The son of the poet Sergei Yesenin, philosopher and dissident Alexander Yesenin-Volpin, has died. Alexander Yesenin-Volpin did not have time to investigate the version of his father’s murder. The theory of evidence remained in the manuscript.

Today is the birthday of Yesenin’s son, Alexander Sergeevich Yesenin-Volpin.

He turned 88 years old.

U Sergei Yesenin besides the firstborn Yuri and two children from Zinaida Reich there was another illegitimate child. She gave birth to him Nadezhda Volpin- poetess and translator.

They met in 1919 in a literary cafe. Nadezhda also wrote poetry, published it in collections, read it from the stage in "Cafe of Poets" And " Pegasus Stable».

Moscow 20s

Accompanying the girl home, Yesenin gives her his book of poems with the inscription: “ Nadezhda with Nadezhda" The hopes were justified.
In the book of my memories N. Volpin talks about their first night: “ Spring 21st. Bogoslovsky Lane. I'm at Yesenin's. Confused: “Girl!” and immediately, in one breath: “How did you write poetry?” If I took the first exclamation with disbelief (and really, throughout the entire year of my desperate resistance he considered me an experienced woman!), then the question about poetry seemed to me as sincere as it was unexpected and funny...»

Bogoslovsky lane, house 3, where S. Yesenin and A. Mariengof then lived.
Now this is Petrovsky Lane, house 5. Here was their first night with Nadezhda Volpin, as a result of which their son was born.

Bogoslovsky Lane now. Yeseninsky house on the right side after this first gray one.

« And Yesenin also told me on that evening of his belated victory: “Only everyone is responsible for themselves!” “I’ll definitely let someone else answer for me!” - was my sad answer...
At the same time, however, I thought: “It turns out that you still recognize your responsibility in your soul - and hide from it?” But I was looking forward to this. He didn’t forget to remind me of his old ethical rule: “I allowed myself everything.”!»

Yesenin was shocked to learn that Nadezhda wanted to keep the child. " What are you doing to me! I already have three children!- he exclaimed. Nadezhda, offended by his reaction, left for Leningrad without leaving him an address.
From the poems of Nadezhda Volpin written before leaving:

The night when it sounded above us
Separating beep
Gave it to me as a souvenir
Embroidered scarf with stars.

I tore it to pieces in those days
I tore it apart, so what now?
I rewind at night
Into the songs of the star tow?

Maybe the rain was knocking on the roof -
Will he knock and shut up?
Song, half-sentence
Having broken off, it will sound off.

(The only one of Yesenin’s women who herself wrote poetry to him).

She suffered a lot.

By golden-haired noon
I'll turn around cool:
You are on your way, beloved,
My life is confused.

And like a leafless forest
Everything will tremble in the summer,
That's how you wrote it down
Roadbed.

And like evil rails
The knot of life will be tightened,
So tormented by you
Stupid memory.

August. Bad days
Cuts the night with sickles.
Silver hair grass
Save it for memory.

After all, it won’t take long to face me
It will be a nice day:
A wheel through the neck
And the knot is cut.

(“Rails”, August 1921)

Yesenin tried to find Nadezhda, but the neighbors in the communal apartment, at her request, did not tell him the address. There was even a ditty going around Moscow: “ Nadya left Sergei without a child in her arms" They said that when she was pregnant, she wore a dress with a picture of the sun on it and said that she would give birth to Christ. May 12, 1924 a son was born, exactly like his father.

He was a charming blond-haired, blue-eyed boy with a spiritual face. Nadezhda Volpin writes that Yesenin I asked an acquaintance who visited her whether he was black or white. To which he replied: “And I told him not only that I was white, but simply that this is the kind of boy you were, and this is what you are. No cards needed."

What does Sergei have to say about this?
And Sergey said: “ That's how it should have been. This woman loved me very much...»

Yesenin did not devote poetry to her. There are only three lines about her, and even then - in verses about another, similar in appearance to her Shagane: «... There's a girl in the north too - she looks an awful lot like you. Maybe he's thinking about me...»
Yes, she thought about him. And she wrote:

Dry lips.
Darling, have mercy!
Only the memory is tender
On my chest...

Let's calm down. Brassy oblivion
Strongly drunk "on you."
A blue broom is repairing the cold
Cover my tracks.

This midnight, where is familiar
The secret of every corner
This midnight snowballs
She lay down on my bed.

And a warm heap of wishes
The stirred up has decayed
On tropical patterns
In frozen glass.

A year after the birth of his son, Yesenin will pass away...

Nadezhda Volpin is not among the legal wives and children accompanying him on his last journey. But from her poems we see that she is with him:

Killer whale on one wing,
I'm on cemetery ground
I lie in the damp nettle haze,
And my nest is forgotten ashes...

My poor verse! You were like home
Rich in friendship and warmth,
Like a house with four corners,
Like a horse with golden wings!

And I'm in my nettle haze,
Killer whale with one wing,
I kiss the cold mortal dust,
Beloved ashes!

From an interview with Alexander Yesenin-Volpin:

Has your father Sergei Aleksandrovich Yesenin ever seen you? After all, you were one year and seven months old in December 1925 when he passed away.
- Saw. About twenty years after my birth, I visited the house in Leningrad where I once lived, my apartment. So the neighbors on the floor said that Yesenin came in the absence of his mother to look at the baby, that is, at me, but I didn’t remember him (laughs).

He loved her. It's right. But he loved not only her, even at the same time. I came from an unknown, that is, it is very clear what kind of connection.

Alexander does not admire his father, but he is not offended either. He says sparingly: his father had many women. One of them is his mother.

In 1933 Nadezhda Volpin moved with her nine-year-old son from Leningrad to Moscow. She made a living by translating. She translated European classics and contemporary writers without interlinear translations ( Walter Scott, Conan Doyle, Merimee, Galsworthy, F. Cooper and others), brilliantly reproducing the individual style of the authors. The experience of a poet helped her create masterpieces of poetic translations, including famous cycles Goethe, Ovid, Hugo.
In the 1980s she published her memoirs “ Date with a friend", dedicated to his youth and Sergei Yesenin. The archive contains her memories of friendship with Mandelstam, about Pasternak, Mayakovsky. Almost until the last hours of her life, Nadezhda Davydovna retained her clarity of thought and love of poetry.

This was the last woman who knew Yesenin closely.

Alexander Yesenin-Volpin graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics of Moscow State University, postgraduate school, brilliantly defended his dissertation and went to work in Chernivtsi, where he was arrested for anti-Soviet agitation in 1949. They kept me in a psychiatric clinic for a year, then sent me into exile in Karaganda.

