How is the rating calculated?
◊ The rating is calculated based on the points accrued in the last week
◊ Points are awarded for:
⇒ visiting pages dedicated to the star
⇒ vote for a star
⇒ star commenting

Biography, life story of Nekrasov Nikolai Alekseevich

The Russian classical poet Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov was born in 1821 on October 10 according to the new style (November 28 - according to the old style) in the town of Nemirov, not far from Vinnitsa in Ukraine. Little Kolenka was not yet three years old when his father, a retired officer and Yaroslavl landowner, moved the family to his family estate Greshnevo. It was here that the poet's childhood passed - among the apple trees of a vast orchard, near the banks of the Volga, which Nikolai Alekseevich called his cradle, and next to the famous Vladimirka, or Sibirka, along which everything went and rode, starting with postal troikas and ending with chained prisoners, accompanied by escort. All this was the constant food of the poet's childhood curiosity.

In the period 1832-1837, Nekrasov studied at the Yaroslavl gymnasium. Nikolay studied averagely and periodically clashed with the gymnasium authorities because of his satirical poems.

His literary life began in 1838 and lasted for forty years.

In the period 1838-1840, Nikolai Nekrasov was a volunteer at the Faculty of Philology at St. Petersburg University. The father, having learned about this, deprived him of his material support. Nekrasov, according to his own recollections, had to live in poverty for about three years, to survive on occasional small earnings. At this very time, the poet entered the journalistic and literary circles of St. Petersburg.

The first publication of Nekrasov took place in 1838: the poem “Thought” was published in the journal Son of the Fatherland. Somewhat later, a few more poems appeared in the "Library for Reading", then another - in the "Literary Supplements" to the magazine "Russian Disabled".

In 1840, at his own expense, Nikolai Nekrasov published his first collection of poetry, Dreams and Sounds, which was signed "N. N." This collection was not successful with the public, and after criticism by Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky in the literary journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, it was destroyed by Nekrasov himself and therefore became a bibliographic rarity.

CONTINUED BELOW

Nekrasov's attitude to the living conditions in which the poorest sections of the Russian population lived, to their most frank slavery, was expressed by the poet for the first time in the poem "Govorun" in 1843. It was from this period that Nikolai Alekseevich began to write poems that had a de facto social orientation, which the tsarist censorship soon became interested in. A number of anti-serfdom poems appeared in the press, such as "Motherland", "Coachman's Tale", "Before the Rain", "Ogorodnik", "Troika". The poem "Motherland" was almost immediately banned by censors, but it was distributed in lists and soon became especially popular in the revolutionary circles of Russian society. Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky highly appreciated this poem. Contemporaries said that the famous critic was completely delighted.

Together with the writer Ivan Ivanovich Panaev, in the winter of 1846, the poet rented the Sovremennik magazine using borrowed money. Young progressive writers and all those who hated serfdom began to flock to this journal. In January 1847, the first issue of the updated Sovremennik took place. It was the first magazine in tsarist Russia that expressed the ideas of a revolutionary democratic persuasion and, most importantly, had a clear and coherent program of action. It appeared in the very first issues of “Who is to blame?” and "The Thieving Magpie" by Alexander Ivanovich Herzen, stories from the collection "Notes of a Hunter", Belinsky's articles and many other works of the same direction. Nekrasov in Sovremennik published only Dog Hunting from his works.

The public influence of the magazine grew from year to year, until the government suspended its publication in 1862, and soon banned the magazine altogether.

Sovremennik was closed in 1866. Nekrasov acquired in 1868 the right to publish the journal Domestic Notes. All the last years of his not so long life were connected with this magazine. Nikolai Alekseevich created several poems during his work in Otechestvennye Zapiski: “Who should live well in Russia” (in 1866-1876), “Grandfather” (in 1870), “Russian Women” (in 1871-1872), and also wrote a whole series of satirical works. The poem "Contemporaries", published in 1878, became their pinnacle.

In the last years of Nekrasov's life, elegiac motifs swept over him. They were associated with the loss of friends, serious illness, awareness of loneliness. During this period of life, works appeared: "Three Elegies" (in 1873), "Morning", "Elegy", "Despondency" (in 1874), "Prophet" (in 1874), "To the Sowers" (in 1876 ). In the last year of the poet's life, the cycle "Last Songs" was created.

Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov died in 1877 on December 27 (or January 8, 1878 Gregorian time) in St. Petersburg.

Nekrasov was buried in St. Petersburg at the Novodevichy cemetery. His funeral was in the nature of a large socio-political demonstration. During the civil memorial service, speeches were delivered

• Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov was born on October 10 (November 28), 1821 in Nemirov, Vinnitsa district, Podolsk province.
• Nekrasov's father, Alexei Sergeevich, was a small estate nobleman, an officer. After retiring, he settled in his family estate, in the village of Greshnev, Yaroslavl province (now the village of Nekrasovo). He had several souls of serfs, whom he treated quite harshly. His son watched this from an early age, and it is believed that this circumstance determined the formation of Nekrasov as a revolutionary poet.
• Nekrasov's mother, Alexandra Andreevna Zakrevskaya, became his first teacher. She was educated, and she also tried to instill in all her children (who were 14) a love for the Russian language and literature.
• The childhood years of Nikolai Nekrasov passed in Greshnev. At the age of 7, the future poet had already begun to compose poetry, and a few years later - satires.
• 1832 - 1837 - studying at the Yaroslavl gymnasium. Nekrasov studies averagely, periodically conflicting with his superiors because of his satirical poems.
• 1838 - Nekrasov, having not completed the training course at the gymnasium (he only reached the 5th grade), leaves for St. Petersburg to enter the noble regiment. My father dreamed that Nikolai Alekseevich became a military man. But in St. Petersburg, Nekrasov, against the will of his father, is trying to enter the university. The poet does not pass the entrance exams, and he has to decide on a volunteer at the Faculty of Philology.
• 1838 - 1840 - Nikolai Nekrasov volunteer student of the philological faculty of St. Petersburg University. Upon learning of this, the father deprives him of material support. According to Nekrasov's own recollections, he lived in poverty for about three years, surviving on small odd jobs. At the same time, the poet enters the literary and journalistic circles of St. Petersburg.
• In the same year (1838) the first publication of Nekrasov took place. The poem "Thought" is published in the magazine "Son of the Fatherland". Later, several poems appear in the Library for Reading, then in the Literary Supplements to the Russian Invalid.
• All the difficulties of the first years of life in St. Petersburg, Nikolai Alekseevich will describe later in the novel "The Life and Adventures of Tikhon Trostnikov." 1840 - with the first savings, Nekrasov decides to publish his first collection, which he does under the signature "N.N.", despite the fact that V.A. Zhukovsky dissuades him. The collection "Dreams and Sounds" is not successful. Upset Nekrasov destroys part of the circulation.
• 1841 - Nekrasov begins to collaborate in the Notes of the Fatherland.
• The same period - Nikolai Alekseevich earns a living by doing journalism. He edits the Russkaya Gazeta and maintains the headings “Chronicle of Petersburg Life”, “Petersburg Dachas and Surroundings” in it. Collaborates in "Notes of the Fatherland", "Russian invalid", theatrical "Pantheon". At the same time, under the pseudonym N.A. Perepelsky writes fairy tales, alphabets, vaudevilles, melodramatic plays. The latter are successfully staged on the stage of the Alexandria Theater in St. Petersburg.
• 1843 - Nekrasov meets Belinsky. He tries publishing and publishes the almanac "Articles in verse ...".
• 1845 - Nekrasov's first realistic poem "On the Road" was written. The poem received Belinsky's highest praise.
• The same year - Nekrasov publishes the almanac "Physiology of St. Petersburg".
• 1846 - Nikolai Alekseevich publishes the almanacs "Petersburg Collection" and "April First". All the poet's almanacs included works by Belinsky, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Dahl, Herzen. In police denunciations, Nekrasov is called "the most desperate communist" for his depiction of the "low" life of St. Petersburg.
• 1847 - 1866 - Nekrasov is the editor of the Sovremennik magazine.
• 1847-1864 - Nekrasov is in a civil marriage with the writer Avdotya Yakovlevna Panaeva, who also collaborates in Sovremennik.
• The main themes of the poet's work during this period were lyrics (poems dedicated to Panaeva), poems about the urban poor, about peasant life, about the people.
• Mid-1850s - Nekrasov is treated for a sore throat in Italy.
• 1856 - another collection of Nekrasov's poems is a resounding success.
• 1862 - the poem "Knight for an Hour" was written. The work was the result of Nikolai Alekseevich's trip to his native places. The same year - Nekrasov acquires the Karabikha estate, located near Yaroslavl. Starting this year, the poet spends every summer in Karabikha.
• 1866 - after the peasant reform, the revolutionary-democratic magazine Sovremennik was banned by censorship.
• 1866 - 1876 - work on the poem "Who should live well in Russia."
• 1868 - Nekrasov acquires the right to publish "Notes of the Fatherland", which, together with M.E. Saltykov leads until his death.
• 1870 - the poem "Grandfather" was written.
• 1871 - 1872 - Nekrasov writes the poem "Russian Women".
• 1875 - the poem "Contemporaries" was written. At the beginning of the same year, the poet fell seriously ill. The then-famous surgeon Billroth came from Vienna to operate Nekrasov, but the operation did not produce results.
• 1877 - Nekrasov publishes a cycle of poems "Last Songs". December 27, 1877 (January 8, 1878) - Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov dies in St. Petersburg from cancer. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.

1. The first years in St. Petersburg
2. “Who should live well in Russia”: Nekrasov’s last major work

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

“Everything that, having entangled my life from childhood, an irresistible curse fell on me ...”

