Sergei Aleksandrovich Esenin (his name also appears as Sergey Yesenin) was born into a Russian peasant family in 1895. Between 1909 and 1912 he attended the Spas-Klepiki church boarding school and it was during this time that he started to write poetry. When he was 17, Esenin moved to Moscow wehre he joined a group of peasant and proletarian poets, the «Surikov» circle. His work was first published in the jounal Mirok in 1914 and a collection of verse, Radunitsa, followed in 1916. Esenin’s early work centred on traditional village life and the folk culture, as well as sometimes dealing with religious themes