Sovremennik'' which had been founded by
Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
but lost momentum under
Pyotr Pletnyov
Pyotr Alexandrovich Pletnyov (russian: Пётр Александрович Плетнёв; , Tebleshi, Tver Governorate — ) was a minor Russian poet and literary critic, who rose to become the dean of the Saint Petersburg University (1840� ...
. Much of the staff of the old ''Otechestvennye Zapiski'', including Belinsky, abandoned Andrey Krayevsky's magazine, and joined ''Sovremennik'' to work with Nekrasov, Panayev and
Alexander Nikitenko, a nominal editor-in-chief. In the course of just several months Nekrasov managed to draw to the invigorated magazine the best literary forces of Russia. Among the works published in it in the course of the next several years were Ivan Turgenev's ''
A Sportsman's Sketches
''A Sportsman's Sketches'' (russian: Записки охотника, Zapiski ohotnika; also known as ''A Sportman's Notebook'', ''The Hunting Sketches'' and ''Sketches from a Hunter's Album'') is an 1852 cycle of short stories by Ivan Turgenev. ...
'', Dmitry Grigorovich's ''
Anton Goremyka'',
Ivan Goncharov
Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov (, also ; rus, Ива́н Алекса́ндрович Гончаро́в, r=Iván Aleksándrovich Goncharóv, p=ɪˈvan ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪdʑ ɡənʲtɕɪˈrof; – ) was a Russian novelist best known for his ...
's ''
A Common Story'',
Alexander Hertzen
Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (russian: Алекса́ндр Ива́нович Ге́рцен, translit=Alexándr Ivánovich Gértsen; ) was a Russian writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism" and one of the main fathers of agra ...
’s ''Magpie the Thief'' and ''Doctor Krupov''. One of the young authors discovered by Nekrasov was
Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
who debuted in ''Sovremennik'' with his trilogy ''
Childhood
A child (plural, : children) is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers ...
'', ''
Boyhood'' and ''
Youth
Youth is the time of life when one is young. The word, youth, can also mean the time between childhood and adulthood ( maturity), but it can also refer to one's peak, in terms of health or the period of life known as being a young adult. Yo ...
''.
Nekrasov managed to save the magazine during the 'Seven years of darkness' period (1848-1855) when it was balancing on the verge of closure and he himself was under the secret police' surveillance.
In order to fill up the gaps caused by censorial interference he started to produce lengthy picturesque novels (''Three Countries of the World'', 1848–1849, ''The Dead Lake'', 1851), co-authored by
Avdotya Panayeva, his
common-law wife.
His way of befriending censors by inviting them to his weekly literary dinners proved to be another useful ploy. Gambling (a habit shared by male ancestors on his father's side; his grandfather lost most of the family estate through it) was put to the service too, and as a member of the English Club Nekrasov made a lot of useful acquaintances.
In 1854 Nekrasov invited
Nikolai Chernyshevsky
Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky ( – ) was a Russian literary and social critic, journalist, novelist, democrat, and socialist philosopher, often identified as a utopian socialist and leading theoretician of Russian nihilism. He was ...
to join ''Sovremennik'', in 1858
Nikolai Dobrolyubov
Nikolay Alexandrovich Dobrolyubov ( rus, Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Добролю́бов, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɐlʲɪˈksandrəvʲɪtɕ dəbrɐˈlʲubəf, a=Nikolay Alyeksandrovich Dobrolyubov.ru.vorb.oga; 5 February Old_Style_a ...
became one of its major contributors. This led to the inevitable radicalisation of the magazine and the rift with its liberal flank. In 1859 Dobrolyubov's negative review outraged Turgenev and led to his departure from ''Sovremennik''.
But the influx of young radical authors continued:
Nikolai Uspensky,
Fyodor Reshetnikov,
Nikolai Pomyalovsky,
Vasily Sleptsov,
Pyotr Yakubovich,
Pavel Yakushkin,
Gleb Uspensky
Gleb Ivanovich Uspensky ( rus, Глеб Иванович Успенский; October 25, 1843 April 6, 1902), was a Russian Empire writer, and a prominent figure of the Narodnik movement.
Biography Early life
Gleb Uspensky was born in Tula, the ...
soon entered the Russian literary scene.
In 1858 Nekrasov and Dobrolyubov founded ''Svistok'' (Whistle), a satirical supplement to ''Sovremennik''. The first two issues (in 1859) were compiled by Dobrolyubov, from the third (October 1858) onwards Nekrasov became this publication's editor and regular contributor.
In June 1862, after the series of arsons in Petersburg for which radical students were blamed, ''Sovremennik'' was closed, and a month later Chernyshevsky was arrested. In December Nekrasov managed to get ''Sovremennik'' re-opened, and in 1863 published ''
What Is to Be Done?'' by the incarcerated author.
In 1855 Nekrasov started working upon his first poetry collection and on 15 October 1856, ''The Poems by N. Nekrasov'' came out to great public and critical acclaim.
"The rapture is universal. Hardly Pushkin's first poems, or ''
Revizor
''The Government Inspector'', also known as ''The Inspector General'' ( rus, links=no, Ревизор, Revizor, literally: "Inspector"), is a satirical play by Russian dramatist and novelist, Nikolai Gogol. Originally published in 1836, the pla ...
'', or ''
Dead Souls'' could be said to have enjoyed such success as your book," wrote Chernyshevsky on 5 November to Nekrasov who was abroad at the time, receiving medical treatment. "Nekrasov's poems… brandish like fire," wrote Turgenev. "Nekrasov is an idol of our times, a worshipped poet, he is now bigger than Pushkin," wrote memoirist Elena Stakensneider.
