The Poetry of Nekrasov by Nikolai Nekrasov

First published:Dreams and Sounds, 1840; “Vlas,” 1856; The Pedlar, 1861; The Red-Nosed Frost, 1863; “Russian Women,” 1871-1872; Who Can Be Happy and Free in Russia? 1873-1876; Last Songs, 1877

Critical Evaluation:

The second half of the nineteenth century produced two outstanding Russian poets who were, however, almost direct opposites. Afanasi Shenshin, better known as Fet, represented the art for art’s sake school in his lucid, subjective lyrics. His antagonist was Nikolai Nekrasov, a remarkable, enterprising, and often contradictory man who wrote realistic “civic” poems.

At seventeen Nekrasov was disowned by his wealthy father. Alone in St. Petersburg, the youth was forced to take up hack-writing in order to sustain himself. During this time he wrote a great many rhymed feuilletons and acquired a facility for turning out mediocre verse which, unfortunately, he never lost, even in his later serious work. His first collection of poems, DREAMS AND SOUNDS, appeared in 1840. It was a complete failure and was ruthlessly criticized by Vissarion Belinsky, the foremost literary critic of nineteenth century Russia. Determined to be a success, Nekrasov entered the publishing field and in 1846 bought The Contemporary, which, under his editorship, became the outstanding literary journal in Russia.

Nekrasov has rightfully been called a genius as an editor and publisher. He had the ability to get the best writers as contributors and had himself a keen eye for good verse. The Contemporary published works by Dostoevski, Turgenev, and Tolstoy. Encouraged by his financial success, Nekrasov again began to write poetry. After many sentimental and prosaic excesses, he succeeded in creating original standards for his work. He deliberately aimed at realistic, rhetorical verse that did not follow traditional aesthetic paths or the Pushkin tradition of which Fet was an heir. Unfortunately, Nekrasov did not have the same skill in judging his own work as he had in judging that of others, and it is only when he abandoned traditional meters altogether and wrote in a folk-song style that his poems achieved a successful, vigorous, and highly original character.

In content, too, Nekrasov broke with the traditionalists. While Fet followed the Romantic school, Nekrasov strongly adhered to Naturalism as Belinsky had formulated it. Belinsky advocated a fidelity to life in literature, a representation of the “inner and outer truth” of Russian life as well as a devotion to positive social tendencies. In other words, literature should be both a protest against social injustices and a compassionate portrayal of the Russian masses. Nekrasov’s poems fitted this formula well. His favorite subject was the suffering and misery of the Russian peasantry. In 1856, Nekrasov published a long narrative poem, “Vlas,” which tells how a rich peasant suffered a vision of hell, repented his former sins, greed, and miserliness, and became an ascetic. This poem, obvious moral and all, closely resembles a sermon. Later, Nekrasov turned from this kind of moralizing to a more arresting description of the peasantry and at the same time gave his verses a tone of irony that saved them from sentimentality.

In 1866 publication of The Contemporary had been suspended. With the aid of Saltykov-Shchedrin and Mikhailovsky, Nekrasov then began to edit THE FATHERLAND’S ANNALS, which he had acquired. Under these three the periodical became the leading instrument of the “populist” trend of thought.

Nekrasov’s 1863 narrative poem, THE RED-NOSED FROST, describes, almost as in a fairy tale, the beauties of the Russian winter and presented an idealized picture of the peasant woman. Darya, a young widow who has just returned from her husband’s burial. The cottage is cold and so she goes out to gather wood to build a fire that will keep her children warm. While she collects logs for the fire King Frost sees her and causes her to fall asleep. As she freezes to death she remembers her happy marriage and her two children, working together with her family in the fields. The poem is beautiful and passionate, deep in feeling and pathos. In another poem, “Russian Women,” the sufferings of women are again depicted as two wives follow their husbands into exile in Siberia. THE PEDLAR, written in 1861, is a series of poems about two traveling peasants who sell cloth in the countryside. Their initial adventures, jokes, and tales are followed by “Song of a Poor Pilgrim,” which begins “I pass through the meadows, the wind in the meadows is moaning; I am cold, pilgrim, I am cold. I am cold, dear one, I am cold. I pass through the forest, the beasts in the forest are howling: We are hungry, pilgrim, we are hungry! Hungry, dear one, hungry.” The tone of foreboding and hopelessness in this lamenting repetition prepares the reader for the tragic end of the poem when the peasants are robbed and murdered in the forest. In this poem Nekrasov approximated the spirit of Russian folk song so closely that the opening lines were later included in an actual song of the people.

In many of his poems Nekrasov used dactylic endings, which were typical of the byliny, the oral heroic poems of medieval Russia. He introduced unpoetic peasant words and at times used an almost journalistic style. Nekrasov’s most famous short lyric is “Whether I am driving down a dark street at night.” The story of a starving couple unable to buy a coffin for their dead child, it is told in intense, direct style. The mother has no alternative but to go out into the streets to earn money for the coffin. The poem ends with the thought: “All without exception will call you by a terrible name. Only within me will curses stir and die away to no purpose.”

The extremes of poverty and misery especially attracted Nekrasov. In his epic work WHO CAN BE HAPPY AND FREE IN RUSSIA? the theme is also that of peasant suffering. The poem attempts to give a picture of all Russia after the abolition of serfdom in 1861. The theme is presented as a folk tale. Seven peasants meet and argue over who they think is happy and free in Russia. Eventually they come to blows. They capture a small bird. Seeking freedom, the bird offers them a magic napkin. Agreeing to take the ransom gift, the peasants are delighted with it and proceed to put it to use. When they see the wonders it offers, they decide to follow the commandments of God and to settle their arguments with reason and honor. They then decide that they will not return home until they have discovered who is happy and free in Russia. They meet all types of people during their search. One of the common people, Grisha, dreams that the future holds freedom and happiness for all the people of Russia. This poem has none of the subjective lamentations of THE PEDLAR. The style is vigorous and expressive, the tone good-humored and sometimes satirical. The work shows Nekrasov at his best, and the critic D. S. Mirsky has called it one of the most original works in Russian poetry of the nineteenth century.

Nekrasov’s place in Russian literature has been repeatedly reassessed. During his lifetime he was often criticized for his private conduct, and it is true that his personal life was strangely in contrast to the ideas he expressed in his poems. He spent his large income on lavish dinners, mistresses, and entertainment. His name was linked with many scandals, and he was known as an unscrupulous businessman. Nevertheless the radicals of the day praised him for the compassion for the peasantry he displayed in his poems.

In 1878, at Nekrasov’s funeral, Dostoevski said that Nekrasov deserved the third place in Russian literature, close to Pushkin and Lermontov. The crowd responded with the cry, “Higher, higher.” In contrast, critics of the aesthetic school scorned Nekrasov’s poetry. Today a middle ground has been reached, and he is recognized as a highly original and expressive poet. By creating his own standards Nekrasov opened new possibilities for poetry. At the same time, using folksong techniques, he brought his verse closer to the people, so that his readers were not limited to the intelligentsia. The Symbolists of the early twentieth century, especially Blok and Bely, paid Nekrasov a lasting tribute when they openly imitated his attempts to make poetry out of the prose of life.