Nekrasov information from his biography briefly. Literary and historical notes of a young technician

N. A. Nekrasov (1821-1877)

Poet is enthusiastic and passionate

Nekrasov's noble origins left an indelible imprint on his development as a poet. His father, a retired officer and famous Yaroslavl landowner, took the family to Greshnevo (family estate), where the patriotic poet spent his childhood, who, it was no coincidence, fell in love with Russian nature. Among the apple trees of a wide-spread garden not far from the deep Volga, which the young poet liked to call his cradle, the first years of his life passed.

Nekrasov always had vivid memories of the famous Sibirka, which he reluctantly recalled: “Everything that traveled and walked along it was known: postal troikas or prisoners chained in chains, accompanied by cruel guards.” This served as food for children's curiosity. A huge family (13 sisters and brothers), lawsuits on the estate, and neglected cases forced Nekrasov’s father to hire a police officer.

Having entered the Yaroslavl gymnasium in 1832, Nekrasov studied 5 classes, but studied satisfactorily and especially did not get along with the gymnasium leadership because of his sharp satirical epigrams, and since his father always dreamed of a military career for his son, the 16-year-old poet went to be assigned to a regiment St. Petersburg. The matter was almost settled, but Nekrasov met his gymnasium friend Glushitsky, who aroused in the poet an unknown thirst for learning: he even ignored his father’s threats to leave him without support. So Nekrasov enters the Faculty of Philology as a volunteer student.

However, his path was thorny: the poet suffered terrible poverty and hunger. There were times when he went to a restaurant where it was possible to read newspapers, pulled up a plate of bread and ate. Living from hand to mouth, Nekrasov fell ill and owed money on the room he rented from a soldier, after which he sent him to the street. The beggar took pity on the sick man and offered him shelter: here young Nekrasov found a living, for the first time writing a petition to someone for 15 kopecks.

Over time, things went uphill: he took up teaching, wrote articles in magazines, published in the Literary Gazette, composed fairy tales and ABCs in verse for popular print publishers, and even staged light vaudeville on stage under the pseudonym of Perepelsky. The first savings appeared, after which Nekrasov decided to publish a collection of poems in 1840 under the name “Dreams and Sounds.”

The best representative of the “muse of revenge and sadness”

As a passionate person, women always liked Alexey Sergeevich. The Warsaw resident Zakrevskaya, the daughter of a wealthy possessor, also fell in love with him. The parents flatly refused to marry their daughter, who had received an excellent education, to a mediocre army officer, but the marriage still took place without parental blessing.

Nekrasov always spoke of his mother as a victim of a harsh environment and an eternal sufferer who drank Russian grief. The bright image of the mother, who brightened up the unattractive environment of childhood with its nobility, was reflected in the poem “Mother,” “Last Songs,” and “A Knight for an Hour.” The charm of memories of his mother in Nekrasov’s work was reflected in his special participation in the difficult lot of women. Hardly any of the Russian poets could do as much for mothers and wives as this stern and supposedly callous folk poet.

At the dawn of the 40s, he became an employee of Otechestvennye Zapiski. Here Nekrasov meets Belinsky, who was imbued with the poet’s work and appreciated his bright mind. But Vissarion Grigorievich immediately realized that Nekrasov was weak in prose and that nothing would come of him except as an ordinary magazine scribbler, but he loved his poems, especially noting “On the Road.”

Poet-prophet

His “Petersburg Collection” gained special fame; “Poor People” by F. M. Dostoevsky also appeared in it. His publishing business was going so well that, in tandem with Panaev, he acquired Sovremennik by 1846. The first poem “Sasha” became a magnificent lyrical introduction and was a song of joy in returning to the homeland. The poem received high praise in the 40s. “Peddlers” is written in the folk spirit in a special, original style. Kuchelbecker was the first to call the poet a prophet.

Nekrasov’s most seasoned and famous work is “Red Nose Frost.” Representing the apotheosis of peasant life, the poet exposes the bright sides of Russian nature; however, there is no sentimentality here thanks to the filigree honing of the stately style. “Who Lives Well in Rus'” is written in the original size (over 5000 verses).

Nekrasov's poems, along with poems, for a long time provided him with one of the significant places in Russian literature. From his works one can compose a large work of highly artistic merit, the significance of which will not perish as long as the great Russian language lives.

About the purpose of the poet

Polevaya dedicated laudatory reviews to Nekrasov’s lyrics, Zhukovsky treated his poems with trepidation and reverence, even Belinsky was incredibly happy about the appearance of Nekrasov as a unique phenomenon in Russian literature. The magnificent style in the work “When from the darkness of delusion I called out to a fallen soul” was noted even by critics Apollo Grigoriev and Almazov, who were averse to Nekrasov.