Upon his return in August 1857, Nekrasov moved into the new flat in the Krayevsky's house on Liteiny Lane in Saint Petersburg where he resided since then for the rest of his life.
The
1861 Manifest left Nekrasov unimpressed. "Is that freedom? More like a fake, a jibe at peasants," he said, reportedly, to Chernyshevsky on 5 March, the day of the Manifest's publication. His first poetic responses to the reform were "Freedom" ("I know, instead of the old nets they'd invented some new ones...") and ''
Korobeiniki
"Korobeiniki" () is a nineteenth-century Russian folk song that tells the story of a meeting between a peddler and a girl, describing their haggling over goods in a metaphor for courtship.
Outside Russia, "Korobeiniki" is widely known as the ' ...
'' (1861). The latter was originally published in the Red Books series started by Nekrasov specifically for the peasant readership. These books were distributed by 'ophens', vagrant traders, not unlike the korobeinikis Tikhonych and Ivan, the two heroes of the poem.
After the second issue the series were banned by censors.
In 1861 Nekrasov started campaigning for the release of his arrested colleague,
Mikhail Mikhaylov, but failed: the latter was deported to
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...
. More successful was his plea for the release of
Afanasy Shchapov
Afanasiy Prokopievich Shchapov (''Афанасий Прокофьевич Щапов'' in Russian) (May 10(17).1830 – February 27(10.3).1876) was a Russian historian accused of " Siberian nationalism" and persecuted by tsarist authorities.
...
: the decree ordering the Petersburg historian's demotion to a monastery was retrieved by Alexander II.
After his father's death, Nekrasov in May 1862 bought the Karabikha estate, visiting it on a yearly basis until his own death.
In April 1866, after
Dmitry Karakozov
Dmitry Vladimirovich Karakozov (russian: Дми́трий Влади́мирович Карако́зов; – ) was a Russian political activist and the first revolutionary in the Russian Empire to make an attempt on the life of a tsar. His ...
's attempt on the life of the Tsar, Nekrasov, so as to save ''Sovremennik'' from closure,
wrote the "Ode to Osip Komissarov" (the man who saved the monarch's life by pushing Karakozov aside) to read it publicly in the English Club. His another poetic address greeted
Muravyov the Hangman, a man responsible for the brutal suppression of the
1863 Polish Uprising, who was now in charge of the Karakozov case. Both gestures proved to be futile and in May 1866 ''Sovremennik'' was closed for good.
In the end of 1866 Nekrasov purchased ''Otechestvennye Zapiski'' to become this publication's editor with
Grigory Yeliseyev as his deputy (soon joined by
Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin
Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin ( rus, Михаи́л Евгра́фович Салтыко́в-Щедри́н, p=mʲɪxɐˈil jɪvˈɡrafəvʲɪtɕ səltɨˈkof ɕːɪˈdrʲin; – ), born Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov and known during ...
) and previous owner Krayevsky as an administrator.
Among the authors attracted to the new ''OZ'' were
Alexander Ostrovsky
Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky (russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Остро́вский; ) was a Russian playwright, generally considered the greatest representative of the Russian realistic period. The author of 47 origina ...
and
Gleb Uspensky
Gleb Ivanovich Uspensky ( rus, Глеб Иванович Успенский; October 25, 1843 April 6, 1902), was a Russian Empire writer, and a prominent figure of the Narodnik movement.
Biography Early life
Gleb Uspensky was born in Tula, the ...
.
Dmitry Pisarev
Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarevrussian: Дми́трий Ива́нович Пи́сарев ( – ) was a Russian literary critic and philosopher who was a central figure of Russian nihilism. He is noted as a forerunner of Nietzschean philosophy and ...
, put in charge of the literary criticism section, was later succeeded by
Alexander Skabichevsky
Alexander Mikhailovich Skabichevsky (russian: Алекса́ндр Миха́йлович Скабиче́вский, September 27 (o.s., 15), 1838, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire – January 11, 1911, o.s., December 29, 1910) was a Russian lit ...
and
Nikolai Mikhaylovsky.
In 1869 ''OZ'' started publishing what turned out to be Nekrasov's most famous poem, ''
Who Is Happy in Russia?'' (1863–1876). In 1873 a group of
narodniks
The Narodniks (russian: народники, ) were a politically conscious movement of the Russian intelligentsia in the 1860s and 1870s, some of whom became involved in revolutionary agitation against tsarism. Their ideology, known as Narodism, ...
in
Geneva
, neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier
, website = https://www.geneve.ch/
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...
printed the misleadingly titled, unauthorized ''Collection of New Poems and Songs by Nekrasov'', featuring all the protest poems banned in Russia, a clear sign of what an inspiration now the poet has become for the revolutionary underground.
Illness and death
For many years Nikolai Nekrasov suffered from a chronic throat condition.
In April 1876 severe pains brought about insomnia that lasted for months. In June Saltykov-Shchedrin arrived from abroad to succeed him as an editor-in-chief of ''OZ''. Still unsure as to the nature of the illness, doctor
Sergey Botkin
Sergey Petrovich Botkin (russian: Серге́й Петро́вич Бо́ткин; 5 September 1832 – 12 December 1889) was a famous Russian clinician, therapist, and activist, one of the founders of modern Russian medical science and educati ...
advised Nekrasov to go to the
Crimea
Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...
. In September 1876 he arrived at
Yalta
Yalta (: Я́лта) is a resort city on the south coast of the Crimean Peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea. It serves as the administrative center of Yalta Municipality, one of the regions within Crimea. Yalta, along with the rest of Cri ...
where he continued working on ''Who Is Happy in Russia''s final part, "The Feast for All the World". Banned by censors, it soon started spreading in hand-written copies all over Russia.