Nikolai Nekrasov was born on December 10 (November 28 according to the old style) in 1821 in the small town of Nemirov, Vinnitsa district, Podolsk province. His father Alexei Nekrasov came from a family of once wealthy Yaroslavl nobles, he was an army officer, and his mother Elena Zakrevskaya was the daughter of a possessor from the Kherson province. Parents were against the marriage of a beautiful and educated girl with a poor military man at that time, so the young people got married in 1817 without their blessing.

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

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

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

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

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

Not! in my youth, rebellious and severe,
There is no remembrance that pleases the soul;
But all that, having entangled my life from childhood,
An irresistible curse fell on me, -
Everything began here, in my native land! ..

The first years in St. Petersburg

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

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

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

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

In 1840, at the expense of his own savings, Nekrasov published his first collection of poetry, Dreams and Sounds, consisting of romantic ballads, which traced the influence of the poetry of Vasily Zhukovsky and Vladimir Benediktov. Zhukovsky himself, having familiarized himself with the collection, called only two poems not bad, while he recommended printing the rest under a pseudonym and argued this as follows: “Subsequently you will write better, and you will be ashamed of these verses”. Nekrasov heeded the advice and released a collection under the initials N.N.

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

Publishing activities of Nekrasov: Sovremennik and Whistle

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

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

Alexey Naumov. Nikolai Nekrasov and Ivan Panaev at the patient Vissarion Belinsky. 1881

From the mid-1840s, Nekrasov began to actively engage in publishing activities. With his participation, the almanacs "Physiology of Petersburg", "Articles in Poetry without Pictures", "April 1", "Petersburg Collection" were published, and the latter was especially successful: Dostoevsky's novel "Poor People" was first published in it.

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

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

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

In the mid-1850s, the demands of censorship softened, but the Sovremennik faced a new problem: class contradictions split the authors into two groups with opposing beliefs. Representatives of the liberal nobility advocated realism and the aesthetic principle in literature, supporters of democracy adhered to a satirical direction. The confrontation, of course, splashed out on the pages of the magazine, so Nekrasov, together with Nikolai Dobrolyubov, founded an appendix to Sovremennik - the satirical publication Whistle. It published humorous novels and stories, satirical poems, pamphlets and caricatures.

At various times, Ivan Panaev, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, and Nikolai Nekrasov published their works on the pages of the Whistle. Photo: russkiymir.ru

After the closure of Sovremennik, Nekrasov began publishing the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine, which he rented from the publisher Andrei Kraevsky. At the same time, the poet worked on one of his most ambitious works - the peasant poem "Who should live well in Russia".

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

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

During the life of Nekrasov, only three fragments of the poem were published in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski - the first part with a prologue, which does not have its own name, "Last Child" and "Peasant Woman". "A Feast for the Whole World" was published only three years after the death of the author, and even then with significant censorship cuts.

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



"For Nekrasov remains immortality, well deserved by him." F. M. Dostoevsky "The personality of Nekrasov is and still is a stumbling block for everyone who is in the habit of judging by stereotyped ideas." A.M.Skobichevsky

ON THE. Nekrasov

December 10 (November 28 O.S.), 1821, Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov was born - a brilliant publisher, publicist writer, close to revolutionary democratic circles, permanent editor and publisher of the Sovremennik magazine (1847-1866).

Before Nekrasov, in the Russian literary tradition, there was a view of poetry as a way of expressing feelings, and prose as a way of expressing thoughts. 1850-60s - the time of another "great turning point" in the history of Russia. Society did not just demand economic, social and political changes. A great emotional explosion was brewing, an era of reassessment of values, which ultimately resulted in the fruitless flirting of the intelligentsia with the elements of the people, fanning the revolutionary fire and a complete departure from the traditions of romanticism in Russian literature. Responding to the requirements of his difficult time, Nekrasov decided to prepare a kind of "salad" of folk poetry and accusatory journalistic prose, which was very to the taste of his contemporaries. The main theme of such “adapted” poetry is a person as a product of a certain social environment, and sadness about this person (according to Nekrasov) is the main task of the best citizens of contemporary Russian society.

The journalistic essays of the "sorrowful" Nekrasov, dressed by him in an emotional and lyrical package, for a long time were a model of civil lyrics for writers - democrats of the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. And although a sane minority of Russian society did not at all consider the rhymed feuilletons and proclamations of Mr. Nekrasov to be high poetry, already during the life of the author some of them were included in school curricula, and Nekrasov himself acquired the status of a "truly people's poet." True, only among the "repentant" in every way noble-raznochinsk intelligentsia. The people themselves did not even suspect the existence of the poet Nekrasov (as well as Pushkin and Lermontov).

The publisher of one of the most widely read magazines, a successful literary businessman, N.A. Nekrasov perfectly fit into his difficult era. For many years he managed to manipulate the literary tastes of his contemporaries, sensitively responding to all the demands of the political, economic, literary market of the second half of the 19th century. Nekrasov's "contemporary" became the focus and center of attraction for a wide variety of literary and political movements: from the very moderate liberalism of Turgenev and Tolstoy to the revolutionary democrats (Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky).

In his poetic stylizations, Nekrasov raised the most painful, most urgent problems of pre-reform and post-reform Russia in the 19th century. Many of his plot sketches were subsequently reflected in the works of recognized classics of Russian literature. So, the whole philosophy and even the “poetics” of suffering in F.M. Dostoevsky was largely formed under the direct and strong influence of Nekrasov.

It is to Nekrasov that we owe many "winged" phrases and aphorisms that have forever become part of our everyday speech. (“Sow reasonable, good, eternal”, “Happy are deaf to good”, “There were worse times, but there were no meanness”, etc.)

Family and ancestors

ON THE. Nekrasov twice seriously tried to inform the public of the main milestones of his interesting biography, but each time he tried to do this at the most critical moments for himself. In 1855, the writer believed that he was mortally ill, and was not going to write his life story because he had recovered. And twenty years later, in 1877, being really mortally ill, he simply did not have time.

However, it is unlikely that descendants would be able to draw any reliable information or facts from these author's stories. Nekrasov needed an autobiography solely for auto-confession, aimed at instructing and edifying literary descendants.

“It occurred to me to write for the press, but not during my lifetime, my biography, that is, something like confessions or notes about my life - in a rather extensive size. Tell me: isn't this - so to speak - selfish? - he asked in one of the letters to I.S. Turgenev, on which he then checked almost everything. And Turgenev replied:

“I fully approve of your intention to write your biography; your life is precisely one of those that, putting all vanity aside, must be told - because they represent a lot of things that more than one Russian soul will deeply respond to.

Neither an autobiography nor a recording of N.A. Nekrasov’s literary memoirs ever took place. Therefore, everything that we know today about the early years of the “sad man of the Russian land” is gleaned by biographers exclusively from the literary works of Nekrasov and the memoirs of people close to him.

As evidenced by several options for the beginning of Nekrasov's "autobiography", Nikolai Alekseevich himself could not really decide either on the year, or on the day, or on the place of his birth:

"I was born in 1822 in the Yaroslavl province. My father, the old adjutant of Prince Wittgenstein, was a retired captain ..."

"I was born in 1821 on November 22 in the Podolsk province in the Vinnitsa district in some Jewish town, where my father then stood with his regiment ..."

In fact, N.A. Nekrasov was born on November 28 (December 10), 1821 in the Ukrainian town of Nemirov. One of the modern researchers also believes that the village of Sinki in the present Kirovograd region was the place of his birth.

Nobody wrote the history of the Nekrasov family either. The noble family of the Nekrasovs was quite ancient and purely Great Russian, but due to their lack of documents, it was not included in that part of the genealogy book of the nobles of the Yaroslavl province, where the pillar nobility was placed, and the official account goes in the second part of 1810 - according to the first officer rank of Alexei Sergeevich Nekrasov (father of the future poet). The coat of arms of the Nekrasovs, approved by Emperor Nicholas II in April 1916, was also recently found.

Once upon a time, the family was very rich, but, starting from the great-grandfather, the Nekrasovs' affairs went from bad to worse, thanks to their addiction to the card game. Alexey Sergeevich, telling his sons a glorious pedigree, summarized: “Our ancestors were rich. Your great-great-grandfather lost seven thousand souls, great-grandfather - two, grandfather (my father) - one, I - nothing, because there was nothing to lose, but I also like to play cards.

His son Nikolai Alekseevich was the first to change his fate. No, he did not curb his fatal passion for cards, he did not stop playing, but he stopped losing. All his ancestors lost - he won back alone. And played a lot. The bill was, if not in the millions, then in the hundreds of thousands. His card partners were large landowners, important state dignitaries, and very rich people in Russia. According to Nekrasov himself, only the future Minister of Finance Abaza lost about a million francs to the poet (at the then exchange rate - half a million Russian rubles).

However, success and financial well-being did not come to N.A. Nekrasov immediately. If we talk about his childhood and youth, then they really were full of hardships and humiliations, which subsequently affected the character and worldview of the writer.

N.A. Nekrasov spent his childhood in the Yaroslavl estate of his father Greshnevo. The relationship of the parents of the future poet left much to be desired.

In an unknown wilderness, in a semi-wild village, I grew up among violent savages, And fate, by the grace of the great, gave me, As the leaders of the kennels.

Under the "houndmaster" one should here understand the father - a man of unbridled passions, a limited domestic tyrant and petty tyrant. He devoted his whole life to litigation with relatives over the estate, and when he won the main case of the possession of a thousand serf souls, the Manifesto of 1861 was issued. The old man could not survive the "liberation" and died. Before that, Nekrasov's parents had only about forty serfs and thirteen children. What kind of family idyll could we talk about in such conditions?

