin. But both he and I won’t care. Everything that is most precious to me is in this grave...
She was buried next to the one whom she loved so selflessly, and they wrote simply: “Faithful Galya”...
...You gently lick her hand for me
For everything I was and wasn’t guilty of.
The work of Sergei Yesenin, uniquely bright and deep, has now firmly entered our literature and enjoys great success among numerous readers. The poet's poems are full of heartfelt warmth and sincerity, passionate love for the boundless expanses of his native fields, the “inexhaustible sadness” of which he was able to convey so emotionally and so loudly.
Kachalov's dog
Give me your paw, Jim, for luck,
I have never seen such a paw.
Let's bark in the moonlight
For quiet, noiseless weather.
Give me your paw, Jim, for luck.
Please, darling, don't lick him.
Understand with me at least the simplest thing.
After all, you don't know what life is,
You don’t know that life in the world is worth living.
Your master is both nice and famous,
And he has a lot of guests in his house,
And everyone, smiling, strives
I can touch your velvet wool.
You are devilishly beautiful like a dog,
With such a sweet, trusting friend.
And, without asking anyone a bit,
Like a drunk friend, you go in for a kiss.
My dear Jim, among your guests
There were so many different and different ones.
But the one who is the most silent and saddest of all,
Did you happen to come here by any chance?
She will come, I give you my guarantee.
And without me, in her staring gaze,
For me, lick her hand gently
For everything I was and wasn’t guilty of.
Read by V.Yakhontov
Yesenin Sergei Alexandrovich (1895-1925)
Yesenin! Golden name. Murdered youth. Genius of the Russian land! None of the Poets who came into this world had such spiritual strength, enchanting, omnipotent, soul-grabbing childish openness, moral purity, deep pain-love for the Fatherland! So many tears were shed over his poems, so many human souls sympathized and empathized with every Yesenin line, that if it were counted, Yesenin’s poetry would outweigh any and much more! But this method of assessment is not available to earthlings. Although from Parnassus one could see that the people have never loved anyone so much! With Yesenin’s poems they went into battle in the Patriotic War, for his poems they went to Solovki, his poetry excited souls like no other... Only the Lord knows about this holy love of the people for their son. Yesenin’s portrait is squeezed into wall family photo frames, placed on the shrine along with icons...
And not a single Poet in Russia has ever been exterminated or banned with such frenzy and tenacity as Yesenin! And they banned, and kept silent, and belittled, and threw mud at them - and they are still doing this. It is impossible to understand why?
Time has shown: the higher Poetry is in its secret lordship, the more embittered the envious losers are, and the more imitators there are.
Another great gift of God from Yesenin - he read his poems as uniquely as he created them. They sounded like that in his soul! All that remained was to say it. Everyone was shocked by his reading. Please note, great Poets have always been able to read their poems uniquely and by heart - Pushkin and Lermontov... Blok and Gumilyov... Yesenin and Klyuev... Tsvetaeva and Mandelstam... So, young gentlemen, a poet mumbling his lines on a piece of paper from the stage is not a Poet, but an amateur... A poet may not be able to do many things in his life, but not this!
The last poem, “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye...” is another secret of the Poet. In the same year, 1925, there are other lines: “You don’t know that life in the world is worth living!”
Yes, in the deserted city alleys, not only stray dogs, “lesser brothers,” but also big enemies listened to Yesenin’s light gait.
We must know the real truth and not forget how childishly his golden head was thrown back... And again his last wheeze is heard:
“My dears, good ones...”
“To Kachalov’s Dog” Sergei Yesenin
Give me your paw, Jim, for luck,
I have never seen such a paw.
Let's bark in the moonlight
For quiet, noiseless weather.
Give me your paw, Jim, for luck.Please, darling, don't lick him.
Understand with me at least the simplest thing.
After all, you don't know what life is,
You don’t know that life in the world is worth living.Your master is both nice and famous,
And he has a lot of guests in his house,
And everyone, smiling, strives
I can touch your velvet wool.You are devilishly beautiful like a dog,
With such a sweet, trusting friend.
And, without asking anyone a bit,
Like a drunk friend, you go in for a kiss.My dear Jim, among your guests
There were so many different and different ones.
But the one who is the most silent and saddest of all,
Did you happen to come here by any chance?She will come, I give you my guarantee.
And without me, in her staring gaze,
For me, lick her hand gently
For everything I was and wasn’t guilty of.
Analysis of Yesenin’s poem “To Kachalov’s Dog”
The poem “To Kachalov's Dog,” written by Sergei Yesenin in 1925, is one of the poet’s most famous works. It is based on real events: the dog Jim, to whom the author addressed these surprisingly tender and touching poems, really existed and lived in the house of the artist of the Moscow Art Theater Vasily Kachalov, who often visited Yesenin. According to eyewitnesses, a very friendly and trusting relationship was established between the dog and the poet literally from the first days of their acquaintance. Freedom-loving Jim always rejoiced at the arrival of Yesenin, who pampered him with various delicacies.
