The name of one of the brightest writers of the 19th century is familiar to everyone. Works such as “Who Lives Well in Rus'” and “Grandfather Mazai and the Hares” are part of the school curriculum of every modern student. Nekrasov’s biography includes information known to all admirers of his work.

For example, he is considered not only a poet, but also a publicist. He is a revolutionary democrat, director and editor of the magazines Otechestvennye zapiski and Sovremennik. Lover of card games and hunting. Nekrasov's biography contains many other interesting facts. Our article is dedicated to them.

Who is he?

The hometown of the future poet was the Ukrainian Nemirov, where he was born in 1821. Nekrasov Nikolai Alekseevich was born into the family of a military man and the well-bred daughter of a wealthy tenant. According to the poet’s recollections, the parents’ marriage was not happy. The mother always presented herself as a sufferer, experiencing her share as a woman. The writer dedicated many works to her. Perhaps her image is the only positive hero of Nekrasov’s world, which he will carry through all his work. The father will also become a prototype of individual heroes, but more despotic ones.

Growing up and becoming

After his father retired, Alexey Sergeevich became a police officer - that’s what the head of the police used to be called. Little Nikolai often went with him on business. During this time he saw a lot of death and poverty. Subsequently, the writer Nekrasov reflected the complexities of the peasant people in his poems.

He will study at the Yaroslavl gymnasium until the 5th grade. The first poems will be written in a specially prepared notebook. Most of the poet's early works are full of sad images and impressions. When he turns 17, his father, who dreamed of a military career, will send his son to a noble regiment.

Nekrasov’s first independent decision was the desire to enter St. Petersburg University. This was facilitated by meeting students who became good friends. He failed the exam, enrolling in the Faculty of Philology as a volunteer student. For two years, Nekrasov attended lectures and did not give up looking for work - the angry Nekrasov Sr. refused to help him financially. During this period, the poet experiences terrible suffering, left homeless, and even hungry. In a shelter for 15 kopecks, he wrote a petition for someone. This was the first episode of his life when his future profession brought money.

Finding your direction

The hardships were not in vain for the writer. He realized for himself what the hardships of life are. Nekrasov's life soon improved. “Literary Gazette” published his works, and he himself worked diligently in all directions: he wrote vaudeville, alphabet books, poetry and prose.

Nekrasov published his first collection of poems, “Dreams and Sounds,” with his own savings. Criticism about the book was divided equally - some considered it commendable, others were unflattering. Like Gogol, the disgruntled Nekrasov bought and then destroyed almost all of its copies. Nowadays, “Dreams and Sounds” has acquired the status of a literary rarity, which is extremely difficult to find.

Failure Follows Recognition

The fact that the poems were not sold out made the writer think and study the reason for his defeat. Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov discovered a new genre for himself - prose. It came easier. In it, the author reflects life experience, impressions of the city, where he strives to show all its classes. These are peddlers, officials, deceived women, money lenders and the poor. Not stopping there, Nekrasov introduces a humorous subtext, which became the basis of several subsequent works.

The writer's creative upsurge comes with the release of his own almanacs. Nekrasov’s life cannot be imagined without publishing, which he associates with the rental of Sovremennik in 1847. Many talented poets joined the magazine, including Belinsky, who was always the first to become acquainted with Nekrasov’s new works and give his reviews. Those for whom Sovremennik became a launching pad included: Turgenev, Ogarev, Ostrovsky, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Saltykov-Shchedrin and others. Everyone contributed something of their own, making Sovremennik the best literary publication. Nekrasov himself publishes in it, remaining its director.

Satire is a way to laugh at society

The creative path of a writer is invariably connected not only with the search for oneself, but also for other directions in which one can work. Nekrasov’s biography cannot ignore his love for satire, which he discovered in his later years of creativity. A number of satirical works were published. In this genre, the writer exposes social foundations, delicately describes topical issues, and uses methods of sincere intonations and vaudeville components. In short, he deftly uses the richness of the Russian language, using grotesque, sarcasm, farce and irony.

At this time, “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is born. The peasant-themed poem touches on the main idea - feeling freedom, do the Russian people experience happiness? In 1875, the poet fell ill. He receives telegrams and letters from readers, which provides new inspiration for his latest works. A huge number of people came to the funeral at the Novodevichy cemetery. Among them was Dostoevsky, who called Nekrasov the third writer after Pushkin and Lermontov. Dates of Nekrasov's life: November 28, 1821 (born) - December 27, 1877 (died).

Personal happiness

What can you say about a person who felt and saw with his own eyes all the misfortunes of the peasants and working class, to whom he devoted so much work? Was he himself happy?

Of course, Nekrasov’s biography provides information that the poet loved Avdotya Panaeva, the wife of the writer Ivan Panaev. Their relationship remained in history as one of the strangest. And although Ivan Panaev was known as a reveler, his wife remained a decent woman. At first she rejected both Nekrasov and Dostoevsky, who was also in love with her. And soon she admitted reciprocal feelings for the first one. Nekrasov moved into her house, forming a love triangle Nekrasov-Panaev-Panaev. They lived like this for 16 years. The death of Panaev is associated with the birth of Nekrasov’s son and his imminent death. The poet falls into depression, which caused a break in relations on Avdotya’s initiative.

The writer's new chosen one was the village girl Fekla Viktorova. The age difference was 25 years. He gave the uneducated woman the name Zinaida. He takes her to theaters and tries to educate her in every possible way.

Place in literature

Every writer leaves his mark. Nekrasov Nikolai Alekseevich was one of the brightest authors of the 19th century, who left a legacy of many works endowed with depth and philosophy. Libraries, museums and other cultural institutions bear his name. The central streets of many Russian cities are named after the writer. Monuments and postage stamps are dedicated to him. According to many writers, his work was not fully appreciated during his lifetime. However, this loss is being made up in our time.

Nikolai Nekrasov is known to modern readers as the “most peasant” poet of Russia: it was he who was one of the first to talk about the tragedy of serfdom and explore the spiritual world of the Russian peasantry. Nikolai Nekrasov was also a successful publicist and publisher: his Sovremennik became a legendary magazine of its time.

“Everything that has entangled my life since childhood has become an irresistible curse on me...”

Nikolai Nekrasov was born on December 10 (according to the old style - November 28), 1821 in the small town of Nemirov, Vinnitsa district, Podolsk province. His father Alexey Nekrasov came from a family of once wealthy Yaroslavl nobles, was an army officer, and his mother Elena Zakrevskaya was the daughter of a possessor from the Kherson province. The parents were against the marriage of a beautiful and educated girl to a military man who was not rich at that time, so the young couple got married in 1817 without their blessing.

However, the couple’s family life was not happy: the future poet’s father turned out to be a stern and despotic man, including in relation to his soft and shy wife, whom he called a “recluse.” The difficult atmosphere that reigned in the family influenced Nekrasov’s work: metaphorical images of parents often appeared in his works. Fyodor Dostoevsky said: “It was a wounded heart at the very beginning of life; and it was this wound that never healed that was the beginning and source of all his passionate, suffering poetry for the rest of his life.”.

Konstantin Makovsky. Portrait of Nikolai Nekrasov. 1856. State Tretyakov Gallery

Nikolay Ge. Portrait of Nikolai Nekrasov. 1872. State Russian Museum

Nikolai's early childhood was spent on his father's family estate - the village of Greshnevo, Yaroslavl province, where the family moved after Alexei Nekrasov retired from the army. The boy developed a particularly close relationship with his mother: she was his best friend and first teacher, and instilled in him a love of the Russian language and the literary word.

Things were seriously neglected on the family estate, it even came to the point of litigation, and Nekrasov’s father took on the duties of a police officer. When leaving on business, he often took his son with him, so from an early age the boy saw pictures that were not intended for children’s eyes: extorting debts and arrears from peasants, cruel reprisals, all kinds of manifestations of grief and poverty. In his own poems, Nekrasov recalled the early years of his life:

First years in St. Petersburg

In 1832, Nekrasov turned 11 years old and entered the gymnasium, where he studied until the fifth grade. Studying was difficult for him, relations with the gymnasium authorities did not go well - in particular, because of the caustic satirical poems that he began to compose at the age of 16. Therefore, in 1837, Nekrasov went to St. Petersburg, where, according to his father’s wishes, he was supposed to enter military service.

In St. Petersburg, young Nekrasov, through his friend at the gymnasium, met several students, after which he realized that education interested him more than military affairs. Contrary to his father’s demands and threats to leave him without financial support, Nekrasov began to prepare for the entrance exams to the university, but failed them, after which he became a volunteer student at the Faculty of Philology.

Nekrasov Sr. fulfilled his ultimatum and left his rebellious son without financial help. Nekrasov spent all his free time from studying looking for work and a roof over his head: it got to the point that he could not afford lunch. For some time he rented a room, but in the end he was unable to pay for it and ended up on the street, and then ended up in a shelter for beggars. It was there that Nekrasov discovered a new opportunity to earn money - he wrote petitions and complaints for a small fee.

Over time, Nekrasov’s affairs began to improve, and the stage of dire need was passed. By the early 1840s, he made a living by writing poems and fairy tales, which were later published in popular prints, published small articles in the Literary Gazette and the Literary Supplement to the Russian Invalid, gave private lessons and composed plays for Alexandrinsky Theater under the pseudonym Perepelsky.

In 1840, using his own savings, Nekrasov published his first poetry collection, “Dreams and Sounds,” which consisted of romantic ballads, which were influenced by the poetry of Vasily Zhukovsky and Vladimir Benediktov. Zhukovsky himself, having familiarized himself with the collection, called only two poems quite good, but recommended publishing the rest under a pseudonym and argued it this way: “Later you will write better, and you will be ashamed of these poems.” Nekrasov heeded the advice and published a collection under the initials N.N.

The book “Dreams and Sounds” was not particularly successful with either readers or critics, although Nikolai Polevoy spoke very favorably of the aspiring poet, and Vissarion Belinsky called his poems “coming from the soul.” Nekrasov himself was upset by his first poetic experience and decided to try his hand at prose. He wrote his early stories and novellas in a realistic manner: the plots were based on events and phenomena in which the author himself was a participant or witness, and some characters had prototypes in reality. Later, Nekrasov turned to satirical genres: he created the vaudeville “This is what it means to fall in love with an actress” and “Feoktist Onufrievich Bob”, the story “Makar Osipovich Random” and other works.

Nekrasov’s publishing activities: “Sovremennik” and “Whistle”

Ivan Kramskoy. Portrait of Nikolai Nekrasov. 1877. State Tretyakov Gallery

Nikolai Nekrasov and Ivan Panaev. Caricature by Nikolai Stepanov, “Illustrated Almanac”. 1848. Photo: vm.ru

Alexey Naumov. Nikolai Nekrasov and Ivan Panaev visiting the sick Vissarion Belinsky. 1881

From the mid-1840s, Nekrasov began to actively engage in publishing activities. With his participation, the almanacs “Physiology of St. Petersburg”, “Articles in Poems without Pictures”, “April 1”, “Petersburg Collection” were published, and the latter was a particularly great success: Dostoevsky’s novel “Poor People” was published for the first time in it.

At the end of 1846, Nekrasov, together with his friend, journalist and writer Ivan Panaev, rented the Sovremennik magazine from the publisher Pyotr Pletnev.

Young authors, who had previously published mainly in Otechestvennye zapiski, willingly moved to Nekrasov’s publication. It was Sovremennik that made it possible to reveal the talent of such writers as Ivan Goncharov, Ivan Turgenev, Alexander Herzen, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. Nekrasov himself was not only the editor of the magazine, but also one of its regular authors. His poems, prose, literary criticism, and journalistic articles were published on the pages of Sovremennik.

The period from 1848 to 1855 became a difficult time for Russian journalism and literature due to the sharp tightening of censorship. To fill the gaps that arose in the content of the magazine due to censorship bans, Nekrasov began publishing in it chapters from the adventure novels “Dead Lake” and “Three Countries of the World,” which he co-wrote with his common-law wife Avdotya Panayeva (she was hiding under the pseudonym N N. Stanitsky).

In the mid-1850s, censorship requirements relaxed, but Sovremennik faced a new problem: class contradictions split the authors into two groups with opposing beliefs. Representatives of the liberal nobility advocated realism and aesthetic principles in literature, while supporters of democracy adhered to the satirical direction. The confrontation, of course, spilled onto the pages of the magazine, so Nekrasov, together with Nikolai Dobrolyubov, founded a supplement to Sovremennik - the satirical publication “Whistle”. It published humorous stories and short stories, satirical poems, pamphlets and caricatures.

