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Biography of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov
The talented Russian writer Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov was born on November 28, 1821 in the small town of Nemirovo, Podolsk province, into the large family of the impoverished nobleman Alexei Sergeevich Nekrasov. My father was a lieutenant in the Jaeger regiment in Nemirov. His mother is Alexandra Andreevna Zakrevskaya, who fell in love with him against the will of her wealthy parents. The marriage took place without their blessing. But contrary to the expectations of Nekrasov’s wife, the couple’s family life was unhappy. The poet's father was distinguished by his despotism towards his wife and thirteen children. He had many addictions, which led to the impoverishment of the family and the need to move to the village of Greshneva, his father’s family estate, in 1824, where the future prose writer and publicist spent his unhappy childhood.
At the age of ten, Nikolai Alekseevich entered the Yaroslavl gymnasium. During this period, he was just beginning to write his first works. However, due to low academic performance, conflicts with the leadership of the gymnasium, who did not like the poet’s satirical poems, and also because of the father’s desire to send his son to a military school, the boy studied for only five years.
By the will of his father, in 1838 Nekrasov came to St. Petersburg to join the local regiment. But under the influence of his gymnasium friend Glushitsky, he goes against his father’s will and applies for admission to St. Petersburg University. However, due to his constant search for sources of income, Nekrasov does not successfully pass the entrance exams. As a result, he began to attend classes at the Faculty of Philology, where he studied from 1839 to 1841.
All this time, Nekrasov was in search of at least some kind of income, since his father stopped giving him money. The aspiring poet took on the task of writing poorly paid fairy tales in verse and articles for various publications.
In the early 40s, Nekrasov managed to write short notes for the theater magazine "Pantheon..." and became an employee of the magazine "Otechestvennye Zapiski".
In 1843, Nekrasov became close to Belinsky, who highly appreciated his work and contributed to the discovery of his talent.
In 1845-1846, Nekrasov published two almanacs, “Petersburg Collection” and “Physiology of Petersburg”.
In 1847, thanks to his gift for writing excellent works, Nekrasov managed to become the editor and publisher of the Sovremennik magazine. Being a talented organizer, he managed to attract such writers as Herzen, Turgenev, Belinsky, Goncharov and others to the magazine.
At this time, Nekrasov’s work is imbued with compassion for the common people, most of his works are dedicated to the hard working life of people: “Peasant Children”, “Railway”, “Frost, Red Nose”, “Poet and Citizen”, “Peddlers”, “Reflections of "front entrance" and others. Analyzing the writer’s work, we can come to the conclusion that Nekrasov touched upon acute social problems in his poems. Also, the poet devoted a significant place in his works to the role of a woman, her difficult lot.
After the closure of Sovremennik in 1866, Nekrasov managed to rent Domestic Notes from Kraevsky, occupying a level no less high than Sovremennik.
The poet died on January 8, 1878 in St. Petersburg, having not overcome a long-term serious illness. Evidence of the great loss of such a talented person was the manifesto of several thousand people who came to say goodbye to Nekrasov.
In addition to Nekrasov’s biography, also check out other materials:
- “It’s stuffy! Without happiness and will...", analysis of Nekrasov’s poem
- “Farewell”, analysis of Nekrasov’s poem
- “The heart breaks from torment,” analysis of Nekrasov’s poem
Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov was born into the family of an officer on November 28 (December 10), 1821. Two years after the birth of his son, the father retired and settled on his estate in the village of Greshnevo. Childhood years left difficult memories in the poet’s soul. And this was connected primarily with the despotic character of his father, Alexei Sergeevich. Nekrasov studied at the Yaroslavl gymnasium for several years. In 1838, following the will of his father, he left for St. Petersburg to join the Noble Regiment: the retired major wanted to see his son as an officer. But, once in St. Petersburg, Nekrasov violates his father’s will and tries to enter the university. The punishment followed was very severe: the father refused to provide financial assistance to his son, and Nekrasov had to earn his own living. The difficulty was that Nekrasov’s preparation turned out to be insufficient for entering the university. The future poet's dream of becoming a student never came true.
Nekrasov became a literary day laborer: he wrote articles for newspapers and magazines, occasional poetry, vaudeville for the theater, feuilletons - everything that was in great demand. This gave me little money, clearly not enough to live on. Much later, in their memoirs, his contemporaries would draw a memorable portrait of young Nekrasov, “trembling in deep autumn in a light coat and unreliable boots, even in a straw hat from the flea market.” The difficult years of his youth later affected the writer’s health. But the need to earn my own living turned out to be the strongest impulse towards the writing field. Much later, in autobiographical notes, he recalled the first years of his life in the capital: “It is incomprehensible to the mind how much I worked, I believe I will not exaggerate if I say that in a few years I completed up to two hundred printed sheets of magazine work.” Nekrasov writes mainly prose: novellas, short stories, feuilletons. His dramatic experiments, primarily vaudeville, date back to the same years.