The mature Nekrasov subsequently abandoned many of his accusatory characteristics of his serf parent. The poet admitted that his father was no worse and no better than other people of his circle. Yes, he loved hunting, kept dogs, a whole staff of houndmasters, and actively involved his older sons in hunting. But the traditional autumn hunting for a small estate nobleman was not just fun. With a general limited means, hunting prey is a serious help in the economy. She allowed to feed a large family and household. Young Nekrasov understood this very well.

By his own admission, the writer, in his early works ("Motherland"), youthful maximalism and a tribute to the notorious "oedipal complex" affected - filial jealousy, resentment against a parent for betraying his beloved mother.

The bright image of the mother, as the only positive memory of childhood, Nekrasov carried through his whole life, embodying it in his poetry. To this day, Nekrasov's biographers do not know anything real about the poet's mother. She remains one of the most enigmatic images associated with Russian literature. No images survive (if there were any), no things, no written documentary material. According to Nekrasov himself, it is known that Elena Andreevna was the daughter of a wealthy Little Russian landowner, a well-educated, beautiful woman who, for some unknown reason, married a poor, unremarkable officer and left with him for the Yaroslavl province. Elena Andreevna died quite young - in 1841, when the future poet was not even 20 years old. Immediately after the death of his wife, the father brought his serf mistress into the house as a mistress. “You saved a living soul in me,” the son writes in verse about his mother. Her romantic image will be the main leitmotif through all the subsequent work of N.A. Nekrasov.

At the age of 11, Nikolai, together with his older brother Andrei, went to study at a gymnasium in Yaroslavl. The brothers studied poorly, they only reached the 5th grade, without being certified in a number of subjects. According to A.Ya. The Nekrasovs were left to themselves, walked the streets all day long, played billiards and did not bother themselves too much with reading books or visiting the gymnasium:

At the age of fifteen I was fully brought up, As required by my father's ideal: The hand is firm, the eye is true, the spirit is tried, But I knew the letter very unsteadily.

Nevertheless, by the age of 13-14, Nikolai knew the "letter" and quite well. For a year and a half, Nekrasov's father served as a police chief - a district police chief. The teenager acted as secretary with him and traveled with his parent, personally observing the criminal life of the county in all its unsightly light.

So, as we can see, there was nothing like the excellent home education of Pushkin or Lermontov behind the future poet Nekrasov. On the contrary, he could be considered a man of little education. Until the end of his life, Nekrasov never learned a single foreign language; the young man's reading experience also left much to be desired. And although Nikolai began to write poetry from the age of six or seven, by the age of fifteen his poetic creations were no different from the “pen test” of most of the noble undergrowths of his circle. But the young man had excellent hunting skills, rode well, shot accurately, was physically strong and hardy.

There is nothing surprising in the fact that my father insisted on a military career - several generations of Nekrasov noblemen quite successfully served the Tsar and the Fatherland. But the son, who had never been known for his love of science, suddenly wanted to go to university. There was a serious quarrel in the family.

“Mother wanted,” Chernyshevsky recalled from the words of Nekrasov, “so that he was an educated person, and told him that he should enter the university, because education is acquired at the university, and not in special schools. But the father did not want to even hear about it: he agreed to let Nekrasov go only for admission to the cadet corps. It was useless to argue, the mother fell silent ... But he went with the intention of entering not the cadet corps, but the university ... "

Young Nekrasov went to the capital in order to deceive his father, but he himself was deceived. Not having sufficient preparation, he did not pass the university exams, and flatly refused to enter the cadet corps. The enraged Alexei Sergeevich left the sixteen-year-old offspring without any means of subsistence, leaving him to arrange his own fate.

literary vagabond

It can be said with certainty that not a single Russian writer had anything even close to the life and worldly experience that the young Nekrasov went through in his early years in St. Petersburg. He later called one of his stories (an excerpt from the novel) “Petersburg Corners”. He could only write, on the basis of personal reminiscences, some kind of "Petersburg bottom", which Gorky himself did not visit.

In 1839-1840, Nekrasov tried to enter Russian literature as a lyric poet. Several of his poems were published in magazines ("Son of the Fatherland", "Library for Reading"). He also had a conversation with V.A. Zhukovsky, the tutor of the Tsarevich and mentor of all young poets. Zhukovsky advised the young talent to publish his poems without a signature, because then he would be ashamed of himself.

In 1840, Nekrasov released the poetry collection Dreams and Sounds, signing it with the initials N.N. The book was not successful, and the reviews of critics (including VG Belinsky) were simply deadly. It ended with the author himself buying up the entire circulation and destroying it.

However, the then very young Nekrasov was not disappointed in the chosen path. He did not take the pose of an offended genius, did not slide into vulgar drunkenness and fruitless regrets. On the contrary, the young poet showed the greatest sobriety of mind, complete self-criticism that never changed him in the future.

Nekrasov later recalled:

“I stopped writing serious poems and began to write selfishly,” in other words, for earnings, for money, sometimes just so as not to die of hunger.

With "serious poetry", as with the university, the case ended in failure. After the first failure, Nekrasov made repeated attempts to prepare and pass the entrance exams again, but received only units. For some time he was listed as a volunteer of the Faculty of Philosophy. I listened to lectures for free, since my father got a certificate from the Yaroslavl marshal of the nobility about his “insufficient condition”.

The financial situation of Nekrasov during this period can be described in one word - "hunger". He wandered around St. Petersburg almost homeless, always hungry, poorly dressed. According to later acquaintances, even the beggars pitied Nekrasov in those years. Once he spent the night in a rooming house, where he wrote a certificate to a poor old woman and received 15 kopecks from her. On Sennaya Square, he earned money by writing letters and petitions to illiterate peasants. Actress A.I. Schubert recalled that she and her mother called Nekrasov "unfortunate" and fed him, like a stray dog, with the remnants of their dinner.

At the same time, Nekrasov was a man of a passionate, proud and independent character. This was precisely confirmed by the whole history of the break with his father, and indeed by all his further fate. Initially, pride and independence were manifested precisely in relations with the father. Nekrasov never once complained about anything and never once asked for anything from his father or his brothers. In this regard, he owes his fate only to himself - both in a bad and in a good sense. In Petersburg, his pride and dignity were constantly tested, insulted and humiliated. It was then, apparently, on one of the bitterest days, the poet gave himself the word to fulfill one oath. It must be said that oaths were then in vogue: Herzen and Ogaryov swore on the Sparrow Hills, Turgenev took an “annibal oath” for himself, and L. Tolstoy swore in his diaries. But neither Turgenev, nor Tolstoy, and even more so Ogaryov and Herzen, were never threatened by starvation or cold death. Nekrasov, like Scarlett O'Hara, the heroine of M. Mitchell's novel, swore to himself only one thing: not to die in the attic.

Perhaps only Dostoevsky fully understood the final meaning, the unconditional significance of such an oath by Nekrasov and the almost demonic rigor of its fulfillment:

“A million is the demon of Nekrasov! Well, he loved gold, luxury, pleasures so much, and in order to have them, he indulged in "practicality"? No, rather it was a demon of a different nature, it was the most gloomy and humiliating demon. It was a demon of pride, a thirst for self-sufficiency, a need to protect oneself from people with a solid wall and independently, calmly look at their threats. I think that this demon still stuck to the heart of a child, a fifteen-year-old child who found himself on a St. Petersburg pavement, almost running away from his father ... It was a thirst for a gloomy, gloomy, isolated self-sufficiency, so as not to depend on anyone. I think that I am not mistaken, I recall something from my very first acquaintance with him. At least that's how it seemed to me then all my life. But this demon was still a low demon ... ".

Lucky case

Almost all Nekrasov's biographers note that no matter how the fate of the "great sad man of the Russian land" develops, sooner or later he would be able to get out of the St. Petersburg bottom. At any cost, he would have built his life as he saw fit, he could have succeeded, if not in literary, then in any other field. One way or another, but Nekrasov's "low demon" would be satisfied.

I.I. Panaev

However, it is no secret to anyone that it is firmly to enter the literary environment and embody all your talents - a writer, journalist, publicist and publisher - N.A. Nekrasov was helped by the very "happy event" that happens once in a lifetime. Namely, a fateful meeting with the Panaev family.

Ivan Ivanovich Panaev, Derzhavin's great-nephew, a rich minion of fortune, a dandy and a rake known throughout St. Petersburg, also dabbled in literature. In his living room there was one of the most famous literary salons in Russia at that time. Here, sometimes at the same time one could meet the whole color of Russian literature: Turgenev, L. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Goncharov, Belinsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Ostrovsky, Pisemsky and many, many others. The hostess of the hospitable house of the Panaevs was Avdotya Yakovlevna (nee Bryanskaya), the daughter of a famous actor in the imperial theaters. Despite an extremely superficial education and flagrant illiteracy (until the end of her life she made spelling mistakes in the simplest words), Avdotya Yakovlevna became famous as one of the very first Russian writers, although under the male pseudonym N. Stanitsky.

Her husband Ivan Panaev not only wrote stories, novels and novellas, but also liked to act as a patron and benefactor for poor writers. So, in the autumn of 1842, a rumor spread around St. Petersburg about another "good deed" by Panaev. Upon learning that his brother in the literary workshop was in poverty, Panaev came to Nekrasov in his dandy carriage, fed him and lent him money. Saved, in general, from starvation.

In fact, Nekrasov did not even think about dying. At that time, he supplemented himself with odd literary jobs: he wrote custom-made poems, vulgar vaudeville for theaters, compiled posters, and even gave lessons. Four years of wandering life only hardened him. True to his oath, he waited for the moment when the door to fame and money would open before him.