At different times, Ivan Panaev, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Alexey Tolstoy published their works on the pages of “Whistle”. The supplement was first published in January 1859, and its last issue was released in April 1863, a year and a half after Dobrolyubov’s death. In 1866, after the assassination of Emperor Alexander II, the Sovremennik magazine itself was closed. “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”

Nekrasov came up with the idea for the poem back in the late 1850s, but he wrote the first part after the abolition of serfdom - around 1863. The basis of the work was not only the literary experiences of the poet’s predecessors, but also his own impressions and memories. According to the author's idea, the poem was supposed to become a kind of epic, demonstrating the life of the Russian people from different points of view. At the same time, Nekrasov purposefully used to write it not in “high style,” but in simple colloquial language, close to folk songs and tales, replete with colloquial expressions and sayings.

Work on the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” took Nekrasov almost 14 years. But even during this period, he did not have time to fully realize his plan: a serious illness prevented him, which confined the writer to his bed. Originally the work was supposed to consist of seven or eight parts. The travel route of the heroes, looking for “who lives cheerfully and freely in Rus',” lay across the entire country, all the way to St. Petersburg, where they had a meeting with an official, a merchant, a minister and a tsar. However, Nekrasov understood that he would not have time to complete the work, so he reduced the fourth part of the story - “A Feast for the Whole World” - to an open ending.

During Nekrasov’s lifetime, only three fragments of the poem were published in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski - the first part with a prologue, which does not have its own title, “The Last One” and “The Peasant Woman”. “A Feast for the Whole World” was published only three years after the author’s death, and even then with significant censorship cuts.

Nekrasov died on January 8, 1878 (December 27, 1877, old style). Several thousand people came to say goodbye to him and escorted the writer’s coffin from his home to the Novodevichy cemetery in St. Petersburg. This was the first time that a Russian writer was given national honors.

Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov is a Russian writer and poet who made the whole world admire with his works.

Origin

Nikolay Nekrasov was born into a noble family, which at that time had quite a large fortune. The poet’s birthplace is considered to be the city of Nemirov, located in the Podolsk province.

The writer's father, Alexey Sergeevich Nekrasov, was a military officer and a wealthy landowner who was very fond of gambling and cards.

N. Nekrasov’s mother, Elena Zakrevskaya, came from a wealthy family, the head of which was a respected man. Elena was distinguished by her broad outlook and impressive beauty, so Zakrevskaya’s parents were against marriage with Alexei, but the wedding took place against the will of her parents.

Nikolay Nekrasov loved his mother very much as can be seen in the works “Last Songs”, “Mother” and in other poems and poems. It is the mother who is the main positive person in the writer’s world.

The poet's childhood and education

The writer spent his childhood with his brothers and sisters on the Greshnevo estate, which belonged to his family.

Young the poet saw how ordinary people suffered under the yoke of the landowners. This served as the idea for his future works.

When the boy turned 11 years old, he was sent to a gymnasium, where he studied until the 5th grade. Nekrasov was a weak student, but his first poems already filled the pages of notebooks.

A serious step. The beginning of creativity

N. Nekrasov's next step was to move to St. Petersburg, where he expressed a desire to attend lectures at the university.

The writer's father was a strict and principled man who wanted his son to become a military man. Son went against my father's wishes depriving yourself of financial support and respect from your family.

In a new city to survive I had to earn money by writing articles. This is how the aspiring poet met the famous critic Belinsky. A couple of years later, Nekrasov becomes the owner of the famous literary publication Sovremennik, which had great influence, but soon censorship closes the magazine.

Active work of the writer. Contribution to literature

Having earned a significant amount of money, Nekrasov decides to publish his first collection of poems “Dreams and Sounds”. The people did not like the collection, so it was a complete failure, but the poet did not get upset and began writing prose works.

The Sovremennik magazine, in which Nikolai Nekrasov edited and wrote texts, greatly influenced the life of the writer. At the same time, the poet created several collections of personal poems. For the first time big Nekrasov’s works “Peasant Children” and “Peddlers” brought fame to Nekrasov.

The Sovremennik magazine showed the world such talented people as I. Goncharov and other writers and poets. Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky became known to the whole world thanks to Nikolai Nekrasov, who decided to publish them on the pages of the magazine.

In the 40s of the 19th century, another publication, “Notes of the Fatherland,” began to collaborate with Nikolai Nekrasov.

Young Nekrasov saw how difficult it was for a simple peasant, so this did not go unnoticed in the writer’s works. A striking feature of Nekrasov’s work is use of colloquial speech in works: poems and stories.

Over the last ten years of his life, Nekrasov published many well-known works about the Decembrists and ordinary people: “Who is Good in Rus',” “Grandfather,” “Russian Women” and others.

Death of a Writer

In 1875, N. Nekrasov was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. The poet dedicates his last collection, “Last Songs,” created in terrible agony, to Zinaida Nikolaevna, his wife.

On December 27, 1877, Nikolai Nekrasov was overcome by illness. The grave of the writer, who made a huge contribution to literary life, is located in St. Petersburg.

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NEKRASOV Nikolai Alekseevich (November 28 (December 10), 1821, the town of Nemirov (according to another version, the village of Sinki) Podolsk province - December 27, 1877 (January 8, 1878), St. Petersburg, buried at the Novodevichy cemetery) - poet, writer, editor-publisher of the magazines Sovremennik (1847−1866) and Otechestvennye zapiski (from 1868).

April 11 - censorship permission for the second issue of the “red books” with Nekrasov’s poems.

Around May 10 - Nekrasov left for Karabikha; in the put in order estate, the poet received many guests and hunted; “Frost the Red Nose”, “Orina, the Soldier’s Mother” were written, the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” was conceived.

End of September - return to St. Petersburg.

October 8 - Nekrasov attended the funeral of N. G. Pomyalovsky, a young writer who died on October 5.

January 19 - A.V. Druzhinin died; in Sovremennik, Nekrasov honored the memory of his friend and colleague with a sincere obituary, and attended his funeral.

February 20 - an enthusiastic review of the poem “Red Nose Frost” in a letter to Nekrasov by M. S. Volkonsky, the son of the Decembrist.

May 4 - N. G. Chernyshevsky was sentenced by the Senate - exile to hard labor for seven years.

May 20 - August - Nekrasov undergoes treatment abroad.

Beginning of September - end of October - Nekrasov in Karabikha; work on the first part of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”

Autumn - the poem “Railroad” was written.

Winter - work on the second part of the satirical cycle “About the Weather”.

February 20 - A. Ya. Panaeva ceded her rights to publish the Sovremennik magazine to Nekrasov for 14 thousand rubles.

April 7 - Nekrasov refused to become F. M. Dostoevsky’s partner in publishing his journal of soil-oriented orientation “Epoch”.

Mid-May - August 30 - Nekrasov in Karabikha: work on the first part of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”

November - Sovremennik published N. A. Nekrasov’s poem “The Railway”.

Mid-December - Nekrasov appealed to the Main Directorate of Press Affairs with a request to return Sovremennik to the conditions of preliminary censorship.

December - Nekrasov notified the Main Directorate for Press Affairs of his desire to stop publishing the magazine since 1867 and asked to guarantee him the possibility of continuing the publication of Sovremennik over the next year “solely for economic” purposes - to give him a period to pay off the magazine’s debts caused by the death of I. I. Panaev, N. A. Dobrolyubov, the arrest of N. G. Chernyshevsky and the unfulfilled obligations of a number of authors who took payment for the work in advance.

February - Nekrasov’s satire “Ballet” was published in Sovremennik; Nekrasov renewed his acquaintance with V.P. Botkin, counting on his financial assistance in the event of the government closing the magazine.

March 4 - Nekrasov receives by mail an anonymous poem “It can’t be!” (the author is an aspiring poetess O.P. Martynova, familiar to Nekrasov); Contrary to the rumors circulating in society about the poet’s ideological apostasy, the poem expresses faith in his moral dignity.

March - Sovremennik publishes a single satirical cycle, “Songs about Free Speech.”

April 4 - radical student D.V. Karakozov shot at Emperor Alexander II; The sovereign was “saved” by allegedly pushing the attacker’s arm by Kostroma tradesman O.I. Komissarov.

April 5 - Nekrasov paid visits to a number of his high-society acquaintances to consult on ways to save the magazine in the context of the upcoming repressions.

April 6 - at a meeting of the Literary Fund, Nekrasov signed a loyal address to Emperor Alexander II.

April 9 - in St. Petersburg, at a dinner at the English Club in honor of O.I. Komissarov, Nekrasov recited “welcome” poems to the savior of the sovereign.

April 16 - after lunch at the English Club in honor of Count M. N. Muravyov, appointed head of the Investigative Commission in the case of the attempt on the life of the Sovereign Emperor, Nekrasov, on the recommendation of the foreman of the English Club G. A. Stroganov, read “the strangler of the Polish uprising” 12 ambiguously panegyric lines. This does not lead to a change in decision about the fate of the magazine; upon his return, the poet writes the poem “The enemy rejoices...”

April 27 - G. Z. Eliseev, publicist for the Sovremennik magazine, was arrested. The next day, Nekrasov visited Eliseev’s family to find out about the fate of the employee, and was subject to a gendarme search; It was only by chance that he was not arrested himself.

June 13 - Nekrasov agreed with the publisher N.V. Gerbel to satisfy Sovremennik subscribers with four volumes of the Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare.

June 15 - 20 - Nekrasov again left for Karabikha, where he worked on scenes from the lyrical comedy "Bear Hunt", addressing the characters and moral heritage of the "people of the forties."

October 30 - the widow of P. A. Pletnev filed a petition to retain ownership of the Sovremennik magazine for her family; the request was denied.

Early November - return to St. Petersburg and a promise to leading employees of feasible compensation in connection with the loss of their jobs.

November 28 - Nekrasov supported the request of the mother of I. I. Panaev at the Literary Fund to grant her a pension.

December 20 - presence at the trial of A. S. Suvorin’s book “All sorts of things. Essays on modern life”, sentenced to burning.

Winter - Nekrasov became close to a member of the Main Directorate for Press Affairs V. M. Lazarevsky, together with him he rented a hunting cottage in Chudovskaya Luka.

March - work on the cycle “Poems dedicated to Russian children”; going abroad.

April - May - Nekrasov in Paris and Florence: scenes from the lyrical comedy "Bear Hunt" were reworked.

June - return to Russia.

July - negotiations with D.I. Pisarev about cooperation.

July - September - Nekrasov rejected A. A. Kraevsky’s offer to head the fiction department in his magazine “Domestic Notes”, negotiations with A. A. Kraevsky about renting the magazine.

December 8 - signing of a lease agreement for the journal Otechestvennye zapiski with recognition of Nekrasov as the “publicly responsible editor” of the publication.

January - writer V. A. Sleptsov was invited as secretary to the new editorial office of Otechestvennye Zapiski.

April 7 - I. A. Arsenyev stated in print that the banned Sovremennik had been revived in the new Otechestvennye Zapiski.

April 9 - A. A. Kraevsky appealed to the Main Directorate for Press Affairs with a request to transfer the responsible editorship of the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski to N. A. Nekrasov, the request was rejected.

June - M. E. Saltykov retired, came to St. Petersburg and headed the fiction department at Otechestvennye zapiski.

November - December - the 5th edition of poems by N. A. Nekrasov is published.

The second half of the year - the involvement of the young critic N.K. Mikhailovsky in cooperation with Otechestvennye Zapiski.

January - February - publication in Otechestvennye zapiski of the first chapters of Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”

March - the publication of the brochure by M. A. Antonovich and Yu. G. Zhukovsky “Materials for characterizing modern Russian literature”, representing a political denunciation of Nekrasov and moral defamation of him as a person, journalist and poet.

Mid-April - Nekrasov leaves for Paris.

The beginning of May - an order for articles from political emigrant V. A. Zaitsev for Otechestvennye Zapiski.

May - August - Nekrasov moved from Paris to Interlaken, then to Soden, Kissingen, Dieppe; strengthening effect of sea baths.

October 1 - Nekrasov rejected V.S. Kurochkin’s offer to become a partner in the new magazine he was starting.