Returning to Moscow, he worked for " Sokol"at the Institute of Scientific Information. Fluent in several languages, he edited and translated books. He was engaged in science, developing an anti-traditional direction in mathematics. Got married.

Alexander Volpin was an ardent anti-Soviet. They asked him: “Sasha, what do you have against the Soviet regime?” - "I? I have nothing against the Soviet gang that illegally seized power in 1717.” He said “a lot of unnecessary things.” He was periodically put in a psychiatric hospital. He had a saying: “Well, I’ve already been treated for this!”

Alexander’s relatives (Yesenin’s sisters and their families) asked not to go to them - after his arrival the apartment was put under control, phones were tapped... “We have children,” they told him.

Yesenin-Volpin with his brother Konstantin. September 1970. Moscow.

In 1961, Yesenin-Volpin published his poems and his philosophical treatise in the West, for which Khrushchev at a meeting with the intelligentsia on the Lenin Hills he called it “a rotten poisonous mushroom.” The treatise contained a phrase that infuriated the authorities: “ There is no freedom of speech in Russia, but who can say that there is no freedom of thought there? ».

Alexandra And Catherine, Yesenin’s sisters - Alexander’s aunts - published in "To the truth"a letter where they tried to distance themselves from a restless relative: " If there are mental deviations, treat them; if not, punish them, but just don’t touch us, we have nothing to do with him, and it’s generally not known whose son he is.».
Only the mother was a constant support for her son, who was constantly arrested, exiled and put in “psychiatric hospitals” for his “anti-Soviet” poetry and human rights activities.

Alexander served 14 years in prisons, mental hospitals and exile for human rights activities. During World War II he was not accepted into the army.

From an interview with Alexander Yesenin-Volpin:

Formally, I was recognized as schizophrenic. Why, I don’t know. One of the secrets of my life. Someone must have done something for this.

Alexander admits: perhaps because of his father. Yesenin was often treated in psychiatric clinics.

Gannushkin clinic, where Yesenin was treated. In the center there is a billiard table for patients.

December 5, 1965 Alexander Volpin with V. Bukovsky and other dissidents on Constitution Day organizes a rally at Pushkin Square demanding a public trial of those arrested Sinyavsky And Daniel.
Later with Sakharov participates in the work of the Human Rights Committee and constantly demands compliance with the rule of law.
He is increasingly dragged to psychiatric hospitals, and on the days of party congresses he is expelled from Moscow.

“Actually everyone calls him Alec. All life. Since childhood. The middle name does not stick to him. One Okudzhava I glued it once, and then only for secrecy. But the words " The cab driver is standing, Alexander Sergeich is walking. Oh, something will probably happen tomorrow!" from the song " The past cannot be returned" could be attributed not only to Pushkin, but also to his namesake. Because there was hardly a person in the early sixties whose name would be more associated with the concept of “troublemaker.” Whose ideas not only inspired people who hated Soviet power, but would offer specific practical and legal steps to combat the lawlessness of the regime. Whose postulate (to demand that the authorities comply with their own laws) formed the basis of an entire movement, which over time will become called “human rights”. The inspirer of this movement (though without intending to do so) was the son of a poet, poet, mathematician, logician and freethinker Alexander Sergeevich Yesenin-Volpin. Seeing him walking along the Moscow streets with a characteristic shuffling gait, few doubted: another rally, or a demonstration, or a letter of protest was being prepared: “Something will happen tomorrow.”

(from the article by V. Arkanov “Another Man”)

Those who knew him in the past say he has changed little. On the outside, of course: he was graying, his beard was in tufts, his nose was pointed and bony. The eyes, which were catchy with a blue and furious brilliance that suggested a precarious line between genius, obsession and madness, had long since faded.

But internally - in the sharpness and spontaneity of perception, in the passionate enthusiasm with which he continues to engage in science, in the absolute impracticality and neglect of the external side of life - he is still the same “eccentric scientist” as he was at sixty, forty, twenty-five .

Sandals, shorts and a short-sleeved shirt make him look like an aged boy - the character " Tales of Lost Time" It seems that now he will be disenchanted, and he will turn into a restless teenager, and the living room littered with papers in a house for low-income elderly people in the suburbs Boston, where he has lived for the last 10 years, to the cozy Moscow apartment of his mother, poetess and translator Nadezhda Volpin.

Moscow apartment of the Volpins. 1970

From the poems of Nadezhda Volpin(she wrote them all her life):

My home welcomes the traveler
Hot good pie, -
A hut with four corners,
Where the soul is not broken by fear,
Where shelter is ready for everyone,
Where people live for people...

Today, the relationship with Yesenin gives Alexander Sergeevich a completely mythological status, it seems like a happy lot. Although what happiness is there if from the late twenties to the early seventies Yesenin was practically banned in the USSR.

To be his son at that time was a dubious privilege. And the fact that A.S. did not refuse the dash in his surname - one of the first conscious challenges to society.

“I think I have a lot of my father in my character,” he says. “But it’s completely refracted.” He was not a rationalist like me. I was a fighter by nature, but I’m not a fighter, I’m an arguer. But the most important thing: he thought figuratively, and I thought point-wise, extremely concretely.

One day he paid quite concretely for his concrete thinking. In 1957, during the Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow, he was detained by the police. The reason was trivial: I was trying to go somewhere in the company of foreigners. But after two questions, he was handcuffed and taken to a psychiatric hospital. The protocol says: “ Calls himself the son of Yesenin. Says arithmetic doesn't exist».
Why the first is not a sign of madness is understandable. We need to explain about arithmetic. Having graduated from Moscow State University in Mechanics and Mathematics and defended his Ph.D. thesis on topology (in scientific circles it is still considered classical), A.S. For many years he struggled with the proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Such a proof would definitively confirm the consistency of mathematical theories in general and arithmetic in particular. In its absence, any consistent logician is forced to admit that arithmetic - in theory - may turn out to be contradictory, and therefore not exist in the form we are familiar with. The work of finding this evidence is the drama of his life. As his first wife remembers Victoria Volpina, when they got married in 1962, A.S. said that he needed a year to complete the main work. But a year passed, and then another, and then ten; The options for proof multiplied, but there was no end in sight.

“I put manuscripts in special folders, which I called “BB” - bottomless barrels,” says Victoria Borisovna.