This door turned out to be the door to the Panayevs' apartment.

Nekrasov and Panaev.
Caricature of N.A. Stepanova, "Illustrated almanac", 1848

At first, writers only invited the young poet to their evenings, and when he left, they mocked him without malice at his simple verses, poor clothes, and uncertain manners. Sometimes they simply felt sorry for them, just as they feel sorry for homeless animals and sick children. However, never distinguished by excessive shyness, Nekrasov with surprising speed took his place in the literary circle of young St. Petersburg writers who united around V. G. Belinsky. Belinsky, as if repenting for his review of "Dreams and Sounds", took literary patronage over Nekrasov, introduced him to the editorial office of "Notes of the Fatherland", allowed him to write serious critical articles. They also began to print an adventure novel by a young author, The Life and Adventures of Tikhon Trostnikov.

The Panaevs also imbued the talkative, witty Nekrasov with a feeling of sincere friendship. The young poet, when he wanted to, could be an interesting conversationalist, knew how to win over people. Of course, Nekrasov immediately fell in love with the beautiful Avdotya Yakovlevna. With the guests, the hostess behaved rather freely, but she was equally sweet and even with everyone. If the love affairs of her husband often became known to the whole world, then Mrs. Panaeva tried to observe external decorum. Nekrasov, despite his youth, had another remarkable quality - patience.

In 1844, Panaev rented a new spacious apartment on the Fontanka. He made another broad gesture - he suggested that a friend of the family, Nekrasov, leave his miserable corner with bedbugs and move to live with him on the Fontanka. Nekrasov occupied two small cozy rooms in Ivan Ivanovich's house. Absolutely free. In addition, he received as a gift from the Panayevs a silk muffler, a tailcoat and everything that is supposed to be a decent secular person.

"Contemporary"

Meanwhile, a serious ideological demarcation was observed in society. Westerners beat the "Bell", calling to be equal to the liberal West. The Slavophils called to the roots, plunging headlong into the still completely unexplored historical past. The guards wanted to leave everything as it is. In St. Petersburg, writers were grouped "according to their interests" around magazines. Belinsky's circle was then warmed up by A. Kraevsky in "Notes of the Fatherland". But under tight government censorship, the not-too-brave Kraevsky gave most of the magazine space to proven and safe historical novels. The youth in these narrow confines were crowded. Belinsky's circle began talking about opening a new, own magazine. However, fellow writers were not distinguished by either practical acumen or the ability to set things right. There were voices that it would be possible to hire an intelligent manager, but how much would he share their convictions?

And then in their own midst there was such a person - Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov. It turned out that he knows something about the publishing business. Back in 1843-46, he published the almanacs "Articles in Poetry", "Physiology of Petersburg", "April First", "Petersburg Collection". In the latter, by the way, “Poor people” by F.M. Dostoevsky.

Nekrasov himself later recalled:

“I was the only practitioner among the idealists, and when we started a magazine, the idealists told me this directly and assigned me, as it were, the mission of creating a magazine.”

Meanwhile, in addition to the desire and ability to create a magazine, you also need the means. Neither Belinsky, nor any of the writers, except for Ivan Panaev, had enough money then.

Nekrasov stated that it would be cheaper to buy or lease an existing magazine than to create something new. Such a magazine was found very quickly.

Sovremennik, as is known, was founded by Pushkin in 1836. The poet managed to release only four issues. After Pushkin's death, Sovremennik passed to his friend, the poet and professor of St. Petersburg University P.A. Pletnev.

Pletnev had neither the time nor the strength to engage in publishing work. The magazine eked out a miserable existence, did not bring any income, and Pletnev did not abandon him only out of loyalty to the memory of his deceased friend. He quickly agreed to lease the Sovremennik, followed by an installment sale.

Nekrasov needed 50 thousand rubles for the initial payment, bribes to censors, fees and first expenses. Panaev volunteered to give 25 thousand. It was decided to ask for the remaining half from an old friend of Panaev, the richest landowner G.M. Tolstoy, who adhered to very radical views, made friends with Bakunin, Proudhon, and was friends with Marx and Engels.

In 1846, the Panaev couple, together with Nekrasov, traveled to Tolstoy in Kazan, where one of the estates of the alleged patron was located. In business terms, the trip was pointless. Tolstoy at first willingly agreed to give money for the magazine, but then refused, and Nekrasov had to collect the remaining amount bit by bit: Herzen's wife gave five thousand, the tea merchant V. Botkin donated about ten thousand, Avdotya Yakovlevna Panaeva allocated something from her personal capital. Nekrasov himself obtained the rest with the help of loans.

Nevertheless, in this long and tiring trip to Kazan, a spiritual rapprochement between Nikolai Alekseevich and Panaeva took place. Nekrasov used a win-win trump card - he told Avdotya Yakovlevna in all details about his unhappy childhood, impoverished years in St. Petersburg. Panaeva took pity on the unfortunate wretch, and from pity to love, such a woman had only one step.

Already on January 1, 1847, the first book of the new, already Nekrasov's Sovremennik was brought from the printing house. The first issue immediately attracted the attention of readers. Today it seems strange that things that have long become textbooks were once printed for the first time, and almost no one knew the authors. The first issue of the magazine published “Khor and Kalinich” by I.S. Turgenev, “A Novel in Nine Letters” by F.M. The critical section was adorned with three reviews by Belinsky and his famous article "A Look at Russian Literature in 1846".

The release of the first issue was also crowned with a large gala dinner, which opened, as Pushkin would say, "a long row of dinners" - a long-term tradition: this is how the release of each magazine book was celebrated. Subsequently, Nekrasov's rich drunken feasts came not so much from the lord's hospitality, but from a sober political and psychological calculation. The success of the literary affairs of the journal was ensured not only by writing, but also by banquet tables. Nekrasov knew perfectly well that "in the hop" Russian affairs are done more successfully. Another agreement under the glass may be stronger and more reliable than an impeccable legal deal.

Publisher Nekrasov

From the very beginning of his work at Sovremennik, Nekrasov proved himself to be a brilliant businessman and organizer. In the first year, the circulation of the magazine grew from two hundred copies to four thousand (!). One of the first Nekrasov realized the importance of advertising to increase subscriptions and improve the financial well-being of the magazine. He had little concern for the ethical standards of publishing accepted at the time. There were no clearly defined laws. And what is not forbidden is allowed. Nekrasov ordered to print a huge number of color Sovremennik advertising posters, which were pasted all over St. Petersburg and sent to other cities. He advertised a subscription to the magazine in all St. Petersburg and Moscow newspapers.

In the 1840s and 1850s, translated novels were especially popular. Often the same novel was published by several Russian magazines. You didn't have to buy the publishing rights to get them. It was enough to buy a cheap pamphlet and print it in parts, without waiting for the translation of the entire novel. Even easier is to get a few issues of foreign newspapers, where modern fiction was printed in the "cellars". Nekrasov kept a whole staff of voyageurs who, visiting Europe, brought newspapers from there, and sometimes stole fresh proofs directly from the tables in the editorial offices. Sometimes they bribed typesetters or copyists (typists) who rewrote the authors' scribbles. It often turned out that a novel in Russian translation was published in Sovremennik faster than it was published in full in the native language.

Numerous book supplements also helped to increase the circulation of the magazine - for subscribers at a reduced price. To attract a female audience, a paid application was released with beautiful color pictures of the latest Parisian fashions and Avdotya Yakovlevna's detailed explanations on this issue. Panaeva's materials were sent from Paris by her friend, Maria Lvovna Ogaryova.

In the very first year, the talented manager Nekrasov ensured that the number of Sovremennik subscribers reached 2,000 people. Next year - 3100.

Needless to say, none of the fellow writers around him possessed either such practical acumen or (most importantly) the desire to engage in financial affairs and “promote” the magazine. Belinsky, admiring the extraordinary abilities of his recent ward, did not even advise any of his friends to meddle in the economic affairs of the publishing house: “You and I have nothing to teach Nekrasov; Well, what do we mean! .. "

There is nothing surprising in the fact that the efficient publisher very quickly wiped out his co-owner Panaev from any business in Sovremennik. At first, Nekrasov tried to divert his companion's attention to writing, and when he realized that Ivan Ivanovich was not too capable of this, he simply wrote him off, both in business and personal terms.

"You and I are stupid people..."

Some contemporaries, and later biographers of N.A. Nekrasov, spoke more than once about the mental imbalance and even ill health of Nikolai Alekseevich. He gave the impression of a man who sold his soul to the devil. It was as if there were two different entities in his body shell: a prudent businessman who knows the price of everything in the world, a born organizer, a successful player, and at the same time - a depressive melancholic, sentimental, subtly feeling the suffering of others, a very conscientious and demanding person. At times he could work tirelessly, single-handedly carry the entire burden of publishing, editorial, financial affairs, showing outstanding business activity, and at times he fell into impotent apathy and spent weeks moping alone with himself, doing nothing without leaving home. During such periods, Nekrasov was obsessed with thoughts of suicide, held a loaded pistol in his hands for a long time, looked for a strong hook on the ceiling, or got involved in dueling disputes with the most dangerous rules. Of course, the years of deprivation, humiliation, and the struggle for one's own existence affected the character, worldview, attitude to the world around the mature Nekrasov. At the earliest time of life, when, in general, a prosperous noble undergrowth had to endure several serious crashes, Nekrasov may have consciously abandoned his real self. Instinctively, he still felt that he was created for something else, but every year the “low demon” won more and more space for himself, and the synthesis of folk stylizations and social problems led the poet further and further away from his true destiny.