Winter - Nekrasov’s rapprochement with F. A. Viktorova (Zinaida Nikolaevna)

February - arrest of the second issue of Otechestvennye Zapiski for publishing an article by V. A. Zaitsev about F. Lassalle.

March 12 - conflict with V. M. Lazarevsky due to illegal mail being sent to his address from Brussels.

Around August 10, Nekrasov returned to St. Petersburg and the next day went to Chudovo, where he stayed for a week.

October - a number of articles and satire by Nekrasov “Recent Time”, published in Otechestvennye Zapiski, caused a sharp reaction in the censorship department.

April - Nekrasov spent a long time “preparing” the poem “Princess Trubetskoy” for passage through censorship.

Spring - reading to M. S. Volkonsky Nekrasov “Notes” of his mother M. N. Volkonskaya.

Early September - Nekrasov hunting in Chudov.

October 24 - Nekrasov agreed to the trusteeship of the Karabikh School; contributes 100 rubles to the construction of a new building for the Abakumtsevo school.

Nekrasov on the hunt. Hood. A. Plastov

January - Nekrasov is considering the plan for a large poem of 10 chapters about the Decembrists, in the spring he met with the Decembrist M.A. Nazimov.

March 30 - a notarial deed was concluded between Nekrasov and A. A. Kraevsky for the publication of “Domestic Notes” for 10 years from January 1, 1874.

July - chapters of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” were written - “Dyomushka” (in Wiesbaden), “The Woman's Parable” (in Dieppe).

Mid-August - return from abroad to St. Petersburg, went hunting for several days in Chudovo.

December 19 - a meeting of writers on the occasion of the release of the literary collection “Kladchina” in favor of the starving people of the Samara province.

January 1 - agreement with A. A. Kraevsky on the triple editorship of “Domestic Notes”: N. A. Nekrasov - department of poetry, M. E. Saltykov - department of fiction, G. Z. Eliseev - department of journalism and sciences.

February - “Poems by N. Nekrasov” were published. Part seven."

March 15 - conclusion of an agreement between the editors of Otechestvennye Zapiski on the distribution of responsibilities and the amount of remuneration.

April - Nekrasov asked F. M. Dostoevsky for his novel “Teenager” for “Notes of the Fatherland”; The fourth issue of the magazine was almost arrested.

May 21 - decision to publish a literary collection for the 15th anniversary of the Literary Fund - partly with funds advanced by Nekrasov.

June - August - Nekrasov and Zina left for Chudovskaya Luka near Novgorod. Work on the poem “Despondency”; The cycle “Overnight” and the poem “The Grief of Old Nahum” were written.

September 14 - V. M. Lazarevsky ceded his part of the dacha in Chudov to N. A. Nekrasov, their relationship was interrupted.

Winter - Nekrasov’s physical condition noticeably deteriorated, and his emotional experiences intensified.

April - Nekrasov donated 800 rubles to the Literary Fund.

Beginning of May - Nekrasov hunted in Chudov; work on the 2nd part of the poem “Contemporaries”.

May 20 — Nekrasov proposes to include in the anniversary collection of the Literary Fund materials about the history of its foundation and activities, and the biographies of deceased members of the fund.

Late May - early June - Nekrasov, Zina and her niece Natasha went to visit their brother Fyodor Alekseevich in Karabikha.

Autumn - meeting the young publicist S. N. Krivenko (later he wrote memoirs about Nekrasov).

January - February - publication of the charitable literary collection “Brotherly Assistance to the Affected Families of Bosnia and Herzegovina”, to which Nekrasov contributed his poem “The Terrible Year...”

March 11−15 - refusal of personal participation in the discussion of the issue of A. Ya. Panayeva’s benefit at the Literary Fund.

March 15 - Nekrasov’s message to A.N. Pypin about the order he made to his sister regarding the issuance of part of the money from the publication of the poet’s works for N.G. Chernyshevsky.

March, April, June - publication in Novoye Vremya by A. S. Suvorin of Nekrasov’s poems, which are “inconvenient” in a personal or censorship sense.

April 20 - Nekrasov unsuccessfully tried to defend in the Main Directorate for Press Affairs the novel by A. M. Skabichevsky “It Was - It Has Become Obsolete,” assigned to No. 4 of “Otechestvennye Zapiski.”

Summer - Nekrasov’s health deteriorated, constant acute pain; trips to Gatchina to visit physician S.P. Botkin, departure following S.P. Botkin, who accompanied the Empress, to Yalta.

September - October - Nekrasov in Yalta; working on the chapter “A Feast for the Whole World” of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”

November - censorship ban on “A Feast for the Whole World”, attempts to save the poem; collection of signatures addressed to Nekrasov from St. Petersburg and Kharkov students.

December - Nekrasov’s attending physicians convened a consultation.

ON THE. Nekrasov. Hood. I.N. Kramskoy

January 10 - Chairman of the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee A.G. Petrov persuades Nekrasov not to publish “A Feast for the Whole World.”

Beginning of February - Nekrasov was visited by a delegation of students from St. Petersburg and Kharkov.

Mid-February - in the St. Petersburg artists' club, a detective stole the Address of N. A. Nekrasov; the club is closed.

February - intensive work on the poem “Mother”; dictation of memories to sister and brother.

End of February - Nekrasov sent the poem “The Honest, the Valiantly Fallen have fallen silent...” for transmission to P. A. Alekseev, the leader of the underground group convicted in the “trial of fifty.”

March 3 - in the presence of A.N. Pypin and doctors Belogolovy and Bogdanovsky, Nekrasov read the poem “Bayushki-Bayu”; refusal of further attempts at creativity.

April 12 - Nekrasov was operated on by the Viennese surgeon Billroth, his health improved, he was able to get up and walk.

End of May - Turgenev visited Nekrasov; the poet could not speak, but with a gesture he said goodbye to his former friend.

November 15 - F. M. Dostoevsky visited the poet again, who found Nekrasov and M. E. Saltykov conferring about the December issue of “Notes of the Fatherland.”

November - the poem “Autumn” was written about trains coming from the Balkan front.

End of November - beginning of December - the last few poems were written.

Nekrasov, Nikolai Alekseevich

Poet; born on November 22, 1821 in a small Jewish town in the Vinnitsa district of the Podolsk province, where at that time the army regiment in which his father Alexei Sergeevich Nekrasov served was stationed. A.S. belonged to an impoverished noble landowner family of the Yaroslavl province; Due to his service duties, he had to constantly travel, mainly in the southern and western provinces of Russia. During one of these trips, he met the family of a wealthy Polish magnate who lived in retirement on his estate in the Kherson province, Andrei Zakrevsky. Zakrevsky's eldest daughter, Alexandra Andreevna, a brilliant representative of the then Warsaw society, a well-educated and pampered girl, was carried away by a handsome officer and linked her fate with him, marrying him against the will of her parents. Having risen to the rank of captain, A.S. retired and settled on his family estate in the village of Greshnev, Yaroslavl province, on the postal route between Yaroslav and Kostroma. Here the poet spent his childhood years, which left an indelible impression on his soul. On his estate, in freedom, A.S. led a riotous life among his drinking buddies and serf mistresses, “among the feasts of senseless arrogance, the debauchery of dirty and petty tyranny”; this “beautiful savage” behaved despotically in relation to his own family, “he crushed everyone with himself” and alone “breathed and acted and lived freely.” The poet's mother, Alexandra Andreevna, who grew up among bliss and contentment, European-bred and educated, was doomed to life in a remote village, where drunken revelry and hound hunting reigned. Her only consolation and subject of intense concern was her large family (13 brothers and sisters in total); raising children was a selfless feat of her short life, but boundless patience and warmth in the end defeated even her harsh despot husband, and had a tremendous influence on the development of the character of the future poet. The tender and sad image of the mother occupies a large place in N.’s work: it is repeated in a number of other female heroines, inseparably accompanies the poet throughout his life, inspires, supports him in moments of grief, guides his activities even at the last minute, at his deathbed , sings him a deeply touching farewell song (Bayushki-bayu). N. dedicates a number of poems to his mother and the unsightly environment of his childhood (the poem “Mother”, “A Knight for an Hour”, “Last Songs” and many others); in her person, according to the fair instructions of biographers, he created the apotheosis of Russian mothers in particular and Russian women in general.

All other impressions of his childhood were extremely bleak: upset affairs and a huge family forced A. S. Nekrasov to take the place of police officer. Accompanying his father during his official trips, the boy had the opportunity many times to observe the harsh conditions of people's life: autopsy of corpses, investigations, extortion of taxes and generally wild reprisals common at that time. All this sank deeply into his soul, and entering life from his family, N. carried away the passionate hatred of the oppressors that had accumulated in his heart and ardent sympathy for the “depressed and trembling slaves” who envied “the life of the last master’s dogs.” His muse, who grew up in such conditions, naturally did not know how to sing sweet songs and immediately became gloomy and unkind, “the sad companion of the sad poor, born to work, suffering and chains.”

At the age of 11, N. was assigned to the Yaroslavl gymnasium, where he studied unenviably and, barely reaching the fifth grade, was forced to leave school - partly due to complications with the school authorities, irritated by his satirical poems, which even then enjoyed enormous literary success among his comrades. The father, who dreamed of a military career for his son, took advantage of this and in 1838 sent him to St. Petersburg to be assigned to the then Noble Regiment. With a small amount of money in his pocket, with the passport of a “minor from the nobility” and with a notebook of poems, N. appeared from the wilderness of the village to the noisy capital. The question of joining the Noble Regiment had almost been decided when a chance meeting with a Yaroslavl comrade, student Andrei Glushitsky and prof. Theological Seminary by D.I. Uspensky prompted H. to deviate from his original decision: conversations with students about the advantages of university education captivated H. so much that he categorically informed his father of his intention to enter the university. His father threatened to leave him without any financial assistance, but this did not stop N., and with the assistance of his friends, Glushitsky and Uspensky, he began to diligently prepare for the university entrance exam. He, however, did not pass the exam and, on the advice of the rector P. A. Pletnev, entered the Faculty of History and Philology as a volunteer student, where he stayed for two years (from 1839 to 1841). N.’s financial situation during these “study years” was extremely deplorable: he settled on Malaya Okhta with one of his university friends, with whom he also lived as a serf boy; the three of them spent no more than 15 kopecks on lunch from a cheap kitchen. Due to his father’s refusal, he had to earn a living by giving penny lessons, proofreading, and some literary work; All the time was spent mainly in search of income. “For exactly three years,” says N., “I felt constantly, every day, hungry. More than once it got to the point that I went to a restaurant on Morskaya, where they allowed me to read newspapers, without even asking myself anything. “It used to be that you would just grab a newspaper for appearance’s sake, but you would push yourself a plate of bread and eat.” Chronic malnutrition led to complete exhaustion of strength, and N. became seriously ill; the young, strong body endured this test, but the illness aggravated the need even more, and once, when N., who had not yet recovered from the illness, returned home from a comrade on a cold November night, the owner-soldier did not let him into the apartment for non-payment of money; An old beggar took pity on him and gave him the opportunity to spend the night in some slum on the 17th line of Vasilievsky Island, where in the morning the poet found a living by writing a petition to someone for 15 kopecks. The best years spent in the painful struggle for existence only strengthened the stern tone of Muse N., who then “taught her to feel her suffering and blessed the world to announce it.”

