Nikolay Nekrasov
Nikolay Alekseyevich Nekrasov, (b. Dec.
10 [Nov. 28, Old Style], 1821, Nemirov,
Ukraine, Russian Empire—d. Jan. 8, [Dec.
27, 1877], 1878, St. Petersburg,
Russia), Russian poet and journalist
whose work centred on the theme of
compassion for the sufferings of the
peasantry. Nekrasov also sought to
express the racy charm and vitality of
peasant life in his adaptations of folk
songs and poems for children.
Nekrasov studied at St. Petersburg
University, but his father’s refusal to
help him forced him into literary and
theatrical hack work at an early age.
His first book of poetry was published
in 1840. An able businessman, he
published and edited literary
miscellanies and in 1846 bought from
Pyotr Pletnev the magazine Sovremennik
(“The Contemporary”), which had declined
after the death of its founder,
Aleksandr Pushkin. Nekrasov managed to
transform it into a major literary
journal and a paying concern, despite
constant harassment by the censors. Both
Ivan Turgenev and Leo Tolstoy published
their early works in Sovremennik, but
after 1856, influenced by its subeditor,
Nikolay Chernyshevski, it began to
develop into an organ of militant
radicalism. It was suppressed in 1866,
after the first attempt to assassinate
Alexander II. In 1868 Nekrasov, with
Mikhail Saltykov (Shchedrin), took over
Otechestvenniye zapiski (“Notes of the
Fatherland”), remaining its editor and
publisher until his death.
Nekrasov’s work is uneven through its
lack of craftsmanship and polish and a
tendency to sentimentalize his subjects,
but his major poems have lasting power
and originality of expression. Moroz
krasny-nos (1863; “Red-nosed Frost,” in
Poems, 1929) gives a vivid picture of a
brave and sympathetic peasant woman, and
his large-scale narrative poem, Komu na
Rusi zhit khorosho? (1879; Who Can Be
Happy and Free in Russia?, 1917), shows
to the full his gift for vigorous
realistic satire.