There is nothing surprising. Reading, and even more so writing such “poems” as “Am I driving down a dark street at night” or “Reflections at the front door”, you will involuntarily fall into depression, get mentally ill, become disgusted with yourself ...

The substitution of concepts not only in literature, but also in life played a fatal, irreversible role in the personal fate of the poet Nekrasov.

In 1848, the year turned out to be the most unfortunate for Sovremennik. Belinsky died. A wave of revolutions swept across Europe. Censorship was rampant in Russia, banning everything from moderately liberal statements by Russian authors to translations of foreign literature, especially French. Due to censorship terror, the next issue of Sovremennik was under threat. Neither bribes, nor plentiful meals, nor intentional losses at cards to “the right people” could radically change the situation. If one bribed official allowed something, then another immediately forbade it.

AND I. Panaeva

But the inventive Nekrasov found a way out of this vicious circle. To fill the pages of the magazine, he invites Avdotya Panaeva to urgently write an exciting, adventure and absolutely apolitical novel with a sequel. So that it does not look like "female needlework", Nekrasov becomes a co-author of his beautiful lady, who initially wrote under the male pseudonym N. Stanitsky. The novels "Three Countries of the World" (1849) and "Dead Lake" (1851) are a product of joint creativity that allowed Sovremennik as a commercial enterprise to stay afloat during the years of the pre-reform strengthening of the regime, later called by historians the "Gloomy Seven Years" (1848-1855) .

The co-authorship brought Panaeva and Nekrasov so close that Avdotya Yakovlevna finally put an end to her imaginary marriage. In 1848, she became pregnant from Nekrasov, then they had a child desired by both parents, but he died a few weeks later. Nekrasov was very upset by this loss, and the unfortunate mother seemed to be petrified with grief.

In 1855, Nekrasov and Panaeva buried their second, perhaps even more desirable and expected son. This almost caused the final break in relations, but Nekrasov became seriously ill, and Avdotya Yakovlevna could not leave him.

It just so happened that only two commercial novels and truly lyrical poems, which were included in the literature under the name "Panaevsky Cycle", remained the fruit of the great love of two far from ordinary people.

The true love story of Nekrasov and Panaeva, as well as the love lyrics of the “sorrowful” poet, the poet-citizen, destroyed all hitherto familiar ideas about the relationship between a man and a woman and their reflection in Russian literature.

For fifteen years, the Panaevs and Nekrasovs lived together, in fact, in the same apartment. Ivan Ivanovich did not interfere in any way with the relationship of his legal wife with the “family friend” Nekrasov. But the relationship between Nikolai Alekseevich and Avdotya Yakovlevna was never even and cloudless. The lovers either wrote novels together, then ran from each other to different cities and countries of Europe, then parted forever, then again converged in the St. Petersburg apartment of the Panaevs, so that after some time they would run away and look for a new meeting.

Such relationships can be characterized by the proverb "together closely, but apart boring."

In the memoirs of contemporaries who observed Nekrasov and Panaeva at different periods of their lives, there are more than once judgments that these "stupid people" could never form a normal married couple. Nekrasov by nature was a fighter, hunter, adventurer. He was not seduced by quiet family joys. During "quiet periods" he fell into depression, which in its climax often led to thoughts of suicide. Avdotya Yakovlevna was simply forced to take active actions (run away, slip away, threaten to break up, make her suffer) in order to bring her loved one back to life. In Panaeva, Nekrasov, voluntarily or involuntarily, found that main nerve that for many years held the entire nervous basis of his work, his attitude and almost existence itself - suffering. The suffering that he received from her in full and with which he fully endowed her.

A tragic, perhaps defining imprint on their relationship was the suffering due to failed motherhood and fatherhood.

The modern researcher N. Skatov, in his monograph on Nekrasov, attaches decisive importance to this fact. He believes that only a happy fatherhood could, perhaps, lead Nekrasov out of his spiritual impasse, to establish normal family relations. It is no coincidence that Nekrasov wrote so much about children and for children. In addition, the image of the beloved woman for him has always been inextricably linked with the image of the mother.

Panaeva, for many years, shared her unfulfilled maternal feelings between Nekrasov and her “unfortunate”, descending spouse, forcing the entire metropolitan beau monde to practice barbs about this unusual “triple alliance”.

In Nekrasov's poems, the feeling of love appears in all its complexity, inconsistency, unpredictability and at the same time - everyday life. Nekrasov even poeticized the “prose of love” with its quarrels, quarrels, conflicts, parting, reconciliation ...

You and I are stupid people: What a minute, then the flash is ready! Relief of an agitated chest, An unreasonable, harsh word. Speak when you are angry, Everything that excites and torments the soul! Let us, my friend, be angry openly: The world is lighter, and more likely to get bored. If prose is inevitable in love, So let's take a share of happiness from it: After a quarrel so full, so tender Return of love and participation... 1851

For the first time in his intimate lyrics, not one, but two characters appear at the same time. He seems to "play" not only for himself, but also for his chosen one. Intellectual lyrics replace love ones. Before us is the love of two people engaged in business. Their interests, as is often the case in life, converge and diverge. Severe realism invades the sphere of intimate feelings. He forces both heroes to make albeit incorrect, but independent decisions, often dictated not only by the heart, but also by the mind:

A difficult year - the illness broke me, Trouble caught me - happiness changed - And neither enemy nor friend spares me, And even you did not spare! Tormented, embittered by the struggle With her natural enemies, Sufferer! you stand before me A beautiful ghost with crazy eyes! Hair has fallen to the shoulders, Mouths are burning, cheeks are blushing, And unbridled speech Merges into terrible reproaches, Cruel, wrong ... Wait! I did not doom your young years To a life without happiness and freedom, I am a friend, I am not your destroyer! But you don't listen...

In 1862, I.I. Panaev died. All acquaintances believed that now Nekrasov and Avdotya Yakovlevna should finally get married. But this did not happen. In 1863, Panaeva moved out of the Nekrasov apartment on Liteiny and very hastily married the secretary of Sovremennik A.F. Golovachev. It was a degraded copy of Panaev - a cheerful, good-natured rake, an absolutely empty person who helped Avdotya Yakovlevna quickly lower all her considerable fortune. But Panaeva for the first time, at the age of more than forty, became a mother, and was completely immersed in raising her daughter. Her daughter Evdokia Apollonovna Nagrodskaya (Golovacheva) will also become a writer - however, after 1917 - the Russian abroad.

The split in Sovremennik

Already in the mid-1850s, Sovremennik concentrated all the best that Russian literature of the 19th century had and would have in the future: Turgenev, Tolstoy, Goncharov, Ostrovsky, Fet, Grigorovich, Annenkov, Botkin, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov. And it was Nekrasov who collected them all in one magazine. It still remains a mystery how, besides high fees, the publisher of Sovremennik could keep such diverse authors together?

The “old” editorial office of the Sovremennik magazine: Goncharov I.A., Tolstoy L.N., Turgenev I.S., Grigorovich D.V., Druzhinin A.V., Ostrovsky A.N.

It is known that in 1856 Nekrasov entered into a kind of "obligatory agreement" with the leading authors of the journal. The agreement obligated writers to submit their new works only to Sovremennik for four years in a row. Naturally, nothing came of this in practice. Already in 1858, I.S. Turgenev terminated this agreement unilaterally. In order not to completely lose the author, Nekrasov was then forced to agree with his decision. Many researchers regard this move by Turgenev as the beginning of a conflict in the editorial office.

In the acute political struggle of the post-reform period, two directly opposite positions of the main authors of the journal became even more pronounced. Some (Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov) actively called Russia "to the ax", foreshadowing the peasant revolution. Others (mostly noble writers) took more moderate positions. It is believed that the culmination of the split within Sovremennik was the publication by N.A. Nekrasov, despite the protest of I.S. Turgenev, of N.A. Dobrolyubov about the novel "On the Eve". The article was titled "When Will the Real Day Come?" (1860. No 3). Turgenev had a very low opinion of criticism of Dobrolyubov, frankly disliked him as a person and believed that he had a harmful influence on Nekrasov in matters of selecting materials for Sovremennik. Turgenev did not like Dobrolyubov's article, and the author directly told the publisher: "Choose either me or Dobrolyubov." And Nekrasov, as Soviet researchers believed, decided to sacrifice a long-standing friendship with a leading novelist for the sake of his political views.

In fact, there is every reason to believe that Nekrasov did not share either of these views. The publisher proceeded solely from the business qualities of its employees. He understood that the magazine was made by raznochintsy journalists (Dobrolyubovs and Chernyshevskys), and with the Turgenevs and Tolstoys, it would simply go down the drain. It is significant that Turgenev seriously suggested that Nekrasov take Apollon Grigoriev as the leading critic of the magazine. As a literary critic, Grigoriev stood two or three orders of magnitude higher than Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky combined, and his “brilliant insights” already then largely anticipated their time, which was later unanimously recognized by distant descendants. But businessman Nekrasov wanted to make a magazine here and now. He needed disciplined employees, and not debauched geniuses suffering from depressive alcoholism. In this case, it was not the old friendship, and not even the dubious truth, that turned out to be dearer to Nekrasov, but the fate of his beloved business.

It must be said that the official version of the “Sovremennik split” presented in Soviet literary criticism is based solely on the memoirs of A.Ya. Panaeva - a person directly interested in considering the "split" in the journal not just as a personal conflict between Dobrolyubov (read - Nekrasov) and Turgenev, but to give it an ideological and political character.