In December the high-profile concilium led by
Nikolay Sklifosovsky diagnosed the
intestinal cancer
Colorectal cancer (CRC), also known as bowel cancer, colon cancer, or rectal cancer, is the development of cancer from the colon or rectum (parts of the large intestine). Signs and symptoms may include blood in the stool, a change in bowel ...
.
In February 1877 groups of radical students started to arrive to Yalta from all over the country to provide moral support for the dying man. Painter
Ivan Kramskoy
Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoi (russian: Ива́н Никола́евич Крамско́й; June 8 (O.S. May 27), 1837, Ostrogozhsk – April 6 (O.S. March 24), 1887, Saint Petersburg) was a Russian painter and art critic. He was an intellectual l ...
came to stay and work upon the poet's portrait. One of the last people Nekrasov met was Ivan Turgenev who came to make peace after years of bitter feud.
The surgery performed on 12 April 1877 by
Theodor Billroth
Christian Albert Theodor Billroth (26 April 18296 February 1894) was a German surgeon and amateur musician.
As a surgeon, he is generally regarded as the founding father of modern abdominal surgery. As a musician, he was a close friend and conf ...
who was invited from
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
by Anna Alexeyevna Nekrasova brought some relief, but not for long.
"I saw him for the last time just one month before his death. He looked like a corpse... Not only did he speak well, but retained the clarity of mind, seemingly refusing to believe the end was near," remembered Dostoyevsky.
Nikolai Alekseyevich Nekrasov died on 8 January 1878. Four thousand people came to the funeral and the procession leading to the
Novodevichy Cemetery turned into a political rally.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky delivered a keynote eulogy, calling Nekrasov the greatest Russian poet since
Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
and
Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (; russian: Михаи́л Ю́рьевич Ле́рмонтов, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ˈjurʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈlʲɛrməntəf; – ) was a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucas ...
. One section of the crowd, the followers of Chernyshevsky (with
Georgy Plekhanov as one of their leaders), chanted "No, he was greater!" Members of
Zemlya i Volya, alongside other radical groups (with wreaths "From the Socialists"), were also present. "His funeral was one of the most striking demonstrations of popularity ever accorded to a Russian writer," according to Mirsky.
Private life
Nikolai Nekrasov met the already married
Avdotya Panayeva in 1842 when she was already a promising writer and a popular hostess of a literary salon. The 20-year-old Nekrasov fell in love but had to wait several years for her emotional response and at least on one occasion was on the verge of suicide, if one of his Panayeva Cycle poems, "Some time ago, rejected by you... " is to be believed. For several years she was "struggling with her feelings" (according to Chernyshevsky), then in 1847 succumbed. "This was the lucky day I count as my whole life's beginning," wrote Nekrasov later.
The way Nekrasov moved into Panayev's house to complete a much-ridiculed love triangle seen by many as a take on the French-imported idea of the 'unfettered love' which young Russian radicals associated with the Socialist moral values. In reality the picture was more complicated.
Ivan Panayev, a gifted writer and journalist, proved to be 'a family man of bachelor habits', and by the time of Nekrasov's arrival their marriage has been in tatters. Avdotya who saw gender inequality as grave social injustice, considered herself free from marital obligations but was still unwilling to sever ties with a good friend. A bizarre romantic/professional team which united colleagues and lovers (she continued 'dating' her husband, sending her jealous lodger into fits of fury) was difficult for both men, doubly so for a woman in a society foreign to such experiments.
The Panayevs' home soon became the unofficial ''Sovremennik'' headquarters. In tandem with Panayeva (who used the pseudonym N.N.Stanitsky) Nekrasov wrote two huge novels, ''Three Countries of the World'' (1848-1849) and ''The Dead Lake'' (1851). Dismissed by many critics as little more than a ploy serving to fill the gaps in ''Sovremennik'' left by censorial cuts and criticised by some of the colleagues (Vasily Botkin regarded such a manufacture as 'humiliating for literature'), in retrospect they are seen as uneven but curious literary experiments not without their artistic merits.
Nekrasov's poems dedicated to and inspired by Avdotya formed the Panayeva Cycle which amounted "in its entirety... to a long poem telling the passionate, often painful and morbid love story," according to a biographer.
[Kuzmenko, Pavel. The Most Scandalous Triangles of the Russian History. Moscow, Astrel Publishers2012] It is only these poems that the nature of their tempestuous relationship could be judged by. There was a correspondence between them, but in a fit of rage Panayeva destroyed all letters ("Now, cry! Cry bitterly, you won’t be able to re-write them," - Nekrasov reproached her in a poem called "The Letters"). Several verses of this cycle became musical romances, one of them, "Forgive! Forget the days of the fall..." (Прости! Не помни дней паденья...) has been set to music by no less than forty Russian composers, starting with
Cesar Cui in 1859, and including
Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov . At the time, his name was spelled Николай Андреевичъ Римскій-Корсаковъ. la, Nicolaus Andreae filius Rimskij-Korsakov. The composer romanized his name as ''Nicolas Rimsk ...
and
Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
.
In 1849 Panayeva gave birth to a son, but the boy soon died. Another death, of Ivan Panayev in 1862, drove the couple still further apart. The main reason for Panayeva's final departure, though, was Nekrasov's 'difficult' character. He was prone to fits of depression, anger, hypochondria and could spend days "sprawling on a couch in his cabinet, greatly irritated, telling people how he hated everybody but mostly himself," according to Zhdanov.