The romantic soul of the young man, all his romantic impulses were echoed in a poetry collection with the characteristic title “Dreams and Sounds.” It was published in 1840, but did not bring the young author the expected fame. Belinsky wrote a negative review of it, and this was a death sentence for the young author. “You see from his poems,” Belinsky asserted, “that he has both soul and feeling, but at the same time you see that they remained in the author, and only abstract thoughts, commonplaces, correctness, smoothness passed into poetry , and - boredom." Nekrasov bought up most of the publication and destroyed it.
Two more years passed, and the poet and critic met. Over these two years, Nekrasov has changed. I.I. Panaev, the future co-editor of Sovremennik magazine, believed that Belinsky was attracted to Nekrasov by his “sharp, somewhat bitter mind.” He fell in love with the poet “for the suffering that he experienced so early, seeking a piece of daily bread, and for that bold practical look beyond his years that he brought out of his toiling and suffering life - and which Belinsky was always painfully envious of.” Belinsky's influence was enormous. One of the poet’s contemporaries, P.V. Annenkov wrote: “In 1843, I saw how Belinsky set to work on him, revealing to him the essence of his own nature and its strength, and how the poet obediently listened to him, saying: “Belinsky is turning me from a literary vagabond into a nobleman.”
But it’s not just about the writer’s own quest, his own development. Beginning in 1843, Nekrasov also acted as a publisher; he played a very important role in uniting writers of the Gogol school. Nekrasov initiated the publication of several almanacs, the most famous of which is “Physiology of St. Petersburg” (1844-1845), “almost the best of all the almanacs that have ever been published,” according to Belinsky. In two parts of the almanac, four articles by Belinsky, an essay and a poem by Nekrasov, works by Grigorovich, Panaev, Grebenka, Dahl (Lugansky) and others were published. But Nekrasov achieves even greater success both as a publisher and as the author of another almanac he published - “The Petersburg Collection "(1846). Belinsky and Herzen, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Odoevsky took part in the collection. Nekrasov included a number of poems in it, including the immediately famous “On the Road.”
The “unprecedented success” (to use Belinsky’s words) of the publications undertaken by Nekrasov inspired the writer to implement a new idea - to publish a magazine. From 1847 to 1866, Nekrasov edited the Sovremennik magazine, the importance of which in the history of Russian literature is difficult to overestimate. On its pages appeared works by Herzen (“Who is to Blame?”, “The Thieving Magpie”), I. Goncharov (“Ordinary History”), stories from the series “Notes of a Hunter” by I. Turgenev, stories by L. Tolstoy, and articles by Belinsky. Under the auspices of Sovremennik, the first collection of Tyutchev's poems is published, first as a supplement to the magazine, then as a separate publication. During these years, Nekrasov also acted as a prose writer, novelist, author of the novels “Three Countries of the World” and “Dead Lake” (written in collaboration with A.Ya. Panaeva), “The Thin Man”, and a number of stories.
In 1856, Nekrasov’s health deteriorated sharply, and he was forced to hand over the editing of the magazine to Chernyshevsky and go abroad. In the same year, the second collection of poems by Nekrasov was published, which was a tremendous success.
1860s belong to the most intense and intense years of Nekrasov’s creative and editorial activity. New co-editors come to Sovremennik - M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, M.A. Antonovich and others. The magazine conducts a fierce debate with the reactionary and liberal “Russian Messenger” and “Otechestvennye Zapiski”. During these years, Nekrasov wrote the poems “Peddlers” (1861), “Railway” (1864), “Frost, Red Nose” (1863), and began work on the epic poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”
The banning of Sovremennik in 1866 forced Nekrasov to temporarily abandon his editorial work. But after a year and a half, he managed to come to an agreement with the owner of the magazine “Otechestvennye zapiski” A.A. Kraevsky about transferring the editorial office of this magazine into his hands. During the years of editing Otechestvennye Zapiski, Nekrasov attracted talented critics and prose writers to the magazine. In the 70s he creates the poems “Russian Women” (1871-1872), “Contemporaries” (1875), chapters from the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” (“The Last One,” “The Peasant Woman,” “A Feast for the Whole World”).
In 1877, the last lifetime collection of poems by Nekrasov was published. At the end of this year Nekrasov died.
In his heartfelt words about Nekrasov, Dostoevsky accurately and succinctly defined the pathos of his poetry: “It was a wounded heart, once for the rest of his life, and this wound that did not close was the source of all his poetry, all of this man’s passionate to the point of tormenting love for everything that suffers.” from violence, from the cruelty of unbridled will that oppresses our Russian woman, our child in a Russian family, our commoner in his bitter, so often, lot...,” F.M. said about Nekrasov. Dostoevsky. These words, indeed, contain a kind of key to understanding the artistic world of Nekrasov’s poetry, to the sound of its most intimate themes - the theme of the people’s fate, the future of the people, the theme of the purpose of poetry and the role of the artist.
Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov was born on November 28 (December 10), 1821 in the city of Nemirov, Podolsk province, into a wealthy landowner family. The writer spent his childhood years in the Yaroslavl province, the village of Greshnevo, on a family estate. The family was large - the future poet had 13 sisters and brothers.
At the age of 11, he entered the gymnasium, where he studied until the 5th grade. Young Nekrasov’s studies were not going well. It was during this period that Nekrasov began to write his first satirical poems and write them down in a notebook.