To earn a meager livelihood, N. had to resort to menial literary work in the form of urgent notes, reviews of a wide variety of books, poems, and translations. At this time he wrote vaudevilles for the Alexandrinsky Theater, supplied booksellers with alphabet books and fairy tales in verse for popular prints, and also worked in various magazines of the late 30s and early 40s and, mainly, in “Literary supplements to Russian Invalid", in the "Literary Gazette", in the "Pantheon of Russian and all European Theaters", published by bookseller V. Polyakov. The stories and poems published in the Pantheon were signed by N. “N. Perepelsky” and “Bob”. There, by the way, there are N.’s vaudevilles: “Actor” (perhaps the first role in which the famous V.V. Samoilov had the opportunity to show his talent) and “You can’t hide an awl in a sack”, not included in the collected works - a poem "Ophelia" and a translation of the drama "La nouvelle Fanchon", entitled "A Mother's Blessing" (1840). Former instructor of the page corps Gr. Fr. Benetsky helped N. at this time, providing him with lessons in the Russian language and history at his boarding school, which significantly improved the poet’s affairs and even allowed him to publish, with his savings, a collection of his children’s and youth poems, “Dreams and Sounds” (1840), published under the initials N.N. Polevoy praised the author, V.A. Zhukovsky advised him, even before the release of the collection, to “remove his name from the book,” although he spoke favorably of some poems; but Belinsky severely condemned N.’s debut, admitting that the thoughts suggested by his collection “Dreams and Sounds” boil down to the following: “Mediocrity in poetry is unbearable” (“Otech. Zap.”, 1840, No. 3). After Belinsky’s recall, N. hastened to buy up “Dreams and Sounds” and destroy them, and subsequently never wanted to repeat them in a new edition (they were not included in N.’s collected works). Belinsky was right in his harsh review, since N.’s first experience was completely uncharacteristic of him and represented only a weak imitation of romantic models, generally alien to N.’s work (the collection contains “terrible” ballads - “Evil Spirit”, “Angel of Death” , “The Raven,” etc.), and for a long time after that N. did not dare to write poetry, limiting himself for now only to the role of a magazine laborer.

Having received a very meager education and realizing this, N. in subsequent years diligently completed it by reading European classics (in translation) and works of native literature. In the "Pantheon" and in the "Literary Gazette" he met the famous writer F.A. Koni, who supervised his first works; in addition, he was undoubtedly influenced by the works of Belinsky. In the early 40s, N. became one of the employees of Otechestvennye Zapiski and with some reviews attracted the attention of Belinsky, whom he met at the same time. Belinsky was immediately able to appreciate N.’s real talent; Realizing that in the field of prose N. would not make anything other than an ordinary literary worker, Belinsky, with his characteristic passion, welcomed N.’s poems: “On the Road” and “To the Motherland.” With tears in his eyes, he hugged the author, telling him: “Do you know that you are a poet and a true poet.” Belinsky learned the second poem, “To the Motherland” (“And here they are again, familiar places”) by heart and distributed it among his St. Petersburg and Moscow friends. From that moment on, N. became a permanent member of that literary circle, in the center of which stood Belinsky, who had a tremendous influence on the further development of N.’s literary talent. N.’s publishing activity also dates back to this time: he published a number of almanacs: “Articles in verse without pictures "(1843), "Physiology of St. Petersburg" (1845), "Petersburg Collection" (1846), "First of April" (1846) In addition to N., these collections included: Grigorovich, Dostoevsky, Herzen (Iskander), Ap. Maikov, Turgenev. The “Petersburg Collection” was a particular success, where Dostoevsky’s “Poor People”, which caused a stir in literature, first appeared. N.'s stories included in the first of these collections (and mainly in the almanac: "Physiology of St. Petersburg"), and the stories he previously wrote: "An Experienced Woman" ("Otech. Zap.", 1841) and "An Unusual Breakfast" ("Otech. Zap.", 1843) were of a genre, morally descriptive nature, but they already sufficiently highlighted one of the main features in N.'s literary talent - namely, the inclination towards realistic content (what Belinsky then called approvingly “efficiency”), as well as to a humorous story, which manifested itself especially clearly during the period of maturity of H.’s talent, in the comic side of his poetry.

N.'s publishing business was successful, and at the end of 1846 he, in company with I. I. Panaev, purchased Sovremennik from Pletnev, which he then began publishing with the participation of Belinsky. The transformed Sovremennik was, to a certain extent, new in terms of its elegant appearance, but in terms of its content it became the best magazine of that time. The editorial circle brought together the best talents of the time, who provided the magazine with rich and varied material: first, although not for long, Belinsky, then Turgenev, Goncharov, Grigorovich, Druzhinin, a little later gr. L. N. Tolstoy; from the poets Fet, Polonsky, Alexey Zhemchuzhnikov, Nekrasov himself; later the works of V. Botkin, scientific articles by Kavelin, Solovyov, Granovsky, Afanasyev, F. Korsh, Vl. Milyutin, Annenkov's letters, etc. All the literary youth, previously grouped around Kraevsky, now moved from Otechestvennye Zapiski to Sovremennik and transferred here the center of gravity of the entire literary movement of the 40s. Raising it to this height and continuing to keep the journal without dropping it was not easy, since this required skill, strength, and means; the publication was started by N. with borrowed money (a debt that N. did not soon repay). Having previously acquired some experience in the publishing business, N. managed to get out of great difficulties thanks to practicality generally taken from life. He tried to attract the best employees and by all means possible to keep them in the magazine, told them frankly when he was short of money, and himself increased the fee when things got better. The years from 1847 to 1855, after which the fair name of the period of reaction was established, were especially difficult for Sovremennik and its publisher: censorship with its prohibitions often put the magazine in a hopeless position, and fictional material was placed not only in a special section of the magazine, but also in There was literally not enough in the "mixture" department. H.'s correspondence with employees during this time shows the torment he experienced as an editor. "Your Breakfast, - N. writes to Turgenev in 1850, “it was played and was a success, but it was not published, because one of our censors became stubborn: he doesn’t like such stories, this is his personal whim...” “Turgenev! I'm poor, poor! - adds N. - For God's sake, send me your work as soon as possible." This was one of the main motivations for what N. undertook with N. Stanitsky (pseudonym of A. Ya. Golovacheva-Panaeva) to jointly compose the endlessly long novels "Three countries of the world" (1849) and "Dead Lake" (1851). These were morally descriptive novels with a variety of adventures, with intricate stories, with spectacular scenes and denouements, written not without the influence of Dickens, Eugene Sue and Victor Hugo. The first of them is not devoid of autobiographical interest, since in the person of Kayutin, an intelligent proletarian, N., undoubtedly, recalls his youth (description of K.’s life in St. Petersburg); in addition, according to the fair remark of Academician Pypin, this was not a fictional fantasy of the French novel, but an attempt to push real Russian reality into the frame of the novel, which at that time was still unknown to few people. At the same time, N. published two of his genre stories in Sovremennik, “The Newly Invented Privilege Paint of Darling and Co.” (1850) and “Thin man" (1855). N. did not actually publish “critical articles” in Sovremennik, with the exception of a few small notes, then articles about minor Russian poets and about F.I. Tyutchev, in 1850 (the first collection of his poems was published by N. at “ Contemporary"). “Journal notes” published in Sovremennik in 1856 and attributed to N. belong almost exclusively to N. G. Chernyshevsky, and, as can be seen from the originals of these articles, only some comments and poems were inserted into them by N. himself.

In the mid-50s, N. became seriously ill with a throat disease; The best Russian and foreign doctors diagnosed throat consumption and sentenced the poet to death. The trip to Italy, however, improved N.’s health. His return to Russia coincided with the beginning of a new era in Russian life: in the public and governmental spheres, with the end of the Crimean campaign, there was a whiff of liberalism; The famous era of reforms began. Sovremennik quickly came to life and gathered around itself the best representatives of Russian social thought; Depending on this, the number of subscribers began to grow every year by the thousands. New employees - Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky - joined the magazine with new views both on public affairs and on the tasks of literature as a voice of public opinion. A new period began in N.'s journal activity, which lasted from 1856 to 1865 - the period of the greatest manifestation of his strength and the development of his literary activity. The censorship boundaries have expanded significantly, and the poet has had the opportunity to put into practice what he had hidden within himself before: to touch in his works on those burning topics and issues of the time that were previously impossible to write about due to censorship, that is, purely external conditions. All the best and more characteristic of what N. wrote belongs to this time: “Reflections at the Main Entrance”, “Song to Eremushka”, “Knight for an Hour”, “Peddlers”, “Peasant Children”, “Green Noise”, “ Orina", "Frost - Red Nose", "Railway" and others. The close participation of Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky in Sovremennik, as well as the literary views they expressed at the very beginning (Chernyshevsky's "Essays on the Gogol period" were published for the first time in Sovremennik ) caused H.'s break with his old friends and collaborators at the magazine. H. immediately fell in love with Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky, sensitively understanding all the mental strength and spiritual beauty of these natures, although his worldview developed under completely different conditions and on different foundations than that of his young colleagues. Chernyshevsky, refuting in published academician. A. N. Pypin notes the opinion established in literature that he and Dobrolyubov expanded N.’s mental horizons, notes: “Love for Dobrolyubov could refresh N.’s heart, and, I believe, refreshed it; but this is a completely different matter: not the expansion of mental and moral horizon, but a feeling of joy." In Dobrolyubov N. saw great mental strength and exceptional moral strength, as indicated by the poet’s reviews cited in the memoirs of Golovacheva-Panaeva: “He has a wonderful head! One might think that the best professors supervised his mental development: after 10 years of his literary activity, Dobrolyubov will be as important in Russian literature as Belinsky." At times, N. deliberately sought "feelings of joy" in moments of blues, acute attacks of mental pain, to which N., in his own words, was subject ("a day or two goes well, and then you look - melancholy, melancholy, displeasure, anger ...") In communicating with people of a new type - Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky - N. sought mental refreshment and cures for their pessimism and misanthropy. Against the new direction presented in Sovremennik by Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, sharp protests began to be heard from the old circle, to which Belinsky's former collaborators belonged, who had already gone to their graves by this time. N. made every effort , so that things would not come to a break with old friends, but his efforts were in vain. According to a contemporary (A. N. Pypin), N. first of all appreciated the social direction of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, seeing in it a direct and consistent continuation of Belinsky’s ideas precisely for the last period of his activity; “The friends of the old circle did not understand this: the new criticism was unpleasant to them, the polemics were not interesting, and the economic questions raised again were simply incomprehensible.” N. not only understood the meaning and development of the new literary direction and gave Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky complete freedom of action in Sovremennik, but, in addition, he himself took part in Dobrolyubov’s “Whistle”, and “Notes on Magazines”, which were published in Sovremennik. , written by him together with Chernyshevsky ("there are, according to A.N. Pypin, pages started by one and continued by the other"). Be that as it may, Turgenev, Botkin, Fet and others abruptly broke with Sovremennik; in 1866, Botkin even rejoiced at the two warnings received by Sovremennik. The public reaction that followed the strong rise was reflected in Sovremennik, which was closed in 1866. Two years later, N. rented Otechestvennye Zapiski from his former competitor, Kraevsky, inviting Saltykov and Eliseev as shareholders and employees. Soon, Otechestvennye Zapiski rose to the same height as Sovremennik once did, and became the subject of N.’s tireless concerns, who included in them a number of works that were not inferior in talent to the previous ones; At this time he wrote: “Grandfather”, “Russian Women”, “Who Lives Well in Rus'” and “Last Songs”.

Already in 1875, the first ominous signs of an illness appeared, which brought the poet to a premature grave: initially N. did not attach serious importance to his illness, continued to work as before and monitor all the phenomena of literary life with unflagging attention. But soon a cruel agony began: the poet died a slow and painful death; a complex operation performed by a Viennese specialist, surgeon Billroth, led nowhere. The news of the poet's fatal illness quickly spread throughout Russia; from everywhere, even from distant Siberia, they began to receive sympathetic letters, poems, greetings, addresses, which brought him many bright moments. During this upsurge of strength, the swan song of Nekrasov’s poetry was created, his famous “Last Songs,” in which, with the same strength and freshness, with extraordinary sincerity of feeling, he painted pictures of his childhood, remembered his mother and suffered from the consciousness of the mistakes he had made in life. On December 27, 1877, N. passed away. The funeral took place on December 30: a large crowd, mostly young people, despite the severe frost, escorted the poet’s remains to the place of his eternal rest, the Novodevichy Convent. The fresh grave was thrown with an endless number of wreaths with a wide variety of inscriptions: “To the poet of the people’s suffering,” “To the sorrowful man of the people’s grief,” “From Russian women,” etc. A farewell speech was given over the grave, by the way, by F. M. Dostoevsky, who wrote in day of N.’s death in his “Diary” the following precious lines: “When I returned home, I could no longer sit down to work, I took all three volumes of Nekrasov and began to read from the first page. That night I reread almost two-thirds of everything I wrote N., and literally for the first time I realized how much N., as a poet, occupied a place in my life during all these 30 years.” After the death of the poet, slander and gossip entangled his name for a long time and gave rise to some critics (for example, N.K. Mikhailovsky) to strictly judge N. for his “weaknesses”, to talk about the cruelty he showed, about the fall, compromises, about “dirt, stuck to N.’s soul,” etc. The basis was partly the consciousness expressed by the poet in his last works of his “guilt” and the desire to justify himself before old friends (Turgenev, Botkin, etc.), “who looked reproachfully at him from the walls.” According to Chernyshevsky, “N. was a good person with some weaknesses, very ordinary” and easily explained by well-known facts from his life. At the same time, N. never hid his weaknesses and never shied away from a straightforward explanation of the motives for his actions. Undoubtedly, he was a major moral personality, which explains both the enormous influence that he enjoyed among his contemporaries and the mental discord that he experienced at times.