Needless to say, this work remains unfinished even today, almost fifty years later. And the piles of papers piled up in A.S.’s Boston apartment are evidence of his incessant stubborn attempts - without a computer, in far from perfect English, in many years of separation from the scientific community. Nobody puts unfinished drafts into folders anymore. And rare guests shudder, like Moscow policemen half a century ago when A.S. stuns them with a statement like: “ And zero, it turns out, is equal to one! Wow!»

The eternal chaos in the house does not bother him at all. “Get me things in order, and in two days everything will be upside down again,” says A.S. He loves deliciously prepared food, but who will cook it and whether it will be cooked at all, he, in his favorite expression, “doesn’t give a damn.” Now a social worker does this twice a week. Previously - some kind of wife. He was married four times, but only his first wife, Victoria Borisovna, still speaks of him with the deepest reverence. The next three were overshadowed by his everyday stupidity, fixation on his ideas, inability (and unwillingness) to build relationships in accordance with generally accepted ideas about what a family is. He really looks at his family in a unique way. Through the eyes of a lawyer, a champion of a clearly formulated set of rules.

In an interview " Russian magazine» Victoria Volpina recalled that even before they went to the registry office to register their relationship, Alec invited her to sign the “ Cohabitation agreement»: « There were, I think, twelve points. At that moment he seemed to me to be another manifestation of Aleka’s greatness and eccentricity at the same time. It qualified what a quarrel is, what a squabble is, what a disagreement is, what a “disagreement that develops into a quarrel” is... There were things that were simply impossible to take seriously at that time - for example, the point that “if an intention to emigrate arises, one of those entering into this agreement will not be hindered by the other (note!) if he does not wish to join.” I giggled to myself because at the beginning of 1962 the idea of emigrating seemed as likely as, well, the idea of taking part in an expedition to Mars».
However, it was emigration that eventually separated them - exactly ten years later. She didn't want to leave. He was given no choice. Phrase " If you don’t go to the Middle East, we’ll send you to the Far East”, which later went around as a joke, initially did not contain any irony. Coming from the lips of a KGB officer, it sounded even ominous. A.S. I decided not to tempt fate anymore. By that time, he had already spent enough time in prison, and in exile, and in psychiatric hospitals.

Leningrad special psychiatric hospital

The first time he was imprisoned for his poetry was back in 1949. The poems were daring, they showed the tradition of the Oberiuts destroyed back in the thirties and at the same time the hysterical note inherent in the later poems of his father:

In a zoo famous for its fearsome lions,
A live crocodile was crying in a low cage.
He's tired of his little hole
Remember the pyramids, Egypt and the Nile.

And seeing me nailed to the frame,
He wanted to come to me and crawled to the glass, -
But I lost my grip and hurt my eyes for a long time
About the uneven, slippery walls of the corner.

Frightened, helplessly trembled his cheeks,
He trembled, whined and disappeared under the water...
I turned slightly pale and covered myself with my hands
And, not remembering the road, he returned home.

The sun sang rainbowly, playing with rays,
And I was carried away by my game.
And I decided to cover the window with bricks,
But the brick fell apart from the revived rays,

And, as before with the Earth, I broke with Heaven,
But he decided not to take revenge, but calmly fell asleep.
And I saw: broken, with sore eyes,
He trembled, whined and drowned in the water...

The evening flames leapt above the houses,
And when the darkness finally swallowed them up,
I woke up and knocked my eyes for a long time
Oh the cold, hard walls of the corner...

About the crocodile it’s not so bad - it’s a transparent allegory, but it is. There were also lines with a frankly impartial depiction of Soviet reality: “ And outside the cold is fierce, and half-humans, half-octopuses pass by, breaking everything behind them" Or even more bluntly:

I did not play as a child with children,
Childhood lasted like prison after...
But I knew the game was nonsense
We must wait for age and intelligence!

Growing up, I was convinced
That the whole truth will be revealed to me -
I'll be famous by the time I'm thirty
And I'll probably die on the moon!

- How I expected a lot! And now
I don't know why I live
And what do I want from animals,
Inhabiting evil Moscow!..

These boys will end up in a noose
And no one will judge me, -
And these poems will be read
Crazy years from now!

Alexander Yesenin-Volpin reads his poems:

I have never taken a plow
Didn't touch manual labor
I read only poetry
Only them - nothing else...

But since the leaders want
So that their words always sound,
Every mechanic, every soldier
Teaches me morals:

“In our society everyone is equal
And free - this is what Stalin teaches.
In our society everyone is true
Communism is what Stalin teaches.”

And when "the dream of all times"
Not in need of protection
They thrust it on me like a holy law
And they also say: love, -

That, although for me a prison is
This is death, not just punishment,
I scream, “I don’t want shit!”
...As if I'm not afraid of a blow,

Like it's a right to tease people
For me, as art is sacred,
It's like my swearing is smarter
Simple speeches of a soldier...

What can you do, since it's spring -
The inevitable time of year
And only one goal is clear,
An unreasonable goal is freedom!

In 1961 New York book came out A. Yesenin-Volpina “Spring Leaf”- second after Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago" uncensored publication of a Soviet author in the West. The collection included a selection of poems and essays "Free Philosophical Treatise". It formulated the main philosophical credo of A.S.: denying all abstract concepts taken on faith (God, infinity, justice), he comes to the need to comply with formal logical laws. Alexander was only recently released from Kresty, but after the publication it became clear that he would not be for long. And exactly: at the end of 1962, Khrushchev uttered one of his catchphrases: “They say he is mentally ill, but we will treat him».

The veiled order was immediately accepted for execution, and for the next four months A.S. I found myself in a hospital bed again.
Less than two years later, Khrushchev was removed. The thaw is over - Brezhnev's tightening of the screws has begun. Writers are being screwed Andrey Sinyavsky And Julia Daniel who secretly published their works abroad. It was announced that their trial would be closed, and this gives rise to associations with the repressions of 1937 and is perceived by many as a revival of Stalinism. Volpin decides that it is necessary to demand openness and publicity of the court and writes "Civil Appeal".
In the entire history of the USSR, this text is the first appeal to the legal consciousness of citizens. They decided to hold the rally on Constitution Day, December 5, 1965, at the monument to Pushkin with the slogans “ We demand transparency of the trial!" And " Respect the Constitution!».

“At first there was extraordinary excitement, the only talk in Moscow was about this demonstration,” recalls Vladimir Bukovsky. “But the closer to Constitution Day, the more pessimism and fear appeared - no one knew how this idea would end. Power is like that, it can do anything. After all, the first free demonstration since 1927 was coming. That day they stood on the square for only a few minutes - a pitiful handful, about forty people, they didn’t even have time to unfurl their posters. (The first security officer in civilian clothes tore the word “glasnost” from the slogan “We demand openness of the court.”) But this was enough to turn the epoch.

