Biography and work of N.A. Nekrasov.
Childhood.
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.
Petersburg.
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.
Collaboration with Belinsky.
1842-1843 Nekrasov became close to the circle of V. G. Belinsky. In 1845 and 1846, Nekrasov published several almanacs that were supposed to create an image of the "grassroots" Petersburg: "Physiology of Petersburg" (1845), "Petersburg Collection" (1846), "First of April" (1846). The works of V. G. Belinsky, Herzen, Dahl, F. M. Dostoevsky, I. S. Turgenev, D. V. Grigorovich were published in the almanacs. In 1845-1846 Nekrasov lived in Povarsky Lane 13 and 19 on the embankment of the Fontanka River. At the end of 1846, Nekrasov, together with Panaev, purchased the Sovremennik magazine from Pletnev, into which many employees of Otechestvennye Zapiski moved, including
including Belinsky.
Creation.
In 1847-1866, Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov was the publisher and actual editor of Sovremennik, on the pages of which the works of the best and most progressive writers of that time were printed. In the mid-1950s, Nekrasov had serious problems with his throat, but treatment in Italy was beneficial. In 1857, N.A. Nekrasov, together with Panaev and A.Ya. Panaeva, moved to an apartment at 36/2 on Liteiny Prospekt, where he lived until the last days of his life. In 1847-1864 Nekrasov was in a civil marriage with A.Ya. Panaeva. In 1862, N.A. Nekrasov acquired the Karabikha estate, not far from Yaroslavl, where he visited every summer. In 1866, the Sovremennik magazine was closed and in 1868 Nekrasov acquired the right to publish Domestic Notes (together with M.E. Saltykov; supervised in 1868-1877)
Last years of life.
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.
Nekrasov was buried in St. Petersburg.
SUMMARY ON LITERATURE
ON THE TOPIC:
“LIFE AND WORK OF N.A. NEKRASOVA
There is no such person in Russian literature, in all literature, before whom, with love and reverence, they would bow lower than before the memory of Nekrasov.
A.V. Lunacharsky
1. Childhood. Gymnasium (1821-1838)
Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov entered the history of Russian literature as a great poet, whose work is rooted in the deep layers of folk life, as a poet-citizen, who devoted all his life, all his enormous talent to serving the people. With good reason, the poet at the end of his life could say: "I dedicated the lyre to my people."
Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov was born on November 28 (December 10), 1821 in the town of Nemirovo, Bratslav district, Podolsk province in Ukraine, where the regiment in which his father served was stationed at that time.
In 1824, the Nekrasov family moved to Greshnevo, where the future poet spent his childhood. Childhood years left a deep mark in the mind of Nekrasov. Here he first encountered many dark aspects of the life of the people, here he witnessed the cruel manifestations of serfdom: poverty, violence, arbitrariness, humiliation of human dignity.
The poet's father Alexei Sergeevich Nekrasov (1788-1862) belonged to a rather old but impoverished family. In his youth, he served in the army, and after his retirement, he took up farming. A stern and wayward man, he cruelly exploited his peasants. 3and the slightest fault of the serfs was punished with rods. The poet's father did not disdain fisticuffs either.
That is why, many years later, the poet wrote with such bitterness about his childhood:
Not! in my youth, rebellious and severe,
There is no remembrance that pleases the soul;
But all that, having entangled my life from the first years,
An irresistible curse fell on me, -
Everything began here, in my native land! ..
("Motherland")
It is difficult to say what would have become of the young Nekrasov, whose upbringing took place in such an unattractive environment.
But Nekrasov was saved by the fact that his mother, Elena Andreevna (nee Zakrevskaya), was next to him. The poet said more than once that she saved his soul from corruption, that it was his mother who inspired him with the idea of life in the name of "ideals of goodness and beauty."
A woman surprisingly soft, kind, well-educated, Elena Andreevna was the complete opposite of her rude and narrow-minded husband. Marriage with him was a real tragedy for her, and she gave all her love and tenderness to her children. Elena Andreevna was seriously engaged in their education, she read a lot to them, played the piano for them and sang.
Little Nekrasov was passionately attached to his mother, he spent long hours with her, devoted his innermost dreams to her. In his poems, he repeatedly recalled the “sad look”, and the “quiet step” of his mother, and the “pale hand” that caressed him.
Until the end of his days, Nekrasov remembered his mother with deep emotion, adoration and love. He wrote about her in the poems "Motherland", "Knight for an hour", "Bayushki-bayu", "The Recluse", in the poems "Unfortunate" and "Mother".
The poet saw a lot of grief and suffering in childhood. But this did not harden his soul. And to a large extent this was facilitated by the fact that he grew up in close proximity to the common people. His father forbade him to make acquaintance with the children of serfs. However, as soon as his father went somewhere, the boy secretly ran away to the village, where he had many friends.
