N.A.Nekrasov

[Nastya]

Some information and works of Nekrasov.. I thought it would have been to OFF-Topic to post in the Gogol's folder. I hope that's what you needed, Worm.

[Nastya]

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.  2001.   
    
Nekrasov, Nikolai Alekseyevich   
    
    
1821?78, Russian poet, editor, and publisher. Nekrasov began writing poetry when he was seven. Disowned by his brutal father for entering the university, he lived in poverty for many years. The critic Belinsky befriended him and thereafter Nekrasov had brilliant success as an editor and publisher during a period of severe censorship. He discovered and published Leo Tolstoy, Goncharov, and Dostoyevsky. He bought (1846) and edited Pushkin?s literary review The Contemporary, making it the finest review of its day. Nekrasov sought to improve social conditions in Russia and his powerful verses were used as slogans by revolutionaries. He made original use of the prosaic diction and rhythms of peasant oral literature. His major works include The Red-nosed Frost (1863, tr. 1887), the tragic poem Russian Women (1867), and the satirical portrait of feudal Russia, Who Is Happy in Russia? (1873?76, tr. 1957). His literary collaborator for many years was his mistress, Avdotya Panaeva.



Timeline for N. A. Nekrasov
 
1821
Born on country estate northeast of Moscow to Russian father and Polish mother (a fact long-hidden). Learns love of poetry and awareness of the plight of the peasant from mother

1840
While living hand-to-mouth (tutoring and hack-writing) publishes first collection of romantic poems Dreams and Sounds, which was roundly criticized, most notably by Belinsky

1842
Becomes critic for Notes of the Fatherland where he impressed Belinsky with his work and received encouragement to pursue more social and political themes

1844
Writes his first "civic" poems, demonstrating concern for the Russian peasant. Works include "On the Road," and "Homeland"

1845
Edits and publishes A Physiology of Petersburg, which, along with the following year's A Petersburg Miscellany, become the best examples of the Natural School

1846
Purchases, with friend Ivan Panev, the journal The Contemporary (founded by Pushkin in 1836) and becomes chief editor. The radically-oriented "thick" journal becomes the most respected of the time, publishing Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Chernyshevsky, among others; Writes "Riding to the Hounds," a satiric idyll that is critical of the violence of the hunter

1854
Writes "The Unreaped Row" and "Vlas" which speak without sentimentality of the hard life of the common people

1855
Writes "A Forgotten Village" and "Poet and Citizen"

1860
Writes "On the Volga" and "Knight for an Hour"

1861
Writes The Peddlers, the best example of his use of Russian folklore, both in language and content, as it resembles a Russian folksong in its sound quality. He generally uses ternary meters and dactylic rhymes which serve to reproduce the "lilt" of a song

1863
Writes Red-Nose Frost, which lyrically and realistically presents peasant life, a topic he pursues even after the liberation of the serfs; begins the work Who's Happy in Russia which he nearly finished before he died. The work functions as an encyclopedia of peasant life and stands out among his lesser later works, written in a stylized folk verse style

1866
The government, unhappy with the poem "The Railroad" (1864), which was critical of the quality of life among workers on the Russian railroad, shuts down The Contemporary

1867
Acquires Notes of the Fatherland and becomes editor-in-chief

1870
Writes "Grandfather," which deals with the Decembrists, as does "Russian Women," written two years later

1875
Writes Contemporaries, a collection of pieces on Russian financiers

1877
Publishes final collection Last Songs, a more lyrical collection than his previous work, a quality embodied by the poems "Muse of vengeance and grief"

1878
Dies, eulogized by Dostoevsky, who compared him to Pushkin and Lermontov

[Nastya]

And finally some of his poems. Not my choice, but rather the ones that were translated.

I shall soon fall prey to rot...

I shall soon fall prey to rot.
Though it's hard to die, it's good to die;
I shall ask for no one's pity,
And there's no one who would pity me.

With my lyre I won no glory
For my noble family name;
And I die as distant from my people
As the day that I began to live.

Ties of friendship, unions of the heart-
All are broken: from my youth,
Fate has sent me foes implacable,
While my friends all perished in the struggle.

Their prophetic songs were left unfinished,
They fell victim to misfortune, were betrayed
In the bloom of life; and now their portraits watch me
From the walls, reproachfully.



Morning

You're unhappy, sick at heart:
Oh, I know it-here such sickness isn't rare.
Nature can but mirror
The surrounding poverty.

All is ever drear and dismal,
Pastures, fields, and meadows,
Wet and drowsy jackdaws
Resting on the peaked haystacks;

Here's a drunken peasant driving
His collapsing nag
Into far-off blueish mists,
Such a gloomy sky . . . It makes one weep!

The rich city is no better, though:
The same storm clouds race across the sky;
It's hard on the nerves-steel shovels
Scraping, screeching as they clean the streets

Work's beginning everywhere;
From the fire tower an alarm goes up;
A condemned man's brought outside
Where the executioners already wait.

At the break of day a prostitute is hurrying
Home from someone's bed;
Officers inside a hired carriage
Leave the city-there will be a duel.