"Your laughter, your merry talking could not dispel my morbid thoughts/They only served to drive my heavy, sick and irritated mind insane," he confessed in a poem.
In 1863, while still with Panayeva, Nekrasov met the French actress Celine Lefresne, who was at the time performing at the Mikhaylovsky Theatre with her troupe. She became his lover; Nekrasov, when in France, stayed in her Paris flat several times; she made a visit to Karabikha in 1867. Celine was a kindred spirit and made his journeys abroad a joy, although her attitude towards him has been described as 'dry'. Nekrasov helped Celine financially and bequeathed her a considerable sum of money (10,5 thousand rubles).
In 1870 Nekrasov met and fell in love with 19-year-old Fyokla Anisimovna Viktorova, a country girl for whom he invented another name, Zinaida Nikolayevna (the original one was deemed too 'simple').
Educated personally by her lover, she soon learned many of his poems by heart and became in effect his literary secretary. Zina was treated respectfully by the poet's literary friends, but not by Anna Alexeyevna, Nekrasov's sister who found such mésalliance unacceptable. The two women made peace in the mid-1870s, as they were bedsitting in turns for the dying poet. On 7 April 1877, in a symbolic gesture of gratitude and respect, Nekrasov wed Zinaida Nikolayevna at his home.
Works
Nekrasov's first collection of poetry, ''Dreams and Sounds'' (Мечты и звуки), received some favourable reviews but was dismissed as 'bland and mediocre'
by
Vissarion Belinsky
Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky ( rus, Виссарион Григорьевич БелинскийIn Belinsky's day, his name was written ., Vissarión Grigórʹjevič Belínskij, vʲɪsərʲɪˈon ɡrʲɪˈɡorʲjɪvʲɪdʑ bʲɪˈlʲinskʲ ...
. It was Belinsky, though, who first recognized in Nekrasov the talent of a harsh and witty realist. "Do you know that you are indeed a poet, and the true one?" he exclaimed upon reading the poem, "On the Road" (В дороге, 1845), as Ivan Panayev recalled. According to Panayev, the autobiographical "Motherland" (Родина, 1846), banned by censors and published ten years later, "drove Belinsky totally crazy, he learnt it by heart and sent it to his Moscow friends".
[Chukovsky, K.I., Garkavi, A.M. The Works by N.A.Nekrasov in 8 vol. Khudozhestvennaya Literatura, Moscow. 1967. Commentaries. Vol. I. Pp. 365-415]
"When from the darkness of delusion..." (Когда из мрака заблужденья..., 1845), arguably the first poem in Russia about the plight of a woman driven to
prostitution by poverty, brought Chernyshevsky to tears. Of "Whether I ride the dark street though the night..." (Еду ли ночью по улице темной..., 1847), another harrowing story of a broken family, dead baby and a wife having to sell her body to procure money for a tiny coffin, Ivan Turgenev wrote in a letter to Belinsky (14 November): "Please tell Nekrasov that...
tdrove me totally mad, I repeat it day and night and have learnt it by heart." According to literary historian D.S. Mirsky, the early verse beginning 'Whether I ride the dark street through the night...', is "truly timeless... recognized by many (including
Grigoryev and
Rozanov) as something so much more important than just a verse - the tragic tale of a doomed love balancing on the verge of starvation and moral fall".
''The Poems by N. Nekrasov'', published in October 1856, made their author famous. Divided into four parts and opening with the manifest-like "The Poet and the Citizen" (Поэт и гражданин), it was organized into an elaborate tapestry, parts of it interweaved to form vast poetic narratives (like ''On the Street'' cycle). Part one was dealing with the real people's life, part two satirised 'the enemies of the people', part three revealed the 'friends of the people, real and false', and part four was a collection of lyric verses on love and friendship. The Part 3's centerpiece was ''Sasha'' (Саша, 1855), an ode to the new generation of politically minded Russians, which critics see as closely linked to Turgenev's ''
Rudin
''Rudin'' (russian: «Рудин», ) is the first novel by Ivan Turgenev, a famous Russian writer best known for his short stories and the novel '' Fathers and Sons''. Turgenev started to work on it in 1855, and it was first published in the lite ...
''.
In 1861 the second edition of ''The Poems'' came out (now in 2 volumes). In Nekrasov's lifetime this ever-growing collection has been re-issued several times.
The academic version of the Complete N.A. Nekrasov, ready by the late 1930s, had to be shelved due to the break out of the
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
; it was published in 12 volumes by the Soviet Goslitizdat in 1948–1953.
1855-1862 were the years of Nekrasov's greatest literary activity.
[Korney Chukovsky. Teachers and Precursors. Gogol. IV. 77-141] One important poem, "Musings By the Front Door" (Размышления у парадного подъезда, 1858), was banned in Russia and appeared in Hertzen's ''
Kolokol'' in January 1860.
Among others were "The Unhappy Ones" (Несчастные, 1856), "Silence" (Тишина, 1857) and "The Song for Yeryomushka" (Песня Еремушке, 1859), the latter turned into a revolutionary hymn by the radical youth.
Nekrasov responded to the 1861 land reform with ''
Korobeiniki
"Korobeiniki" () is a nineteenth-century Russian folk song that tells the story of a meeting between a peddler and a girl, describing their haggling over goods in a metaphor for courtship.
Outside Russia, "Korobeiniki" is widely known as the ' ...
'' (Коробейники, 1861), the tragicomic story of the two 'basket-men', Tikhonych and Ivan, who travel across Russia selling goods and gathering news. The fragment of the poem's first part evolved into a
popular folk song.