The poet died from a serious illness in the last days of December 1877. Several thousand people, despite the severe frosts, escorted his body to the place of eternal rest in the Novodevichy cemetery. F. M. Dostoevsky said a few farewell words at the grave, putting the name of Nekrasov in a row with Pushkin and Lermontov.

Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov is a Russian democratic poet, the author of brilliant examples of civil poetry, who made poetry the “people's lyre” and a weapon in the struggle for the rights of the oppressed people. His poetic muse is the muse of “revenge and sadness,” pain, and the fight against injustice against the peasantry.

The poet was born on November 28, 1821 in the city of Nemirov (Vinnitsa district of Podolsk province, now the territory of Ukraine). His parents met in Nemirov - his father served in a regiment stationed in this city, his mother, Elena Zakrevskaya, was one of the best - the most beautiful and educated - brides in the town. Zakrevskaya’s parents did not intend to give their daughter to officer Nekrasov, who clearly married for convenience (by the time he met Zakrevskaya, he had accumulated gambling debts and a desire to resolve the financial issue through a profitable marriage). As a result, Elena marries against the will of her parents, and, of course, the marriage turns out to be unhappy - her unloving husband made her an eternal recluse. The image of the mother, bright and gentle, entered Nekrasov’s lyrics as the ideal of femininity and kindness (poem “Mother” 1877, “Knight for an Hour” 1860-62), and the image of the father was transformed into the image of a wild, unbridled and stupid despot.

Nekrasov's literary development cannot be separated from the facts of his difficult biography. Soon after the poet’s birth, the family moved to his father’s family estate, in Greshnev, Yaroslavl region. The poet had 12 brothers and sisters, most of whom died at an early age. The father was forced to work - the local income was not enough for the needs of a large family - and he began to serve as a police officer in the police. He often took his son with him to work, so from an early age the child witnessed debt collection, suffering and prayer, and death.

1831 - Nikolai Nekrasov is sent to study at a gymnasium in Yaroslavl. The boy was capable, but he managed to ruin his relationship with the team - he was harsh, had a sharp tongue, and wrote ironic poems about his classmates. After the 5th grade, he stopped studying (there is an opinion that the father stopped paying for education, not seeing the need for education for his not very diligent son).

1837 - 16-year-old Nekrasov begins an independent life in St. Petersburg. Against the will of his father, who saw him as a modest official, Nikolai tries to enter the university at the Faculty of Philology. He did not pass the exams, but with tenacity he stormed the faculty for 3 years, attending classes as a volunteer. At this time, his father refused to support him financially, so he had to live in terrible poverty, sometimes spending the night in homeless shelters, and in constant hunger.

He managed to earn his first money as a tutor - Nekrasov serves as a teacher in a wealthy family, while simultaneously writing fairy tales and editing alphabet books for children's publications.

1840 - Nekrasov earns money as a playwright and critic - the St. Petersburg theater stages several of his plays, and Literaturnaya Gazeta publishes several articles. Having saved up money, in the same year Nekrasov published at his own expense a collection of poems, “Dreams and Sounds,” which came under such a barrage of criticism that the poet bought almost the entire edition and burned it.

1840s: Nekrasov meets Vissarion Belinsky (who shortly before had mercilessly criticized his first poems) and begins a fruitful collaboration with the journal Otechestvennye zapiski.

1846: an improved financial situation allowed Nekrasov to become a publisher himself - he left their “Notes” and bought the magazine “Sovremennik”, which began to publish young and talented writers and critics who left “Notes” after Nekrasov. The tsarist censorship closely monitors the content of the magazine, which has gained great popularity, so in 1866 it was closed.

1866: Nekrasov buys out the magazine Otechestvennye Zapiski, where he previously worked, and intends to bring it to the same level of popularity to which he managed to bring Sovremennik. Since then, he has been more actively self-publishing.

The following works are published:

• “Sasha” (1855. Poem about a thinking woman. Sasha is close to the people and loves them. She is at a crossroads in life, thinks a lot about life, when she meets a young socialist. Agarin tells Sasha about the social world order, inequality and struggle, he is positive determined and waiting for the “sun of truth". Several years pass, and Agarin has lost faith that the people can be controlled and given freedom, he can only philosophize on the topic of how to give the peasants freedom, and what they will do with it. Sasha at this time she is engaged in small, but real matters - she provides medical assistance to the peasants).
• “Who Lives Well in Rus'” (1860 - 1877. An epic peasant poem exposing the inability of the autocracy to provide the people with true freedom, despite the abolition of serfdom. The poem paints pictures of people’s life and is vividly filled with folk speech).
• "Peddlers" (1861).
• “Frost, Red Nose” (1863. A poem praising the fortitude of a Russian peasant woman, capable of hard work, loyalty, dedication, and fulfillment of duty).
• “Russian Women” (1871-71. A poem dedicated to the courage of the Decembrists who followed their husbands into exile. Contains 2 parts “Princess Volkonskaya” and “Princess Trubetskaya”. Two heroines decide to follow their exiled husbands. Princesses who are unknown hungry, impoverished existence, hard work, abandon their former life... They demonstrate not only the love and mutual assistance inherent in all homemakers by default, but also open opposition to authority).