Shopkeepers have roused themselves
And they rush to sit behind their counters:
All day long they need to swindle
If they want to eat their fill at night.

Listen! Cannon fire from the fortress!
There's a flood endangering the capital . . .
Someone's died: Upon a scarlet cushion
Lies a first-class Anna decoration.

Now a yardman beats a thief-he got him!
Geese are driven out to slaughter;
From an upper floor the crackle
Of a shot-another suicide. . .

(1872 or 1873)

Thoughts at a Vestibule

Here's a vestibule. On holidays
Overcome by slavish fear,
The whole population, in a state of awe,
Rushes to the sacred doors.
Having left their names and ranks.
All these visitors return then to their homes
They are all so deeply satisfied
You might think this was their calling!
Yet on other days this ornate vestibule
Is beset by much more wretched sorts:
Schemers and position-seekers,
By a widow and an aged man.
To and fro each morning without cease
Couriers bustle with their papers.
Some returning seekers whistle a tune
While some others walk and weep.
Once I saw some peasants who stopped by,
Simple Russian villagers.
Having crossed themselves they stood aside
And they hung their flaxen heads.
Then up came a doorman.-"Let us in," they said
With a look of torment and of hope.
He surveyed the visitors: how ugly they all looked.
Sunburned hands and faces  
Threadbare coats upon their backs,
On bent shoulders knapsacks,
Crosses round the neck and bloodied feet
Shod in hand-made bast
(Must have come from far away,
From some far-flung province).
Someone yelled out to the doorman: "Send them off!
Our boss doesn't care for ragged mobs!"
And the door was shut.  In time
They untied their bags
But the doorman spurned their meager offerings
And they walked off through the burning sun,
Saying: God will be the judge!
With their arms thrown wide in consternation,
I observed them 'til they disappeared,
And they never donned their caps.

While the owner of this lavish palace
Was still nestled in deep sleep's embrace . . .
You who think so highly of a life
Full of thrilling, shameless flattery,
Gluttony, philandering and play,
Wake now! There's a greater pleasure:
Call them back. For you are their salvation!
But the sated are to goodness deaf.

Heavenly thunder doesn't frighten you,
Earthly thunders you hold in your hands
That is why these unknown men must carry
Grief disconsolate within their hearts.

But what does this desperate sorrow mean to you?
What do you care for these desperate folk?
A life racing by in endless holidays
Keeps you from awakening.
And why care? For you the people's good
Is an idle game for scribblers;
You will live a glorious life without it
And you'll die a glorious death!
Your declining days will pass
Peacefully like some Arcadian idyll:
Under Sicily's charming skies,
In the fragrant shade of trees,
Contemplating crimson suns
As they sink into the azure sea
Casting shining rays of gold,-
Lulled by the soft melody
Of Tyrrhenean waves-just like a child
You will slumber, satisfied in every need
By your dear and loving family
(Who await your death impatiently);
Your remains they'll transport back to us
To reward them with a funeral feast.
Like a hero you'll be lowered to the grave,
By your homeland silently cursed,
Glorified by boisterous praise! . . .

Still, why bother such a personage
With the pains of trivial folk?
Rage at them instead-a great idea!
It's less dangerous. . . and more amusing,
Find ourselves some kind of solace . . .
What a peasant bears is no big deal:
It's what fate that guides us
Has decreed . . . And anyway, he's used to it!
In some lowly inn outside the city gates,
These poor men will drink their final rubles down
And then head for home, begging all the way,
Moaning humbly . . . O my homeland!
Tell me now of some abode-
I have surely never seen it-
Where your sower and your guardian,
The meek Russian peasant, does not moan?
In the fields he moans, and on the roads,
In the prisons and stockades he moans,
And in ore mines, wearing iron chains;
Moans burst out from barns and stacks of hay,
And from carts where he sleeps in the steppe;
In his own poor hut he moans,
Warmed by nothing on God's earth;
In each godforsaken town he moans,
In the vestibules of courts and palaces as well.
Go out to the Volga: hear whose moan
Rises over Russia's greatest river?
In our land, this moan is called a song-
It's the boatmen straining in their traces! . .
Volga! Volga! In the spring your torrents
Cannot flood the fields as much
As our people's awful pain  
Floods our land-
Where you are there's moaning-O, my people!
What can all this endless moaning mean?
Will you ever waken, filled with strength,
Or, obeying fate's command,
Have you done all that you can,
Fashioning a song so like a moan,
While your soul remains forever mired in sleep?..

(1858)

RUSSIA'S LAMENT

Dost thou know, my native country,
Any house or corner lone
Where thy Tiller and thy Sower,
Russia's peasant, does not moan?

In the fields, along the highways,
In the cells and dungeons black,
In the mines in iron fetters,
By the side of barn and stack;

'Neath the carts, his nightly shelter
On the steppes so wide and bare,
All the air is filled with groaning
Every hour and everywhere.

Groans in huts, in town and village ?
E'en the sunlight's self he hates?
Groans before the halls of justice,
Buffetings at mansion-gates.

