The Russian poet Igor Severyanin, who left a noticeable mark on the work of the Silver Age, was a very extraordinary person. All his life he was actively published, and he worked in various genres, sometimes subtly teasing the public. At the same time, Northerner was very witty, and did not climb into the pocket after the word. Probably, he managed to easily build relationships with others not only thanks to his talent, but also thanks to his personal qualities and charisma.
On the maternal side, he was a relative of the famous poet Athanasius Fet. The real name of the poet is Lotarev. He used many different pseudonyms, in particular, “Eagle”, “Mimosa” and “Graf Evgraf d’Axangraf”. At the dawn of his literary career, Northerner published 35 booklets with poems at his own expense. He wrote his first poems when he was 8 years old.
The poet was actively inventing new words and word forms. In particular, it was thanks to him that the Russian language was replenished with the word “mediocrity”. Vladimir Mayakovsky was negative about the work of Northerner, which was reflected in several of his poems. The poet himself called his poetic style “lyrical irony”. One of his main hobbies throughout his life was fishing.
In 1918, Northerner was elected “King of Poets”, while beating around the much more famous Mayakovsky and Balmont. He married in Estonia, where he later remained to live. His wife owned both Estonian and Russian. When his son was born, the poet called him “Bacchus”, convincing a local Estonian priest that this was a real name suitable for a Christian.
Lev Tolstoy once called the poems of Northerner “vulgarity.” Many newspapers and magazines picked up this statement and began to print devastating reviews of the work of Northerner, which contributed a lot to the popularity of the hitherto not very famous poet. In Soviet times, the poet’s work was banned. Only in 1996 in Russia was published a complete collection of his works.
