Igor Severyanin

Igor Severyanin ( _ru. Игорь Северянин, pen name, real name Igor Vasilyevich Lotaryov (May 16, 1887, Petersburg — December 20, 1941, Tallinn) was a Russian poet who presided over the circle of the so-called Ego-Futurists.

Igor was born in St. Petersburg in the family of an army engineer. Through his mother, he was related to Nikolai Karamzin. In 1904 he left for Manchuria with his father but later returned to St.Petersburg to publish first poems at his own expense. It was not until 1913 that, in the words of D.S. Mirsky, "the moment came when vulgarity claimed a place on Parnassus and issued its declaration of rights in the verse of Igor Severyanin". That year, Severyanin (his penname means "Man from the North" in Russian) brought out a collection entitled "The Cup of Thunder" ("Громокипящий кубок"), with a preface written by Fyodor Sologub.

In one of his most celebrated poems, Lotaryov introduced himself to the readers with the following words: "I am Igor Severyanin, a genius!" He soon gained a cult following, especially in the provinces of Imperial Russia. The poet "captured the popular imagination and reached stardom with his slick pomaded hair parted in the middle; his melancholy, darkly circled eyes; his impeccable tails; and an ever-present lily in his hands". [Anna Lawton, Herbert Eagle. "Words in Revolution: Russian Futurist Manifestoes 1912-1928". New Academia Publishing, 2005. ISBN 0-9744934-7-3. Page 22.]

Severyanin's poems treated such bizarre themes as "ice creams of lilacs" and "pineapples in champagne", intending to overwhelm the bourgeois audience with a riot of colors and cheap glamour associated by them with high society. In his verse, Severyanin admired dirigibles and automobiles, everything that could convey to his simple-minded followers the notion of modernity. His would often shock the public by professing his admiration for Oscar Wilde or scandalize his emulators with cynical statements and megalomania. During one party, they declared Severyanin "the king of poets", although respected critics professed their distaste for his work.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Severyanin was one of the first poets to leave Russia. Having settled in Estonia in 1918, he tried to return to Russia afterwards, but could not for various reasons (the civil war, marriage to a local girl, unreceptive literary climate, etc). Severyanin died from a heart attack in the occupied Tallinn, several decades after his reputation had crumbled.

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