Derivatives of the Anthroponym Yesenin

This paper provides a word-formation analysis of the derivatives of the anthroponym Yesenin, the surname of the renowned Russian poet and an important precedent name in Russian culture. The article offers a semantic and functional-stylistic commentary, exploring the linguacultural characteristics of these derivatives within discourse and their conceptualization by native speakers of contemporary Russian. The analysis examines the use of Yesenin with noun suffixes (-ian(a), -shchin(a), -ovets, -ist, -ing), the adjective suffix -sk(iy), the noun prefixes anti- and post-, the verb prefixes o-, ot-, na-, v-, po-, pro-, u- (including participles formed from these prefixes), and the initial and final components of compound words (e.g., kontr..., lzhe..., ...ved, ...vedenie, ...man, ...fil). It also considers the adverb confix po-…-i, the verbal suffix -i(t’) and the verbal postfix -sya. Using data from the National Corpus of the Russian Language, alongside information from Google and Yandex search engines and the scholarly electronic library E-Library, the article investigates both lexicographically fixed words (e.g., eseninshchina (n.) ‘low-grade village poetry imitative of the poet’) and non-fixed words, including neologisms and occasional forms (e.g., esenitsya (v.) ‘to write poetry in Yesenin’s style’, uyesenit’ (v.) ‘to stupefy’). The research draws on a wide derivational network of the name Yesenin, illustrating the stylistic and pragmatic diversity in the representation of deonyms in the National Corpus of the Russian Language, in comparison with data from Google and Yandex. The study identifies two contrasting poles: the positive-idealised and the negative, stereotypical connotative meanings of Yesenin-derived words. The intersection of conventional and occasional meanings in these derivational forms gives rise to opposing aesthetic concepts (e.g., yeseninsky (adj.) ‘obscene’ and po-yeseninsky ‘in the style of Yesenin, in the finest traditions of his work’), thereby emphasizing the role of Yesenin-derived words in Russian culture.