Yes, all participants were detained, taken to police stations, interrogated, but not a single one was arrested. This means that Yesenin-Volpin was right in asserting that something can be achieved within the framework of the law. Yes, Sinyavsky and Daniel were convicted anyway, but they were convicted in an open trial, and the accusation, sewn with white thread, showed the face of power to the whole world. Yes, there were very few of them in the square, but thanks to them, the human rights movement gained a platform and a voice. This voice belonged to Yesenin-Volpin.
Then there was another arrest - the fifth psychiatric hospital. And upon exiting - written “ on my mother's sofa for three days» « Memo for those facing interrogation" (1968). It was passed on to each other by those persecuted within the country, and in 1973 it was published in Paris. How much blood did she spoil for the investigators? Lubyanka! « We've heard enough of this Volpin! This home-grown lawyer, this supposed lawyer!“- they shouted, although A.S. I just explained, based on the Criminal Code, what rights a detainee or witness has and what the investigator can and cannot demand.
They took him to Lubyanka and let him go: there was nothing to grab onto. He reminded the authorities that dissent is not at odds with the law, and therefore should not be punished.
Volpin's wife Victoria she recalled: once, during a three-hour conversation with investigators, Alexander Sergeevich exhausted them so much that they gave up, called her and said: “Take it!”

And then he seemed to disappear.
“The authorities came up with a very clever move,” he says with the intonation of a chess player who did not immediately figure out such a simple combination of his opponent. - They took me out of the game. Previously, they weren’t allowed to approach foreigners, but now I’ve become one myself.

Yesenin's son does not miss his homeland. There are few good memories.

Has America become your second home?

Yes and no. In some ways it is better than the Motherland. It was no coincidence that I moved here.

Sergey Yesenin was also in America. WITH Isadora Duncan. He didn't like it.

The overseas paradise made a depressing impression on Yesenin. In letters to friends he wrote:

“Do you know, dear sir, Europe? No! You don't know Europe. My God, what an impression, how my heart beats... Oh no, you don’t know Europe! First of all, my God, such disgusting monotony, such spiritual poverty that you want to vomit...
What can I tell you about this terrifying kingdom of philistinism, which borders on idiocy? There is nothing here except the foxtrot. Here they eat and drink, and again the foxtrot.

I haven’t met the person yet and I don’t know where he smells. Mr. Dollar is in terrible fashion, but art doesn’t give a damn - the highest music hall here. I didn’t even want to publish books here, despite the cheapness of paper and translations. Nobody here needs this. Everything here is ironed, licked and combed almost as much as Mariengof’s head. Birds poop with permission and sit where they are allowed. Well, where are we going with such obscene poetry? This, you know, is just as impolite as communism. Sometimes I want to send all this to the fucking mother and sharpen my skis back. We may be beggars, we may have cold and hunger, but we have a soul, which was rented out there as unnecessary for Smerdyakovism...”

However, over time, Yesenin’s son became disillusioned abroad:

But it turns out that the West is old and rude,
And he who resists faith is simply stupid,
And it turns out that it's a long winter
Burned out by the rage of a hopeless mind,

And it will turn out to be far from Russian places
My protest is pointless and soulless!..
...What will I do? Of course I won't be back!
But I'll get desperately drunk and shoot myself,

So as not to see the merciless simplicity
The ubiquitous bleak bustle,
So that with dark and holy bitterness
Don't ruin someone's young life,

And in addition, so that from my ashes
At least Russia got nothing!

Of course, needless to say, these poems are far from Yesenin’s. But Alec is undoubtedly talented in many other areas - in science, politics, law. This is a heroic personality and clearly underestimated among us.

Yes, they are different in many ways. From an interview with A.S..:

My physiognomy and my father’s surname played a significant role. Maybe she helped me get the floor, but prevented me from speaking to the point. My father had nothing to do with the struggle for judicial transparency: in those years when he lived, it simply did not exist. This topic arose after Stalin's death. And during any speech, I always brought the conversation to publicity, but they wanted to hear something else from me...
- Most Russian immigrants associate themselves with Republicans.
- This choice is alien to me. I am non-partisan.
- And they also say that you are an atheist.
- I am a formalist. If we give some place to mysticism, this does not mean that we need to abandon the idea of comprehending the world with our minds. True, I don’t make a worldview out of this. Today it can be proven that there is not one, but many worlds. It follows from this that I do not believe in the Creator as the One Creator of a single world. Because in this way we narrow our perception of the Universe.
- In your opinion, are there political prisoners in today's Russia?
- Sometimes it is difficult to draw the line between persecution on purely political grounds and on other grounds. It was officially believed that there were no political prisoners in the USSR; those arrested were charged with criminal charges such as “disturbing public order” and “slander.” After Gorbachev’s perestroika, in the 90s, as far as I know, there really were no political prisoners in Russia. Now, apparently, people are again appearing who ended up in prison precisely for political reasons, regardless of what article they are accused of.

Yesenin-Volpin is one of the heroes of the 2005 documentary film "They chose freedom", dedicated to the history of the dissident movement in the USSR.

WITH 1972 he lives in Boston (Massachusetts, USA).

WITH 1989 visited his homeland several times.
In the USA, he will teach mathematics at the University of Buffalo, at Boston University, and then leave teaching and engage in pure science. By the mid-eighties, when the word “glasnost”, first uttered by Yesenin-Volpin back in the “Civil Appeal”, would raise the Gorbachev, A.S. will become a citizen of another country. His role in the human rights movement will be, if not forgotten, then relegated to the background. Or, in his language - the language of mathematics - it is taken out of the brackets. When work on the Yeltsin constitution begins and someone suggests calling Alec as an adviser, it will be decided that this is no longer useful. But in the song Okudzhava he continues to walk, which means “ something will probably happen tomorrow».
Despite his age, Alexander Sergeevich continues to work at an increased pace - he publishes works on logical-mathematical theory, travels to give lectures at US universities, and actively collaborates with the dissident movement. He doesn’t feel his age, he lives his own business.

Happy Birthday, dear Alexander Sergeevich! Our country is very guilty before you. At least be happy and prosperous there.

Transition to LJ: http://nmkravchenko.livejournal.com/98309.html

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Alexander Sergeevich Yesenin-Volpin(English) Alexander Esenin-Volpin; May 12, 1924, Leningrad, RSFSR - March 16, 2016, Boston, USA) - Soviet and American mathematician, philosopher, poet, one of the leaders of the dissident and human rights movement in the USSR, a pioneer of legal education in dissident circles of Soviet society, son Sergei Yesenin.