On the Volga, hark, what wailing
O'er the mighty river floats?
'Tis a song, they say?the chanting
Of the men who haul the boats.

Thou dost not in spring, vast Volga,
Flood the fields along thy strand
As our nation's flood of sorrow,
Swelling, overflows the land.

O my heart, what is the meaning
Of this endless anguish deep?
Wilt thou ever, O my country,
Waken, full of strength, from sleep?

Or, by heaven's mystic mandate,
Is thy fate fulfilled to-day,
Singing thus thy dirge, thy death-song,
Falling then asleep for aye?

 
RUSSIAN PEASANT CHILDREN

Again I'm in the country, once again!
I hunt, write verses, and am free from care;
Yesterday, tired with tramping through the swamps,
I strayed into the barn and slumbered there.

When I awakened, through the barn's wide cracks
The beams of a rejoicing sun shone in.
A dove is cooing; flying o'er the roof,
I hear the young rooks caw, with joyous din.

Another bird is flitting through the air;
I know it by its shadow for a crow.
Hark! there is whispering! All along a crack
Attentive eyes are gazing, in a row.

As flowers grow all commingled in the fields,
Were mingled eyes of gray, of brown, of blue.
How full they were of freedom and repose,
Of soft caressing, and of goodness, too!

The look in a child's eyes I always know,
And dearly love.?Thought faded from my brain;
A sense of something holy filled my soul.
Hush, listen! There is whispering again!

 
THE MOURNER

As to war's terrors and alarms I list,
When some new victim hath his life-blood shed,
'Tis not his wife I pity, nor his friend,
Nor grieve I for the hero who is dead.

The wife in time will cease to mourn her loss,
The best of friends and comrades will forget;
But there is one who will remember him
Even unto her grave, with eyes still wet.

Amid our trivial, hypocritic lives,
The only tears all holy and sincere
That I have seen, are those by mothers shed,
Who sorrow for their children, ever dear.

Their children on the bloody field who fell
They ne'er forget, but mourn them all their days.
Like are they to the weeping willow tree,
That never can its drooping branches raise.

 
FREEDOM

( Written at the time of the emancipation of the serfs. )

O'er thy plains, my native country,
In the years now past away,
Never did I ride with feelings
Such as fill my soul to-day!

In its mother's arms reposing,
Lo! a peasant's child I see,
And my heart is stirred to gladness
By a thought most dear to me.

You were born in times auspicious,
Child, into this world below;
With God's help, in days before you,
Pain and grief you shall not know.

With the light of youth around you,
Ere you enter on the strife,
Freely and with none to hinder
You shall choose your path in life.

You shall, if you so desire it,
Be a peasant evermore;
If you have the power within you,
Like an eagle you shall soar.

But, it may be, many errors
Lurk in fancies such as these,
For man's intellect is subtle,
Swayed and influenced with ease.

And, beside the snares of old time
Spread the peasants' feet before,
Well I know designing people
Have invented many more.

Yes, but for the folk to break them
It no harder task will be.
Then, O Muse, with hope and gladness
Hail the dawn of liberty!

[Nastya]

Nekrasov, N. A..  (1821 - 1878)
Domain: Literature.    
 Poet, Journalist, Publisher   
 Active 1840 - 1877 in Russia, Continental Europe    
 This essay written by Michael Ransome, Bristol Grammar School   

Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov made a contribution to nineteenth-century Russian literature that was uniquely varied, becoming both one of the leading publishers of his day and one of the foremost writers. He was in close contact with virtually every major figure in the literary world during his lifetime and he was able to persuade most of them to allow him to be the first to publish at least some of their works. At the same time he earned for himself the reputation of the first ?poet of the people? (narodnyi poet) and became arguably the most widely read and ardently discussed poet of the mid-nineteenth-century period in Russia.

Nekrasov?s literary output covered many genres, but it was upon his lyric and narrative poetry that his substantial and enduring reputation was established. Throughout his mature career, Nekrasov found inspiration in the theme of the Russian people, returning to it time after time in order to present to his reader characters from the broad masses in a way never previously encountered in the literature of his country. His Muse was, in his own definition, one of ?vengeance and sadness?, and from his earliest mature writing Nekrasov portrayed the misfortune of the Russian people. Consideration of this, his favourite theme, produced Nekrasov?s best works, a series of narrative poems that go beyond a naturalistic presentation of the terrible life of the simple folk to stand pre-eminent amongst his creations by virtue of their artistic achievement and continuing interest for the modern reader.

Nekrasov was born on December 10 1821 into a minor noble family in the small town of Nemirov in Podol?skii province, where his father Aleksei Sergeevich was serving in the army. Soon after his marriage, which took place without the bride?s parents? permission, Aleksei Sergeevich retired to his Yaroslavl? estate at Greshnevo, which in due course provided the young Nikolai Alekseevich with many of the experiences of country life in the Volga region of northern Russia that were to form his future identity as a writer.

