Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov
Encyclopedia
Nikolay Alexeyevich Nekrasov ' onMouseout='HidePop("33005")' href="/topics/Nemyriv">Nemyriv
– ) was a Russia
n poet, writer, critic and publisher, whose deeply compassionate poems about peasant
Russia
won him Fyodor Dostoyevsky's admiration and made him the hero of liberal and radical circles of Russian intelligentsia
, as represented by Vissarion Belinsky
and Nikolay Chernyshevsky. He is credited with introducing into Russian poetry ternary meters and the technique of dramatic monologue
(V doroge, 1845).
As the editor of several literary journals, including Sovremennik
, Nekrasov was also singularly successful.
(now in Vinnytsia Oblast
, Ukraine
), Podolia Governorate
. His father, Alexei Nekrasov, was a descendant from Russian landed Gentry
, and an officer in the Imperial Russian Army
. His mother was a Polish noblewoman named Aleksandra Zakrzewska, who was from Warsaw
and belonged to szlachta
.
Young Nekrasov grew up on his father's ancestral estate, Greshnevo, Yaroslavl province, near the Volga River. There, he observed the hard labor of the Volga boatmen, Russian barge haulers
. This image of social injustice, so similar to Fyodor Dostoevsky
's childhood recollections, was compounded by the behavior of Nekrasov's tyrannical father. His father's early retirement from the army, and his public job as a provincial inspector, caused him much frustration resulting in drunken rages against both his peasants and his wife. Such experiences traumatized the young poet and determined the subject matter of Nekrasov's major poems—a verse portrayal of the plight of the Russian peasants and women.
Nekrasov admired his mother and later expressed his love and empathy to all women in his writings. Nekrasov's mother played a pivotal role in his development; her love and support helped the young poet to survive the traumatic experiences of his childhood. He attended the classic Gymnasium
in Yaroslavl for five years, but showed little interest in formal studies. In 1838 his father, bent on a military career for his son, sent the 16-year-old Nekrasov to a military academy in St. Petersburg. There Nekrasov switched to St. Petersburg University as a part time student, he was also able to audit classes, which he did from 1839 to 1841.
Nekrasov's father stopped supporting him after he quit the army in favor of university studies, so Nekrasov lived in extreme conditions, briefly living in a homeless shelter. Shortly thereafter Nekrasov authored his first collection of poetry, Dreams and Sounds, published under the name "N. N." Though his patron poet Vasily Zhukovsky
expressed a favorable opinion of the beginner's work, it was promptly dismissed as Romantic
doggerel by Vissarion Belinsky
, the most important Russian literary critic of the first half of 19th century, in. Nekrasov personally went to the booksellers and removed all the copies of his first collection.
. At the end of 1846, Nekrasov acquired a popular magazine The Contemporary (also known as "Sovremennik") from Pyotr Pletnev. Much of the staff of the old NoF, including Belinksy, abandoned Pyotr Krayevsky's magazine, and joined "Sovremennik" to work with Nekrasov. Before his death in 1848, Belinsky granted Nekrasov rights to publish various articles and other material originally planned for an almanac, to be called the Leviathan.
Together with Avdotya Panaeva
, who wrote under the pseudonym of V. Stanitsky, Nekrasov published two very long picturesque novels: Three Countries of the World and Dead Lake.
By the middle of 1850s Nekrasov had become seriously ill. He left Russia for Italy to recover. It was around this time that Chernyshevsky and Nikolai Dobrolyubov, two of the most radical and unabashedly revolutionary writers of the time, had joined the staff and became the major critics for the magazine. Nekrasov was attacked by his old friends for allowing his journal to become the vehicle for Chernyshevsky's sloppy and often poorly written broadside attacks on polite Russian society. By 1860 I. S. Turgenev, the naysayer of nihilism
, refused to have any more of his work published in the journal.
After the closure of the Contemporary in 1866, Nekrasov made peace with his old enemy Kraevsky, and obtained from his ownership of Отечественные Записки (Notes of the Fatherland). He achieved new success with the journal over the next ten years.
Nekrasov's earlier works from the 1850s, such as his first big poem Саша (Sasha), deal with the challenges of Russian life, describing intellectuals and their never-ending conflicts with reality. His works of the 1860s, such as folk poems and poems for children, are among his best written works, such as Коробейники, Крестьянские дети (also translated as "Peasant children") and Мороз Красный Нос (also translated as "Grandfather Frost-the Red Nose" - a Russian version of Santa Claus).
Some of his deeper and philosophical poems are written in the style of confession, such as Рыцарь на час (also translated as "A Knight for an Hour"), as well as Влас (Vlas) and Когда из мрака заблуждения я душу падшую воззвал (also translated as "When from the darkness of my delusions, I called my soul").