Education and the beginning of a creative path
The poet's father was cruel and despotic. He deprived Nekrasov of financial assistance when he did not want to enlist in military service. In 1838, Nekrasov’s biography included a move to St. Petersburg, where he entered the university’s Faculty of Philology as a volunteer student. In order not to die of hunger, experiencing a great need for money, he finds part-time work, gives lessons and writes poetry to order.
During this period, he met the critic Belinsky, who would later have a strong ideological influence on the writer. At the age of 26, Nekrasov, together with the writer Panaev, bought the Sovremennik magazine. The magazine quickly became popular and had significant influence in society. In 1862, the government banned its publication.
Literary activity
Having accumulated enough funds, Nekrasov published his debut collection of poems, “Dreams and Sounds” (1840), which failed. Vasily Zhukovsky advised that most of the poems in this collection should be published without the name of the author. After this, Nikolai Nekrasov decides to move away from poetry and take up prose, writing novellas and short stories. The writer is also engaged in the publication of some almanacs, in one of which Fyodor Dostoevsky made his debut. The most successful almanac was the “Petersburg Collection” (1846).
From 1847 to 1866 he was the publisher and editor of the Sovremennik magazine, which employed the best writers of that time. The magazine was a hotbed of revolutionary democracy. While working at Sovremennik, Nekrasov published several collections of his poems. His works “Peasant Children” and “Peddlers” brought him wide fame.
On the pages of the Sovremennik magazine, such talents as Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov, Alexander Herzen, Dmitry Grigorovich and others were discovered. The already famous Alexander Ostrovsky, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Gleb Uspensky were published in it. Thanks to Nikolai Nekrasov and his magazine, Russian literature learned the names of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy.
In the 1840s, Nekrasov collaborated with the magazine Otechestvennye zapiski, and in 1868, after the closure of the Sovremennik magazine, he rented it from the publisher Kraevsky. The last ten years of the writer’s life were associated with this magazine. At this time, Nekrasov wrote the epic poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” (1866-1876), as well as “Russian Women” (1871-1872), “Grandfather” (1870) - poems about the Decembrists and their wives, and some other satirical works , the pinnacle of which was the poem “Contemporaries” (1875).
Nekrasov wrote about the suffering and grief of the Russian people, about the difficult life of the peasantry. He also introduced a lot of new things into Russian literature, in particular, he used simple Russian colloquial speech in his works. This undoubtedly showed the richness of the Russian language, which came from the people. In his poems, he first began to combine satire, lyricism and elegiac motifs. Briefly speaking, the poet’s work made an invaluable contribution to the development of Russian classical poetry and literature in general.
Personal life
The poet had several love affairs in his life: with the owner of the literary salon Avdotya Panaeva, the Frenchwoman Selina Lefren, and the village girl Fyokla Viktorova.
One of the most beautiful women in St. Petersburg and the wife of the writer Ivan Panaev, Avdotya Panaeva, was liked by many men, and the young Nekrasov had to make a lot of effort to win her attention. Finally, they confess their love to each other and begin to live together. After the early death of their common son, Avdotya leaves Nekrasov. And he leaves for Paris with the French theater actress Selina Lefren, whom he had known since 1863. She remains in Paris, and Nekrasov returns to Russia. However, their romance continues at a distance. Later, he meets a simple and uneducated girl from the village - Fyokla (Nekrasov gives her the name Zina), with whom they later got married.
Nekrasov had many affairs, but the main woman in Nikolai Nekrasov’s biography was not his legal wife, but Avdotya Yakovlevna Panaeva, whom he loved all his life.
last years of life
In 1875, the poet was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. In the painful years before his death, he wrote “Last Songs” - a cycle of poems that the poet dedicated to his wife and last love, Zinaida Nikolaevna Nekrasova. The writer died on December 27, 1877 (January 8, 1878) and was buried in St. Petersburg at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Chronological table
- The writer did not like some of his own works, and he asked not to include them in collections. But friends and publishers urged Nekrasov not to exclude any of them. Perhaps this is why the attitude towards his work among critics is very contradictory - not everyone considered his works to be brilliant.
- Nekrasov was fond of playing cards, and quite often he was lucky in this matter. Once, while playing for money with A. Chuzhbinsky, Nikolai Alekseevich lost a large sum of money to him. As it turned out later, the cards were marked with the enemy's long fingernail. After this incident, Nekrasov decided to no longer play with people who have long nails.
- Another passionate hobby of the writer was hunting. Nekrasov loved to go bear hunting and hunt game. This hobby found a response in some of his works (“Peddlers”, “Dog Hunt”, etc.) One day, Nekrasov’s wife, Zina, accidentally shot his beloved dog during a hunt. At the same time, Nikolai Alekseevich’s passion for hunting came to an end.
- A huge number of people gathered at Nekrasov’s funeral. In his speech, Dostoevsky awarded Nekrasov third place in Russian poetry after
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 which 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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Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov. Born on November 28 (December 10), 1821 in Nemirov, Podolsk province - died on December 27, 1877 (January 8, 1878) in St. Petersburg. Russian poet, writer and publicist, classic of Russian literature. From 1847 to 1866 - head of the literary and socio-political magazine Sovremennik, from 1868 - editor of the magazine Otechestvennye zapiski.