Poems:

• "Railway"
• "Knight for an Hour"
• "Uncompressed strip"
• "Prophet",
• cycles of poems about peasant children,
• cycles of poems about urban beggars,
• “Panaevsky cycle” - poems dedicated to his common-law wife

1875 - the poet becomes seriously ill, but, fighting the pain, finds the strength to write.

1877: the last works are the satirical poem “Contemporaries” and the cycle of poems “Last Songs”.

The poet died on December 27, 1877 in St. Petersburg and was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery. Despite the terrible frost, thousands of admirers came to see the poet off on his final journey.

The great national poet Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov was born on November 28 (December 10), 1821 in the town of Nemirov, Vinnitsa district, Podolsk province.

Childhood

Kolya spent his childhood on the Nekrasov estate - the village of Greshnev in the Yaroslavl province. It was not easy to support 13 (three survived) children, and the father of the future poet also took the position of police officer. The work was not fun; Alexei Sergeevich often had to take his son with him. Therefore, from an early age, Nikolai saw all the problems of ordinary people and sympathized with them.

At the age of 10, Nekrasov was sent to study at a gymnasium in Yaroslavl, where he only completed his studies until the 5th grade. Some biographers of the poet say that the boy studied poorly and was kicked out, others - that his father simply stopped paying fees for his education. Most likely, in reality there was something in between - perhaps the father considered it useless to teach his son further, who was not particularly diligent. He decided that his son should make a military career. For this purpose, Nekrasov, at the age of 16, was sent to St. Petersburg to enter a noble regiment (military school).

Time of hardship

The poet could have become an honest servant, but fate decreed otherwise. In St. Petersburg, he met students who so awakened Nekrasov’s desire to study that he dared to go against his father’s will. The poet began to prepare to enter the university. It was not possible to pass the exams, but Nekrasov went to the Faculty of Philology as a volunteer student (he stayed from 1839 to 1841). His father did not give Nikolai a penny and for three years he lived in terrible poverty. He constantly felt hungry and went so far as to spend the night in homeless shelters. In one of these “institutions” Nekrasov found his first income - he wrote a petition to someone for 15 kopecks.

The difficult financial situation did not break the poet. He vowed to himself to overcome all adversity and achieve recognition.

Literary life

Gradually life began to improve. Nekrasov found a job as a tutor, began to compose alphabet books and fairy tales for popular print publishers, submitted articles to Literaturnaya Gazeta and Literary Supplement to the Russian Invalid. Several vaudevilles he composed (under the pseudonym “Perepelsky”) were staged on the Alexandria stage. Using the accumulated funds, in 1840 Nekrasov published his first collection of poems, “Dreams and Sounds.”

Critics reacted differently to it, but Belinsky’s negative opinion upset Nekrasov so much that he bought up most of the circulation and destroyed it. The collection remained interesting in that it represented the poet in a work completely uncharacteristic of him - a writer of ballads, which never happened in the future.

In the 40s, Nekrasov first came to the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski as a bibliographer. This is where his friendship with Belinsky begins. Soon Nikolai Alekseevich began to be actively published. He publishes almanacs “Physiology of St. Petersburg”, “April 1”, “Petersburg Collection” and others, where, in addition to him, the best authors of that time are published: F. Dostoevsky, D. Grigorovich, A. Herzen, I. Turgenev.

Publishing business was going well and at the end of 1846 Nekrasov, together with several friends, acquired the Sovremennik magazine. A whole “team” of the best writers goes to this magazine together with Nikolai Alekseevich. Belinsky makes a huge “gift” to Nekrasov by donating to the magazine a large amount of material that he had previously “accumulated” for his own publication.

After the onset of the reaction, Sovremennik becomes more “obedient” to the authorities, it begins to publish more adventure literature, but this does not prevent the magazine from remaining the most popular in Russia.

In the 50s, Nekrasov went to Italy for treatment for a throat disease. Upon his return, both his health and his affairs improved. He ends up in the advanced stream of literature, among people of high moral principles. Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov work with him in the magazine. The best sides of Nekrasov’s talent are also revealed.

When Sovremennik was closed in 1866, Nekrasov did not give up, but rented Otechestvennye zapiski from his old “competitor,” which he elevated to the same literary heights as Sovremennik.