Around N.'s name a fierce and still unresolved dispute ensued about the meaning of his poetry. N.'s opponents argued that he had no talent, that his poetry was not real, but “tendentious,” dry and invented, designed for the “liberal crowd”; admirers of N.'s talent pointed to numerous and undoubted evidence of the strong impression that N.'s poems made not only on his contemporaries, but also on all subsequent generations. Even Turgenev, who denied N.’s poetic talent in moments of whim, felt the power of this talent when he said that “N.’s poems, collected into one focus, are burned.” H.’s whole fault was that he, being by nature a lively and receptive person who shared the aspirations and ideals of his time, could not remain an indifferent spectator of social and national life and withdraw into the sphere of purely subjective thoughts and feelings; because of this, the objects of concern and aspirations of the best part of Russian society, without distinction of parties and moods, became the subject of its concerns, its indignation, denunciation and regret; At the same time, N. had nothing to “invent,” since life itself gave him rich material, and the heavy everyday pictures in his poems corresponded to what he saw and heard in reality. As for the characteristic features of his talent - some bitterness and indignation, they are also explained by the conditions in which this talent was created and developed. “It was, in the words of Dostoevsky, a heart wounded at the very beginning of his life, and it was this wound that never healed that was the beginning and source of all his passionate, suffering poetry for the rest of his life.” From childhood he had to become familiar with grief, and then endure a series of clashes with the inexorable prose of life; his soul involuntarily hardened, and a feeling of revenge flared up in it, which was reflected in a noble impulse to expose the shortcomings and dark sides of life, in the desire to open the eyes of others to them, to warn other generations from those bitter grievances and painful suffering that the poet himself had to experience. N. did not limit himself to a personal complaint, a story about his suffering; having become accustomed to rooting for others in his soul, he merged himself with society, with the whole of humanity, in the just consciousness that “the world does not end with us; that we can not suffer from personal grief and cry with honest tears; that every cloud, threatening disaster, hangs over the life of the people , leaves a trace of the fatal in the soul alive and noble." By birth and upbringing, H. belonged to the 40s, when he entered the literary field; but in the spirit and cast of his thoughts he was least suited to this era: he did not have the idealistic philosophy, dreaminess, theoreticalism and “beautiful soul” characteristic of the people of the 40s; there were also no traces of that mental discord between the two generations, which Herzen, Turgenev, and Goncharov discovered in one form or another; on the contrary, he was a man of a practical nature, a lively worker, a hard worker who was not afraid of menial work, although somewhat embittered by it.

The beginning and first half of N.'s poetic activity coincided with the moment when the peasant question became the central issue of the Russian public; when in Russian society interest and love arose for the peasant plowman, the breadwinner of his native land - for that mass that was previously considered “dark and indifferent, living without consciousness and meaning.” N. devoted himself entirely to this common hobby, declaring a mortal struggle against serfdom; he became the people's intercessor: "I was called to sing of your suffering, amazing the people with patience." Together with Turgenev and Grigorovich, he has the great merit of familiarizing Russian society with the life of the Russian peasantry and mainly with its dark sides. Already in his early work “On the Road” (1846), published before the appearance of “Anton Goremyka” and “Notes of a Hunter,” N. was the herald of a whole literary movement that chose the interests of the people as its subject, and until the end of his days he did not cease to be the people's sad man. “My heart beat somehow especially at the sight of my native fields and the Russian peasant,” wrote N. Turgenev, and this theme is, to a certain extent, the main one of most of his poems, in which the poet paints pictures of folk life and captures the features of peasant life in artistic images. psychology (“Peddlers”, “Frost is a Red Nose”, “Who Lives Well in Rus'”). In 1861 N. warmly welcomed the long-desired freedom and all the humane measures of the new reign; but at the same time he did not close his eyes to what awaited the liberated people, realizing that one act of liberation was not enough, and that there was still a lot of work to be done to lead this people out of their mental darkness and ignorance. If in N.’s early works one can find features of sentimental populism, a kind of “tenderness” for the people and “humility” from the consciousness of one’s disunity with them, then since the 60s these features give way to new ideas - the education of the people and the strengthening of their economic well-being , i.e., ideas whose representatives in the 60s were Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. This new direction is most clearly expressed by H. in his poem “Song to Eremushka,” which delighted Dobrolyubov, who wrote about this to one of his friends: “Learn by heart and tell everyone you know to learn the song to Eremushka Nekrasov; remember and love these verses."

The main motive of N.’s poetry, mournful in its general tone, is Love. This humane feeling is first reflected in the depiction of the image of the poet’s own mother; The tragedy of her life forced N. to be especially sensitive to the fate of a Russian woman in general. Many times in his work, the poet dwells on the best forces of female nature and draws a whole gallery of types of peasant women (Orina - the soldier’s mother, Daria, Matryona Timofeevna) and intelligent women, full of a noble desire for goodness and light (Sasha in the poem of the same name, Nadya in "The Beautiful Party", Princesses Trubetskoy and Volkonskaya in "Russian Women"). In female types, N. seemed to leave a legacy to future generations to “find the keys to a woman’s will,” from the shackles that constrain the Russian woman in her impulse to knowledge, to the manifestation of her spiritual powers. The images of children drawn by N. are also imbued with the same humane feeling of love: again a gallery of childish types and the poet’s desire to awaken in the reader’s heart a sympathetic attitude towards these defenseless creatures. “When composing my images,” says the poet, “I only listened to the voice of love and strict truth”; in fact, this is the poet’s credo: love for truth, for knowledge, for people in general and for the native people in particular; love for all the disadvantaged, the orphaned and the wretched, and next to it is faith in the people, in their strength and in their future, and in general faith in man, with which faith in the power of the convinced word, in the power of poetry is inextricably linked. That is why, despite all the sorrow of N.’s poetry, with a certain amount of pessimism, which forced the poet to mistakenly call his muse “the muse of revenge and sadness,” N.’s overall mood is generally cheerful and invigorating, although indignant.

N.'s creativity, due to purely historical conditions, took a somewhat one-sided path: all of his enormous artistic talent was spent on depicting mental movements, characters and faces (he does not, for example, have descriptions of nature). But his deep faith in his poetic calling and awareness of his significance in the history of the Russian word never left him. Sometimes, however, in difficult moments of reflection, doubts attacked him: “The people to whom I devoted all my strength, all my inspiration, do not know me; will all my work really pass without a trace, and those who call us Russian poets will be right? "pariahs of their native land? Is it possible that this native land, in which the poet believed so much, will not live up to his hopes"? But these doubts gave way to firm confidence in the significance of his feat; in the beautiful lullaby “Bayushki-Bayu,” his mother’s voice tells him: “don’t be afraid of bitter oblivion; I already hold in my hand the crown of love, the crown of forgiveness, the gift of your meek homeland... The stubborn darkness will give way to the light, you will hear your song over the Volga , over the Oka, over the Kama "...

In the question of N.'s creativity, a special place is occupied by the question of his style, of external form; in this regard, many of his works reveal some unevenness in the form and verse itself, which N. was also aware of: “there is no free poetry in you, my harsh, clumsy verse.” The lack of form is compensated by other advantages of N.'s poetry: the brightness of pictures and images, the conciseness and clarity of characteristics, the richness and color of folk speech, which N. comprehended perfectly; life is in full swing in his works, and in his verse, in the poet’s own words, “living blood boils.” H. created for himself a paramount place in Russian literature: his poems - mainly lyrical works and poems - undoubtedly have enduring significance. The poet’s inextricable connection with “honest hearts” will remain forever, as proven by the all-Russian celebrations of the poet’s memory on the 25th anniversary of his death (December 27, 1902).

N.'s poems, in addition to the editions published during the author's lifetime, were published in eight posthumous editions of 10-15 thousand copies each. The first posthumous edition of N.'s works was published in 1879: "Poems by N. A. Nekrasov. Posthumous edition. St. Petersburg, vol. I, 1845-1860; vol. II, 1861-1872; vol. III, 1873 - 1877; Vol. IV, Appendices, notes and other indexes." With Volume I: foreword by the publisher (A. A. Butkevich); biographical information - art. A. M. Skabichevsky, portrait of the poet and facsimile of “Grishina’s Song”; in volume IV: part I. Applications. Poems not included in the first 3 volumes, 1842-1846; and some poems from 1851-1877. Part II. 1. Appendices to all 4 volumes, compiled by S. I. Ponomarev. 2. Prose, publishing activities: a) vaudevilles, b) novels, short stories, small articles, c) collections and periodicals; 3. Literary debuts of N. - art. V. P. Gorlenka. III. List of articles about Nekrasov: during the poet’s life, posthumous articles and obituaries, poems on N.’s death, parodies of his poems, autographs and pseudonyms, music for his poems, translations into foreign languages. Indexes: subject and alphabetical. The later edition (St. Petersburg, 1902, 2 volumes) was printed in 20 thousand copies. In the quarter century since the poet's death, about 100,000 copies of his works have been published. In 1902, a translation of N.'s poems into German was published: "Friedrich Fiedler. Gedichte von N. A. Nekrasov. Im Versmass des Original. Leipzig."

The literature about H. has now reached significant proportions. A list of magazine and newspaper articles about N. from 1840-1878 was compiled by S. I. Ponomarev and published in “Notes of the Fatherland” in 1878 (May), and then repeated in A. Golubev’s book: “N. A. Nekrasov. Biography" (St. Petersburg, 1878) and in the first posthumous edition of N.'s works (see above). An addition to the above list is a detailed bibliographic review of all literature about N. (magazine and newspaper articles, monographs, brochures, historical and literary works, memoirs, publications of essays, translations), from the day of the poet’s death until 1904, attached to the book A. N. Pypin "N. A. Nekrasov" (St. Petersburg, 1905). The value of this review is increased by the fact that outstanding newspaper articles about N. are included in it entirely or in extenso. An attempt to collect critical literature about N. belongs to Zelinsky (Collection of critical articles about N. Moscow, 1886-87; 2nd ed., 1902). Useful instructions for studying literature about N. are also found in A. V. Mezier (Russian literature in the XI-XIX centuries, incl. Bibliographic index. Part II. St. Petersburg, 1899-1902). The main works can be considered the following: Golovacheva-Panaeva. Russian writers and artists. St. Petersburg, 1892 (memoirs); Skabichevsky A. N. A. Nekrasov, his life and poetry. Sochin. vol. II; Dostoevsky F. Diary of a Writer 1877 (December); Eliseev G. Nekrasov and Saltykov. Russian Bog., 93, 9: Boborykin P. N. A. Nekrasov according to personal memories. Observation 82, 4; Arsenyev K. N. A. Nekrasov. Critical etudes vol. II; Burenin V. Literary essays; Vengerov S. Literary portrait of N. Ned. 78, 10-13 and 16 article in the encycl. words., Brockhaus and Efron, vol. XX; Mikhailovsky N. Literary memories and literary unrest, vol. I; Bobrishchev-Pushkin A. N. A. Nekrasov, V. E. 1903 (April); Notes of Princess M. N. Volkonskaya. St. Petersburg, 1904 V. Rozanov. "25th anniversary of the death of H." New Vr. December 24, 1902 - H. A. H-in and theater criticism (data for the poet’s biography) in the “Annual of the Imperial Theaters” 1910, issue. II. The review of the literature about N., compiled by A. N. Pypin (see above), did not include articles: V. V. Kranichfeld “N. A. Nekrasov” (An experience in literary characterization), in “The World of God” 1902 (December) and articles about N. in the Great Encyclopedia, vol. 13; The following works were not included there either: P. E. Shchegolev “On Russian women N. in connection with the question of the legal rights of the wives of the Decembrists” (Collection in favor of Higher Women’s Courses, 1905 and separately); Andreevich. Experience in the philosophy of Russian literature. St. Petersburg, 1905. (Petersburg songs N., p. 235), and D. N. Ovsyanniko-Kulikovsky. History of the Russian intelligentsia. Part I. M. 1906 (Chapter XII. N. A. Nekrasov). The most valuable of the latest works on N. is the work of A. N. Pypin (see above): in addition to Pypin’s personal memories of N. and a review of his literary activities, there are also “historical and literary references” containing interesting data on journal activities N.; N.'s letters to Turgenev (1847-1861) were immediately published; In general, in his book A.V. Pypin subjected a thorough review to the question of Nekrasov.