He is best known for such works as the epic poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” the poems “Frost, Red Nose,” “Russian Women,” and the poem “Grandfather Mazai and the Hares.” His poems were devoted mainly to the suffering of the people, the idyll and tragedy of the peasantry. Nekrasov introduced the richness of the folk language and folklore into Russian poetry, making extensive use of prosaisms and speech patterns of the common people in his works - from everyday to journalistic, from vernacular to poetic vocabulary, from oratorical to parody-satirical style. Using colloquial speech and folk phraseology, he significantly expanded the range of Russian poetry. Nekrasov was the first to decide on a bold combination of elegiac, lyrical and satirical motifs within one poem, which had not been practiced before. His poetry had a beneficial influence on the subsequent development of Russian classical and later Soviet poetry.
Nikolai Nekrasov came from a noble, once rich family from the Yaroslavl province. Born in the Vinnitsa district of the Podolsk province in the city of Nemirov. There at that time the regiment in which his father served, lieutenant and wealthy landowner Alexei Sergeevich Nekrasov (1788-1862), was quartered. The Nekrasov family weakness did not escape him - the love of cards ( Sergei Alekseevich Nekrasov (1746-1807), the poet’s grandfather, lost almost his entire fortune at cards).
Alexei Sergeevich fell in love with Elena Andreevna Zakrevskaya (1801-1841), the beautiful and educated daughter of a wealthy possessor of the Kherson province, whom the poet considered Polish. Elena Zakrevskaya's parents did not agree to marry their well-bred daughter to a poor and poorly educated army officer, which forced Elena to marry without the consent of her parents in 1817. However, this marriage was not happy.
Remembering his childhood, the poet always spoke of his mother as a sufferer, a victim of a rough and depraved environment. He dedicated a number of poems to his mother - “Last Songs”, the poem “Mother”, “Knight for an Hour”, in which he painted a bright image of the one who brightened up the unattractive environment of his childhood with her nobility. Warm memories of his mother affected Nekrasov’s work, appearing in his works about women’s lot. The very idea of motherhood will appear later in his textbook works - the chapter “Peasant Woman” in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, the poem “Orina, the Soldier’s Mother”. The image of the mother is the main positive hero of Nekrasov’s poetic world. However, his poetry will also contain images of other relatives - his father and sister. The father will act as the despot of the family, an unbridled savage landowner. And a sister, on the contrary, is like a gentle friend, whose fate is similar to the fate of a mother. However, these images will not be as bright as the image of the mother.
Nekrasov spent his childhood on the Nekrasov family estate, in the village of Greshnevo, Yaroslavl province, in the district where his father Alexey Sergeevich Nekrasov, having retired, moved when Nikolai was 3 years old.
The boy grew up in a huge family (Nekrasov had 13 brothers and sisters), in a difficult situation of his father’s brutal reprisals against peasants, his stormy orgies with serf mistresses and a cruel attitude towards his “recluse” wife, the mother of the future poet. Neglected cases and a number of processes on the estate forced Nekrasov’s father to take the place of police officer. During his travels, he often took little Nikolai with him, and, while still a child, he often had the opportunity to see the dead, collecting arrears, etc., which became embedded in his soul in the form of sad pictures of people’s grief.
In 1832, at the age of 11, Nekrasov entered the Yaroslavl gymnasium, where he reached the 5th grade. He did not study well and did not get along very well with the gymnasium authorities (partly because of the satirical poems). At the Yaroslavl gymnasium, a 16-year-old boy began to write down his first poems in his home notebook. In his initial work one could trace the sad impressions of his early years, which to one degree or another colored the first period of his work.
His father always dreamed of a military career for his son, and in 1838, 17-year-old Nekrasov went to St. Petersburg to be assigned to a noble regiment.
However, Nekrasov met a gymnasium friend, a student of Glushitsky, and became acquainted with other students, after which he developed a passionate desire to study. He ignored his father’s threat to be left without any financial assistance and began to prepare for the entrance exam to St. Petersburg University. However, he failed the exam and entered the Faculty of Philology as a volunteer student.
From 1839 to 1841 he spent time at the university, but almost all of his time was spent searching for income, since his angry father stopped providing him with financial support. During these years, Nikolai Nekrasov suffered terrible poverty, not every day even having the opportunity to have a full lunch. He didn't always have an apartment either. For some time he rented a room from a soldier, but somehow he fell ill from prolonged starvation, owed the soldier a lot and, despite the November night, was left homeless. On the street, a passing beggar took pity on him and took him to one of the slums on the outskirts of the city. In this shelter, Nekrasov found a part-time job by writing to someone for 15 kopecks. petition. The terrible need only strengthened his character.
After several years of hardship, Nekrasov’s life began to improve. He began giving lessons and publishing short articles in the “Literary Supplement to the Russian Invalid” and the Literary Gazette. In addition, he composed ABCs and fairy tales in verse for popular print publishers, and wrote vaudevilles for the Alexandrinsky Theater (under the name of Perepelsky). Nekrasov became interested in literature. For several years he worked diligently on prose, poetry, vaudeville, journalism, criticism (“Lord, how much I worked!..”) - until the mid-1840s. His early poetry and prose were marked by romantic imitation and in many ways prepared the further development of Nekrasov's realistic method.
