Alexander Esenin-Volpin

Alexander Sergeyevich Esenin-Volpin (also written Ésénine-Volpine and Yessenin-Volpin in his French and English publications; ; May 12, 1924March 16, 2016) was a Russian-American poet and mathematician. A dissident, political prisoner and a leader of the Soviet human rights movement, he spent a total of six years incarcerated and repressed by the Soviet authorities in psikhushkas and exile. In mathematics, he is known for his foundational role in ultrafinitism. Life Alexander Volpin was born on May 12, 1924, in the Soviet Union. His mother, Nadezhda Volpin, was a poet and translator from French and English. His father was Sergei Yesenin, a celebrated Russian poet, who never knew his son. Alexander and his mother moved from Leningrad to Moscow in 1933. His first psychiatric imprisonments took place in 1949 for "anti-Soviet poetry", in 1959 for smuggling abroad samizdat, including his Свободный философский трактат (Free Philosophical Tractate), and again in 1968.