V. N. Korablev.

(Polovtsov)

Nekrasov, Nikolai Alekseevich

Famous poet. He belonged to a noble, once rich family of the Yaroslavl province; born on November 22, 1821 in Vinnitsa district, Podolsk province, where at that time the regiment in which N.’s father served was stationed. He was a man who experienced a lot in his life. He was not spared by the Nekrasov family weakness - the love of cards (Sergei N., the poet’s grandfather, lost almost his entire fortune at cards). In the life of the poet, cards also played a big role, but he played happily and often said that fate only does what it should, returning to the family through the grandson what it took away through the grandfather. A keen and passionate man, Alexey Sergeevich N. was very popular with women. Alexandra Andreevna Zakrevskaya, a Warsaw native, the daughter of a wealthy possessor of the Kherson province, fell in love with him. The parents did not agree to marry their well-bred daughter to a poor, poorly educated army officer; the marriage took place without their consent. He wasn't happy. Turning to childhood memories, the poet always spoke of his mother as a sufferer, a victim of a rough and depraved environment. In a number of poems, especially in “The Last Songs,” in the poem “Mother” and in “The Knight for an Hour,” N. painted a bright image of the one who brightened up the unattractive environment of his childhood with her noble personality. The charm of memories of his mother was reflected in N.’s work through his extraordinary participation in women’s lot. Nobody of the Russian poets did not do as much for the apotheosis of wives and mothers as the stern and “allegedly callous” representative of the “muse of revenge and sadness.”

N.'s childhood passed on N.'s family estate, the village of Greshnevo, Yaroslavl province and district, where his father, having retired, moved. A huge family (N. had 13 brothers and sisters), neglected affairs and a number of processes on the estate forced him to take the place of police officer. During his travels, he often took N.A. with him. The arrival of a police officer in the village always marks something sad: a dead body, the collection of arrears, etc. - and thus many sad pictures of the people’s grief were embedded in the boy’s sensitive soul . In 1832 N. entered the Yaroslavl gymnasium, where he reached the 5th grade. He studied poorly, did not get along with the gymnasium authorities (partly because of satirical poems), and since his father always dreamed of a military career for his son, in 1838 16-year-old N. went to St. Petersburg to be assigned to a noble regiment. Things were almost settled, but a meeting with a gymnasium friend, student Glushitsky, and acquaintance with other students aroused in N. such a thirst for learning that he ignored his father’s threat to leave him without any financial help and began to prepare for the entrance exam. He could not stand it and entered the Faculty of Philology as a volunteer student. From 1839 to 1841 N. spent time at the university, but almost all of his time was spent searching for income. N. suffered terrible poverty; not every day he had the opportunity to have lunch for 15 kopecks. “For exactly three years,” he later said, “I felt constantly, every day, hungry. More than once it got to the point that I went to a restaurant on Morskaya, where they were allowed to read newspapers, without even asking myself anything. Take it, it happened , a newspaper for show, and you push yourself a plate of bread and eat.” Even N. didn’t always have an apartment. He fell ill from prolonged starvation and owed a lot to the soldier from whom he rented a room. When, still half-sick, he went to see a comrade, when the soldier returned, despite the November night, he did not let him back. A passing beggar took pity on him and took him to some slum on the outskirts of the city. In this overnight shelter, N. also found income for himself by writing to someone for 15 kopecks. petition. Terrible need hardened N., but it also adversely affected the development of his character: he became a “practitioner”, not in the best sense of the word. His affairs soon settled down: he gave lessons, wrote articles in the “Literary Supplement to the Russian Invalid” and “Literary Gazette”, composed ABCs and fairy tales in verse for popular print publishers, staged vaudevilles on the Alexandria stage (under the name Perepelsky). His savings began to appear, and he decided to publish a collection of his poems, which were published in 1840, with the initials N. N., entitled "Dreams and Sounds". Polevoy praised the debutant, according to some news, Zhukovsky reacted favorably to him, but Belinsky in “Notes of the Fatherland” spoke disparagingly about the book, and this had such an effect on N. that, like Gogol, who once bought and destroyed “Hans Küchelgarten,” he himself bought and destroyed “Dreams and Sounds,” which therefore became the greatest bibliographic rarity (they were not included in N.’s collected works). The interest of the book is that here we see N. in a sphere completely alien to him - in the role of a writer of ballads with various “scary” titles like “Evil Spirit”, “Angel of Death”, “Raven”, etc. “Dreams and Sounds” "are characteristic not in that they are a collection of bad poems by N. and, as it were, inferior stage in his work, but because they no stage in the development of talent N. are not themselves. N. the author of the book “Dreams and Sounds” and N. the later are two poles that cannot be merged in one creative image.

In the early 40s. N. becomes an employee of Otechestvennye Zapiski, first in the bibliographic department. Belinsky got to know him closely, fell in love with him and appreciated the merits of his great mind. He realized, however, that in the field of prose N. would not make anything other than an ordinary magazine employee, but he enthusiastically approved of his poem “On the Road.” Soon N. began diligently publishing. He published a number of almanacs: “Articles in verse without pictures” (1843), “Physiology of St. Petersburg” (1845), “April 1” (1846), “Petersburg Collection” (1846). Grigorovich, Dostoevsky made their debut in these collections, Turgenev, Iskander, Apollon Maikov performed. The “Petersburg Collection”, in which Dostoevsky’s “Poor People” appeared, was particularly successful. N.'s publishing business went so well that at the end of 1846 he, together with Panaev, purchased Sovremennik from Pletnev. The literary youth, who gave strength to Otechestvennye Zapiski, abandoned Kraevsky and joined N. Belinsky also moved to Sovremennik and handed over to N. part of the material that he had collected for the collection Leviathan he had started. In practical matters, “stupid to the point of holiness,” Belinsky found himself in Sovremennik the same magazine laborer as he was in Kraevsky. Subsequently, N. was rightly reproached for this attitude towards the person who most of all contributed to the fact that the center of gravity of the literary movement of the 40s was transferred from Otechestvennye Zapiski to Sovremennik. With the death of Belinsky and the onset of reaction caused by the events of 1948, Sovremennik changed to a certain extent, although it continued to remain the best and most widespread of the magazines of that time. Having lost the leadership of the great idealist Belinsky, N. made various concessions to the spirit of the times. The publication in Sovremennik begins of endlessly long novels filled with incredible adventures, “Three Countries of the World” and “Dead Lake,” written by N. in collaboration with Stanitsky(pseudonym of Golovacheva-Panaeva; see).

Around mid 50's. N. seriously, they thought it was fatal, fell ill with a throat disease, but his stay in Italy averted the catastrophe. N.'s recovery coincides with the beginning of a new era of Russian life. A happy period also began in N.’s work, which brought him to the forefront of literature. He now found himself in a circle of people of high moral order; Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov become the main figures of Sovremennik. Thanks to his remarkable sensitivity and ability to quickly assimilate the mood and views of his environment, N. becomes a poet-citizen par excellence. With his former friends, including Turgenev, who were less surrendered to the rapid flow of the advanced movement, he gradually diverged, and around 1860 things came to a complete break. The best sides of N.'s soul are revealed; only occasionally his biographer is saddened by episodes like the one that N. himself hints at in the poem “I Will Die Soon.” When Sovremennik (q.v.) was closed in 1866, N. became friends with his old enemy Kraevsky and rented from him, from 1868, Otechestvennye Zapiski, which he placed at the same height as Sovremennik occupied. At the beginning of 1875, N. became seriously ill, and soon his life turned into slow agony. It was in vain that the famous surgeon Billroth was discharged from Vienna; The painful operation led to nothing. News of the poet's fatal illness brought his popularity to the highest tension. Letters, telegrams, greetings, and addresses poured in from all over Russia. They brought great joy to the patient in his terrible torment, and his creativity filled with a new key. The “Last Songs” written during this time, due to the sincerity of their feelings, focused almost exclusively on memories of childhood, mother and mistakes made, belong to the best creations of his muse. Along with the consciousness of his “wines”, in the soul of the dying poet, the consciousness of his significance in the history of the Russian word clearly emerged. In the beautiful lullaby “Bayu-bayu,” death tells him: “do not be afraid of bitter oblivion: I already hold in my hand the crown of love, the crown of forgiveness, the gift of your meek homeland... The stubborn darkness will yield to the light, you will hear your song over the Volga, over Okoya, above the Kama..." N. died on December 27, 1877. Despite the severe frost, a crowd of several thousand people, mostly young people, escorted the poet's body to his eternal resting place in the Novodevichy Convent.

N.'s funeral, which took place spontaneously without any organization, was the first case of a nationwide giving of last honors to the writer. Already at N.'s funeral, a fruitless dispute began, or rather continued, about the relationship between him and the two greatest representatives of Russian poetry - Pushkin and Lermontov. Dostoevsky, who said a few words at N.’s open grave, put (with certain reservations) these names side by side, but several young voices interrupted him with shouts: “N. is taller than Pushkin and Lermontov.” The dispute went into print: some supported the opinion of young enthusiasts, others pointed out that Pushkin and Lermontov were spokesmen for the entire Russian society, and N. - only the “circle”; finally, still others indignantly rejected the very idea of ​​a parallel between the creativity that brought Russian verse to the pinnacle of artistic perfection, and N.’s “clumsy” verse, supposedly devoid of any artistic significance. All these points of view are one-sided. N.'s significance is the result of a number of conditions that created both his charm and the fierce attacks to which he was subjected both during life and after death. Of course, from the point of view of the grace of verse, N. not only cannot be placed next to Pushkin and Lermontov, but is even inferior to some minor poets. None of our great poets has so many poems that are downright bad from all points of view; He himself bequeathed many poems not to be included in the collected works. N. is not consistent even in his masterpieces: and in them prosaic, sluggish and awkward verse suddenly hurts the ear. Among the poets of the “civil” movement there are poets who are much higher than N. in technique: Pleshcheev is elegant, Minaev is a downright virtuoso of verse. But it is precisely the comparison with these poets, who were not inferior to N. in “liberalism,” that shows that the secret of the enormous, hitherto unprecedented influence that N.’s poetry had on a number of Russian generations is not in civic feelings alone. Its source is that, not always achieving external manifestations of artistry, N. is not inferior to any of the greatest artists of the Russian word in strength. No matter which way you approach N., he never leaves you indifferent and always excites. And if we understand “art” as the sum of impressions leading to the final effect, then N. is a profound artist: he expressed the mood of one of the most remarkable moments of Russian historical life. The main source of strength achieved by N. lies precisely in the fact that his opponents, taking a narrow aesthetic point of view, especially reproached him for his “one-sidedness.” Only this one-sidedness was in complete harmony with the tune of the “unkind and sad” muse, to whose voice N. listened from the first moments of his conscious existence. All people of the forties were, to a greater or lesser extent, mourners of the people's grief; but the brush painted them softly, and when the spirit of the time declared a merciless war on the old order of life, N was the only exponent of the new mood. He persistently, inexorably hits the same point, not wanting to know any mitigating circumstances. The muse of “revenge and sorrow” does not enter into transactions; she remembers the old lies too well. Let the viewer's heart be filled with horror - this is a beneficial feeling: from it came all the victories of the humiliated and insulted. N. does not give his reader a rest, does not spare his nerves and, without fear of accusations of exaggeration, in the end he completely achieves active impression. This gives N.'s pessimism a very unique character. Despite the fact that most of his works are full of the most bleak pictures of people's grief, the main impression that N. leaves in his reader is undoubtedly invigorating. The poet does not give in to sad reality, does not bow his neck obediently before it. He boldly enters into battle with the dark forces and is confident of victory. Reading N. awakens that anger that carries within itself the seed of healing.