He began to have his own savings, and in 1840, with the support of some St. Petersburg acquaintances, he published a book of his poems entitled “Dreams and Sounds.” In the poems one could notice the imitation of Vasily Zhukovsky, Vladimir Benediktov and others. The collection consisted of pseudo-romantic imitative ballads with various “scary” titles like “Evil Spirit”, “Angel of Death”, “Raven”, etc.
Nekrasov took the book he was preparing to V.A. Zhukovsky to get his opinion. He singled out 2 poems as decent, the rest advised the young poet to publish without a name: “Later you will write better, and you will be ashamed of these poems.” Nekrasov hid behind the initials “N. N."
Literary critic Nikolai Polevoy praised the debutant, while critic V.G. Belinsky in “Notes of the Fatherland” spoke disparagingly about the book. The book of the aspiring poet “Dreams and Sounds” was not sold out at all, and this had such an effect on Nekrasov that he, like (who at one time bought up and destroyed “Hanz Küchelgarten”), also began to buy up and destroy “Dreams and Sounds”, which therefore became the greatest bibliographic rarity (they were not included in Nekrasov’s collected works).
Nevertheless, with all the severity of his opinion, in his review of the collection “Dreams and Sounds” he mentioned the poems as “coming from the soul.” However, the failure of his poetic debut was obvious, and Nekrasov tried his hand at prose. His early stories and short stories reflected his own life experience and his first impressions in St. Petersburg. In these works there are young commoners, hungry poets, officials living in need, poor girls deceived by the capital's bigwigs, moneylenders profiting from the needs of the poor. Despite the fact that his artistic skill was still imperfect, Nekrasov’s early prose can be safely attributed to the realistic school of the 1840s, led by Belinsky and Gogol.
Soon he turned to humorous genres: such were the joke poem “Provincial Clerk in St. Petersburg”, the vaudeville “Feoktist Onufrievich Bob”, “This is what it means to fall in love with an actress”, the melodrama “A Mother’s Blessing, or Poverty and Honor”, the story of petty Petersburg officials "Makar Osipovich Random" and others.
In the early 1840s, Nekrasov became an employee of Otechestvennye Zapiski, starting work in the bibliographic department. In 1842, Nekrasov became close to Belinsky’s circle, who became closely acquainted with him and highly appreciated the merits of his mind. Belinsky believed that in the field of prose Nekrasov would not become anything more than an ordinary magazine employee, but he enthusiastically approved his poem “On the Road.” It was Belinsky who had a strong ideological influence on Nekrasov.
Soon Nekrasov began to actively engage in publishing activities. He published a number of almanacs: “Articles in verse without pictures” (1843), “Physiology of St. Petersburg” (1845), “April 1” (1846), “Petersburg Collection” (1846), in which D. V. Grigorovich made his debut , speakers I. S. Turgenev, A. N. Maikov. The “Petersburg Collection”, in which Dostoevsky’s “Poor People” were published, was a great success.
A special place in Nekrasov’s early work is occupied by a novel from modern life of that period, known as “The Life and Adventures of Tikhon Trostnikov.” The novel was begun in 1843 and was created on the threshold of the writer’s creative maturity, which was manifested both in the style of the novel and in the content itself. This is most noticeable in the chapter “Petersburg Corners”, which can be considered as an independent story of an essay nature and one of the best works of the “natural school”. It was this story that Nekrasov published separately (in the almanac “Physiology of St. Petersburg”, 1845). She was highly appreciated by Belinsky in his review of this almanac.
Nekrasov's publishing business was so successful that at the end of 1846 - January 1847, he, together with the writer and journalist Ivan Panaev, leased a magazine from P. A. Pletnev "Contemporary", founded by Alexander Pushkin. The literary youth, who created the main force of “Notes of the Fatherland,” left Kraevsky and joined Nekrasov.
Belinsky also moved to Sovremennik; he transferred to Nekrasov part of the material that he had collected for the collection “Leviathan” he had planned. Nevertheless, Belinsky was at Sovremennik at the level of the same ordinary journalist as Kraevsky had previously been. And Nekrasov was subsequently reproached for this, since it was Belinsky who most contributed to the fact that the main representatives of the literary movement of the 1840s moved from Otechestvennye Zapiski to Sovremennik.
Nekrasov, like Belinsky, became a successful discoverer of new talents. Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov, Alexander Herzen, Nikolai Ogarev, Dmitry Grigorovich found their fame and recognition on the pages of the Sovremennik magazine. Alexander Ostrovsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Gleb Uspensky were published in the magazine. Nikolai Nekrasov introduced Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy into Russian literature. Also published in the magazine were Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Nikolai Dobrolyubov, who soon became the ideological leaders of Sovremennik.
