The popularity of the poet Igor' Severianin--a pseudonym, at first indivisible and hyphenated (Igor'-Severianin), that gradually came to be perceived as a first and last name--was unusually intense but passed almost in an instant. In 1913-1914 his name was known to the entire reading public in Russia, and auditoriums were filled to capacity during his performances. But by the beginning of the 1920s his art had gone out of fashion and become an object of ridicule and mockery. The other genres in which he wrote, which included drama, translations, and memoirs, never brought him even a fraction of the popularity that he gained from his poetry. Severianin's whole literary fate was determined by two things: the individual qualities of his work and his personality.

Severianin was born Igor' Vasil'evich Lotarev on 4 May 1887. His father, Vasilii Petrovich Lotarev, was a military engineer from the lower middle class. His mother...