However, the entire content of N.’s poetry is not exhausted by the sounds of revenge and sadness about the people’s grief. If there can be a dispute about the poetic meaning of N.’s “civil” poems, then the disagreements are significantly smoothed out and sometimes even disappear when it comes to N. as an epic and lyrics. N.’s first major poem, “Sasha,” which opens with a magnificent lyrical introduction - a song of joy about returning to one’s homeland, belongs to the best images of the people of the 40s, consumed by reflection, people who “scour the world, looking for gigantic things to do for themselves.” , fortunately, the inheritance of rich fathers freed them from small labors,” for whom “love worries their heads more than blood,” for whom “what the last book says will lie on top of their souls.” Written earlier than Turgenevsky's "Rudina", Nekrasovskaya's "Sasha" (1855), in the person of the hero of the poem Agarin, was the first to note many of the most essential features of the Rudinsky type. In the person of the heroine, Sasha, N., also earlier than Turgenev, brought out a nature striving for light, the main outlines of its psychology reminiscent of Elena from “On the Eve”. The poem "The Unfortunate" (1856) is scattered and motley, and therefore not clear enough in the first part; but in the second, where in the person of Krot N., who was exiled for an unusual crime, he, in part, brought out Dostoevsky, there are strong and expressive stanzas. "Peddlers" (1861) is not very serious in content, but is written in an original style, in the folk spirit. In 1863, the most consistent of all N.’s works appeared - “Red Nose Frost.” This is the apotheosis of the Russian peasant woman, in whom the author sees a disappearing type of “stately Slav woman.” The poem depicts only the bright sides of peasant nature, but still, thanks to the strict consistency of the stately style, there is nothing sentimental in it. The second part is especially good - Daria in the forest. Voivode Frost's patrolling, the young woman's gradual freezing, the bright pictures of past happiness flashing before her - all this is excellent even from the point of view of "aesthetic" criticism, because it is written in magnificent poetry and because all the images, all the paintings are here. In general terms, “Red Nose Frost” is closely related to the previously written charming idyll “Peasant Children” (1861). The fierce singer of grief and suffering was completely transformed, becoming surprisingly gentle, soft, and kind, as soon as it came to women and children. The latest folk epic of N. - the huge poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” (1873-76), written in an extremely original size, could not have been completely successful for the author due to its size alone (about 5000 verses). There is a lot of buffoonery in it, a lot of anti-artistic exaggeration and thickening of colors, but there are also many places of amazing power and precision of expression. The best thing about the poem is the individual, occasionally inserted songs and ballads. The best, last part of the poem is especially rich in them - “A Feast for the Whole World”, ending with the famous words: “you and the poor, you and the abundant, you and the mighty, you and the powerless, Mother Rus'” and a cheerful exclamation: “in slavery the saved heart is free , gold, gold, people's heart." N.’s other poem, “Russian Women” (1871-72), is not entirely consistent, but its end—Volkonskaya’s meeting with her husband in the mine—belongs to the most touching scenes in all Russian literature.

N.'s lyricism arose on the fertile soil of the burning and strong passions that possessed him, and a sincere awareness of his moral imperfection. To a certain extent, it was his “guilts” that saved the living soul in N., which he often spoke about, turning to portraits of friends who “reproachfully looked at him from the walls.” His moral shortcomings gave him a living and immediate source of impetuous love and thirst for purification. The power of N.’s calls is psychologically explained by the fact that he acted in moments of sincere repentance. In none of our writers has repentance played such a prominent role as in U.N. He is the only Russian poet who has developed this purely Russian trait. Who forced this “practitioner” to speak with such force about his moral failures, why was it necessary to expose himself from such an unfavorable side and indirectly confirm gossip and tales? But obviously it was stronger than him. The poet defeated the practical man; he felt that repentance brought forth the best pearls from the bottom of his soul and gave himself entirely to the impulse of his soul. But N. owes his best work to repentance - “A Knight for an Hour,” which alone would be enough to create a first-class poetic reputation. And the famous “Vlas” also came out of a mood that deeply felt the cleansing power of repentance. This also includes the magnificent poem “When out of the darkness of delusion I called out to a fallen soul,” about which even such critics, who had little sympathy for N., such as Almazov and Apollo Grigoriev, spoke with delight. The strength of feeling gives lasting interest to N.'s lyric poems - and these poems, along with poems, provide him with a primary place in Russian literature for a long time. His accusatory satires are now outdated, but from N.’s lyric poems and poems one can compose a volume of high literary merit, the meaning of which will not die as long as the Russian language lives.

After his death, N.'s poems went through 6 editions, 10 and 15 thousand copies each. About him cf. "Russian Library", ed. M. M. Stasyulevich (issue VII, St. Petersburg, 1877); "Collection of articles dedicated to the memory of N." (SPb., 1878); Zelinsky, "Collection of critical articles about N." (M., 1886-91); Evg. Markov in "Voice" 1878, No. 42-89; K. Arsenyev, "Critical Studies"; A. Golubev, “N. A. Nekrasov” (St. Petersburg, 1878); G. Z. Eliseev in "Russian Wealth" 1893, No. 9; Antonovich, “Materials for characterizing Russian literature” (St. Petersburg, 1868); him, in “The Word”, 1878, No. 2; Skabichevsky, in "Notes of the Fatherland", 1878, No. 6; White-headed, in "Notes of the Fatherland", 1878, No. 10; Gorlenko, in "Notes of the Fatherland", 1878, No. 12 ("Literary debuts of N."); S. Andreevsky, "Literary Readings" (St. Petersburg, 1893).

S. Vengerov.

(Brockhaus)

Nekrasov, Nikolai Alekseevich

The most prominent Russian revolutionary-democratic poet. Genus. December 4, 1821 in the family of a wealthy landowner. He spent his childhood in the Greshnevo estate in Yaroslavl province. in an extremely difficult situation of the father’s brutal reprisals against the peasants, his stormy orgies with his serf mistresses and the brazen mockery of his “recluse” wife. At the age of 11, N. was sent to the Yaroslavl gymnasium, where he did not complete the course. At the insistence of his father, he went to St. Petersburg in 1838 to enlist in military service, but instead got a job as a volunteer at the university. The enraged father stopped providing him with financial support, and N. had to endure a painful struggle with poverty for a number of years. Already at this time, N. was attracted to literature, and in 1840, with the support of some St. Petersburg acquaintances, he published a book of his poems entitled “Dreams and Sounds,” replete with imitations of Zhukovsky, Benediktov, etc. Young Nekrasov soon left lyrical experiments in the spirit of romantic epigonism turned to humorous genres: poems full of undemanding jokes ("Provincial Clerk in St. Petersburg"), vaudeville ("Feoktist Onufrievich Bob", "This is what it means to fall in love with an actress"), melodramas ("A Mother's Blessing, or Poverty and Honor"), stories about petty St. Petersburg officials (“Makar Osipovich Random”), etc. The first publishing enterprises of N. date back to 1843-1845 - “Physiology of St. Petersburg,” “Petersburg Collection,” the humorous almanac “First of April,” etc. In 1842, N.’s rapprochement took place. with the Belinsky circle, which had a huge ideological influence on the young poet. The great critic highly valued his poems “On the Road”, “Motherland” and others for tearing away the romantic flair from village and estate reality. Since 1847, N. was already a tenant of the Sovremennik magazine, where Belinsky also moved from Otechestvennye Zapiski. By the mid-50s. Sovremennik won the enormous sympathy of the reading public; simultaneously with the growth of his popularity, the poetic fame of N. himself grew. In the second half of the 50s. N. became close to the most prominent representatives of revolutionary democracy - Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov.

The aggravated class contradictions could not help but affect the magazine: the editorial board of Sovremennik was actually split into two groups: one represented the liberal nobility led by Turgenev, L. Tolstoy and the big bourgeoisie Vas who joined them. Botkin - a movement that advocated for moderate realism, for the aesthetic "Pushkin" principle in literature as opposed to the satirical - "Gogolian" principle, promoted by the democratic part of the Russian "natural school" of the 40s. These literary differences reflected the differences between his two opponents, which deepened as serfdom fell - the bourgeois-noble liberals, who sought to prevent the threat of a peasant revolution through serfdom reforms, and the democrats, who fought for the complete elimination of the feudal-serf system.

In the early sixties, the antagonism of these two movements in the magazine (more about this cm. article " Contemporary") reached its utmost severity. In the split that occurred, N. remained with the “revolutionary commoners,” ideologists of peasant democracy who fought for the revolution, for the “American” type of development of capitalism in Russia and who sought to make the magazine the legal basis for their ideas. It is from this period of the highest political rise of the movement that such works by Nekrasov as “The Poet and the Citizen”, “Reflections at the Front Entrance” and “The Railway” belong. However, the beginning of the 60s. brought new blows to Nekrasov - Dobrolyubov died, Chernyshevsky and Mikhailov were exiled to Siberia. In the era of student unrest, riots of peasants liberated from the land and the Polish uprising, the “first warning” was announced to N.’s magazine, the publication of Sovremennik was suspended, and in 1866, after Karakozov shot Alexander II, the magazine was closed forever. One of the most painful episodes of N.’s social biography is connected with the last date - his laudatory ode to Muravyov the hangman, read by the poet at the aristocratic English Club in the hope of softening the dictator and preventing the blow. As one would expect, N.’s sabotage was unsuccessful and brought him nothing but furious accusations of renegade and bitter self-flagellation: “The enemy rejoices, Yesterday’s friend is silent in bewilderment, shaking his head. Both you and you recoiled in embarrassment, Standing invariably before by me, Great suffering shadows..."

Two years after the closure of Sovremennik, N. rented Domestic Notes from Kraevsky ( cm.) and made them a militant organ of revolutionary populism. Such works of N. of the 70s as the poems “Grandfather”, “Decembrists” (due to censorship reasons called “Russian Women”) and especially the unfinished poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, in the last chapter of which are aimed at glorifying the latter, are also aimed at glorifying the latter. The son of a rural sexton, Grisha Dobrosklonov, acts: “Fate had prepared for him a glorious Path, a great name for the People’s Intercessor, Consumption and Siberia.”

An incurable disease - rectal cancer, which confined N. to bed for the last two years of his life, led him to his death on December 27, 1877. N.'s funeral, which attracted many people, was accompanied by a literary and political demonstration: a crowd of young people did not allow Dostoevsky, who had given N. third place in Russian poetry after Pushkin and Lermontov, to speak, interrupting him with shouts of “Higher, higher than Pushkin!” Representatives of “Land and Freedom” and other revolutionary organizations took part in N.’s burial, laying a wreath with the inscription “From the Socialists” on the poet’s coffin.

The Marxist study of Nekrasov’s work was for a long time headed by an article about him by G. V. Plekhanov (see volume X of his works), written by the latter on the 25th anniversary of the poet’s death, in 1902. It would be unfair to deny the major role played by this article played a role in its time. Plekhanov drew a sharp line between N. and noble writers and sharply emphasized the revolutionary function of his poetry. But recognition of historical merits does not exempt Plekhanov’s article from a number of major shortcomings, the overcoming of which at the current stage of Marxist-Leninist literary criticism is especially important. By declaring N. a “poet-commoner,” Plekhanov did not differentiate this sociologically vague term in any way and, most importantly, isolated N. from that phalanx of ideologists of peasant democracy with which the author of “The Railway” was so closely and organically connected.

This gap is due to Plekhanov’s Menshevik disbelief in the revolutionary nature of the Russian peasantry and a misunderstanding of the connection between the revolutionary commoners of the 60s. and a small commodity producer, which he so persistently pointed out already in the 90s. Lenin. Plekhanov’s article is also less satisfactory in terms of artistic assessment: N.’s work, which represents a new quality in Russian poetry, is criticized by Plekhanov from the standpoint of the very noble aesthetics with which N. fought fiercely. Standing on this fundamentally vicious position, Plekhanov looks for N.’s numerous “errors” against the laws of artistry, blaming him for the “unfinished” and “clumsiness” of his poetic manner. And finally, Plekhanov’s assessment does not give an idea of ​​​​the dialectical complexity of Nekrasov’s creativity, does not reveal the internal contradictions of the latter. The task of modern N. researchers, therefore, is to overcome the remnants of Plekhanov’s views that still persist in the literature about N. and to study his work from the standpoint of Marxism-Leninism.