In the late 1850s, the so-called “Ogaryov case” received wide publicity among writers - a dark story with the appropriation of A.Ya. Panaeva money from the sale of the estate of N.P. Ogaryov. Panaeva volunteered to be an intermediary between her close friend Maria Lvovna Ogaryova and her ex-husband. As a "compensation" during a divorce, N.P. Ogaryov offered Maria Lvovna the Uruchcha estate in the Oryol province. The ex-wife did not want to sell the estate, and trusted the Panaevs in this matter. As a result, M.L. Ogaryova died in Paris in dire poverty, and where the 300,000 banknotes received from the sale of Uruchcha had gone remained unknown. The question of how Nekrasov was involved in this case still causes controversy among literary critics and biographers of the writer. Meanwhile, the inner circle of Nekrasov and Panaeva was sure that the lovers together appropriated other people's money. It is known that Herzen (a close friend of Ogaryov) called Nekrasov nothing more than a "sharper", "thief", "scoundrel", and resolutely refused to meet when the poet came to him in England to explain himself. Turgenev, who initially tried to defend Nekrasov in this story, having learned about all the circumstances of the case, also began to condemn him.

In 1918, after the opening of the archives of the III department, a fragment of Nekrasov's clarified letter to Panaeva, dated 1857, was accidentally found. The letter concerns just the “Ogaryov case”, and in it Nekrasov openly reproaches Panaeva for her dishonest act against Ogaryova. The poet writes that he still "covers" Avdotya Yakovlevna in front of his acquaintances, sacrificing his reputation and good name. It turns out that Nekrasov is not directly to blame, but his complicity in a crime or concealment of such is an indisputable fact.

It is possible that it was the “Ogarevskaya” story that served as the main reason for the cooling of relations between Turgenev and the editors of Sovremennik already in 1858-59, and Dobrolyubov’s article on “On the Eve” was only a direct cause for the “split” in 1860.

L. Tolstoy, Grigorovich, Dostoevsky, Goncharov, Druzhinin and other "moderate liberals" left the magazine forever after the leading novelist and oldest collaborator Turgenev. Perhaps the above "aristocrats" could also be unpleasant to deal with a dishonest publisher.

In a letter to Herzen, Turgenev writes: "I abandoned Nekrasov as a dishonorable person ..."

It was he who “left” him, as people are thrown who once betrayed trust, were caught cheating in a card game, and who committed a dishonorable, immoral act. With an ideological opponent, a dialogue, a dispute, upholding one's own position is still possible, but a decent person has nothing to talk about with a "dishonest" one.

At first, Nekrasov himself took the break with Turgenev only as personal and far from final. Evidence of this is the verses of 1860, later explained by the phrase “inspired by discord with Turgenev”, and the last letters to a former friend, where repentance and a call for reconciliation are clearly traced. Only by the summer of 1861 did Nekrasov realize that there would be no reconciliation, he finally accepted Panaeva’s “ideological” version and dotted all i’s:

We went out together ... At random I walked in the darkness of the night, And you ... your mind was already bright And your eyes were sharp-sighted. You knew that the night, the dead of night, Our whole life will last, And you did not leave the field away, And you began to fight honestly. You, like a day laborer, went out to work before the light. In the eyes you spoke the truth to the Mighty Despot. In a lie you did not let slumber, Branding and cursing, And boldly tore off the mask From the jester and the scoundrel. And well, the ray barely flashed Doubtful light, Rumor has it that you blew out Your torch... waiting for the dawn!

"Contemporary" in 1860-1866

After the departure of a number of leading authors from Sovremennik, N.G. Chernyshevsky. His sharp, polemical articles attracted readers, maintaining the competitiveness of the publication in the changing conditions of the post-reform market. Sovremennik during these years acquired the authority of the main organ of revolutionary democracy, significantly expanded its audience, and its circulation grew continuously, bringing considerable profits to the editors.

However, Nekrasov's bet on young radicals, which looked very promising in 1860, ultimately led to the death of the magazine. Sovremennik acquired the status of an opposition political journal, and in June 1862 it was suspended by the government for eight months. At the same time, he also lost his main ideologist N.G. Chernyshevsky, who was arrested on suspicion of compiling a revolutionary proclamation. Dobrolyubov died in the autumn of 1861.

Nekrasov, with all his revolutionary poetic proclamations ("The Song of Yeryomushka", etc.), again stood aside.

Once Lenin wrote the words that for many years determined the attitude towards Nekrasov in Soviet literary criticism: “Nekrasov, being personally weak, hesitated between Chernyshevsky and the liberals ...”

Nothing more stupid than this "classic formula" can not be invented. Nekrasov never didn't hesitate and he did not concede in a single principled position and on a single essential issue - neither to the "liberals" nor to Chernyshevsky.

Praised by Lenin, Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky are boys who looked up at Nekrasov and admired his confidence and strength.

Nekrasov could be in a state of weakness, but, as Belinsky used to say about the famous Danish prince, a strong man in his very fall is stronger than a weak man in his very uprising.

It was Nekrasov, with his outstanding organizational skills, financial capabilities, unique social instinct and aesthetic sense, who was to take the role center, combiner, shock absorber in case of collisions. Any hesitation in such a position would be fatal to the cause and suicidal to the waverer. Fortunately, being personally strong, Nekrasov avoided both the unreasonable "leftism" of Chernyshevsky and the unpopular attacks of moderate liberals, taking in all cases a completely independent position.

He became "one of his own among strangers and a stranger among his own." Still, the old edition of Sovremennik, with which Nekrasov was connected by the bonds of long-standing friendship, turned out to be more “his own” than the young and zealous commoners. Neither Chernyshevsky nor Dobrolyubov, unlike Turgenev or Druzhinin, ever claimed friendship or personal relations with the publisher. They were just employees.

In the last period of its existence since 1863, the new edition of Sovremennik (Nekrasov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Eliseev, Antonovich, Pypin and Zhukovsky) continued the journal, keeping Chernyshevsky's direction. At that time, the literary and artistic department of the magazine published the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, Nekrasov, Gleb Uspensky, Sleptsov, Reshetnikov, Pomyalovsky, Yakushkin, Ostrovsky, and others. In the journalistic department, not the most talented publicists, Antonovich and Pypin, came to the fore. But it was no longer the same Sovremennik. Nekrasov intended to leave him.

In 1865, Sovremennik received two warnings; in the middle of 1866, after the publication of five books of the journal, its publication was discontinued at the insistence of a special commission organized after Karakozov's assassination attempt on Alexander II.

Nekrasov was one of the first to know that the magazine was doomed. But he did not want to give up without a fight and decided to use the last chance. The story about the "muravyov ode" is connected with this. On April 16, 1866, in an informal atmosphere of the English Club, Nekrasov approached the main suppressor of the Polish uprising of 1863, Count M.N. Muravyov, whom he was personally acquainted with. The poet read patriotic poems dedicated to Muravyov. There were eyewitnesses to this action, but the text of the poem itself has not been preserved. Witnesses subsequently claimed that Nekrasov's "sycophancy" failed, Muravyov reacted rather coldly to the "ode", the magazine was banned. This act dealt a serious blow to Nekrasov's authority in revolutionary democratic circles.

In this situation, it is not surprising that the magazine was eventually banned, but how long it was not banned. The "postponement" of at least 3-4 years "Sovremennik" owes exclusively to the extensive connections of N.A. Nekrasov in the bureaucratic and government-court environment. Nekrasov was able to enter any door, he could solve almost any issue in half an hour. For example, he had the opportunity to “influence” S. A. Gedeonov, the director of the imperial theaters, a kind of minister, or his permanent partner on the cards, A. V. Adlerberg, already then without five minutes the minister of the imperial court, a friend of the emperor himself. Most of his high-ranking friends did not care what the publisher wrote or printed in his opposition magazine. The main thing is that he was a man of their circle, rich and well-connected. To doubt his trustworthiness to the ministers did not even occur to them.

But the closest employees of Sovremennik did not trust their publisher and editor at all. Immediately after the unsuccessful action with Muravyov and the closure of the magazine, the "second generation" of young radicals - Eliseev, Antonovich, Sleptsov, Zhukovsky - went to the accounting office of Sovremennik in order to obtain a complete financial report. The “revision” by the employees of the cash desk of their publisher spoke of only one thing: they considered Nekrasov a thief.

Truly "one's own among strangers" ...

Last years

After the closure of Sovremennik, N.A. Nekrasov remained a "free artist" with a fairly large capital. In 1863, he acquired the large Karabikha estate, becoming also a wealthy landowner, and in 1871 he acquired the Chudovskaya Luka estate (near Novgorod the Great), remaking it specifically for his hunting dacha.

One must think that wealth did not bring Nekrasov special happiness. At one time, Belinsky absolutely accurately predicted that Nekrasov would be with capital, but Nekrasov would not be a capitalist. Money and getting it was never an end in itself, nor a way of existence for Nikolai Alekseevich. He loved luxury, convenience, hunting, beautiful women, but for full realization he always needed some kind of business - the publication of a magazine, creativity, which the poet Nekrasov, it seems, also treated as a business or an important mission to educate humanity.

In 1868, Nekrasov undertook a journalistic restart: he rented his journal Otechestvennye Zapiski from A. Kraevsky. Many would like to see a continuation of Sovremennik in this magazine, but it will be a completely different magazine. Nekrasov will take into account the bitter lessons that Sovremennik has gone through in recent years, descending to vulgarity and direct degradation. Nekrasov refused to cooperate with Antonovich and Zhukovsky, inviting only Eliseev and Saltykov-Shchedrin from the previous edition.

L. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Ostrovsky, faithful to the memory of the "old" edition of Sovremennik, will perceive Nekrasov's Notes of the Fatherland precisely as an attempt to return to the past, they will respond to the call for cooperation. Dostoevsky will give his novel The Teenager to Otechestvennye Zapiski, Ostrovsky will give his play The Forest, Tolstoy will write several articles and will negotiate the publication of Anna Karenina. True, Saltykov-Shchedrin did not like the novel, and Tolstoy gave it to the Russian Messenger on more favorable terms.