The organizer of the “Glasnost Rally”, held in Moscow on December 5, 1965, in 1970-1972 was an expert of the Human Rights Committee in the USSR, a Soviet political prisoner (the total period of stay in prisons, exile and psychiatric clinics was 6 years).

Yesenin-Volpin was the author of a number of fundamental works in the field of mathematical logic, as well as the author of a number of works devoted to the theoretical aspects of the problem of legislative support for human rights in the USSR and law enforcement practice in this area. He was one of the first in the 1960s in the USSR to promote the legal approach in relations between the state and citizens.

Yesenin-Volpin formulated and began to defend the idea that Soviet laws in themselves are quite acceptable, and the problem lies in the refusal of the state to follow these laws. He convinced his associates that if the state respected its own laws, citizens would not be in a position of powerlessness and that the situation with respect to human rights would change if citizens actively sought the state to comply with the laws.

Biography

His father, a poet Sergey Yesenin, passed away when Yesenin-Volpin was one year old. His mother was the poetess and translator Nadezhda Volpin. The parents were literary friends, but were not married. In 1933, he and his mother moved from Leningrad to Moscow, where in 1946 he graduated with honors from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University (he was not drafted into the army due to a psychiatric diagnosis); in 1949, after graduating from graduate school at the Research Institute of Mathematics at Moscow State University and defending his Ph.D. thesis on mathematical logic, he went to work in Chernivtsi.

At the same time, he wrote poetry, which he read among friends; in the same 1949, for “anti-Soviet poetry” he was placed for compulsory treatment in the Leningrad special psychiatric hospital; in September 1950, as a “socially dangerous element”, he was sent to the Karaganda region for a period of five years.

Amnestied after Stalin's death in 1953, he soon became known as a mathematician specializing in the field of intuitionism. In 1959, he was again placed in a special psychiatric hospital, where he spent about two years.

His poems, distributed in samizdat and published in the West, signed his surname Volpin. In 1961, Yesenin-Volpin’s book “Spring Leaf” was published in New York, which, in addition to poetry, included his “Free Philosophical Treatise.”

In 1965, Yesenin-Volpin became the organizer of the “Glasnost Rally”, which took place on December 5 on Pushkin Square in Moscow - the first public protest demonstration in the post-war USSR. The main slogan of the rally, which was attended by about 200 people (including KGB operatives), was the demand for publicity of the trial of Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, who were arrested shortly before; The protesters also held posters with the call “Respect the Soviet Constitution.” At the rally, a “Civil Appeal” compiled by Yesenin-Volpin, previously distributed by the organizers of the rally and sympathizers, was distributed as a leaflet. Yesenin-Volpin was taken straight from the square for interrogation.

Vladimir Bukovsky, relying on a secret report he found in the archives of the KGB of the USSR to the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, believes that the campaign of using so-called punitive psychiatry against dissidents began with the mention in this report on February 27, 1967 of Pyotr Grigorenko and Alexander Volpin as persons “previously involved in criminal liability and those released due to mental illness.”

In February 1968, Yesenin-Volpin was again imprisoned in a special mental hospital. In this regard, a number of famous mathematicians signed the so-called letter 99 protesting against the forced hospitalization of Yesenin-Volpin.

In 1969, he translated into Russian and wrote the preface to P. J. Cohen’s book “Set Theory and the Continuum Hypothesis,” which sets out the proof of the independence of the continuum hypothesis from the other axioms of set theory.

Samizdat is distributing his “Memo for Those Facing Interrogations,” the key thesis of which was the assertion that the norms of Soviet procedural law are quite suitable for legally avoiding complicity in the persecution of dissent, without resorting to lies or denial. After his release, in 1970, he joined the Human Rights Committee in the USSR, collaborating with Yuri Orlov, Andrei Sakharov and other human rights activists.

In May 1972, at the urgent suggestion of the Soviet authorities, he emigrated to the United States, where he worked at the University of Buffalo, then at Boston University. Author of a theorem in the field of dyadic spaces, which received his name.

On Volpin's 80th birthday in 2004, dissident Vladimir Bukovsky proposed that Volpin be awarded the Sakharov Prize for his services to the human rights movement. At the same time, Bukovsky said:

Honestly speaking, it was Andrei Dmitrievich who should have received the Yesenin-Volpin Prize. Alik was his teacher (in human rights activities).

Human rights activists and their Gratitude Foundation

Bukovsky also said that Yesenin-Volpin’s “disease,” for which he was “treated” in psychiatric hospitals, is called “pathological truthfulness.”

Lived in Boston (Massachusetts, USA). Since 1989, he has visited his homeland several times.

Yesenin-Volpin is one of the heroes of the 2005 documentary film “They Chose Freedom,” dedicated to the history of the dissident movement in the USSR.

Statements and views

The basis of Yesenin-Volpin's mathematical and philosophical views was extreme skepticism - the denial of all abstract concepts taken on faith (God, infinity, etc.); This implies the need for strict adherence to formal logical laws. Since the early 1960s, he applied this principle to the field of law, being the first of the Soviet dissidents to put forward the idea of the possibility and necessity of protecting human rights by strictly following Soviet laws and demanding compliance with these laws from the authorities. This rule becomes one of the fundamental concepts of the human rights movement.

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A. Yesenin-Volpin:

“My father’s surname only prevented me from speaking to the point!”

To the fortieth anniversary of the human rights movement

Alexander Yesenin-Volpin is the son of the poet Sergei Yesenin, the only survivor of his children. Since 1972 in forced emigration. Lives in Boston. Known as a major scientist in the field of logical-mathematical theory. Philosopher, poet, dissident.

He is considered the ideologist of the human rights movement, the fortieth anniversary of which is celebrated in December this year. The other day he submits for publication a very important - in his opinion, simply revolutionary - scientific work on logical-mathematical theory. He is going to go to Moscow (for the third time this century) to celebrate the anniversary of the dissident movement together with the Memorial; recently gave a major report at Columbia University in New York, and took part in the celebration of Naum Korzhavin’s anniversary. Doesn't feel age. His main goal now is to prove the validity of his mathematical theory.

And behind is the life of a politically persecuted scientist, full of difficult adventures, who took the path of dissidence due to his character and convictions.

Alexander Sergeevich was born on May 12, 1924. His mother is Nadezhda Davydovna Volpina (1900-1998), an outstanding writer, translator (thousands of pages of translations from German, French, Greek, Turkmen, including Ovid, Goethe, Hugo, etc. ), author of the memoir “A Date with a Friend.” In her youth, she wrote and read poetry from the stage. In the 20s she joined the Imagists. That’s when I met Sergei Yesenin. At the beginning of 1924, after a break with the poet, she left Moscow for Leningrad, where she soon gave birth to a son, Alexander.