Among his other important works are his later poems: Русские женщины ("Russian women"), written in 1871-1872, Кому на Руси жить хорошо? (Who is Happy in Russia?) (1863-1876). "Russian women" tells the true story of two princesses, Ekaterina Trubetskaya and Maria Volkonskaya, who followed their husbands, participants in the failed Decembrist revolt
of 1825, to exile in Siberia.
.
In 1875 Nekrasov, never healthy, was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. His friends paid for the surgery performed by the leading doctor of that time, Dr. Bilroth, who was invited from Vienna
. However, the surgery did not cure the illness, but only prolonged his agony, and Nekrasov suffered for another two years. At that time, he wrote his Last Songs, filled with the wisdom and sadness of the dying poet.
Nekrasov's funeral at Novodevichy Cemetery
in Saint Petersburg
was attended by many. Fyodor Dostoyevsky gave the keynote eulogy, noting that Nekrasov was the greatest Russian poet since Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov
. A section of the crowd, youthful followers of Chernyshevsky, who connected some verses of the deceased poet with the revolutionary cause, chanted "No, he was greater!"
(The Contemporary) (from 1846 until July 1866, making it the leading Russian literary magazine of his time. Sovremennik was originally founded by Pushkin, and Nekrasov continued the legacy.
During its 20 years of steady and careful literary policy, Sovremennik evolved into a literary salon and served as a cultural forum for all Russian writers. Sovremennik published the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ivan Turgenev
, and Leo Tolstoy
, as well as Nekrasov's own poetry and prose, among many other writers. During the 1850s and 1860s, Sovremennik had the largest circulation of all Russian literary magazines, it was also distributed among Russian expatriate communities in Europe. The success of Sovremennik was mainly attributed to Nekrasov's talent as a publisher, as well as to the circle of talented writers in Russia and abroad. Sovremennik was one of the very few Russian magazines to publish the works of leading European authors, such as Flaubert and Balzac, translated into Russian. However, the lack of real political freedom in Russia, coupled with financial difficulties, led to the end in 1866, when the magazine was closed by the tsar
's government in connection with the arrest of its radical editor, revolutionary
Nikolai Chernyshevsky
).
Nekrasov's estate in Karabikha
, his St. Petersburg home, as well as the office of Sovremennik magazine on Liteyny Prospekt
, are now national cultural landmarks and public museums of Russian literature.
Inline
Nemyriv
Nemyriv is a historic city in the Vinnytsia Oblast of western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Nemyriv Raion . Nemyriv is one of the eldest cities in Vinnytska oblast, Ukraine...
– ) was a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n poet, writer, critic and publisher, whose deeply compassionate poems about peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
won him Fyodor Dostoyevsky's admiration and made him the hero of liberal and radical circles of Russian intelligentsia
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...
, as represented by Vissarion Belinsky
Vissarion Belinsky
Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky was a Russian literary critic of Westernizing tendency. He was an associate of Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin , and other critical intellectuals...
and Nikolay Chernyshevsky. He is credited with introducing into Russian poetry ternary meters and the technique of dramatic monologue
Dramatic monologue
M. H. Abrams notes the following three features of the dramatic monologue as it applies to poetry:-Types of monologues:One of the most important influences on the development of the dramatic monologue is the Romantic poets...
(V doroge, 1845).
As the editor of several literary journals, including Sovremennik
Sovremennik
Sovremennik was a Russian literary, social and political magazine, published in St. Petersburg in 1836-1866. It came out four times a year in 1836-1843 and once a month after that...
, Nekrasov was also singularly successful.
Life and career
Nikolai A. Nekrasov was born in the town of NemyrivNemyriv
Nemyriv is a historic city in the Vinnytsia Oblast of western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Nemyriv Raion . Nemyriv is one of the eldest cities in Vinnytska oblast, Ukraine...
(now in Vinnytsia Oblast
Vinnytsia Oblast
Vinnytsia Oblast is an oblast of Ukraine. Its administrative center is Vinnytsia.-Geography:The area of the region is 26,500 km²; its population is 1.7 million....
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
), Podolia Governorate
Podolia Governorate
The Podolia Governorate or Government of Podolia, set up after the Second Partition of Poland, comprised a governorate of the Russian Empire from 1793 to 1917, of the Ukrainian People's Republic from 1917 to 1921, and of the Ukrainian SSR from 1921 to 1925.-Location:The Podolian Governorate...
. His father, Alexei Nekrasov, was a descendant from Russian landed Gentry
Gentry
Gentry denotes "well-born and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past....
, and an officer in the Imperial Russian Army
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian army consisted of around 938,731 regular soldiers and 245,850 irregulars . Until the time of military reform of Dmitry Milyutin in...
