A prominent twentieth-century Russian poet, Sergei Esenin (1895-1925) was one of the founders of the short-lived but influential Imaginist movement in Russian poetry, which stood in contrast to Futurism and was related to Imagism in English. Originally from a peasant background, Esenin spent most of his adult life in Petrograd (later Leningrad, now St. Petersburg), but most of his poetry focused on nature and traditional rural life. In 1921 he married the American dancer Isadora Duncan and traveled with her all over Europe and the United States, but their marriage was stormy and short-lived. By 1925 Esenin was suffering from severe depression and alcoholism, and had received treatment for a nervous breakdown. Though he initially supported the Bolshevik regime, the poet became disenchanted with it, criticizing the encroaching effects of Soviet industrialization. According to the official version, on the night of December 27, 1925, he hanged himself after writing his final poem in his own blood.