However, the poem dedicated to Jim has a deeper and more tragic connotation. This becomes clear from the first stanza, when Yesenin suggests to the dog: “Let’s howl with you in the moonlight for quiet, noiseless weather.” What exactly lies behind such a spontaneous and absurd desire of a person who came to visit a friend, expecting to spend the evening in pleasant company?
Researchers of the life and work of Sergei Yesenin associate the general mood of the poem “To Kachalov’s Dog,” filled with sadness and regret about what can no longer be returned, with the names of several women. One of them is the Armenian teacher Shagane Talyan, whom the poet met in Batumi on the eve of 1925. Many attributed a passionate romance to them and believed that the poet’s depressed state was due to the fact that he had parted with his “Armenian muse.” However, Shagane Talyan refutes these speculations, claiming that she had warm friendly relations with the poet.
The second woman who could cause the poet’s heartache is his wife, dancer Isadora Duncan, with whom Yesenin broke up after returning from a trip to the Caucasus. But this version turned out to be far from reality. After the poet’s death, it turned out that during his stay in Batumi, he had an affair with journalist Galina Beneslavskaya, who had been in love with the poet for many years, and he considered her his best and most devoted friend. History is silent about the reason why Beneslavskaya and Yesenin met in Batumi. However, it is known for certain that soon Isadora Duncan, who was on tour in Yalta at that time, received a telegram from her husband’s mistress that he would not return to her.
Subsequently, this is what happened, however, the poet soon broke up with Galina Beneslavskaya, declaring that he valued her very much as a friend, but did not love her as a woman. And it was from her, who also often visited Kachalov’s house, that Yesenin wanted to ask forgiveness for causing his best friend so much mental suffering.
It is worth noting that by the time he wrote the poem “To Kachalov’s Dog,” the poet was already married to Sofya Tolstoy, and was very burdened by this marriage. There were only a few months left before his fatal death.
Therefore, in the last line of the poem, when the poet asked to gently lick the hand of the one who is the most silent and saddest of all,” he not only asks Beneslavskaya for forgiveness “for what he was and was not to blame for,” but also says goodbye to her, as if anticipating quick death. AND It is this premonition that colors the work “Kachalov’s Dog” with special tenderness and sadness. In addition, among the lines, the loneliness of a person who is disappointed in love and has lost faith in those closest to him clearly emerges. And - an acute feeling of guilt for the fact that the author could not make those who sincerely loved him truly happy, despite the fickleness of character, recklessness and desire to be free from any obligations.
First of all, I would like to note his refined and irresistible appearance, which attracted and attracted women. An equally important reason is the ability to conduct a conversation. As Yesenin’s contemporaries previously wrote in their essays, the poet’s voice was capable of bewitching and attracting girls.
Sergei could create an attractive conversation not only with the opposite sex. Growing up in the village, the poet easily found a common language with pets. The most striking example of such communication is the poem that he dedicated to Kachalov’s dog. This work was created in 1925, when the writer was in the prime of his life and already had life experience.
Give me your paw, Jim, for luck,
I have never seen such a paw.
Let's bark in the moonlight
For quiet, noiseless weather.
Give me your paw, Jim, for luck.
Please, darling, don't lick him.
Understand with me at least the simplest thing.
After all, you don't know what life is,
You don’t know that life in the world is worth living.
Your master is both nice and famous,
And he has a lot of guests in his house,
And everyone, smiling, strives
I can touch your velvet wool.
You are devilishly beautiful like a dog,
With such a sweet, trusting friend.
And, without asking anyone a bit,
Like a drunk friend, you go in for a kiss.
My dear Jim, among your guests
There were so many different and different ones.
But the one who is the most silent and saddest of all,
Did you happen to come here by any chance?
She will come, I give you my guarantee.
And without me, in her staring gaze,
For me, lick her hand gently
For everything I was and wasn’t guilty of.
What is interesting about the history of the creation of “Kachalov’s Dog”?
The work contains the true truth. Yes, there actually was such a dog at that time, and his name was Jim. She lived in the house of the then famous actor Vasily Ivanovich Kachalov, who was known almost all over the world for his theatrical skills.Sergei Yesenin was on friendly terms with the actor and often visited his house. It should be noted that pets always feel the goodwill that comes from good people. That is why the dog very quickly fell in love with the visiting guest and became very attached to him.
The pet was looking forward to the next meeting with Yesenin, and the poet, in turn, always brought the dog a variety of delicacies. This is how friendly relations emerged not only with the owner of the house, but also with his dog.
It should also be noted that the work created by Sergei Yesenin and dedicated to the dog is not as gentle as it seems at first glance. The poem has a sad overtone.