"The most melodious of Nekrasov's poems is ''Korobeiniki'', the story which, although tragic, is told in the life-affirming, optimistic tone, and yet features another, strong and powerful even if bizarre motif, that of 'The Wanderer's Song'," wrote Mirsky.
Among Nekrasov's best known poems of the early 1860 were "Peasant Children" (Крестьянские дети, 1861), highlighting moral values of the Russian peasantry, and "A Knight for an Hour" (Рыцарь на час, 1862), written after the author's visit to his mother's grave. "Orina, the Soldier's Mother" (Орина, мать солдатская, 1863) glorified the motherly love that defies death itself, while ''
The Railway
''The Railway'', widely known as ''Gare Saint-Lazare'', is an 1873 painting by Édouard Manet. It is the last painting by Manet of his favourite model, the fellow painter Victorine Meurent, who was also the model for his earlier works '' Olympia ...
'' (Железная дорога, 1964), condemning the Russian capitalism "built upon peasant's bones," continued the line of protest hymns started in the mid-1840s.
"Grandfather Frost the Red Nose" (Мороз, Красный нос, 1864), a paean to the Russian national character, went rather against the grain with the general mood of the Russian intelligentsia of the time, steeped in soul-searching after the brutal suppression of the Polish Uprising of 1863 by the Imperial forces.
"Life, this enigma you've been thrown into, each day draws you nearer to demolition, frightens you and seems maddeningly unfair. But then you notice that somebody needs you, and all of a sudden your whole existence gets filled with the meaning; the feeling that you're an orphan needed by nobody, is gone", wrote Nekrasov to Lev Tolstoy, explaining this poem's idea.
In the late 1860s Nekrasov published several important satires. ''The Contemporaries'' (Современники, 1865), a swipe at the rising Russian capitalism and its immoral promoters,
is considered by Vladimir Zhdanov as being on par with the best of Saltykov-Shchedrin's work. The latter too praised the poem for its power and realism. In 1865 the law was passed abolishing preliminary censorship but toughening punitive sanctions. Nekrasov lambasted this move in his satirical cycle ''Songs of the Free Word'' (Песни свободного слова), the publication of which caused more trouble for ''Sovremennik''.
In 1867 Nekrasov started his ''Poems for Russian Children'' cycle, concluded in 1873. Full of humour and great sympathy for the peasant youth, "Grandfather Mazay and the Hares" (Дедушка Мазай и зайцы) and "General Stomping-Bear" (Генерал Топтыгин) up to this day remain the children's favourites in his country.
The rise of the
Narodniks
The Narodniks (russian: народники, ) were a politically conscious movement of the Russian intelligentsia in the 1860s and 1870s, some of whom became involved in revolutionary agitation against tsarism. Their ideology, known as Narodism, ...
in the early 1870s coincided with the renewal of interest in the
Decembrist revolt
The Decembrist Revolt ( ru , Восстание декабристов, translit = Vosstaniye dekabristov , translation = Uprising of the Decembrists) took place in Russia on , during the interregnum following the sudden death of Emperor Al ...
in Russia. It was reflected in first ''
Grandfather
Grandparents, individually known as grandmother and grandfather, are the parents of a person's father or mother – paternal or maternal. Every sexually-reproducing living organism who is not a genetic chimera has a maximum of four genetic ...
'' (Дедушка, 1870), then in a dilogy called ''
Russian Women'' ("Princess Trubetskaya", 1872; "Princess M.N. Volkonskaya, 1873), the latter based upon the real life stories of Ekaterina Trubetskaya and
Maria Volkonskaya, who followed their Decembrist husbands to their exile in Siberia.
In the 1870s the general tone of Nekrasov's poetry changed: it became more declarative, over-dramatized and featured the recurring image of poet as a priest, serving "the throne of truth, love and beauty." Nekrasov's later poetry is the traditionalist one, quoting and praising giants of the past, like Pushkin and Schiller, trading political satire and personal drama for elegiac musings. In poems like "The Morning" (Утро, 1873) and "The Frightful Year" (Страшный год, 1874) Nekrasov sounds like a precursor to
Alexander Blok
Alexander Alexandrovich Blok ( rus, Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Бло́к, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ɐlʲɪˈksandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈblok, a=Ru-Alyeksandr Alyeksandrovich Blok.oga; 7 August 1921) was a Russian lyrical poet, writer, publ ...
, according to biographer Yuri Lebedev. The need to rise above the mundane in search for universal truths forms the leitmotif of the lyric cycle ''Last Songs'' (Последние песни, 1877).
Among Nekrasov's most important works is his last, unfinished epic ''
Who Is Happy in Russia?'' (Кому на Руси жить хорошо?, 1863–1876), telling the story of seven peasants who set out to ask various elements of the rural population if they are happy, to which the answer is never satisfactory. The poem, noted for its rhyme scheme ("several unrhymed iambic tetrameters ending in a Pyrrhic are succeeded by a clausule in iambic trimeter". - Terras, 319) resembling a traditional Russian folk song, is regarded Nekrasov's masterpiece.
Recognition and legacy
Nikolai Nekrasov is considered one of the greatest Russian poets of the 19th century, alongside Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov.
In the 1850s and 1860s, Nekrasov (backed by two of his younger friends and allies, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov) became the leader of a politicized, social justice-oriented trend in Russian poetry (evolved from the Gogol-founded
natural school Natural School (russian: Натуральная школа, Naturalnaya Shkola) is a term applied to the literary movement which arose under the influence of Nikolai Gogol in the 1840s in Russia, and included such diverse authors as Nikolai Nekrasov ...
in prose) and exerted a strong influence upon the young radical intelligentsia. "What prompted the Russian student's inclination to 'merge with the people' was not Western Socialism, but the Narodnik-related poetry of Nekrasov, which was immensely popular among the young people," argued the revolutionary poet
Nikolai Morozov.
