The name Nikolai Aseev almost always appears side by side with the name Vladimir Vladimirovich Maiakovsky, to the extent that often Aseev verges on becoming indistinguishable in the shadow of the latter poet. Critical writings usually treat Aseev as a younger contemporary of Maiakovsky, although the two men entered the world of literature practically simultaneously; Aseev was in fact a few years older than Maiakovsky. In official Soviet literary history and in the history of Russian poetry Aseev occupies different positions--in the former realm the significance of his works and their role in literature are often exaggerated, whereas in the latter he has a secure and rightful place, though not a paramount one, connected first and foremost with the formation of the genre of the Romantic revolutionary ballad in the early 1920s. He was one of the few poets of his orientation and generation who enjoyed an untroubled...