His childhood was far from being full of good memories. In addition to his first-hand observations of the harsh lives of Volga peasants, in particular the boatmen, the young Nekrasov witnessed his father?s tyrannical behaviour both within his family and towards his serfs. Nekrasov?s path through life was not as easy as might have been predicted for someone from his background. His father?s fortunes were steadily eroded by a large family (Nekrasov was one of fourteen children), neglect of his estate?s upkeep and a series of legal wrangles. Eventually the father was obliged to supplement his income by taking up employment as a regional police chief. He often took Nikolai with him on his duties and the young boy witnessed many examples of the darker side of Russian provincial life that the police were called upon to deal with.

In 1832 Nikolai Alekseevich entered the local high school, where he studied for some five years. He was not a particularly successful pupil and in 1838 his father sent him to the St Petersburg military academy. The sixteen-year-old Nekrasov, however, wanted to study and defied his father?s threat to cut him off without any material support by becoming a university student. The years 1838 to 1841 were a very difficult period for the aspiring writer and no doubt strengthened his sympathies for the underprivileged in Russian society. He spent these years notionally at the university, but almost all his time went on seeking ways of earning an income on which to survive. He suffered extreme need and eventually was reduced to living in a slum dwelling on the Petersburg outskirts. After this low point, his fortunes improved. The literary skills, practical sense and business acumen of the future publisher were already in evidence as he set about earning a living by writing reviews and critical articles for various journals.

Interesting as his compositions from this period are for the specialist, none of them was sufficient to set the author apart from the many other popular writers of the time. Neither was his first verse publication, Dreams and Sounds (Mechty i zvuky), published under the initials ?N. N.? in 1840. A collection of imitative romantic poems, this work was savaged by the leading civic critic of the day, Vissarion Belinsky. Nekrasov felt this failure keenly and his reaction was to waste no time in buying up all remaining copies of the collection in order to destroy them. He never allowed these poems to be reprinted.

The early 1840s continued to be a challenging period in the literary development of Nekrasov. To earn a living he joined the leading journal Notes of the Fatherland (Otechestvennye zapiski), while trying many creative genres as his style evolved towards critical realism. His early efforts at drama soon earned Belinsky?s approval after making his personal acquaintance in 1843. Nekrasov became a leading proponent of the new Belinsky tendency in Russian realism, both as an author and publisher. Belinsky and other radical literary critics were urging contemporary writers to champion the underprivileged and promote vigorous social change. In 1845 Nekrasov responded by bringing to the public a collection entitled The Physiology of Petersburg (Fiziologiia Peterburga), which successfully brought together the young realist writers of the so-called ?natural school?, who had pledged themselves to Belinsky?s line.

From the beginning, Nekrasov?s literary career had its dual strands of author and publisher. His publishing activities were so successful that at the end of 1846 he bought the journal The Contemporary (Sovremennik), which had steadily declined since the death of its founder, the famous poet Pushkin. Many of his former colleagues at Notes of the Fatherland joined Nekrasov, including Belinsky. Nekrasov edited and published The Contemporary from 1847 to 1866, transforming it into both a major literary journal and a paying concern. He achieved his success despite the death of Belinsky and constant harassment by the censors, especially after the European uprisings of 1848. After 1856, influenced by its sub-editor the revolutionary thinker Nikolai Chernyshevsky, the journal began to develop into an organ of militant radicalism. The Contemporary was suppressed in 1866, after the first attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander II, but in 1868 Nekrasov, with the novelist Saltykov-Shchedrin, took over Notes of the Fatherland, remaining its editor and publisher until his death. This aspect of his literary career was singularly important in nineteenth-century Russia. The standard of the literary criticism included in Nekrasov?s journals was unrivalled. They also published Turgenev and Gonacharov and the early works of Lev Tolstoy.

A key stage was reached in the authorial strand of Nekrasov?s career by the mid-1840s, when his mature poetical style can be seen to begin establishing itself. Poems like The Drunkard (P?ianitsa,1845) and The Little Coffin (Grobok, 1850) already told the stories of characters from a population who had never hitherto featured so overtly in Russian poetry. Nekrasov was becoming the poet of the faceless masses and the simple peasant in particular, developing acceptable literary use of the people?s vocabulary to present their concerns and experiences to a reading public who had to get used to hearing their voice for the first time.

Only after some 17 years of hard and fruitful work did Nekrasov publish his second collection of poems, in 1856. This was greeted with a success which, his contemporaries believed, had not been seen since Pushkin. On a personal level, however, this was not a happy period for the poet. In the mid-1850s he fell gravely ill with a throat condition that threatened to end his life. Only a period of convalescence in Italy saved him. Soon after this, in 1861, came a watershed in the development of Nekrasov the poet to his mature best, with the creation of The Pedlars (Korobeiniki), the first of the three great narrative poems on the theme of the Russian peasantry that dominate his oeuvre. The artistic achievement of these narrative poems and the richness of their content make them, among all his works, most worthy of consideration by the modern reader.

Artistically very successful in incorporating the language and rhythms of folklore into the poetic mainstream, The Pedlars can be said to be the first of Nekrasov?s works to free itself from the confines of its Russian setting and historical era by offering, in addition, a comment of timeless and universal relevance on the nature of man?s estate. Having completed it, the poet wasted little time in beginning work on the second of his narrative poems that can lay claim to this accolade - Red-Nosed Frost (Moroz, krasnyi nos, 1864). Arguably his best poetry of all, this work was written at a very testing time for Nekrasov personally.