Mother and son moved to Moscow in 1933. Alexander Sergeevich graduated from Moscow State University in Mechanics and Mathematics, defended his dissertation in mathematics and was sent to teach at Chernivtsi University (Ukraine). There he was first arrested for reading his own poems with friends - the poems were recognized as anti-Soviet. He was declared insane, placed in a Leningrad psychiatric hospital, and soon sent into exile in Karaganda for five years, but three years later, in 1953, after Stalin’s death, he was released under an amnesty.

In Moscow he becomes one of the major specialists in mathematical logic, creates an independent scientific direction - ultra-intuitionism. In 1961, a collection of his poems, “Spring Leaf,” was published in New York, along with “A Free Philosophical Treatise.” The main theme is the defense of freedom, rejection of dictatorship:

...They push it like a holy law,

And they also say - love...

...What can you do?

once spring -

inevitable time of year,

And only one goal is clear,

By the way, the publication of “Spring Leaf” in New York is the second case, after “Doctor Zhivago,” in the history of Soviet literature when a book was published abroad without the sanction of the authorities and under the real name of the author.

Moreover, he himself told investigators about the transfer of the manuscript to the West. “To sit once, not twice,” this is how he explains the reason for his action. He was immediately declared an “ideological renegade”, a “poisonous mushroom” (from the assessments of the Central Committee Secretary for Ideology L. Ilyichev). And then - a whole series of new “madness”. He applies the logic of thinking of a mathematician and a thorough knowledge of jurisprudence (history and Soviet laws) to social phenomena and comes to the conviction that the resolution of conflicts between society and government should be based on legal norms, i.e. to the need to comply with procedural laws. He acted with all his characteristic passion and consistency. Everywhere and everywhere he began to talk about the need for the authorities to comply with the laws they had issued. In those days it was truly crazy courage.

He is the author of the slogans of the human rights movement “Observe the Constitution!”, “Transparency to the courts!” With the participation of V. Nikolsky and E. Stroeva, he compiled the text of the “Civil Appeal” - a call for a demonstration on December 5, 1965, organized by Vladimir Bukovsky in connection with the arrest of writers Sinyavsky and Daniel. This day, when a legendary demonstration took place on Pushkin Square, lasting several minutes, became the birthday of the human rights movement, which gave the history of the struggle for democracy the names of Sakharov, Chalidze, Grigorenko, Sharansky, Medvedev, Kopelev, Stus, Rudenko, Lukyanenko and many others.

Yesenin-Volpin is the author of the most famous document of the dissident movement at that time - “Memos for those who are facing interrogations” (1968). It was passed on to each other by those persecuted within the country, and in 1973 it was published in Paris.

From 1953 to 1972, Yesenin-Volpin worked at VINITI: he was engaged in summarizing, translating mathematical literature, and wrote articles for the Philosophical Encyclopedia. And in between, he continued to formulate his legitimate, in his deep conviction, demands on the authorities. In 1967-1968 he wrote several human rights documents. He reminded the authorities that dissent is not at odds with the law, and therefore should not be punished.

In 1968, for reading his poetry, he again ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Three months later he was released - after a letter from dozens of the country's largest scientists: academicians, Lenin Prize laureates. Meanwhile, the investigators were furious when the interrogated people answered them according to his “Memo”. They shouted: they read a lot about their lawyer Volpin! Volpin’s wife Victoria recalled: once, during a three-hour conversation with investigators, Alexander Sergeevich exhausted them so much that they gave up, called her and said: “Take it!”

According to his human rights activist friends, he was the only one among them who attacked rather than defended himself. Many were perceived as victims of the regime, and he was a persecutor. Such was the strength of his knowledge, thinking, art of evidence, love of truth and courage. According to Andrei Grigorenko, he is the godfather of the human rights movement.

In 1970-1971 Yesenin-Volpin actively worked in the Human Rights Committee, created by Dmitry Sakharov, Valery Chalidze, Andrei Tverdokhlebov. He wrote reports on the right to defense, on the rights of the mentally ill, on international covenants on human rights, etc. As a result, in March 1972, the authorities made Alexander Sergeevich understand that it would be better for him to leave the country. And already in May of the same year he emigrated to the USA.

Since 1973 he has lived near Boston. For five years he taught first at the University of Buffalo, then at Boston University. He gave countless interviews, attracting the writing fraternity with his dissidence and interest in fundamental issues of mathematical logic. But he interests us not only as a mathematician and dissident, but also as a writer. Name Yesenina-Volpina included in the series of bibliographic articles “Dissident Writers” of the UFO magazine (2004, No. 66). In 1999, his book entitled “Philosophy” was published in Moscow. Logics. Poetry. Defending Human Rights: Selected 452 pages. His poems have been included in several 20th-century poetry anthologies.

And it will turn out to be far from Russian places

My protest is pointless and soulless!

What will I do? Of course I won't be back!

But I'll get desperately drunk and shoot myself.

Thank God, I didn’t drink myself to death and shoot myself.

Alexander Sergeevich, you recently came from Boston to New York. In connection with what?

I was invited to give a keynote address at Columbia University at Grigorenkovsky readings organized by the Grigorenko Public Foundation and the Harriman Institute. I was invited by Andrei Grigorenko, president of the foundation, son and ally of dissident General Pyotr Grigorievich Grigorenko.

This year’s readings are dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the human rights movement. I remembered the importance of the speeches of the late Gri-Gorenko even before the start of our movement. At the demonstration on December 5, 1965, I did not know him. But the next year he was already sitting in my apartment, and we could not leave: the house was surrounded by KGB officers.

During the 33 years of your life outside your homeland, a lot has been written about you. How would you define your role in the human rights movement?

Like not very big.

In fact, my physiognomy and my father’s surname played a significant role. Maybe she helped me get the floor, but prevented me from speaking to the point. My father had nothing to do with the struggle for judicial transparency: in those years when he lived, it simply did not exist. This topic arose after Stalin's death. And during any speech, I always brought the conversation to publicity, but they wanted to hear something else from me.

At that very first demonstration on December 5, 1965, we demanded publicity of the trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel. This was my slogan. I took it from the article of the Code of Criminal Procedure, where it was written: “glasnost”, “publicity”, “openness”. And if “publicity” is written into the law, then we demand compliance with the law. So 20 years before Gorbachev we started talking about glasnost.

