Nadezhda Volpin is a Soviet translator and poet. For some time she lived in an unregistered marriage with Sergei Yesenin. And many years later, in the eighties, Volpin published quite interesting memoirs about the legendary poet and about her relationship with him.
early years
Nadezhda Davydovna Volpin was born in Belarusian Mogilev in February 1900, later moved to Moscow with her family. While studying at the Khvostovskaya women's gymnasium, she managed to master several languages - German, French, English and Latin. After graduating from this educational institution in 1917, Nadezhda entered the physics and mathematics department of Moscow University. However, a year later she left the university, deciding to seriously engage in literature.
Soon the girl became a member of Andrei Bely's Moscow literary studio "Green Workshop", and in 1920 she joined a group of Imagist poets. Nadezhda has performed many times in bohemian cafes of the capital with her poems, in particular, in the cafe "Stable Pegasus".
Acquaintance and relationship with Yesenin
It was in the Pegasus Stable, at an event dedicated to the October Revolution, that she met Sergei Yesenin. Then their communication became regular - they often walked around the city together, talked about literature. At some point, Yesenin even handed Volpin a book of his poems with a beautiful dedication - "Hope with Hope."
In 1921, an intimate relationship arose between them, and for some time Nadezhda lived with the poet in an unregistered marriage. In addition, on May 12, 1924, she gave birth to a child from him - a boy Sasha (he later became a prominent human rights activist and dissident).
Alas, the relationship between Yesenin and Volpin was not happy. She loved him madly, and he led a chaotic bohemian life and considered her just "one of many." When their romance began, Yesenin had not even been divorced from Zinaida Reich yet (although in fact he had not seen her for a long time). And parting with Nadezhda was largely due to the appearance in Yesenin's life of a new charming passion - ballet star Isadora Duncan.
Of course, the affair with Yesenin was not the only one in Volpin's biography. Later she became the wife of physicist Mikhail Vladimirovich Volkenstein. It is known that Nadezhda had no children from Mikhail, and in general this marriage did not last too long.
Translator career
In 1923, after a break with Yesenin, pregnant Nadezhda moved to Petrograd, where she began her translation career. Fluency in several languages allowed her to easily translate into Russian the books of the great writers of the past. Among her works are translations of the works of such writers as Arthur Conan Doyle, Walter Scott, Johann Goethe, Victor Hugo.
During the Great Patriotic War, Nadezhda Davydovna was evacuated to the Turkmen SSR. Here, in a short time, she learned the Turkmen language, which gave her the opportunity to translate Turkmen classics and modern authors, as well as local original folklore.
Publication of memoirs and death
In the late seventies, Nadezhda Volpin set to work on her memoirs. In them, she talked about her youth and shared her memories of Yesenin. In an abbreviated form, Volpin's memoirs were published under the title "Date with a Friend" in the then popular magazine "Yunost" (1986, issue 10). And in 1987, an expanded version of them was published in the Tashkent edition of the "Star of the East" (numbers 3 and 4).
Nadezhda Davydovna died at a very old age. The date of her death is September 9, 1998. The famous translator was buried in Moscow at the Donskoy cemetery.