The 1850s had seen the development of Nekrasov?s serious illness and, although this danger had temporarily diminished, he also lost several people to whom he was favourably disposed in this period. Before the arrest of Chernyshevsky in July 1862, Nekrasov had already lost the support of the other main figure on the editorial board of The Contemporary when the radical Dobroliubov died in November 1861. The poet attended his young friend and colleague?s funeral, as he had done that of the Ukrainian poet Shevchenko, who also died in 1861. Death also affected the Nekrasov family, for in November 1862 the writer lost his father. In addition, the years in which Red-Nosed Frost was written were a traumatic period in the long-standing relationship between Nekrasov and his common-law wife Panaeva, and 1863 saw the final break between them.

Red-Nosed Frost achieved artistic heights that Nekrasov was unable consistently to reach ever again, though shortly afterwards, in 1866, the poet was already working on the narrative poem that he intended as the culmination of his life?s work, Who is to Live Well in Russia? (Komu na Rusi zhit? khorosho). Grandiose in design, this creation occupied Nekrasov?s attention virtually for the rest of his life and ultimately remained unfinished. Its achievement is universally recognised to be very uneven, Nekrasov being unable either to obtain official permission for its publication or to undertake the editing and polishing required before his premature death. Who is to Live Well in Russia? was printed and distributed illegally in 1879 by the populist Russian Free Press, but became generally known only in 1881, when it appeared ? considerably cut by the censor?s office.

The fact that Nekrasov repeatedly returned to this epic work when other projects were completed, and continued writing it even when mortally ill, suggests the great importance that he attached to it. He called it his ?favourite child? and his failure to bring its composition to a satisfactory end was a source of great disappointment to him. At the start of 1875, Nekrasov fell seriously ill with cancer of the colon and he soon began to slip slowly towards an agonising death. A famous surgeon was brought from Vienna to treat him, but a painful operation brought no improvement in his condition. News of the poet?s fatal illness increased his popularity even further and he received messages from well-wishers from all over the empire.

Perhaps inevitably, as death approached, his lyric poetry of the 1870s expressed more personal doubts than ever before. The poet moved his focus from the Russian peasantry to more global concerns as he tried to generalise and make sense of the world as a whole. Nekrasov died on January 8, 1877. In spite of very cold weather, a crowd of several thousand, predominantly young, mourners followed the poet?s coffin to its burial in Novodevichii Monastery. At his funeral an argument began about his status among the greatest of Russian poets, in particular in comparison with Pushkin and Lermontov. After saying a few words over the open coffin, Dostoevsky?s conclusion was that Nekrasov ranked alongside these two poets, but voices in the crowd insisted that Nekrasov?s status was even higher. The debate continued in the press, with some supporting the vociferous mourners? views, and others claiming that Nekrasov represented only a part of Russian society, while Pushkin and Lermontov represented all Russians. Yet others were incensed that anyone should even consider the possibility of comparing Nekrasov with the other great names.

Nekrasov was a writer to whom it was impossible for his contemporaries to be indifferent. He did, however, make a key contribution both to publishing and literature that met the demands of his historical era. Much of his creative oeuvre was uneven in quality, but his Muse of ?vengeance and grief? broke new ground as it focused attention on underprivileged sections of society thitherto ignored by Russian poetry. Modern readers, too, will probably find it difficult to be indifferent to his work. Much of his oeuvre does indeed seem to repeat his central theme of the suffering of the people at the hands of an unjust social order. Occasionally, however, he can be said to have written poetry that could indeed stand comparison with even the most illustrious of his predecessors in the pantheon of Russian verse. In these instances, it can be argued, he escapes easy categorisation merely as a poetic mouthpiece for the ideas of revolutionary democracy.

[Nastya]

Another Poem.. this one I remember learning for school.

"Troika"
by N.A. Nekrasov (1846), translated from the original Russian:

Why are you looking so greedily on the road, standing apart from your girlfriends?
Your heart is beating high as if danger is somewhere nearby,
Your face has suddenly blushed.

Why are you running so hastily, trying to catch up with the troika
That has passed at full speed?
Putting his arms akimbo, the young handsome cornet is lost in thought for you.

No wonder that he is staring in wonderment at you,
Anyone may fall in love with you,
The scarlet ribbon plaited in your black hair is fluttering archly.

Your swarthy ruddy cheeks are covered with light fluff,
Your eyes are looking playfully from a graceful bend of your brow.

The charming look of your beautiful eyes kindles passion,
If you look at an old man, he'll shower you with gifts,
If you look at a young man, he'll fall in love with you.

You will live and make merry to your heart's content,
You will live a full happy life,
But, stop dreaming!
Unfortunately, you will live otherwise,
You will merry a sloven, rude man.

Having tied the apron under your armpits,
You will pull in too tight your splendid bosom,
Your fastidious husband will beat you cruelly,
Your mother-in-law will scold you day by day.