And I formulated another slogan like this: “Observe the Constitution!” But for some reason our people announced: “Respect!” And thanks for that.

There are legends about your “Memo for Those Facing Interrogations”...

It's written too based on the position of transparency and the requirement to comply procedural laws. And I knew them well. My maternal grandfather was a famous lawyer and left a lot of literature. In addition, I myself studied all the Soviet codes. I did a lot of this in exile. Plus my personal experience and ability to piss off investigators. In the “Memo”, I advised those being interrogated to check every phrase of the protocol written by the investigator. From the very beginning, he advised me to clarify: “What business did you call me for?” And then ask a counter question to any question: “What does this have to do with this case?” etc.

I think that if the “Memo” is rewritten in relation to today’s laws, it can be used today. Because the essence of the problem is the same.

How have you personally suffered from the authorities?

Yes, I didn’t really suffer. I ended up in the St. Petersburg psychiatric hospital twice. Yes, even two and a half years in exile, because under Khrushchev he published “Spring Leaf” abroad, where in poetry he also touched on the topic of repression. And by the time the movement began, I was over 40, and those young people were over 20. Naturally, they listened to me. In the 60s, I no longer wrote poetry, but studied mathematics. I just sent my latest work to my student in Holland for publication. I say what I think.

Are you talking about science now?

About everything. We need to tell the truth. And people don't really care about the truth.

And if we compare the time of the 60s and today's legal chaos in Russia and in the post-Soviet republics?..

I want to know specifically what this means. I know about the Khodorkovsky case, but I don’t know the essence business legislation. Maybe he really violated some prohibitions. Of course, it’s bad that he’s sitting. Russia needs businessmen.

And I need facts. So I’m going to go to Russia and I think I’ll see something. Of course, if they give you a visa.

Are you satisfied, for example, with the American judiciary?

I had no clashes with her on a civil level. I am satisfied that she did not interfere in my affairs.

But you observe life around you. Do you think it is easier or more difficult for a person in this state?

I think it's not ideal. I vote for the Democratic Party. It's a little better under her than under the Republicans. In general, it’s better here, of course. Not many people want to leave here. But the existing advantages are not enough to have a significant impact on Russia.

Do you approve of the White House's policy towards Iraq?

In my opinion, the White House lost in Iraq. America could wise up. I am against people dying on both sides. It was impossible to start a war so rudely. And Saddam could have been dealt with differently. I'm afraid the Republicans will lead to trouble.

- “New Russian Word” is a newspaper primarily pro-republican…

I am not a conservative, not a reactionary. Most Russian immigrants associate themselves with Republicans. This choice is alien to me. I am non-partisan.

They also say that you are an atheist.

I am a formalist. If we give some place to mysticism, this does not mean that we need to abandon the idea of comprehending the world with our minds. True, I don’t make a worldview out of this. Today it can be proven that there is not one, but many worlds. It follows from this that I do not believe in the Creator as the One Creator of a single world. Because in this way we narrow our perception of the Universe.

Tell me, does life experience change a person’s worldview?

In my youth I liked to repeat my own saying: “Life is an old prostitute whom I did not take as my governess.” As I got older, I realized that experience can and should be taken into account. The main thing is to resist abnormal experience.

Let's talk a little about personal things. Has your father Sergei Aleksandrovich Yesenin ever seen you? After all, you were one year and seven months old in December 1925 when he passed away.

- Saw. About 20 years after my birth, I visited the house in Leningrad where I once lived, my apartment. So the neighbors on the floor said that Yesenin came in the absence of his mother to look at the baby, that is, at me, but I didn’t remember him (laughs).

Did your mother not get married after this love?

Came out. My stepfather is the famous chemist Mikhail Volkenshtein. In his last years he lived alone in Leningrad, lived until the end of Soviet rule and died in 1992.

Did you maintain family ties with your brothers and sister?

Yes. True, there was no particular closeness with Kostya, because he was a member of the party. He died on the eve of the Chernobyl explosion, on April 25, 1986. Tatyana lived in Tashkent and died in 1992. But I’m going to meet Marina, Kostya’s daughter, in December in Moscow. (Konstantin and Tatyana are the children of Sergei Yesenin from his marriage to actress Zinaida Reich, later Meyerhold’s wife. Auth.)

What about Georgiy?

He died early, during the Yezhovshchina... (Georgy is the illegitimate son of Sergei Yesenin and Anna Izryadnova.- Author)

you could give self-characteristics? What kind of person are you?

Skeptic.

- “Question everything”?

At least I'm trying.

Are you easygoing in everyday life?

When I'm not disturbed, I'm easygoing. But they don’t interfere much.

If it's not a secret, who is your wife?

I had four of them. With the last one, Galya, we have now parted ways. She could not stand my godless glances.

Which of your works are most important to you?

Of course, in mathematics. I am better known in the field of foundations of mathematics as a fundamentalist, although some like to repeat that, first of all, I am Yesenin’s son and a dissident. But the latest work, which I just sent for printing, is very impressive. I'm sure there will be conversations. I seriously intend to promote it!

I have enough time. If my mother lived for almost a hundred years, then I’m going to be a hundred and fifty, and a hundred or a hundred and ten years old - that’s for sure! (Laughs). I’m getting ready, but I don’t know how long I’ll live.

It remains to wish Alexander Sergeevich youth - mental and physical - up to one hundred and fifty years, because one hundred years is really not enough for him for what he planned. And have a happy trip home.

The conversation was conducted by Lydia KORSUN

October 2005

Boston – New York

Yesenin-Volpin is the author of a number of fundamental works in the field of mathematical logic, as well as the author of a number of works devoted to the theoretical aspects of the problem of legislative support for human rights in the USSR and law enforcement practice in this area. He was one of the first in the 1960s in the USSR to promote the legal approach in relations between the state and citizens.

Yesenin-Volpin formulated and began to defend the idea that Soviet laws in themselves are quite acceptable, and the problem lies in the refusal of the state to follow these laws. He convinced his associates that if the state complied with its own laws, citizens would not be in a position of powerlessness, and that the situation with respect to human rights would change if citizens actively sought the state to comply with the laws.

Biography

Yesenin-Volpin did not know his father, the poet Sergei Yesenin. His mother was the poetess and translator Nadezhda Volpin. The parents were literary friends, but were not married. In 1933, he and his mother moved from Leningrad to Moscow, where in 1946 Yesenin-Volpin graduated with honors from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University (he was not drafted into the army due to a psychiatric diagnosis); in 1949, having completed his postgraduate studies at the Research Institute of Mathematics at Moscow State University and defended his PhD thesis on mathematical logic, he went to work in Chernivtsi.