From the first years of publication of the magazine under his leadership, Nekrasov was not only its inspirer and editor, but also one of the main authors. His poems, prose, and criticism were published here. During the “dark seven years” of 1848-1855, the government of Nicholas I, frightened by the French Revolution, began to persecute advanced journalism and literature. Nekrasov, as the editor of Sovremennik, in this difficult time for freethinking in literature, managed, at the cost of enormous efforts, despite the constant struggle with censorship, to preserve the reputation of the magazine. Although it was impossible not to note that the content of the magazine had noticeably faded.
The printing of long adventure novels “Three Countries of the World” and “Dead Lake”, written by Nikolai Nekrasov in collaboration with Stanitsky (pseudonym of Golovacheva-Panaeva), begins. With the chapters of these long novels, Nekrasov covered the gaps that formed in the magazine due to censorship restrictions.
Around the mid-1850s, Nekrasov became seriously ill with a throat disease, but his stay in Italy alleviated his condition. Nekrasov's recovery coincided with the beginning of a new period in Russian life. A happy time has also come in his work - he is being nominated to the forefront of Russian literature.
However, this period could not be called easy. The class contradictions that aggravated at that time were also reflected in the magazine: the editors of Sovremennik found themselves split into two groups, one of which, led by Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy and Vasily Botkin, who advocated for moderate realism and the aesthetic “Pushkin” principle in literature , represented the liberal nobility. They were counterbalanced by adherents of satirical “Gogolian” literature, promoted by the democratic part of the Russian “natural school” of the 1840s. In the early 1860s, the confrontation between these two trends in the journal reached its utmost intensity. In the split that occurred, Nekrasov supported the “revolutionary commoners”, the ideologists of “peasant democracy”. During this difficult period of the highest political upsurge in the country, the poet created such works as “The Poet and the Citizen” (1856), “Reflections at the Main Entrance” (1858) and “The Railway” (1864).
In the early 1860s, Dobrolyubov died, Chernyshevsky and Mikhailov were exiled to Siberia. All this was a blow for Nekrasov. The era of student unrest, riots of “liberated from the land” peasants and the Polish uprising began. During this period, the “first warning” was announced to Nekrasov’s magazine. The publication of Sovremennik was suspended, and in 1866, after Dmitry Karakozov shot the Russian Emperor, the magazine closed forever. Nekrasov, over the years of his leadership of the magazine, managed to transform it into the main literary magazine and a profitable enterprise, despite constant persecution by censors.
After the closure of the magazine, Nekrasov became close to the publisher Andrei Kraevsky and two years after the closure of Sovremennik, in 1868, he rented Otechestvennye zapiski from Kraevsky, making them a militant organ of revolutionary populism and turning them together into an organ of advanced democratic thought.
In 1858, N. A. Dobrolyubov and N. A. Nekrasov founded a satirical supplement to the Sovremennik magazine - “Whistle”.
The author of the idea was Nekrasov himself, and Dobrolyubov became the main employee of “Svistok”. The first two issues of the magazine (published in January and April 1859) were compiled by Dobrolyubov, while Nekrasov began active collaboration from the third issue (October 1859). By this time, he was no longer just an employee, but was involved in organizing and editing the issue. Nekrasov also published his poems and notes in the magazine.
He succeeded in the art of social revelations, skillful and subtle description of the most pressing issues. At the same time, he did not forget about the lyrical beginning, he knew how to easily move from soulful intonations to the techniques of a prickly poetic feuilleton, often even close to a vaudeville style. All these subtleties of his work predetermined the emergence of a new type of satire, which had not yet existed in Russian literature before him. Thus, in his great satirical poem “Contemporaries” (1875), Nekrasov skillfully alternates the techniques of farce and grotesque, irony and sarcasm. In it, the poet, with all his talent, brought down the force of his indignation against the growing strength of the Russian bourgeoisie. According to the literary critic V.V. Zhdanov, Nekrasov’s satirical review poem “Contemporaries” in the history of Russian literature stands next to Shchedrin’s accusatory prose. Saltykov-Shchedrin himself spoke positively about the poem, which struck him with its strength and truth.
However, Nekrasov’s main work was the epic peasant poem-symphony “Who Lives Well in Rus',” which was based on the poet’s thought, which relentlessly haunted him in the post-reform years: “The people are liberated, but are the people happy?” This epic poem absorbed all his spiritual experience. This is the experience of a subtle connoisseur of folk life and folk speech. The poem became, as it were, the result of his long thoughts about the situation and fate of the peasantry, ruined by this reform.
At the beginning of 1875, Nekrasov became seriously ill. Doctors discovered he had intestinal cancer, an incurable disease that left him bedridden for the next two years. During this time, his life turned into a slow agony. Nekrasov was operated on by surgeon Billroth, who specially arrived from Vienna, but the operation only slightly extended his life. News of the poet's fatal illness significantly increased his popularity. Letters and telegrams began to arrive to him in large quantities from all over Russia. The support greatly helped the poet in his terrible torment and inspired him to further creativity.
During this difficult time for himself, he writes “Last Songs,” which, due to the sincerity of his feelings, are considered one of his best creations. In recent years, the awareness of his significance in the history of the Russian word clearly emerged in his soul. Thus, in the 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 the Oka, over the Kama, bye-bye-bye-bye!..”