In 1869, the “Prologue” and the first chapters “To whom it is good to live in Russia” are published in “Notes of the Fatherland”. Then the central place is occupied by Nekrasov's poems and poems "Russian Women", "Grandfather", satirical and journalistic works of Saltykov-Shchedrin.

F. Viktorova - Z.N. Nekrasova

At the end of his life, Nekrasov remained deeply lonely. As the famous song goes, “friends don’t grow in a garden, you can’t sell or buy friends.” Friends turned their backs on him a long time ago, the employees, for the most part, betrayed or were ready to betray, there were no children. Relatives (brothers and sisters) dispersed after the death of their father, who went where. Only the prospect of receiving a rich inheritance in the form of Karabikha could bring them together.

From mistresses, kept women, fleeting love interests, Nekrasov also preferred to pay off with money.

In 1864, 1867 and 1869, he traveled abroad in the company of his new passion, the Frenchwoman Sedina Lefren. Having received a large amount of money from Nekrasov for the services rendered, the Frenchwoman safely remained in Paris.

In the spring of 1870, Nekrasov met a young girl, Fyokla Anisimovna Viktorova. She was 23 years old, he was already 48. She was of the simplest origin: the daughter of a soldier or a military clerk. No education.

Later, there were also gloomy allusions to the institution from where Nekrasov allegedly extracted it. V. M. Lazarevsky, who was then quite close to the poet, noted in his diary that Nekrasov took her away from “some kind of merchant Lytkin”. In any case, a situation has developed that is close to the one once proclaimed in Nekrasov's poems:

When from the darkness of delusion, With a burning word of conviction, I extracted a fallen soul, And everything is full of deep torment, You cursed, wringing your hands, The vice that entangled you ...

Initially, apparently, Feklusha was destined for the fate of an ordinary kept woman: with a settlement in a separate apartment. But soon she, if not yet complete, then already hostess enters the apartment on Liteiny, occupying its Panaev half.

It is difficult to say in what role Nekrasov himself saw himself next to this woman. Either he imagined himself as Pygmalion, capable of creating his own Galatea from a piece of soulless marble, or with age, the complex of unrealized paternity began to speak in him more and more, or he was simply tired of the parlor dryness of unpredictable intellectuals and wanted a simple human affection ...

Soon Feklusha Viktorova was renamed Zinaida Nikolaevna. Nekrasov found a convenient name and added a patronymic to it, as if he had become her father. This was followed by classes in Russian grammar, the invitation of teachers of music, vocals and French. Soon, under the name of Zinaida Nikolaevna, Fyokla appeared in the world, met Nekrasov's relatives. The latter strongly disapproved of his choice.

Of course, Nekrasov failed to make a high society lady and mistress of the salon out of a soldier's daughter. But he found true love. The devotion of this simple woman to her benefactor bordered on selflessness. The middle-aged, wiser Nekrasov also seemed to be sincerely attached to her. It was no longer love-suffering or love-struggle. Rather, the grateful indulgence of the elder to the younger, the affection of a parent for a beloved child.

Once, on a hunt in Chudovskaya Luka, Zinaida Nikolaevna mortally wounded Nekrasov's favorite dog, the Kado pointer, with an accidental shot. The dog was dying on the poet's lap. Zinaida, in hopeless horror, asked Nekrasov for forgiveness. He has always been, as they say, a crazy dog ​​lover, and would never forgive anyone for such an oversight. But he forgave Zinaida, as he would have forgiven not another kept woman, but his beloved wife or his own daughter.

During the two years of Nekrasova's fatal illness, Zinaida Nikolaevna was by his side, looked after, consoled, and brightened up his last days. When from the last painful battle with a deadly disease he departed to the next world, she remained on this, as they say, an old woman:

Two hundred days already, Two hundred nights My torment continues; Night and day In your heart My groans echo. Two hundred days, two hundred nights! Dark winter days, Clear winter nights... Zina! Close your weary eyes! Zina! Sleep!

Before his death, Nekrasov, wanting to ensure the future life of his last girlfriend, insisted on a wedding and an official marriage. The wedding took place in a camping military church-tent, pitched in the hall of Nekrasov's apartment. Married by a military priest. Around the lectern, Nekrasov was already led under the arms: he could not move on his own.

Nekrasov died for a long time, surrounded by doctors, nurses, and a caring wife. Almost all former friends, acquaintances, employees, managed to say goodbye to him in absentia (Chernyshevsky) or in person (Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin).

Crowds of thousands accompanied the coffin of Nekrasov. They carried him to the Novodevichy Convent in their arms. Speeches were made in the cemetery. The well-known populist Zasodimsky and the unknown proletarian worker, the later famous Marxist theoretician Georgy Plekhanov, and the then great writer Fyodor Dostoevsky spoke...

Nekrasov's widow voluntarily renounced almost all of the considerable fortune left to her. She transferred her share of the estate to the poet's brother Konstantin, the rights to publish works - to Nekrasov's sister Anna Butkevich. The forgotten Zinaida Nikolaevna Nekrasova lived in St. Petersburg, in Odessa, in Kiev, where, it seems, only once loudly, publicly shouted out her name - “I am the widow of Nekrasov”, stopping the Jewish pogrom. And the crowd stopped. She died in 1915, in Saratov, robbed to the bone by some Baptist sect.

Contemporaries highly appreciated Nekrasov. Many noted that with his departure, the great center of attraction for all Russian literature was forever lost: there is no one to look up to, no one to set an example of great service, no one to point out the “right” path.

Even such a consistent defender of the theory of "art for art's sake" as A. V. Druzhinin argued: "... we see and will always see in Nekrasov a true poet, rich in future and doing enough for future readers."

F.M. Dostoevsky, delivering a farewell speech at the poet's grave, said that Nekrasov occupied such a prominent and memorable place in our literature that in the glorious ranks of Russian poets he "worthy to stand straight after Pushkin and Lermontov." And from the crowd of the poet's admirers there were exclamations: "Higher, higher!"

Perhaps the Russian society of the 1870s lacked its own negative emotions, thrills and suffering, which is why it so gratefully shouldered the depressing outbursts of poetic graphomaniacs?..

However, the immediate descendants, able to soberly assess the artistic merits and demerits of Nekrasov’s works, delivered the opposite verdict: “singer of the sufferings of the people”, “denouncer of public ulcers”, “brave tribune”, “conscientious citizen”, who knows how to correctly write down rhymed lines - this is not yet poet.

“An artist has no right to torture his reader with impunity and senseless,” M. Voloshin said about L. Andreev's story “Eliazar”. At the same time, it was not by chance that he contrasted Andreev's "anatomical theater" with Nekrasov's poem, written upon his return from Dobrolyubov's funeral ...

If not in this, then in many of his other works, N.A. For many years Nekrasov allowed himself to torture the reader with impunity with pictures of inhuman suffering and his own depressions. Moreover, he allowed himself to nurture a whole generation of magazine critics and followers of the poetics of the "suffering of the people", who did not notice anything anti-artistic, aggressive, contrary to the feelings of a normal person in these "tortures".

Nekrasov sincerely believed that he was writing for the people, but the people did not hear him, did not believe in the simple peasant truth stylized by the gentleman-poetry. A person is arranged in such a way that he is interested in learning only the new, the unfamiliar, the unknown. And for the common people, there was nothing new and interesting in the revelations of the “people's sad man”. This was their daily life. For the intelligentsia - on the contrary. She believed Nekrasov, heard the bloody revolutionary alarm, got up and went to save the great Russian people. In the end, she died, falling victim to her own delusions.

It is no coincidence that none of the poems of the "most popular Russian poet" Nekrasov (except for "Peddlers" in various versions and "folk" processing) did not become a folk song. From the "Troika" (its first part) they made a salon romance, omitting, in fact, what the poem was written for. Nekrasov's "suffering" poems were sung exclusively by the populist intelligentsia - in living rooms, in exile, in prisons. For her, it was a form of protest. And the people did not know that they also needed to protest, and therefore they sang apolitical ditties and the naive Kalinka.

Soviet art criticism, which denied the decadent zaum, like all the artistic achievements of the Russian "Silver Age", once again raised Nekrasov to unattainable heights, once again crowned him with the laurels of a truly folk poet. But it's no secret that during this period the people liked S. Yesenin more - without his early modernist quirks and "folk" stylizations.

It is also indicative that the bright and clear voice of Yesenin turned out to be out of place for the Soviet ideologists. Only on the example of the “sufferer” Nekrasov could it be clearly demonstrated that even before the revolution, before the rivers of shed blood, before the horrors of the Civil War and Stalinist repressions, the Russian people constantly groaned. This largely justified what was done to the country in the 1920s and 30s, justified the need for the most severe terror, violence, and the physical extermination of entire generations of Russian people. And what is interesting: in the Soviet years, only Nekrasov was recognized the right to hopeless pessimism and exaltation of the theme of death in lyrics. Soviet poets for such topics were "scribbled" at party meetings and were already considered "non-Soviet".

In the few works of today's literary philologists, the activities of Nekrasov as a publisher, publicist, businessman are often distinguished from literature and his poetic work. This is true. It's time to get rid of textbook clichés that we inherited from populist terrorists and their followers.

Nekrasov was, first of all, a man of action. And Russian literature of the 19th century was unheard of lucky in that N.A. Nekrasov chose it as the “work” of his whole life. For many years, Nekrasov and his Sovremennik constituted a unifying center, acting as a breadwinner, protector, philanthropist, assistant, mentor, cordial friend, and often a caring father for people who constituted a truly great edifice of Russian literature. Honor and praise to him for this and from the deceased contemporaries, and from grateful descendants!