In 1860 the so-called 'Nekrasov school' in Russian poetry started to take shape, uniting realist poets like
Dmitry Minayev, Nikolai Dobrolyubov,
Ivan Nikitin and
Vasily Kurochkin
Vasily Stepanovich Kurochkin (russian: Василий Степанович Курочкин, 9 August 1831 – 27 August 1875) was a Russian satirical poet, journalist and translator.
Biography
Vasily Kurochkin was born in Saint Petersburg. His fa ...
, among others. Chernyshevsky praised Nekrasov for having started "a new period in the history of Russian poetry."
Nekrasov was credited with being the first editor of
Fyodor Dostoevsky, whose debut novel ''
Poor Folk
''Poor Folk'' (russian: Бедные люди, ''Bednye lyudi''), sometimes translated as ''Poor People'', is the first novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, written over the span of nine months between 1844 and 1845. Dostoevsky was in financial difficul ...
'' made its way into the ''St. Petersburg Collection'' which, along with its predecessor, 1845's ''
The Physiology of Saint Petersburg'', played a crucial role in promoting realism in Russian literature. A long-standing editor and publisher of ''
Sovremennik'', Nekrasov turned it into the leading Russian literary publication of its time, thus continuing the legacy of Pushkin, its originator. During its 20 years of steady and careful literary policy, ''Sovremennik'' served as a cultural forum for all the major Russian writers, including Dostoevsky,
Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (; rus, links=no, Ива́н Серге́евич Турге́невIn Turgenev's day, his name was written ., p=ɪˈvan sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ tʊrˈɡʲenʲɪf; 9 November 1818 – 3 September 1883 (Old Style dat ...
, and
Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
, as well as Nekrasov's own poetry and prose. His years at the helm of ''Sovremennik'', though, were marred by controversy. According to Mirsky, "Nekrasov was a genius editor, and his gift for procuring the best literature and the best authors at the height of their relevancy, bordered on miraculous," but he was also "first and foremost, a ruthless manipulator, for whom any means justified the end" and he "shamelessly exploited the enthusiasm of his underpaid authors."
The conservatives among his contemporaries regarded him a dangerous political provocateur. "Nekrasov is an outright
communist... He's openly crying out for the revolution," reported
Faddey Bulgarin
Thaddeus Venediktovich Bulgarin (russian: Фаддей Венедиктович Булгарин; Polish Jan Tadeusz Krzysztof Bułharyn, – ), was a Russian writer, journalist and publisher of Polish ancestry. In addition to his newspaper ...
in his letter to the Russian secret police chief in 1846. Liberal detractors (
Vasily Botkin
Vasily Petrovich Botkin (russian: link=no, Васи́лий Петро́вич Бо́ткин; – ) was a Russian essayist, literary, art and music critic, translator and publicist.
Early life
Vasily was born in Moscow, the son of Alexandra ...
,
Alexander Druzhinin
Alexander Vasilyevich Druzhinin (russian: Алекса́ндр Васи́льевич Дружи́нин), (October 20, 1824 – January 31, 1864), was a Russian writer, translator, and magazine editor.
Biography
Druzhinin was born into a wea ...
, Ivan Turgenev among them) were horrified by the way "ugly, anti-social things creep into his verse," as
Boris Almazov
Boris Nikolayevich Almazov ( rus, Бори́с Никола́евич Алма́зов, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ ɐlˈmazəf, a=Boris Nikolayevich Almazov.ru.oga; , Vyazma, Smolensk Governorate, Russian Empire, – , Moscow, Russian Em ...
has put it, and the 'antipoetic' style of his verse (Grigoryev, Rozanov). "The way he pushes such prosaic subject matter down into poetic form, is just unthinkable," Almazov wrote in 1852. "Nekrasov most definitely is not an artist," insisted Stepan Dudyshkin in 1861.
Attacks from the right and the center-right caused Nekrasov's reputation no harm and "only strengthened
isposition as a spiritual leader of the radical youth," as Korney Chukovsky maintained. More damage has been done (according to the same author) by those of his radical followers who, while eulogizing 'Nekrasov the tribune,' failed to appreciate his 'genius of an innovator'. "His talent was remarkable if not for its greatness, then for the fine way it reflected the state of Russia of his time," wrote soon after Nekrasov's death one of his colleagues and allies
Grigory Yeliseyev. "Nekrasov was for the most part a didactic poet and as such... prone to stiltedness, mannerisms and occasional insincerity," opined
Maxim Antonovich.
Georgy Plekhanov who in his 1902 article glorified 'Nekrasov the Revolutionary' insisted that "one is obliged to read him... in spite of occasional faults of the form" and his "inadequacy in terms of the demands of esthetic taste."
According to one school of thought (formulated among others by Vasily Rosanov in his 1916 essay), Nekrasov in the context of the Russian history of literature was an "alien... who came from nowhere" and grew into a destructive 'anti-Pushkin' force to crash with his powerful, yet artless verse the tradition of "shining harmonies" set by the classic.
