Land of Scoundrels

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Land of Scoundrels
AuthorSergei Yesenin
Original titleСтрана негодяев
CountrySoviet Union
LanguageRussian
Publication date
1924
Media typePrint

Land of Scoundrels (

Pugachev. Other motifs include his reflections on the nature of business-driven modern United States
, visited by Yesenin around the time of the poem composition.

After the publication the poem was seen as a critique of Soviet rule. Its contents could be interpreted as an apology of peasant (or "anarchist") rebellion or casting of Bolshevik order as an artificial one, imposed on the people by non-Russian commissars. Following the Land of Scoundrels Yesenin went on to bitter Moscow of Taverns finished next year and even tried to provide repentance of sorts by publication of Russia of Soviets compilation in 1925.

Contemporary commentators agree that questions posed by Yesenin in the poem more than eighty years ago still have immediate bearing for today's Russia: to what extent the Russian people is responsible for the current state of affairs, whether the end of the old regime was brought by peasants' love for freedom or was imposed by foreign influences, and to whom belongs the country's future.[1]

Synopsis

The action takes place in the

Marx". In past he held revolutionary
ideas in hopes of liberation of mankind, these aspirations (in their peasant interpretation) were close to Yesenin himself. In the poem Nomakh expresses many of Yesenin's own deep thoughts on love for rebellion and hatred for the unnatural and 'un-Russian' order imposed on Russia by Bolshevik commissars. His adversary Rassvetov (from Russian "rassvet", the raise of new day) is a commissar and his portrait is bleak and schematic comparing to character of Nomakh. Aside from their juxtaposition, one character trait unifying both Nomakh and Rassvetov is their unscrupulousness. Nomakh talks of many gangs multiplying in Russia and of growing ranks of disillusioned rebels ready to kill and plunder. He is full of disregard and contempt to "sheep for whom the shepherd is nurturing knives". This is matched by Rassvetov's amorality who before the revolution participated in gold trading stings on Klondike and whose paramount aim is his own survival. Rassvetov is convinced that fraud is acceptable as a mean to redistribute wealth from rich to poor. He dreams of a "steel enema for the whole of Russia" that will transform and modernize the country.

Nomakh mounts a successful raid on a train passing Ural line. The poem opens with former factory worker Zamarashkin (from Russian "Zamarashka" - puny, albeit likable, squalid person) standing guard near the rail line. He is confronted by irate commissar Chekistov (made-up name meaning literally "

Kiev where the detective tries to arrest him. In the final part of the poem Chekistov discovers that Nomakh has outwitted the detective and has disappeared. Nomakh hides behind the Peter the Great portrait on the wall and (probably symbolically) surveys the scene through Peter's eyes. One of the possible interpretations [2]
is that Yesenin is undecided whether the future belongs to anarchist rebel Nomakh (who emerges as a victor) or to cynical Rassvetov; however the point is made that likes of Chekistov, Litza Hun, along with featureless commissars Charin and Lobok, or drunk white officers, are clear losers.

References

  1. ^ http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2001/17/32.html "Land of Scoundrels?" article in Novaya Gazeta
  2. ^ http://briefly.ru/esenin/strana_negodjaev Story synopsis and very brief summary (in Russian)

External links

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