Features of the first part of the poem “To Kachalov’s Dog”
As it became known many years later, the poet Sergei Yesenin was being monitored by government services at that time. He understood and felt this, the poet knew that this attitude of the authorities towards him would not end in anything good. This evoked sadness and a certain absurdity.The state of mind during the years of creation of the work was also inspired by sad notes due to the break with Isadora Duncan, who was an important person in his life.
Perhaps it was these events that influenced the fact that the beginning of the work about the dog begins very strictly. In the story, the author invites the dog to howl at the moon with him.
At first glance, it should have seemed to the reader that Yesenin must be cheerful and cheerful, because he found himself in the warm atmosphere of his friend’s house. Instead, we are talking about everyday difficulties, and the author begins to pour out his soul to the dog. He explains to the dog that he doesn’t know real life at all.
These features indicate that the eminent handsome man of that time at the time of writing the work was very sad in his soul. Already from the first lines, sad negativity is traced, and there is no hint of positive emotions.
Features of the second part of the poem “To Kachalov’s Dog”
The poem is almost completely permeated with sadness and regret. Confirmation that it is the woman who is to blame for his sad state is found in the last lines of the work. The stanzas uniquely convince the reader that the reason for his depressed state of mind is in his relationship with some girl. It should be noted that on the eve of writing the poem, in the 25th year of the last century, the author met an Armenian teacher. It happened in the city of Batumi and her name was Shagane Talyan. The fact that the girl sunk into the poet’s soul is confirmed by the lines dedicated specifically to her. Previously, Yesenin wrote a work - “You are my Shagane, Shagane.” But Shagane herself tried to dispel the possibility that the poet was sad about her when she stated that she and Sergei never had an affair.
At the time of writing the work “Kachalov’s Dog,” Sergei Yesenin had already broken up with his girlfriend. The woman, to the whole of Russia, denied his words that they allegedly had an affair. She said they only had a friendly relationship. It should be noted that Yesenin’s nature was very amorous, so many biographers believe that the version of friendship can be discarded.
What is interesting about the final lines of the work?
Whatever the reality, the last lines of the work “To Kachalov’s Dog” most fully and colorfully tell us that it was sad love that was the reason for the creation of the poem. The relationship, perhaps unrequited, served as the reason for the creation of a masterpiece.In the plot, or rather, in its conclusion, Yesenin praises the dog, saying that he is beautiful, and pays special attention to his fur, which is velvety and very pleasant to stroke. The author also notes that the beauty of the dog attracts everyone who comes to visit Kachalov; everyone wants to pet the pet.
The work contains a description of many of the animal’s advantages, which are beautifully described by Yesenin. Here the author also describes himself, saying that he is supposedly trusting and has an open soul. These peculiar qualities are combined with the qualities inherent in a dog, so it seems that the author wanted to show a certain similarity between the animal and the person.
In the last lines of the work, the poet begins to ask questions to the pet. He asks him if the woman who is usually sad and silent has visited their house. According to the author, although Jim the dog has seen many guests in his life, he could not help but remember this woman.
When forming a question, a kind of hope is traced. The reader immediately feels that parting with a young girl led the poet to mental illness.
Some critics cite other developments as an example. Perhaps Sergei Yesenin at that time suffered greatly from unrequited love. This version is considered implausible, because he was considered very popular among the opposite sex and could easily make anyone fall in love with him.
It should be noted that even his literary secretary, whose name was Galina Benislavskaya, showed sympathy for Yesenin. This woman loved the poet for many years, and was ready to share him with other women, the main thing is that he was always near her. She was afraid of losing Yesenin.
Even after the poet died, she could not survive the loss. The woman went to the cemetery where the young poet was buried and left a note saying that Galina was asking to be buried next to him. Then she shot herself.
Based on the above, we can draw a logical conclusion that the critics’ version of unrequited love is complete nonsense.
Who was the poet’s muse after all?
It should also be noted that at the time when the poem was written, Sergei Yesenin was not officially free. He was married to Sofia Tolstoy. This connection weighed heavily on the poet, since he did not experience any special feelings towards her. So what prompted the theme of the poem to develop in such a spiritual direction? As can be seen from the above, there could be several reasons for this. At the time of the creation of the work, he separated from his wife, Isadora Duncan. Sergei Yesenin loved his homeland very much, and could not adapt to the life of a dancer. He decided to leave Duncan and go to Russia.
It should be noted that the dog Jim himself listened carefully to the poem “To Kachalov’s Dog.” Before him, the author repented of his committed deeds. He told the dog how he offended some women who showed feelings for him.
Probably, Sergei Alexandrovich made a collective image of his beloved woman, but it was this verse that became very famous thanks to the sincerity and touching that the poet put into the lyrical lines.