[Rozanov, Vasily. Novoye Vremya, 1916, No.4308. 8 January] Decades earlier
Afanasy Fet
Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet ( rus, Афана́сий Афана́сьевич Фет, p=ɐfɐˈnasʲɪj ɐfɐˈnasʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈfʲɛt, a=Ru-Afanasiy Afanas'yevich Fyet.oga), later known as Shenshin ( rus, Шенши́н, p=ʂɨnˈʂɨn, a=Ru-Afa ...
described Nekrasov's verse as a 'tin-plate prose' next to Pushkin's 'golden poetry'. Korney Chukovsky passionately opposed such views and devoted the whole book, ''Nekrasov the Master'', to highlight the poet's stylistic innovations and trace the "ideological
genealogy
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...
", as he put it, from Pushkin through Gogol and Belinsky to Nekrasov.
[Korney Chukovsky. Nekrasov and Pushkin. The Works by Korney Chukovsky. Khudozhestvennaya Literatura Publishers. Moscow. 1966. Vol.4] Mirsky, while giving credit to Chukovsky's effort, still saw Nekrasov as a great innovator who came first to destroy, only then to create: "He was essentially a rebel against all the stock in trade of 'poetic poetry' and the essence of his best work is precisely the bold creation of a new poetry unfettered by traditional standards of taste," Mirsky wrote in 1925.
Modern Russian scholars consider Nekrasov a trailblazer in the Russian 19th-century poetry who "explored new ways of its development in such a daring way that before him was plain unthinkable," according to biographer Yuri Lebedev. Mixing social awareness and political rhetoric with such conservative subgenres as
elegy
An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...
, traditional
romance
Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
* Romance languages, ...
and romantic ballad, he opened new ways, particularly for the Russian Modernists some of whom (
Zinaida Gippius
Zinaida Nikolayevna Gippius (Hippius) (; – 9 September 1945) was a Russian poet, playwright, novelist, editor and religious thinker, one of the major figures in Russian symbolism. The story of her marriage to Dmitry Merezhkovsky, which laste ...
,
Valery Bryusov
Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov ( rus, Вале́рий Я́ковлевич Брю́сов, p=vɐˈlʲerʲɪj ˈjakəvlʲɪvʲɪdʑ ˈbrʲusəf, a=Valyeriy Yakovlyevich Bryusov.ru.vorb.oga; – 9 October 1924) was a Russian poet, prose writer, drama ...
,
Andrey Bely
Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev ( rus, Бори́с Никола́евич Буга́ев, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ bʊˈɡajɪf, a=Boris Nikolayevich Bugayev.ru.vorb.oga), better known by the pen name Andrei Bely or Biely ( rus, Андр� ...
and
Alexander Blok
Alexander Alexandrovich Blok ( rus, Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Бло́к, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ɐlʲɪˈksandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈblok, a=Ru-Alyeksandr Alyeksandrovich Blok.oga; 7 August 1921) was a Russian lyrical poet, writer, publ ...
) professed admiration for the poet, citing him as an influence.
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (, ; rus, Влади́мир Влади́мирович Маяко́вский, , vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ məjɪˈkofskʲɪj, Ru-Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.ogg, links=y; – 14 Apr ...
did as much in the early 1920s, suggesting that Nekrasov, as 'a brilliant jack-of-all-trades' would have fitted perfectly into the new Soviet poetry scene.
Nekrasov enriched the traditional palette of the Russian poetry language by adding to it elements of satire, feuilleton, realistic sketch and, most importantly, folklore and song-like structures. "Of all the 19th century poets he was the only one so close to the spirit of a Russian folk song, which he never imitated - his soul was that of a folk singer," argued Mirsky. "What distinguishes his verse is its song-like quality," wrote Zinaida Gippius in 1939.
"The greatest achievement in the genre of the folk Russian song," according to Misky is the poem ''Who Is Happy in Russia?'', its style "totally original, very characteristic and monolith. Never does the poet indulge himself with his usual moaning and conducts the narrative in the tone of sharp but good-natured satire very much in the vein of a common peasant talk... Full of extraordinary verbal expressiveness, energy and many discoveries, it's one of the most original Russian poems of the 19th century."
Nekrasov is recognized as an innovator satirist. Before him the social satire in Russia was "didactic and punishing": the poet satirist was supposed to "rise high above his targets to bombard them easily with the barrage of scorching words" (Lebedev). Nekrasov's dramatic method implied the narrator's total closeness to his hero whom he 'played out' as an actor, revealing motives, employing sarcasm rather than wrath, either ironically eulogizing villains ("Musings by the Front Door"), or providing the objects of his satires a tribune for long, self-exposing monologues ("A Moral Man", "Fragments of the Travel Sketches by Count Garansky", "The Railroad").
What interested Nekrasov himself so much more than the stylistic experiments, though, was the question of "whether poetry could change the world" and in a way he provided an answer, having become by far the most politically influential figure in the Russian 19th-century literature.
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
considered him "the great Russian Socialist" and habitually treated his legacy as a quotation book which he used to flay enemies, left and right.
In the Soviet times scholars tended to promote the same idea, glorifying Nekrasov as a 'social democrat poet' who was 'fighting for the oppressed' and 'hated the rich'.
[Chukovsky, Vol.V, p.472]
Unlike many of his radical allies, though, Nekrasov held the Orthodox Christianity and 'traditional Russian national values' in high esteem. "He had an unusual power of idealization and the need to create gods was the most profound of his needs. The Russian people was the principal of these gods; next to it stood equally idealized and subjectively conditioned myths of his mother and Belinsky," noted Mirsky. Nekrasov's poetry was admired and profusely quoted by liberals, monarchists, and nationalists, as well as Socialists.
Several of his lines (like "Seyat razumnoye, dobroye, vetchnoye..." - "To saw the seeds of all things sensible, kind, eternal..." or "Suzhdeny vam blagiye poryvi/ No svershit nichevo ne dano". - "You're endowed with the best of intentions / Yet unable to change anything") became the commonplace aphorisms in Russia, overused in all kinds of polemics.