The basis of Yesenin-Volpin's mathematical and philosophical views is extreme skepticism - the denial of all abstract concepts taken on faith (God, infinity, etc.); This implies the need for strict adherence to formal logical laws. Since the early 1960s, he has applied this principle to the field of law, being the first of the Soviet dissidents to put forward the idea of the possibility and necessity of protecting human rights by strictly following Soviet laws and demanding compliance with these laws from the authorities. This rule becomes one of the fundamental concepts of the human rights movement.

Lives in Boston (Massachusetts, USA). Since 1989, he has visited his homeland several times.

Yesenin-Volpin is one of the heroes of the 2005 documentary film “They Chose Freedom,” dedicated to the history of the dissident movement in the USSR.

(1924-05-12 )

Biography

Arrested on July 21, 1949 following a denunciation. Accused of conducting “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda” (in fact, for writing and reading in a narrow circle the familiar poems “I have never taken a plow...”, “The Raven” and others). Sent for forensic psychiatric examination. He was declared insane and was placed for compulsory treatment in the Leningrad Special Psychiatric Hospital. In September 1950, as a “socially dangerous element” he was expelled to the Karaganda region for a period of five years. Released on December 25, 1953 under an amnesty. Returned to Moscow.

In the summer of 1959, he received an invitation from the organizing committee of the symposium “On the Foundations of Mathematics and the Theory of Infinity”, organized by the International Mathematical Union and the Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of the People's Republic of Poland in Warsaw on September 2-8, 1959. The organizing committee invited Volpin to take part in the event and give a presentation on mathematical logic. Having received the invitation, Volpin turned to the USSR authorities with a request to issue him a foreign passport, but immediately received a response from which it was clear that mentally disabled citizens of the USSR were not issued foreign passports and were not issued abroad. Then Volpin sent the text of his report to Warsaw, which was announced at the symposium on his behalf, indicating that the authorities did not allow the Soviet scientist to come to the symposium in person.

In 1959, he was again placed in a special mental hospital for transferring abroad a collection of his poems and his “Free Philosophical Treatise”. He spent about two years in a special mental hospital.

In 1962 he married, his wife is V.B. Volpin (née Khayutina); exactly ten years later they divorced.

In 1965, Yesenin-Volpin became the organizer of the “Glasnost Rally”, held on December 5 on Pushkin Square in Moscow - the first public protest demonstration in the post-war USSR. The main slogan of the rally, which, according to rough estimates, gathered about 200 people (including KGB operatives and vigilantes), was the demand for publicity of the trial of Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, who were arrested shortly before; The protesters also held posters calling “Respect the Soviet Constitution.” At the rally, a “Civil Appeal” compiled by Yesenin-Volpin, previously distributed by the organizers of the rally and sympathizers, was distributed as a leaflet. Yesenin-Volpin was taken straight from the square for interrogation.

In February 1968, Yesenin-Volpin was again imprisoned in a special mental hospital. In this regard, a number of famous mathematicians signed the so-called “letter of ninety-nine” protesting against the forced hospitalization of Yesenin-Volpin.

Samizdat is distributing his “Memo for those facing interrogation,” the key thesis of which was the assertion that the norms of Soviet procedural law are quite suitable for legally avoiding complicity in the persecution of dissent, without resorting to lies or denial. After his release, in 1970, he joined the Human Rights Committee in the USSR, collaborating with Yuri Orlov, Andrei Sakharov and other human rights activists.

In May 1972, at the urgent suggestion of the Soviet authorities, he emigrated to the United States, where he worked at the University at Buffalo, then professor emeritus at Boston University. According to S.P. Novikov, however, Yesenin-Volpin's lectures were not successful, and in the end he took the position of librarian.

On Volpin's 80th birthday in 2004, dissident Vladimir Bukovsky proposed that Volpin be awarded the Sakharov Prize for his services to the human rights movement. At the same time, Bukovsky said: “Honestly, Andrei Dmitrievich should have received the Yesenin-Volpin Prize. Alik was his teacher (in human rights activities)." Bukovsky also said that Yesenin-Volpin’s “disease,” for which he was “treated” in psychiatric hospitals, is called “pathological truthfulness.” V.B. Volpin said that “At the age of 16, Alec made a vow - never, under any circumstances, to lie, even about little things,” and he lived like that.

Works and views

Is the author theorems in area dyadic spaces, which received his name.

The basis of Yesenin-Volpin's mathematical and philosophical views was extreme skepticism - the denial of all abstract concepts taken on faith (God, infinity, etc.); This implies the need for strict adherence to formal logical laws. Beginning in 1961, Yesenin-Volpin developed the concept of ultrafinitism - a radical form of metamathematical finitism, which denies the infinity of the natural series of numbers.

This led him to a seemingly paradoxical result: Yesenin-Volpin supported Cantor’s “increasing” diagonal argument and rejected Gödel’s “decreasing” argument; he tried to prove the consistency of the Zermelo-Frenkel system of axioms and insisted that such a proof would not mean proof of the inconsistency of this system of axioms, which would follow from Gödel’s theorem, since, according to Yesenin-Volpin, this Gödel’s theorem is erroneous.

Another, far-reaching consequence of Yesenin-Volpin’s “increasing” arguments could be an “explosive” increase in the realms of existence: in addition to the real and ideal existence accepted in some philosophical systems, one should recognize a tree of natural series of intermediate kinds of being. This, in particular, would completely bury the “third man” “argument” put forward by Aristotle against Plato.

Since the early 1960s, Yesenin-Volpin applied the same principle of radical skepticism to the field of law, being the first of the Soviet dissidents to put forward the idea of the possibility and necessity of protecting human rights by strictly following Soviet laws and demanding compliance with these laws from the authorities. He formulated and began to defend the idea that Soviet laws themselves were quite acceptable, and the problem lay in the refusal of the state to follow these laws. He convinced his associates that if the state complied with its own laws, citizens would not find themselves in a position of powerlessness and that the situation with respect to human rights would change if citizens actively sought the state to comply with the laws. This rule becomes one of the fundamental concepts of the human rights movement.

Ratings

I think that Yesenin-Volpin was not a philosopher of any kind, and as for mathematics, I know that he was very insignificant in this area
- L. S. Pontryagin. Biography, Part V

Notes

SNAC - 2010.
Documents of the Initiative Group for the Protection of Human Rights in the USSR / Compiled by G. V. Kuzovkin, A. A. Makarov. - Moscow, 2009.