Gorodetskii, Sergei Mitrofanovich

Born Jan. 5 (17), 1884, in St. Petersburg; died June 8, 1967, in Moscow. Soviet Russian poet; son of an author-ethnographer.

Gorodetskii’s first collection of verse, Frenzy (1907), reflected the poet’s interest in the creative activity of the people. Drawing upon the motifs of old Slavic pagan mythology, he poeticized the elemental power of primitive man and the beauty and potency of nature. His first book attracted the attention of V. Ia. Briusov and A. A. Blok. In 1907 his second volume, Peroun, appeared. The years of reaction after the Revolution of 1905–07 considerably dampened the buoyancy of Gorodetskii’s poetry; he became one of the organizers of the Poets’ Guild (an association of acmeists). The Great October Socialist Revolution broadened the poet’s horizons: the volume Sickle (1921) and the poem Red Petro-grad (1922) sound the theme of heroic revolutionary deeds and the international solidarity of the workers. Gorodetskii translated works of Bulgarian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Byelorussian poetry. He was the author of a new libretto for M. I. Glinka’s opera Ivan Susanin (1937–44).