In “A Writer’s Diary,” Dostoevsky wrote: “I saw him for the last time a month before his death. He seemed almost like a corpse then, so it was strange to even see such a corpse talking and moving his lips. But he not only spoke, but also retained all the clarity of his mind. It seems that he still did not believe in the possibility of imminent death. A week before his death, he suffered from paralysis on the right side of his body.”
A huge number of people came to see the poet off on his final journey. His funeral became the first time a nation paid its last respects to the writer. The farewell to the poet began at 9 a.m. and was accompanied by a literary and political demonstration. Despite the severe frost, a crowd of several thousand people, mostly young people, escorted the poet’s body to his eternal resting place at the St. Petersburg Novodevichy Cemetery.
The youth did not even allow Dostoevsky, who spoke at the funeral itself, to speak, who assigned Nekrasov (with some reservations) third place in Russian poetry after Pushkin and Lermontov, interrupting him with shouts of “Yes, higher, higher than Pushkin!” This dispute then went into print: some supported the opinion of young enthusiasts, the other part pointed out that Pushkin and Lermontov were spokesmen for the entire Russian society, and Nekrasov - only the “circle”. There were still others who indignantly rejected the very idea of a parallel between the creativity that brought Russian verse to the pinnacle of artistic perfection, and the “clumsy” verse of Nekrasov, which, in their opinion, was devoid of any artistic significance.
Representatives of “Land and Freedom” took part in the burial of Nekrasov, as well as other revolutionary organizations, who laid a wreath with the inscription “From the Socialists” on the poet’s coffin.
Personal life of Nikolai Nekrasov:
The personal life of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov was not always successful. In 1842, at a poetry evening, he met Avdotya Panaeva (ur. Bryanskaya) - the wife of the writer Ivan Panaev. Avdotya Panaeva, an attractive brunette, was considered one of the most beautiful women in St. Petersburg at that time. In addition, she was smart and was the owner of a literary salon, which met in the house of her husband Ivan Panaev. Her own literary talent attracted the young but already popular Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Turgenev, Belinsky to the circle in the Panayevs’ house. Her husband, the writer Panaev, was characterized as a rake and a reveler. Despite this, his wife was distinguished by her decency, and Nekrasov had to make considerable efforts to attract the attention of this woman. Fyodor Dostoevsky was also in love with Avdotya, but he failed to achieve reciprocity. At first, Panaeva also rejected twenty-six-year-old Nekrasov, who was also in love with her, which is why he almost committed suicide.
During one of the trips of the Panaevs and Nekrasov to the Kazan province, Avdotya and Nikolai Alekseevich nevertheless confessed their feelings to each other. Upon their return, they began to live in a civil marriage in the Panaevs’ apartment, together with Avdotya’s legal husband, Ivan Panaev. This union lasted almost 16 years, until Panaev’s death.
All this caused public condemnation - they said about Nekrasov that he lives in someone else’s house, loves someone else’s wife and at the same time makes scenes of jealousy for his legal husband. During this period, even many friends turned away from him. But, despite this, Nekrasov and Panaeva were happy. Nekrasov created one of his best poetic cycles - the so-called “Panaevsky cycle” (they wrote and edited much of this cycle together). The co-authorship of Nekrasov and Stanitsky (pseudonym of Avdotya Yakovlevna) belongs to several novels that have had great success. Despite such an unconventional lifestyle, this trio remained like-minded people and comrades-in-arms in the revival and establishment of the Sovremennik magazine.
In 1849, Avdotya Yakovlevna gave birth to a boy from Nekrasov, but he did not live long. At this time, Nekrasov himself fell ill. It is believed that it was with the death of the child that strong attacks of anger and mood swings were associated, which later led to a break in their relationship with Avdotya. In 1862, Ivan Panaev died, and soon Avdotya Panaeva left Nekrasov. However, Nekrasov remembered her until the end of his life and, when drawing up his will, mentioned her in it.
In May 1864, Nekrasov went on a trip abroad, which lasted about three months. He lived mainly in Paris with his companions - his sister Anna Alekseevna and the Frenchwoman Selina Lefresne, whom he met back in St. Petersburg in 1863.
Selina was an actress of a French troupe performing at the Mikhailovsky Theater. She was distinguished by her lively disposition and easy character. Selina spent the summer of 1866 in Karabikha, and in the spring of 1867 she went abroad, as before, together with Nekrasov and his sister Anna. However, this time she never returned to Russia. This did not interrupt their relationship - in 1869 they met in Paris and spent the whole of August by the sea in Dieppe. Nekrasov was very pleased with this trip, also improving his health. During the rest, he felt happy, the reason for which was Selina, who was to his liking, although her attitude towards him was even and even a little dry. Having returned, Nekrasov did not forget Selina for a long time and helped her. And in his dying will he assigned her ten and a half thousand rubles.
Later, Nekrasov met a village girl, Fyokla Anisimovna Viktorova, simple and uneducated. She was 23 years old, he was already 48. The writer took her to theaters, concerts and exhibitions to fill the gaps in her upbringing. Nikolai Alekseevich came up with her name - Zina. So Fyokla Anisimovna began to be called Zinaida Nikolaevna. She learned Nekrasov's poems by heart and admired him. Soon they got married. However, Nekrasov still yearned for his former love - Avdotya Panaeva - and at the same time loved both Zinaida and the Frenchwoman Selina Lefren, with whom he had an affair abroad. He dedicated one of his most famous poetic works, “Three Elegies,” only to Panaeva.