Only merciless time has long put everything in its place.

Today, putting the poet Nekrasov above Pushkin, or at least on a par with him, would never occur to even the most loyal admirers of his work.

The experience of many years of school study of Nekrasov's poems and poems (in complete isolation from the study of the history of Russia, the personality of the author himself and the temporal context that should explain many things to the reader) led to the fact that Nekrasov had practically no admirers left. To our contemporaries, people of the 20th-21st centuries, the "school" Nekrasov did not give anything except an almost physical disgust for the unknown why rhyming lines of satirical feuilletons and social essays "in spite" of that bygone day.

Guided by the current legislation on the prohibition of propaganda of violence, Nekrasov’s works of art should either be completely excluded from the school curriculum (for depicting scenes of human and animal suffering, calls for violence and suicide), or they should be carefully selected, providing accessible comments and references to the general historical context of the era .

Appendix

What feelings, besides depression, can such a poem cause:

MORNING You are sad, you suffer in soul: I believe that it is not wise to suffer here. With the poverty that surrounds us Here, nature itself is at one with. Infinitely dull and pitiful These pastures, fields, meadows, These wet, sleepy jackdaws, That sit on top of a haystack; This nag with a drunken peasant, Running galloping through the force In the distance, hidden by blue fog, This cloudy sky... At least cry! But the rich city is no more beautiful: The same clouds run across the sky; Terribly to the nerves - with an iron shovel. They are now scraping the pavement. Everywhere work begins; They announced the fire from the watchtower; Someone was taken to the shameful square - the executioners are already waiting there. The prostitute home at dawn Hurries, leaving the bed; Officers in a hired carriage Jump out of the city: there will be a duel. Traders wake up together And rush to sit down behind the counters: They need to measure all day, To have a hearty meal in the evening. Chu! cannons roared from the fortress! A flood threatens the capital... Someone has died: Anna is lying on a red pillow of the First Degree. The janitor beats the thief - got caught! They drive a herd of geese for slaughter; Somewhere in the upper floor there was a Shot - someone committed suicide. 1874

Or this:

* * * I am so sad today, So tired of painful thoughts, So deeply, deeply calm My mind, tormented by torture, - What an ailment, my heart is oppressive, Somehow bitterly amuses me, - The meeting of death, threatening, going, He went would... But the dream will refresh - Tomorrow I will get up and run out greedily Meeting the first ray of the sun: The whole soul will start up gratifying, And I will want to live painfully! And the disease that crushes strength Will torment tomorrow as well And about the proximity of the dark grave It is just as clear for the soul to speak ... April 1854

But this poem, if desired, can be brought under the law on the prohibition of propaganda of violence against animals:

Under the cruel hand of a man A little alive, ugly lean, A crippled horse is tearing, Dragging an unbearable burden. Here she staggered and stood. "Well!" - the driver grabbed a log (It seemed that the whip was not enough for him) - And he beat her, beat her, beat her! Legs somehow spread wide, All smoking, settling back, The horse only sighed deeply And looked ... (this is how people look, Submitting to wrong attacks). He again: on the back, on the sides, And running forward, along the shoulder blades And along the weeping, meek eyes! All in vain. The nag stood, Striped all over from the whip, Only responded to every blow With a uniform movement of the tail. This made idle passersby laugh, Everyone put in their own word, I got angry - and thought sadly: "Shouldn't I stand up for her? In our time, it's fashionable to sympathize, We would not mind helping you, Unrequited victim of the people, - Yes, we don't know how to help ourselves! " And the driver did not work in vain - Finally, he made sense! But the last scene was more outrageous to the eye than the first: The horse suddenly tensed up - and went Somehow sideways, nervously quickly, And the driver at each jump, In gratitude for these efforts, Blowed his wings with blows And he himself ran lightly next to him.

It was these poems by Nekrasov that inspired F.M. Dostoevsky to depict the same monstrous scene of violence in prose (the novel Crime and Punishment).

Nekrasov's attitude to his own work was also not entirely unambiguous:

A holiday of life - years of youth - I killed under the weight of labor And a poet, a darling of freedom, A friend of laziness - I have never been. If long restrained torments, Boiling, come under the heart, I write: rhymed sounds Violate my usual work. All the same, they are no worse than flat prose And excite soft hearts, Like tears suddenly gushing From a distressed face. But I'm not flattered that any of them survived in the memory of the people ... There is no free poetry in you, My harsh, clumsy verse! There is no creative art in you... But living blood boils in you, A vengeful feeling triumphs, Burning down, love glimmers, - That love that glorifies the good, That brands the villain and the fool And endows the defenseless singer with a wreath of thorns... Spring 1855

Elena Shirokova

According to materials:

Zhdanov V.V. The life of Nekrasov. – M.: Thought, 1981.

Kuzmenko P.V. The most scandalous triangles of Russian history. – M.: Astrel, 2012.

Muratov A.B. N.A. Dobrolyubov and I.S. Turgenev’s break with the Sovremennik magazine // In the world of Dobrolyubov. Digest of articles. - M., "Soviet writer", 1989

At the beginning of 1875, Nekrasov fell seriously ill and soon his life turned into a slow agony.

In terms of diagnostic first expressed various assumptions racked their brains for quite a long time, but over time it became more and more obvious that we were talking about a cancerous tumor of the colon or rectum.

In early December 1876, the patient was consulted by Professor Nikolai Sklifosovsky, who, during a digital examination of the rectum, clearly identified a neoplasm - "... in the circumference of the upper part of the rectum there is a tumor the size of an apple, which surrounds the entire periphery of the intestine and, probably, causes its increment to the sacral bone, which is why this part of the intestine is motionless; accordingly the site of this tumor is a very significant narrowing of the intestine, the narrowing of the intestine is very significant so that the tip of the finger barely penetrates into it.

In general terms, Nikolai Alekseevich was acquainted with his illness and understood that it was a serious illness. His mood worsened. The doctors began to increase the dose of opium, but N.A. Nekrasov was very negative about this, because he was afraid that this would affect his mental abilities, and he used the slightest opportunity for literary work - he continued to write poems.

The following lines belong to this time:

O Muse! our song is sung.
Come close the poet's eyes
To the eternal sleep of nothingness,
Sister of the people - and mine!

The treatment used was less and less effective. The patient suffered greatly. January 18, 1877 Nekrasov was invited by the surgeon prof. E.I. Bogdanovsky. The sick poet himself turned to him.

On April 4, 1877, surgeons N.I. Bogdanovsky, S.P. Botkin and N.A. Belogolovy suggested that N.A. Nekrasov perform an operation and scheduled it for April 6th. The operation was entrusted to E.I. Bogdanovskiy.

Funeral of Nekrasov. Drawing by A. Baldinger

When the question of surgery first arose, the sister of the poet A.A. Butkevich turned through a friend in Vienna to the famous surgeon Professor Theodor Billroth with a request to come to St. Petersburg and perform an operation on his brother. On April 5, the consent of T. Billroth came, for the arrival and operation he requested 15 thousand Prussian marks. Preparing for the possible arrival of a Viennese surgeon, N.A. Nekrasov writes to his brother Fedor: " ...immediately money came, except for 14 thousand on bills, you have 1 thousand percent. All your Nick. Nekrasov(March 12, 1877).

The doctors who treated the patient, including E.I. Bogdanovskiy, had to agree with the decision and wait for the arrival of T. Billroth, although they clearly understood the urgent need to unload the intestines in an alternative way. Professor T. Billroth arrived in St. Petersburg on the evening of April 11, 1877, and he was introduced to the history of the disease. On April 12, he examined the patient and talked with E.I. Bogdanovsky about some preparations for the operation and about the time of the intervention, which they agreed on at 13:00.

In vain Billroth was discharged from Vienna; The painful operation came to nothing.

The 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. The "Last Songs" written during this time, due to the sincerity of feeling, focusing almost exclusively on memories of childhood, mother and the mistakes made, belong to the best creations of his muse.

In December, the patient's condition began to deteriorate rather quickly, although the colostomy functioned without any complications, only occasionally there was a slight prolapse of the mucous membrane. At the same time, along with an increase in general weakness and emaciation, there were constant and growing pains in the gluteal region on the left, swelling and crepitus on the back of the thigh to the knee region, and swelling in the legs. Chills occurred intermittently. A fetid pus began to stand out from the rectum.

On December 14, N.A. Belogolovy, who observed the patient, determined, as he wrote, "complete paralysis of the right half of the body." The patient was examined by S.P. Botkin. Consciousness and speech were still preserved. Every day the condition progressively worsened, symptoms of approaching death appeared. The patient suffered greatly.

On December 26, Nikolai Alekseevich called his wife, sister and nurse in turn. To each of them he said a barely perceptible goodbye. Soon, consciousness left him, and a day later, on the evening of December 27 (January 8, 1878, according to the new style), Nekrasov died.

On December 30, despite the severe frost, a crowd of thousands escorted the body of the poet from the house on Liteiny Prospekt to the place of his eternal rest at the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent.

The funeral of Nekrasov, which took place by itself without any organization, was the first case of a nationwide return of the last honors to the writer.

Already at the very funeral of Nekrasov, a fruitless dispute began, or rather continued, about the relationship between him and the two greatest representatives of Russian poetry - Pushkin and Lermontov. F.M. Dostoevsky, who said a few words at the open grave of Nekrasov, put ( with known reservations) these names are nearby, but several young voices interrupted him with shouts: "Nekrasov is higher than Pushkin and Lermontov" ...