You will fade, having no time to blossom,
From hard, monotonous work.
You will nurse your babies, work and eat,
And it will be the only things you will be permitted to do.
And in your lively beautiful face will appear the expression of stupid patience,
And senseless, eternal fright.

When you die, you will be buried in a cold grave,
Together with your dreams and hopes that haven't been realized.

Don't look at the road wistfully,
Don't hurry to catch up with the troika,
And forget forever,
The burning sadness in your heart.

You won't be able to overtake the troika,
The steeds are strong, healthy and replete,
And the young, handsome cornet is making his way hastily,
To another girl.

[Nastya]

And finally an article [An extract from Kornei Chukovsky's 1952 work Nekrasov's Craftsmanship, providing an analysis of the thematic and stylistic similarities in the poetry of Nikolai Nekrasov and Vladimir Mayakovsky.]

Mayakovsky and Nekrasov
by
Kornei Chukovsky

(1952)

 Nekrasov devoted all his powerful talent to the service of contemporaneity. "Contemporaneity" was one of his favorite words. The vast majority of his verses were topical reactions to burning questions of his day.

On this plane it is interesting to compare Nekrasov with a poet of our own era, Vladimir Mayakovsky, who, like Nekrasov, gave all his "resounding strength" to the service of contemporaneity. This is one of the most important links uniting the critical realism of Nekrasov with the socialist realism of Mayakovsky.

It is Mayakovsky's unremitting concern for the future which brings him so close to his great 19th-century predecessor. Nekrasov had no other heir who looked from the present out into the future with such passion, such avid curiosity. However, for the "peasant democrat" of the 60s only the very distant future could present itself in a rosy light whereas the immediate future loomed before his imagination in the gloomiest and most agonizing images ("My poor child! Do not look ahead!" "Fate had prepared for him... consumption, exile grim"). For Mayakovsky, the poet of the Soviet era, it was an indisputable, totally unassailable certainty that the nearest Soviet tomorrow would be rich in joys hitherto unknown to man.


Glory I sing
       To my land
           as it is
But glory threefold--  
         To my land as it shall be.


His poem Good! has, with some cause, been called prophetic. The same epithet could be applied to most of his other verses. In each case he was reaching out militantly towards the future and the "comrades of later generations" were invisibly present in almost everything that he wrote.

"As the living to the living"--that was how Mayakovsky spoke to the generations who were to succeed him, and were it not for this organic link with posterity he would never have become the favorite poet of the Soviet people who, from the first days of October, infected him with the high enthusiasm of their fight for the future, for this was the first people in the world to make constant thought of the happiness of their near and far descendants the guiding principle of all their labors and endeavor. It fell to Mayakovsky's lot to express his nationwide, Soviet enthusiasm.

Yet even as we remember this we should not forget that, in those distant years, in the forties and fifties of the preceding century, when Nicholas I's government considered the very thought of any future transformation of life subversive, when the ruling classes, persecuting every thing that was new, set out to teach the people that everything was planned ahead for the next thousand years and would remain unchanged until the World's End, there appeared a people's tribune, gifted with a vivid feeling for the future, unwearying in cultivating this feeling in his readers. This feeling he imbibed from the moods of the frustrated peasantry, who were just beginning to awake to their revolutionary struggle.

Mayakovsky was more fortunate than Nekrasov: his faith in a joyful tomorrow was conditioned by all the qualities and achievements of the new order, whereas Nekrasov's faith was founded solely on his hope in the miracle-working powers of the people. He was constantly aware of these powers and it is they which suggest the image of Russia:


.. .In her broad breast
There wells a living and unsullied flood--
A people's strength as yet untapped....


... He prophesied confidently of that same era which Mayakovsky had the good fortune to behold in his own life.

The common factors between Mayakovsky's and Nekrasov's poetry have not gone unnoticed by the critics. Victor Pertsov, for instance, in his monography Mayakovsky: Life and Work, emphasises the harmony between the lines from Cloud in Trousers:


Forward!
We will redye Mondays and Tuesdays
With our blood-making them holidays!


and the famous verses Poet and Citizen:

Forward to face the guns for country, glory,
For all that you hold dear, revere as good....
Forward to pay the final debt of honor,
You will not die in vain; the cause will prosper
Whose roots are nurtured with free-flowing blood....


Pertsov writes that Mayakovsky's poem bears a generic resemblance to Nekrasov's in so far as it is "a direct apostrophe to the persecuted and deprived," and by its fidelity to "the ideas and civic traditions of the great Russian literature."