It should also be mentioned about Nekrasov’s passion for playing cards, which can be called the hereditary passion of his family, starting with Nikolai Nekrasov’s great-grandfather, Yakov Ivanovich, an “immensely rich” Ryazan landowner who quickly lost his wealth.
However, he again became rich quite quickly - at one time Yakov was a governor in Siberia. As a result of his passion for the game, his son Alexei inherited only the Ryazan estate. Having married, he received the village of Greshnevo as a dowry. But his son, Sergei Alekseevich, having mortgaged Yaroslavl Greshnevo for a period of time, lost him too. Alexey Sergeevich, when telling his son Nikolai, the future poet, his glorious pedigree, summarized: “Our ancestors were rich. Your great-great-grandfather lost seven thousand souls, your great-grandfather - two, your grandfather (my father) - one, I - nothing, because there was nothing to lose, but I also like to play cards.” And only Nikolai Alekseevich was the first to change his fate. He also loved to play cards, but became the first to not lose. At a time when his ancestors were losing, he alone won back and won back a lot. The count was in the hundreds of thousands. Thus, Adjutant General Alexander Vladimirovich Adlerberg, a famous statesman, minister of the Imperial Court and personal friend of Emperor Alexander II, lost a very large sum to him. And Finance Minister Alexander Ageevich Abaza lost more than a million francs to Nekrasov. Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov managed to return Greshnevo, where he spent his childhood and which was taken away for his grandfather’s debt.
Another hobby of Nekrasov, also passed on to him from his father, was hunting. The hound hunt, which was served by two dozen dogs, greyhounds, hounds, hounds and stirrups, was the pride of Alexei Sergeevich. The poet's father forgave his son long ago and, not without glee, followed his creative and financial successes. And the son, until his father’s death (in 1862), came to see him in Greshnevo every year. Nekrasov dedicated funny poems to dog hunting and even the poem of the same name “Dog Hunt”, glorifying the prowess, scope, beauty of Russia and the Russian soul. In adulthood, Nekrasov even became addicted to bear hunting (“It’s fun to beat you, honorable bears...”). Avdotya Panaeva recalled that when Nekrasov was going to hunt the bear, there were large gatherings - expensive wines, snacks and just provisions were brought. They even took a cook with them. In March 1865, Nekrasov managed to catch three bears in one day. He valued the male bear-hunters and dedicated poems to them - Savushka (“who sank on the forty-first bear”) from “In the Village,” Savely from “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” The poet also loved to hunt game. His passion for walking through the swamp with a gun was limitless. Sometimes he went hunting at sunrise and returned only at midnight.
He also went hunting with the “first hunter of Russia” Ivan Turgenev, with whom they had been friends for a long time and corresponded. Nekrasov, in his last message to Turgenev abroad, even asked him to buy him a Lancaster gun in London or Paris for 500 rubles. However, their correspondence was destined to be interrupted in 1861. Turgenev did not answer the letter and did not buy a gun, and their long-term friendship was put to an end. And the reason for this was not ideological or literary differences. Nekrasov's common-law wife, Avdotya Panaeva, got involved in a lawsuit over the inheritance of the ex-wife of the poet Nikolai Ogarev. The court awarded Panaeva a claim for 50 thousand rubles. Nekrasov paid this amount, preserving the honor of Avdotya Yakovlevna, but thereby his own reputation was shaken. Turgenev found out from Ogarev himself in London all the intricacies of the dark matter, after which he broke all relations with Nekrasov.
Nekrasov the publisher also broke up with some other old friends - L. N. Tolstoy, A. N. Ostrovsky. At this time, he switched to the new democratic wave emanating from the camp of Chernyshevsky - Dobrolyubov. Fyokla Anisimovna, who became his late muse in 1870, and was named Zinaida Nikolaevna by Nekrasov in a noble manner, also became addicted to her husband’s hobby, hunting. She even saddled the horse herself and went hunting with him in a tailcoat and tight trousers, with a Zimmerman on her head. All this delighted Nekrasov. But one day, while hunting in the Chudovsky swamp, Zinaida Nikolaevna accidentally shot Nekrasov’s beloved dog, a black pointer named Kado. After this, Nekrasov, who devoted 43 years of his life to hunting, hung up his gun forever.
Bibliography of Nikolai Nekrasov:
Poems by Nikolai Nekrasov:
The grief of old Nahum
Grandfather
Wax cabinet
Who can live well in Rus'?
Peddlers
Peasant children
Frost, Red Nose (poem dedicated by the poet to his sister Anna)
On the Volga
Recent time
About the weather (Street impressions)
Russian women
Knight for an hour
Contemporaries
Sasha
Court
Silence
Plays by Nikolai Nekrasov:
Actor
Rejected
Bear hunt
Theoklist Onufrich Bob, or the husband is out of his element
Lomonosov's youth
Tales of Nikolai Nekrasov:
Baba Yaga, Bone Leg
