Igor Severyanin

Born in St. Petersburg into the family of military engineer Vasily Petrovich Lotarev (1860–1904). On his mother’s side, he was a third cousin of the Russian revolutionary and Soviet stateswoman A. M. Kollontai (née Domontovich), and was also a distant relative of the historian N. M. Karamzin and the poet A. A. Fet. He spent the first nine years of his life in St. Petersburg. After his parents separated, he lived with his aunt and uncle on their estate in Novgorod Governorate. Having completed four classes at the Cherepovets Realschule, in 1904 he left with his father for the Far East. He then returned to St. Petersburg to his mother.

The first publications appeared in 1904 (at his own expense); over the next nine years Severyanin published thin pamphlets of verse that brought him little more than scandalous notoriety for a long time (for example, Leo Tolstoy’s widely circulated indignant review of one of his poems in early 1910). Among poets of the older generation, only Konstantin Fofanov at first took notice of the young Severyanin (later Severyanin declared both him and Mirra Lokhvitskaya to be teachers and precursors of ego-futurism).

At the height of his popularity

Success came to the poet after the publication of the collection The Thunderous Cup (1913, with a preface by F. Sologub). During 1913–1914 Severyanin gave many evenings (“poezoconcerts”) in Moscow and St. Petersburg, enjoying enormous popularity with the public and sympathetic reviews from critics of various orientations, including critics skeptical of futurism. His lyric poetry is characterized by a bold for the taste of the time (to the point of parody) aestheticization of salon imagery, the modern city (“aeroplanes,” “chauffeurs”), and play with romantic individualism and “egoism,” as well as conventional romantic-fairytale images. Severyanin’s verse is musical (in many ways it continues the traditions of Balmont); the poet often uses long lines, fixed forms (some invented by himself), alliteration, and dissonant rhymes.

Severyanin was the founder of the