. His mother was a Polish noblewoman named Aleksandra Zakrzewska, who was from Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
and belonged to szlachta
Szlachta
The szlachta was a legally privileged noble class with origins in the Kingdom of Poland. It gained considerable institutional privileges during the 1333-1370 reign of Casimir the Great. In 1413, following a series of tentative personal unions between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of...
.
Young Nekrasov grew up on his father's ancestral estate, Greshnevo, Yaroslavl province, near the Volga River. There, he observed the hard labor of the Volga boatmen, Russian barge haulers
Burlak
A burlak was a Russian epithet for a person who hauled barges and other vessels upstream from the 17th to 20th centuries. The word burlak originated from Tatar word bujdak, 'homeless'...
. This image of social injustice, so similar to Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays. He is best known for his novels Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov....
's childhood recollections, was compounded by the behavior of Nekrasov's tyrannical father. His father's early retirement from the army, and his public job as a provincial inspector, caused him much frustration resulting in drunken rages against both his peasants and his wife. Such experiences traumatized the young poet and determined the subject matter of Nekrasov's major poems—a verse portrayal of the plight of the Russian peasants and women.
Nekrasov admired his mother and later expressed his love and empathy to all women in his writings. Nekrasov's mother played a pivotal role in his development; her love and support helped the young poet to survive the traumatic experiences of his childhood. He attended the classic Gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
in Yaroslavl for five years, but showed little interest in formal studies. In 1838 his father, bent on a military career for his son, sent the 16-year-old Nekrasov to a military academy in St. Petersburg. There Nekrasov switched to St. Petersburg University as a part time student, he was also able to audit classes, which he did from 1839 to 1841.
Nekrasov's father stopped supporting him after he quit the army in favor of university studies, so Nekrasov lived in extreme conditions, briefly living in a homeless shelter. Shortly thereafter Nekrasov authored his first collection of poetry, Dreams and Sounds, published under the name "N. N." Though his patron poet Vasily Zhukovsky
Vasily Zhukovsky
Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky was the foremost Russian poet of the 1810s and a leading figure in Russian literature in the first half of the 19th century...
expressed a favorable opinion of the beginner's work, it was promptly dismissed as Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
doggerel by Vissarion Belinsky
Vissarion Belinsky
Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky was a Russian literary critic of Westernizing tendency. He was an associate of Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin , and other critical intellectuals...
, the most important Russian literary critic of the first half of 19th century, in. Nekrasov personally went to the booksellers and removed all the copies of his first collection.
Career as publisher
Ironically, Nekrasov joined the staff of Отечественные Записки (Notes of the Fatherland) under his critic Belinsky, and became close friends with the critic. Soon Belinsky recognized Nekrasov's talent, and promoted him to position as a junior editor. From 1843-46 Nekrasov edited various anthologies for the magazine, one of which, "A Petersburg Collection," included Dostoyevsky's first novel, Poor FolkPoor Folk
Poor Folk , sometimes translated as Poor People, is the first novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, which he wrote over the span of nine months when he was 25 years old. It was originally published on January 15, 1846 in the almanac St...
. At the end of 1846, Nekrasov acquired a popular magazine The Contemporary (also known as "Sovremennik") from Pyotr Pletnev. Much of the staff of the old NoF, including Belinksy, abandoned Pyotr Krayevsky's magazine, and joined "Sovremennik" to work with Nekrasov. Before his death in 1848, Belinsky granted Nekrasov rights to publish various articles and other material originally planned for an almanac, to be called the Leviathan.
Together with Avdotya Panaeva
Avdotya Panaeva
Avdotya Yakovlevna Panaeva , née Bryanskaya, , was a Russian novelist, short story writer, memoirist and literary salon holder. She published much of her work under the pseudonym V. Stanitsky.-Biography:...
, who wrote under the pseudonym of V. Stanitsky, Nekrasov published two very long picturesque novels: Three Countries of the World and Dead Lake.
By the middle of 1850s Nekrasov had become seriously ill. He left Russia for Italy to recover. It was around this time that Chernyshevsky and Nikolai Dobrolyubov, two of the most radical and unabashedly revolutionary writers of the time, had joined the staff and became the major critics for the magazine. Nekrasov was attacked by his old friends for allowing his journal to become the vehicle for Chernyshevsky's sloppy and often poorly written broadside attacks on polite Russian society. By 1860 I. S. Turgenev, the naysayer of nihilism
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
, refused to have any more of his work published in the journal.
After the closure of the Contemporary in 1866, Nekrasov made peace with his old enemy Kraevsky, and obtained from his ownership of Отечественные Записки (Notes of the Fatherland). He achieved new success with the journal over the next ten years.