Indeed, strong civic feeling is characteristic of both poets. Mayakovsky, like Nekrasov, was totally absorbed in contemporary events. Like Nekrasov, he was unfailingly moved by "the heat and burden of the day." Even his insights into the future were, like Nekrasov's, conditioned by the demands of the moment. After, in 1917, he had cried out, apostrophising the revolution: "Be then glorified fourfold, oh, Blessed One," he was faced with the challenge of weeding out from the "Blessed" present remnants of the hateful past. Hence his gallery of satiric images. Nekrasov, in his time, had drawn up a similar gallery (liberals, wealthy peasants, bureaucrats, bankers, stock-brokers, etc.) in spite of the fact that at that time the growth of the new was still barely perceptible and the old order appeared still so powerful and menacing that sometimes it seemed as though it would abide forever. When Mayakovsky wrote of himself:


I, a sewageman,
                        a water-carrier
By the revolution called up and mobilized,
Went to the front,
                        straight from the refined rosariums
Of poetry,
                  a hard-to-please Madam-and worldly-wise,


it is unlikely that he fully realized that every line might be applied to his great predecessor. Nekrasov also felt himself to have been "mobilized and called up" from his youth, from the time of Belin sky; the proof of this is in his work and he himself confirms it when he compares his service to the people to a soldiers' at the front:


But I have served them well--my own heart tells me so....
For though not every soldier harms the foe
All must go to the wars! And fate decides who wins....


When Mayakovsky says that he has left "the refined rosariums of poetry," we cannot but remember that Nekrasov traveled precisely the same road and often contrasted himself with the "sweet singers" who were the product of refined, privileged culture. Mayakovsky's attacks on aesthetic, symbolist lyrical poetry, cultivated in the hot-house conditions of just such a privileged circle of readers, echo, often in the most minute details, the attacks made by Nekrasov, the democratic peasant's poet of the sixties, on the "sweet-stringed" poetry of the drawing-room romance, written to flatter the taste of sheltered aesthetes. In the heat of his polemics against the defenders of "pure art" Nekrasov, to emphasise his contempt for their aesthetic canons and tastes, called his own verse "dour," "clumsy," "halting." Mayakovsky said the same thing--and for the same reasons--about his own verse in his fight against the decadent poetry of "the old world":


Not for romance or ballads
                                    or such stuff it is
That we've cast anchor here--
Our verse and rhymes may sound somewhat roughish
To the well-polished ear.


It is really startling how greatly this declaration resembles that which, under different social conditions and in different words, Nekrasov pronounced in his poetry: the same contempt for "the well-polished ear," the same struggle for the acceptance of new, democratic forms of verse, however "dour" or "rough" so long as they carry the full weight of popular feeling. Also, since Mayakovsky went much further than Nekrasov in "toughening up" his verse, in the use of "rough," "un-poetical" and even "anti-poetical" words and thus directly continued his work in this respect, so we, who have been subjected and are still subject to the influence of Mayakovsky, "the agitator, the loud-mouthed ring-leader," read Nekrasov with quite other eyes: the bold prosaisms which so shocked some of his contemporaries no longer strike us as offending against normal poetic practice. Readers who had been brought up on old-world aesthetics long felt all this as an invasion of poetry by the prosaic lexicon of the workaday world. However, after Mayakovsky had entered literature and opened out boundless perspectives for the widening of poetic vocabulary, after his full-tongued lyric vigor had proved the feasibility of introducing any conversational phrase into poetry, the "prosaisms" of Nekrasov were no longer felt so forcibly as in days gone by.

Thirty years ago the author of this study had a long talk with Mayakovsky in an attempt to establish a clear picture of his attitude to Nekrasov. Mayakovsky spoke of his distinguished predecessor with great sympathy and singled out one peculiarity of Nekrasov's work which he described thus: "As a poet, he was a jack-of-all-trades. And that is just what poets who aspire to serve revolution ought to be."

According to Mayakovsky, such poets are obliged to form the convictions and direct the will of their readers through every literary genre they are able to master. I asked Mayakovsky to write down this thought for me. He wrote it like this:


"What I like about (Nekrasov) now is that he could write anything, and especially vaudevilles. He would have been good in ROSTA." ¹

Nekrasov's mastery of various genres was the quality which particularly endeared him to Mayakovsky who was himself distinguished by such abundant versatility as the author of tragedies, mysteries, fantastic comedies, drama, agitki (propaganda plays), ROSTA posters, narrative poems, trade advertisements, film scripts, marches, children's verses, etc.

One way and another, "Nekrasov and Mayakovsky" is an extremely fruitful, topical and wide theme. In spite of all the vast difference between the epochs which produced these two poets, their kinship is evident.


Translated by Anne Richards

1. ROSTA--Rossiyskoye Telegrafnoye Agentstvo (Russian Telegraph Agency), for which Mayakovsky worked as an artist and poet composing political posters--Tr.


DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Kornei Chukovsky [1992-1969]. Writer, children's poet, critic, literary scholar, translator, and editor. Began his career as a foreign correspondent in London, then as a writer for the symbolist journal Vesy. In 1905, he edited a short-lived satiric journal called Signal. In 1906, at Gorky's invitation, he edited the children's section of the publishing house Parus, and in 1918 he became head of the Anglo-American department of the publishing house World Literature. He composed several studies on the poet N.A. Nekrasov, including Nekrasov's Craftsmanship (1952), and he edited a 12-volume edition of Nekrasov's complete works. He translated the works of Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, G.K. Chesterton, Oscar Wilde, Fielding, Arthur Conan-Doyle, O. Henry, Kipling, and others. His numerous fairy tales in verse for children--such asMukha-mukha tsekatuka and The Crocodile Who Swallowed the Sun--remain popular in the 21st century.