During his work with the two best magazines of our time, Nekrasov wrote and published many of his works: the poems “Sasha”, “Peasant Children”, “Frost, Red Nose”, “Who Lives Well in Russia” (finished in 1876), “Russian Women ”, poems “Knight for an Hour”, “Railroad”, “Prophet” and many others. Nekrasov was at the zenith of his fame.

At the last line

At the beginning of 1875, the poet was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. His life turned into a series of sufferings, and only the general support of readers gave him any strength. The poet received telegrams and letters of support from all over Russia. Inspired by the support of people, Nekrasov, overcoming pain, continues to write. In recent years, the following have been written: the satirical poem “Contemporaries”, the poem “Sowers” ​​and the cycle of poems “Last Songs”, unsurpassed in sincerity of feelings. The poet remembers his life and the mistakes he made in it and at the same time sees himself as a writer who lived his years with dignity. On December 27, 1877 (January 8, 1878) in St. Petersburg, Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov ended his earthly journey. He was only 56 years old at that time.

Despite the severe cold, a crowd of thousands escorted the poet to his final resting place at the Novodevichy cemetery in St. Petersburg.

Interesting about Nekrasov:

There were three women in Nekrasov’s life:

Avdotya Yakovlevna Panaeva, with whom he lived without marriage for 15 years.

Frenchwoman Selina Lefren, who abandoned the poet, having squandered a fair portion of his money.

Fyokla Anisimovna Viktorova, with whom Nekrasov married 6 months before his death.

Nekrasov, in modern terms, was a real manager and entrepreneur - he managed to make two magazines better, which before him were in a rather difficult financial situation.

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, which gave rise to the fair name of the period of reaction, 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 the fact that N. undertook with N. Stanitsky (pseudonym of A. Ya. Golovacheva-Panaeva) the joint composition of 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 value 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 upsurge was also 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 of the business 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 the 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 (see) was closed in 1866, N. became friends with his old enemy Kraevsky and rented from him in 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 Russia”, 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 Russia", 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 according to personal memories, 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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In the city of Nemirov, Vinnitsa region, in 1821, on the 28th of November, the future Russian poet and literary figure Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov was born. His father was a military man, who subsequently left the service and settled on his family estate in the village of Greshnevo (now it is called Nekrasovo). The mother, the daughter of rich parents, married against their will.

Childhood

Briefly dwelling on his childhood years, he says that they were not particularly happy. My father was of a harsh and even cruel nature. The boy felt sorry for his mother and carried it through his entire life, sympathizing with her difficult lot. At the same time, observing with his own eyes the difficult life of a peasant, Nekrasov became imbued with the worries and hardships of his father’s serfs.

School years

In 1832, the future poet was sent to the Yaroslavl gymnasium. Nekrasov's biography briefly describes this period because the boy quickly completed his education, barely reaching the fifth grade. This happened partly due to problems with studies, partly due to a conflict with the leadership of the gymnasium based on the satirical poems of the young poet.

Universities

Being a former military man, his father envisioned the same career for his son. Therefore, Nekrasov goes to St. Petersburg to enlist in the Noble Regiment. But this was not destined to happen. A meeting with a schoolmate turned his fate around. He, despite his father’s threats to leave him without a penny of money, is trying to go to university. The attempt was unsuccessful, and Nekrasov became a volunteer student at the Faculty of Philology.

Three years of deprivation (1838 - 1841), starvation rations, communication with the poor - this is all the biography of Nekrasov. Briefly, this period can be characterized as years of need and deprivation.

Literary activity and first attempt at writing

Gradually, Nekrasov’s affairs began to improve. Articles in newspapers, essays for popular publications, and writing vaudevilles under the name of Perepelsky allowed the poet to amass some savings, which were used to publish a small collection of poems called “Dreams and Sounds.” The opinions of critics were contradictory: Nekrasov's biography briefly mentions favorable reviews from Zhukovsky and disparaging reviews from Belinsky. This hurt the poet so much that he bought editions of his poems in order to destroy them.

Collaboration with the magazine "Otechestvennye zapiski", the acquisition of "Sovremennik" for rent in 1846 - this is all a short biography of Nekrasov as a literary figure. Belinsky, having become better acquainted with the young poet, appreciated him and greatly contributed to Nekrasov’s success in the field of publishing. In 1948, despite reactionary trends, Sovremennik was the best and most popular magazine of that time.

In the mid-50s, the writer Nekrasov, whose biography was overshadowed by a serious illness, left for Italy to restore his health. Returning to his homeland, he joins public life with renewed vigor. Surrendering to the rapid flow of the progressive movement, communicating with Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky, Nekrasov tries on the role of a poet-citizen and adheres to these views until his death.

In 1877, on December 27, after a long illness, Nekrasov passed away. He was buried on the grounds, accompanied by thousands of people, marking the first national recognition of his work.