Anatoly Borisovich Mariengof (1867–1962) remained in literature as the author of the acclaimed “Novel Without Lies” - about the years of life together, close friendship, breakup and reconciliation with Sergei Yesenin. Three editions of “The Novel” were published one after another in 1927, 1928 and 1929, after which the book was actually banned and removed from open library collections. In 1990, based on a copy from the Mariengof fund in the Russian State Archive of Literature, with numerous author’s corrections reflecting the author’s last will, “The Novel” was published in the collection of memoirs of the imagists Mariengof, Shershenevich and Gruzinov “My Age, My Friends and Girlfriends.” Written in one breath, in less than three months, “A Novel Without Lies” remained not only the most famous, but also the best work of Mariengof. He remained, despite Gorky’s grumpy review: “The author is an obvious nihilist, the drama is not understood. And this is a deeply instructive drama, and it is worth no less than Yesenin’s poems...”, and despite the psychologically understandable reproaches of Mariengof for the “Salierian envy of a mediocre literary worker towards the talent of a great poet,” coming from Yesenin’s descendants. Head of the emigrant publishing house “Petropolis” Yakov Bloch (1892 –1968) was going to organize the publication of “A Novel Without Lies” in America. He asked Mariengof for an autobiography as a preface. The project for an American edition did not materialize, but Mariengof sent “something like an autobiography” to Bloch. Written with the usual Marienghof paradoxicality and ease, it has been preserved in the collection of Ya.N. Flea in RGALI. When publishing, we considered it necessary to preserve the author’s peculiarities of spelling some words, since the Imagists attached great importance to their own spelling, the style of the sounding word.

M.G.

I received your letter dated March 18. I am sending, in accordance with your request, something like an autobiography for the American country.