In his work, N. sharply broke with the idealization of “noble nests”, so characteristic of “Eugene Onegin”, “The Captain's Daughter”, “Fathers and Sons”, “Childhood, Adolescence and Youth”. "Family Chronicle". The authors of these works more than once witnessed the gross violence against the personality of the serf peasants raging in the estate, and nevertheless, due to their class nature, they all passed by these negative aspects of landowner life, chanting what, in their opinion, was positive and progressive. In N.’s case, these loving and elegiac sketches of noble estates gave way to a merciless exposure: “And here they are again, familiar places, Where the life of my fathers is barren and empty, Flowed among feasts, senseless arrogance, The depravity of dirty and petty tyranny, Where a swarm of suppressed and tremulous slaves Envyed the lives of the last master's dogs..." N. is not only rejected, but also the illusion of love of serfs for their owners, traditional for all noble literature, is exposed: "dirty and petty tyranny" is opposed here by "depressed and trembling slaves." And even from the landscape, from the more than once glorified beauties of N.’s estate nature, the poetic veil was torn away: “And with disgust, casting my gaze around, With joy I see that the dark forest has been cut down, In the languid summer heat there is protection and coolness, And the field is scorched and slumbers idly the herd, Hanging its head over the dried-up stream, And the empty and gloomy house is falling on its side...” So already in the early poem “Motherland” one can hear that hatred of serfdom, which then passed through all the poet’s work. The landowners depicted by N. have nothing in common with the dreamy and beautiful-hearted heroes of liberal literature. These are tyrants poisoning peasant cattle (“Hound Hunt”), these are libertines who shamelessly exercise their right of the first night (“Excerpts from the travel notes of Count Garansky,” 1853), these are willful slave owners who do not tolerate contradictions in anyone: “ The law is my desire, - the landowner Obolt-Obolduev proudly announces to the peasants he meets, - the fist is my police! A spark-sprinkling blow, a teeth-crushing blow, a blow to the cheekbones" ("Who Lives Well in Rus'", chapter "Landowner").

“The terrible spectacle of a country where people traffic in people,” which Belinsky mentioned in his wonderful letter to Gogol, is N.’s spectacle unfolded into the broadest narrative canvas. The verdict on the feudal-serf system, pronounced by the poet in the poem “Grandfather”, in “The Last One” and in many small poems, is decisive and merciless.

But if the break with serfdom was clearly reflected in the work of young N., then his attitude towards noble liberalism was much more complex and contradictory. It is necessary to remember here that the era of the 40s, when N. began his creative career, was characterized by insufficient demarcation between democrats and liberals. The serfs were still strong and suppressed any attempts to replace their dominance with a new system of relations. The path of the democrats at that time was not yet completely independent. Belinsky did not yet have his own journal; his path was still close to the path of Turgenev and Goncharov, with whom the ideological successors of Belinsky’s work subsequently diverged. On the pages of Sovremennik, future enemies were still neighbors with each other, and it was quite natural that with this proximity of roads, democrats should from time to time have liberal assessments of reality. They naturally arose at that time in Nekrasov as well. Having broken with serfdom, he did not immediately get rid of the remnants of the liberal-noble ideology, which, as we will see below, was nourished in him by the entire balance of class forces in that era. In N.'s work, the process of transition of the declassed nobility to the camp of ideologists of peasant democracy finds expression. N.’s departure from the estate and his break with his father cannot be considered facts of his personal biography - here the process of economic “washing out” and political withdrawal of certain groups of the nobility from their class undoubtedly received its particular expression. “In those periods when the class struggle is nearing its denouement, the process of disintegration among the ruling class within the entire old society takes on such a sharp character that a certain part of the ruling class separates from it and joins the revolutionary class bearing the banner of the future.” This provision of the Communist Manifesto undoubtedly clarifies N.'s social path to the ideologists of the revolutionary peasantry. This path very quickly led Nekrasov to the democrat camp. But this camp itself was in the 40-50s. has not yet sufficiently isolated himself from the liberal-noble camp. Hence N.’s temporary connection with these fellow travelers, with the liberals who fought to replace feudalism with capitalism. This insufficient demarcation of the two camps complicated N.'s creative path with hesitations and rudiments of liberal-noble reactions, which were especially strong in the first period of his work.

It is from these “residual” sentiments that it arises that N. intertwined confessions that complicate it into exposing the slave-owning nature of the noble estate. In this estate “I learned to endure and hate, but hatred was shamefully hidden in my soul”, there “sometimes I was a landowner”, there “blessed peace flew away from my soul, which was prematurely corrupted, so early.” This recognition of "Motherland" can be confirmed by similar recognitions in the poem "In the Unknown Wilderness". It goes without saying that N. was not one bit inclined to soften his sentence on the serfdom system; but in that era, when the Democrats were still very weak as an independent group, the liberals still played some progressive role. That is why Nekrasov’s preaching of new democracies. relations are often complicated by liberal fluctuations. In the poem "Sasha"; Efremin A., The struggle for Nekrasov, “Literature and Marxism”, 1930, II; The life and adventures of Tikhon Trostnikov, GIHL, M. - L., 1931 . Letters from Nekrasov: Archive of the village of Karabikhi. Letters from N.A. Nekrasov and to Nekrasov, compiled by N. Ashukin, M., 1916; Nekrasov collection, ed. V. Evgenieva-Maksimova and N. Piksanova, P., 1918. Nekrasov’s letters, scattered across a number of periodicals, are collected in volume V of Nekrasov’s Collected Works, ed. V. E. Evgenieva-Maksimova, Giza, Moscow-Leningrad, 1930.

II. Nekrasov in memoir literature: Kovalevsky P., Meetings on the path of life, N. A. Nekrasov, “Russian Antiquity”, 1910, I; Kolbasin E., Shadows of the old “Sovremennik”, “Sovremennik”, 1911, VIII; Vetrinsky Ch., N. A. Nekrasov in the memoirs of contemporaries, letters and uncollected works, Moscow, 1911; Koni A., Nekrasov, Dostoevsky from personal memoirs, P., 1921; Figner V.N., Student years, “The Voice of the Past,” 1923, I (and in “Collected Works,” vol. V, M., 1929); Panaeva A., Memoirs, "Academia", L., 1927; Deitch L., Nekrasov and the seventies, “Proletarian Revolution”, 1921, III; Annenkova P.V., Literary memoirs, "Academia", L., 1928; Grigorovich D., Literary memoirs, "Academia", L., 1928; Bykov P.V., My memories of N.A. Nekrasov, collection. "Proletarian Writers to Nekrasov", M. - L., 1928; Nekrasov in memoirs and documents, "Academia", M., 1929. Nekrasov as a journalist: Materials for characterizing modern Russian literature, St. Petersburg, 1869; Lyatsky E., N. G. Chernyshevsky as revised by Sovremennik, Sovremennik, 1911, IX - XI; Belchikov N. and Pereselenko in S., N. A. Nekrasov and censorship, "Red Archive", 1922, I; Evgeniev-Maksimov V., Essays on the history of socialist journalism in Russia in the 19th century, Guise, L., 1929. Literature about Nekrasov of pre-Marxist trends (excluding his poetics): Dostoevsky F., Diary of a Writer, 1877, December; Wed also 1876, January, and 1877, January; Arsenyev K., Critical Studies, vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1888; Pypin A., Nekrasov, St. Petersburg, 1905; Maksimov V. (V. Evgeniev), Literary debuts of Nekrasov, vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1908; Gornfeld A., Russian women of Nekrasov in a new light, collection. Art. "On Russian Writers", vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1912; Chukovsky K., Nekrasov and the modernists, collection of articles. Art. "Faces and masks." P., 1914; Merezhkovsky D., Two secrets of Russian poetry - Nekrasov and Tyutchev, M., 1915; Rozanov I. N., N. A. Nekrasov, Life and Fate, P., 1924; Evgeniev-Maksimov V., N. A. Nekrasov and his contemporaries, L., 1930; Him, Nekrasov as a person, journalist and poet, Guise, M. - L., 1930. Poetics of Nekrasov: Andreevsky S., Nekrasov, in collection. Art. "Literary Essays", ed. 3rd, St. Petersburg, 1902; Slonimsky A., Nekrasov and Mayakovsky (to the poetics of Nekrasov), “Book and Revolution”, 1921, No. 2 (14); Tynyanov Yu., Nekrasov’s verse forms, “Chronicle of the House of Writers”, 1921, IV, and in collection. Art. "Archaists and Innovators", Leningrad, 1929; Sakulin P.N., Nekrasov, M., 1922; Eikhenbaum B., Nekrasov, “The Beginning”, 1922, II, and in collection. "Through Literature", Leningrad, 1924; Chukovsky K., Nekrasov, Articles and materials, ed. Kubuch, L., 1926; Him, Stories about Nekrasov, L., 1930; Shuvalov S., Comparisons of Nekrasov in the book “Seven Poets”, M., 1927 (all these works suffer from formalism); Ashukin N. S., How Nekrasov worked, M., 1933. Marxist criticism about Nekrasov: Lenin V. I., Collection. works, ed. 1st, vol. XII, part 1, Guise, 1926; ed. 3rd, vol. XVI, etc. (see index of names); Polyansky V. (P. Lebedev), N. A. Nekrasov, Guise, M., 1921, ed. 2nd, M., 1925; Pokrovsky M.N., Nekrasov, Pravda, 1921, No. 275; Kamenev L., Severe tunes (In memory of N. Nekrasov), M., 1922; Lunacharsky A., Literary silhouettes, M., 1923 (articles “N. A. Nekrasov”, “Pushkin and Nekrasov”); Plekhanov G., N. A. Nekrasov, Works, vol. X, M., 1926; Kamegulov A., Labor and capital in the work of Nekrasov, collection. "Proletarian Writers to Nekrasov", M., 1928; Lelevich G., Poetry of revolutionary commoners, M., 1931; Gorbachev G., The heroic era in the history of the democratic intelligentsia and Nekrasov, ch. in the book "Capitalism and Russian Literature", Guise, M. - L., 1925 (last edition, 1930). The latest work is based on an anti-Leninist understanding of the Russian historical process. Nekrasov in the history of Russian literature. Oksenov I., Nekrasov and Blok, Nekrasov, memo, Giza, P., 1921; Rashkovskaya A., Nekrasov and the Symbolists, "Bulletin of Literature", 1921, No. 12 (36); Libedinsky Yu., Under the sign of Nekrasov, “At the literary post”, 1927, No. 2-3; Peasant writers about Nekrasov, “Zhernov”, 1927, No. 7 (18). Collections of critical literature about Nekrasov: Zelinsky V., Collection of critical articles about Nekrasov, 3 parts, M., 1887-18U7 (2nd ed., M., 1903-1905); Pokrovsky V., Nekrasov, his life and works, Sat. historical and literary articles, ed. 2nd, M., 1915; N. A. Nekrasov, Sat. articles, ed. "Nikitinsky Subbotniks", M., 1929.

III. Golubev A.. N.A. Nekrasov, St. Petersburg, 1878 (there is also an index of magazine and newspaper literature about Nekrasov for 1840-1878, compiled by S. Ponomarev); Mezier A. V., Russian literature from the 11th to the 19th centuries. inclusive, part 2, St. Petersburg, 1902; Lobov L., Bibliographic review of the literature about Nekrasov, St. Petersburg, 1903; Chernyshov, Nekrasov in life and after death, St. Petersburg, 1908; Vengerov S. A., Sources of the dictionary of Russian writers, vol. IV, P., 1917; Belchikov N.F., Literature about Nekrasov during the years of the revolution, M., 1929. See also general indexes by I.V. Vladislavlev and R.S. Mandelstam.

A. Tseytlin.

(Lit. enc.)

Large biographical encyclopedia. 2009 .

• - Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov. NEKRASOV Nikolai Alekseevich (1821 1877/78), Russian poet. In 1847 66 editor and publisher of the Sovremennik magazine; from 1868 editor (together with M.E. Saltykov) of the journal Otechestvennye zapiski. In the depiction of everyday... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

Famous poet. He came from a noble, once rich family. Born on November 22, 1821 in Vinnitsa district, Podolsk province, where at that time the regiment in which Nekrasov’s father served was stationed. Alexey is an enthusiastic and passionate person... ... Biographical Dictionary

Russian poet, literary figure. N.'s childhood years were spent in the village. Greshnevo (now the village of Nekrasovo) near Yaroslavl, on his father’s estate. Here he got to know... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

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