With verdicts upon Nekrasov's legacy invariably depending upon the political views of reviewers, the objective evaluation of Nekrasov's poetry became difficult. As D.S. Mirsky noted in 1925, "Despite his enormous popularity among the radicals and of a tribute given to him as a poet by enemies like Grigoryiev and Dostoyevsky, Nekrasov can hardly be said to have had his due during his lifetime. Even his admirers admired the matter of his poetry rather than its manner, and many of them believed that Nekrasov was a great poet only because matter mattered more than form and in spite of his having written inartistically. After Nekrasov's death his poetry continued to be judged along the party lines, rejected en bloc by the right wing and praised in spite of its inadequate form by the left. Only in relatively recent times has he come into his own, and his great originality and newness being fully appreciated."
Memory
The centenary of his birth in 1921 was marked by the publication of ''N.A.Nekrasov: On the Centenary of his Birth'' by
Pavel Lebedev-Polianskii. Nekrasov's estate in
Karabikha
Karabikha () is a village in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located 15 kilometers to the south of Yaroslavl center. The great Russian poet Nikolay Nekrasov lived and worked there for some time. There is now a Nekrasov museum
A museum ( ; plural ...
, his
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
home, as well as the office of ''Sovremennik'' magazine on
Liteyny Prospekt, are now national cultural landmarks and public museums of Russian literature. Many Libraries are named in his honor. One of them is the Central Universal Science
Nekrasov Library in Moscow. Ukrainian composer
Tamara Maliukova Sidorenko (1919-2005) set some of his poems to music.
Selected bibliography
Poetry
* "The Money-lender" (Rostovshchik, 1844)
* "On the Road" (V doroge, 1845)
* "Motherland" (1846)
* "The Doghunt" (Psovaya okhota, 1846)
* ''On the Street'' (Na Ulitse, 1850), 4 poems cycle
* "The Fine Match" (Prekrasnaya partia, 1852)
* "Unmowed Line" (Neszhataya polosa, 1854)
* "Vlas" (1855)
* "V.G. Belinsky" (1855)
* ''Sasha'' (1855)
* "The Forgotten Village" (Zabytaya derevnya, 1855)
* "Musings at the Front Door" (Razmyshlenya u paradnovo pod’ezda, 1858)
* "The Unhappy Ones (Neschastnye, 1856)
* "The Poet and the Citizen" (Poet i grazhdanin, 1856)
* "Silence" (Tishina, 1857)
* "The Song for Yeryomushka" (Pesnya Yeryomushke, 1859)
* ''
Korobeiniki
"Korobeiniki" () is a nineteenth-century Russian folk song that tells the story of a meeting between a peddler and a girl, describing their haggling over goods in a metaphor for courtship.
Outside Russia, "Korobeiniki" is widely known as the ' ...
'' (1861)
* "The Funeral" (Pokhorony, 1861)
* "Peasant Children" (Krestyanskiye deti, 1861)
* "A Knight for An Hour" (Rytsar na thas, 1862)
* "Green Roar" (Zelyony shum, 1862)
* "Orina, the Soldier's Mother" (Orina, mat soldatskaya, 1863)
* ''
The Railway
''The Railway'', widely known as ''Gare Saint-Lazare'', is an 1873 painting by Édouard Manet. It is the last painting by Manet of his favourite model, the fellow painter Victorine Meurent, who was also the model for his earlier works '' Olympia ...
'' (Zheleznaya doroga, 1864)
* "Grandfather Frost the Red Nose" (Moroz, Krasny nos, 1864)
* ''Contemporaries'' (Sovremenniki, 1865)
* ''Songs of the Free Word'' (Pesni svobodnovo slova, 1865–1866)
* ''Poems for Russian Children'' (Stikhotvorenya, posvyashchyonnye russkim detyam, 1867–1873)
* "The Bear Hunt. Scenes from the lyrical comedy" (Medvezhya okhota, 1867)
* ''
Grandfather
Grandparents, individually known as grandmother and grandfather, are the parents of a person's father or mother – paternal or maternal. Every sexually-reproducing living organism who is not a genetic chimera has a maximum of four genetic ...
'' (Dedushka, 1870)
* "The Recent Times" (Nedavneye vremya, 1871)
* ''
Russian Women'' (Russkiye zhenshchiny: 1872–1873), a dilogy
* "The Morning" (Utro, 1873)
* "The Horrible Year" (Strashny god, 1874)
* ''The Last Songs'' (Poslednye pesni, 1877), a cycle
* ''
Who Is Happy in Russia?'' (Komu na Rusi zhit khorosho, 1863–1876)
Plays
* ''There is No Hiding a Needle in a Sack'' (Shila v meshke ne utayich, 1841)
Fiction
* ''The Life and Adventures of Tikhon Trostnikov'' (Zhizn i pokhozhdenya Tikhona Trostnikova, 1843–1848) - autobiographical novel, unfinished
Notes
References
Sources
*"Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov" in the
Russian Biographical Dictionary
The ''Russian Biographical Dictionary'' (RBD, russian: Русский биографический словарь) is a Russian-language biographical dictionary published by the Russian Historian Society edited by a collective with Alexander Po ...
online
* Terras, Victor. A History of Russian Literature.
External links
*
*
*
English translations of 3 poems by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky, 1921 English translation of "A Friendly Correspondence Between Moscow and Petersburg" in ''The Hopkins Review''Some texts by Nikolai Nekrasov in the original RussianNekrasov Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nekrasov, Nikolay
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