Nikolai Nekrasov [1821-1878]. Poet, writer, and publisher. He began his career in 1840 with some romantic poems, which were not very popular. Following the advice of the critic Belinsky, Nekrasov switched to "civic poetry" in which he described with great compassion the suffering of the Russian peasant. Between 1846 and 1866, Nekrasov was co-owner and chief editor of the journal Sovremennik, which became Russian's leading literary journal, publishing works by Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoi, Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, and Dobrolybov, as well as by Nekrasov himself. Many of his contemporaries--used to the elegant verse of Pushkin and Lermontov--were shocked at Nekrasov's use of stark realism of detail, new rhythms, and earthy language. Perhaps his best-known work is Who Is Happy in Russia?, which describes the journey of seven peasants who wander throughout Russia in a fruitless search for a happy man.

[Nastya]

That's all.. Gee, I'm a bit tired now.. )
Though the funniest thing must be that Nekrasov was never in my favourites.. esp. after a longish poem "Who is living good in Russia" and my composition on that topic.  

[Worm]

Beautiful.
All that effort for me ... i have to THANK YOU! for that, Nastya.

This is really the first info i've read of Nekrasov .. and i've been looking so long for it all.  It's all so interesting.
Thx again.


The funniest thing is that Nekrasov never was in your favourites?  Not even in a small spot of your list of favourites, below?
Who is your most favourite poet then, if i may ask?

[Nastya]

a VERY small spot.. I liked only one poem, I've chosen to learn for class.

as for favourite poet.. I have 3 - Tutchev, Mereshkovsky, Lermontov. of course there are a lot of poets i like, but these threesome is on the top.

Nastya

[Worm]

Tutchev, Mereshkovsky .. names i'll have to look into also then in the future.
I've read Lermontow's "A hero of our times" about a year ago .. at least, the first two chapters or so of it .. i didn't like it and quickly shifted back to a Dostojewskian book.


That threesome is on the top?  So ... you like being on the top then?
- HAHAH, sorry, i couldn't restrain myself.  I can be a worm of a man, forgive me.
It must have something to do with this post of mine, below at the page.
http://www.fyodordostoevsky.com/yabbse/index.php?board=6;action=display;threadid=78;start=15

[Nastya]

Tutchev, Mereshkovsky .. names i'll have to look into also then in the future.
I've read Lermontow's "A hero of our times" about a year ago .. at least, the first two chapters or so of it .. i didn't like it and quickly shifted back to a Dostojewskian book.


That threesome is on the top?  So ... you like being on the top then?
- HAHAH, sorry, i couldn't restrain myself.  I can be a worm of a man, forgive me.
It must have something to do with this post of mine, below at the page.
http://www.fyodordostoevsky.com/yabbse/index.php?board=6;action=display;threadid=78;start=15

If this THREESOME is on the TOP.. than nothing is left for me but, to agree with the 'bottom'.

I can joke too, you know!

As for Russian Girl, liking Literature.. is it that extraordinary? I think, every second girl here likes to read.. maybe not D., but still..

Nastya

[Worm]

And she can joke too!  Wonderfull!


No, it's not that extra-ordinary.  .. it's just that most people of your age aren't busy with those kind of works.  I think it's fantastic that you are busy with it, despite the teacher hammering it into you.  I would give money for such kinds of lessons, you know ...
.. esp. if it would be in the same class as yours.  

I'm so sorry for that, that's so low of me.  I couldn't restrain myself again..  

[Nastya]

And she can joke too!  Wonderfull!


No, it's not that extra-ordinary.  .. it's just that most people of your age aren't busy with those kind of works.  I think it's fantastic that you are busy with it, despite the teacher hammering it into you.  I would give money for such kinds of lessons, you know ...
.. esp. if it would be in the same class as yours.  

I'm so sorry for that, that's so low of me.  I couldn't restrain myself again..  

Yep, I like jokes.. though dirty ones are not in my favourites.  But still, to prefer and to can are different things.. so I'll bow here : ))

as for class.. in mine, you'll learn to howl! and your mind would be occupied with the plan 'how not to be caught', because, the books are huge, and the time is short.. we have no time to read everything properly.. but SHE asks!
and if your answer won't follow, there is a risk to get not a pleasant mark..

ah, victims we are...

Nastya

[Worm]

Thank you for your bow, i respect that, seriously.


I'd love to release you from your prison.


I'm the beautiful noble prince from a faraway land, looking for a princess.

If this great teacher of yours hammers all of this stuff into your head, and you can't follow ... means to me the teacher doesn't know much of the books either, and reads past the delicate knowledge that is hidden here and there in it.  If she would know much of it, she would have taken the effort to show it to all of you.
Do not make the mistake of being deceived by these classes into thinking these books are rubbish and that you should never pick them up ever again after the classes.


If Dostojewski would have been in your class, he would have started a revolution against this idiocy and changed it all so it would be better and made more sense.  


-- Worm