Poetry
Some of his deeper and philosophical poems are written in the style of confession, such as Рыцарь на час (also translated as "A Knight for an Hour"), as well as Влас (Vlas) and Когда из мрака заблуждения я душу падшую воззвал (also translated as "When from the darkness of my delusions, I called my soul").
Among his other important works are his later poems: Русские женщины ("Russian women"), written in 1871-1872, Кому на Руси жить хорошо? (Who is Happy in Russia?) (1863-1876). "Russian women" tells the true story of two princesses, Ekaterina Trubetskaya and Maria Volkonskaya, who followed their husbands, participants in the failed Decembrist revolt
Decembrist revolt
The Decembrist revolt or the Decembrist uprising took place in Imperial Russia on 14 December , 1825. Russian army officers led about 3,000 soldiers in a protest against Nicholas I's assumption of the throne after his elder brother Constantine removed himself from the line of succession...
of 1825, to exile in Siberia.
Who is Happy in Russia?
Who is Happy in Russia? (1863-76) tells 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 is noted for its rhyme scheme: "several unrhymed iambic tetrameters ending in a Pyrrhic are succeeded by a clausule in iambic trimeter" (Terras 319). This rhyme resembles a traditional Russian folk song.Health and death
Nikolai A. Nekrasov suffered from a chronic lung condition, for which he had to spend months in the warmer climate, mainly in the Mediterranean coast of ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
In 1875 Nekrasov, never healthy, was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. His friends paid for the surgery performed by the leading doctor of that time, Dr. Bilroth, who was invited from Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. However, the surgery did not cure the illness, but only prolonged his agony, and Nekrasov suffered for another two years. At that time, he wrote his Last Songs, filled with the wisdom and sadness of the dying poet.
Novodevichy Cemetery (Saint Petersburg)
Novodevichy Cemetery in Saint Petersburg is a historic cemetery in the South-West part of the city near the Moscow Triumphal Gate. The cemetery is named after the historical Resurrection Convent...
in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
was attended by many. Fyodor Dostoyevsky gave the keynote eulogy, noting that Nekrasov was the greatest Russian poet since Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov , a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", became the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837. Lermontov is considered the supreme poet of Russian literature alongside Pushkin and the greatest...
. A section of the crowd, youthful followers of Chernyshevsky, who connected some verses of the deceased poet with the revolutionary cause, chanted "No, he was greater!"
Recognition and legacy
During his time, Nekrasov was best remembered as Fyodor Dostoyevsky's first editor, in 1845, and the long-standing publisher of SovremennikSovremennik
Sovremennik was a Russian literary, social and political magazine, published in St. Petersburg in 1836-1866. It came out four times a year in 1836-1843 and once a month after that...
(The Contemporary) (from 1846 until July 1866, making it the leading Russian literary magazine of his time. Sovremennik was originally founded by Pushkin, and Nekrasov continued the legacy.
During its 20 years of steady and careful literary policy, Sovremennik evolved into a literary salon and served as a cultural forum for all Russian writers. Sovremennik published the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His first major publication, a short story collection entitled A Sportsman's Sketches, is a milestone of Russian Realism, and his novel Fathers and Sons is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century...
, and Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
, as well as Nekrasov's own poetry and prose, among many other writers. During the 1850s and 1860s, Sovremennik had the largest circulation of all Russian literary magazines, it was also distributed among Russian expatriate communities in Europe. The success of Sovremennik was mainly attributed to Nekrasov's talent as a publisher, as well as to the circle of talented writers in Russia and abroad. Sovremennik was one of the very few Russian magazines to publish the works of leading European authors, such as Flaubert and Balzac, translated into Russian. However, the lack of real political freedom in Russia, coupled with financial difficulties, led to the end in 1866, when the magazine was closed by the tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
's government in connection with the arrest of its radical editor, revolutionary
Revolutionary
A revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.-Definition:...
Nikolai Chernyshevsky
Nikolai Chernyshevsky
Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky was a Russian revolutionary democrat, materialist philosopher, critic, and socialist...
).
Nekrasov's estate in Karabikha
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 in the village....
, his St. Petersburg home, as well as the office of Sovremennik magazine on Liteyny Prospekt
Liteyny Prospekt
Liteyny Avenue is a wide avenue in the Central District of Saint Petersburg, Russia. The avenue runs from Liteyny Bridge to Nevsky Avenue....
, are now national cultural landmarks and public museums of Russian literature.
Sources
General- "Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov" in the Russian Biographical DictionaryRussian Biographical DictionaryThe Russian Biographical Dictionary is a Russian-language biographical dictionary published by the Russian Historian Society edited by a collective with Alexander Polovtsov as the editor-in-chief...
(online) - Terras, Victor. A History of Russian Literature. ISBN 0-300-04971-4
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