Communication with peasant children had the most beneficial effect on Nekrasov, and he retained warm feelings for his childhood friends for the rest of his life. And, already, as an adult, coming to Greshnevo, he could say with good reason:
All familiar people
Whatever a man, then a friend.
In 1832, Nekrasov, together with his brother Andrei, entered the Yaroslavl gymnasium. Nekrasov studied unevenly. And this is not surprising. He, like many other students, was deeply antipathetic to the education system in the gymnasium, and the teachers did not arouse in him either self-respect or interest in the disciplines they taught. Comrades loved Nekrasov for his lively and sociable character, for his erudition and ability to tell.
Nekrasov did indeed read a lot, although rather chaotically. He took books from the gymnasium library, sometimes he turned to the teachers of the gymnasium.
Nekrasov's interest in creativity awakened very early. As he himself said, “I started writing poetry at the age of seven. But before entering the gymnasium, he wrote poetry only occasionally, And of course, these were weak, naive attempts to rhyme a few lines. Now, however, he began to take poetry more seriously. At first, Nekrasov tried to write satires on his comrades, and then lyrical poems. “And most importantly,” the poet recalled, “whatever I read, I imitate.”
In the summer of 1837, Nekrasov left the gymnasium.
For a whole year Nekrasov lived at home, in Greshnev. And all this time he was relentlessly pursued by the thought: what to do next. The father wanted his son to enter the Noble Regiment (that was the name of the military educational institution for the children of the nobles) and receive a military education. But the military career did not attract the future poet at all. Nekrasov dreamed of studying at the university, and then doing literary work.
2. Petersburg. The beginning of literary activity
Nekrasov was not yet seventeen years old when he, filled with the most optimistic hopes, arrived in St. Petersburg.
It was not possible to enter the university: the knowledge gained in the gymnasium turned out to be too scarce. We had to think about our daily bread. There were acquaintances who tried to help the young poet and attach his poems to print. Several of Nekrasov's works were published in the magazines "Son of the Fatherland", "Literary additions to the "Russian invalid" and later in the "Library for Reading". But beginning writers were paid little there. A life full of hardships began. Nekrasov wandered through the St. Petersburg slums, lived in basements and attics, earned money by copying papers, compiling all kinds of petitions and petitions for poor people.
But the hardships of life did not break Nekrasov, did not shake his passionate desire to learn. He continued to dream of entering the university and studied hard for the exams. However, despite the help of friends, he did not succeed in fulfilling his dream. True, Nekrasov was accepted as a volunteer and was even exempted from paying for listening to lectures.
On the advice of one of his acquaintances, Nekrasov decided to collect his printed and handwritten poems and publish them as a separate book called Dreams and Sounds.
Dream and Sounds was published in early 1840. Nekrasov hid his name under the initials N.N.
The poet himself judged his early work very severely. “I wrote a lot of rubbish because of bread,” he noted in Autobiographical Notes, “especially my stories, even later ones, are very bad - just stupid ...”.
3. Commonwealth with Belinsky. Beginning of "Contemporary"
In 1842, an event occurred that was a turning point in Nekrasov's life: he introduced and soon became friends with Belinsky. By that time, the great critic was at the center of the literary movement of the era, and his worldview was already acquiring a revolutionary-democratic character. Belinsky took the most ardent part in the fate of the young poet. He guessed in Nekrasov an outstanding person and in every possible way contributed to the development of his talent.
Nekrasov had much in common with the great critic.
Later, Nekrasov spoke about the beneficial influence of Belinsky on the formation of his views:
You taught us to think humanely,
Almost the first to remember the people,
Almost the first you spoke
About equality, about brotherhood, about freedom...
("Bear Hunt")
According to F. M. Dostoevsky, Nekrasov "was in awe of Belinsky and, it seems, loved him more than anyone in his life."
Belinsky closely followed the work of Nekrasov, helped with advice, tried to involve him in more active cooperation in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, where he headed the critical department.
From now on, every poem by Nekrasov was perceived in Belinsky's circle as an event.
One after another, Nekrasov’s poems about peasant life appear: about the fate of the “Vakhlak man” who dared to fall in love with a noble daughter (“Gardener”), about the poor man, for whom only one road is prepared - “to the tavern” (“Drunkard”), about rural beauty, which awaits the bitter fate of a Russian woman ("Troika").
In the mid-1840s, Nekrasov began active work as a publisher. In 1844-1845, Nekrasov published two volumes of the almanac "Physiology of Petersburg", and in 1846 - "Petersburg Collection".
The almanacs "Physiology of Petersburg" and "Petersburg Collection" were warmly received by the public and were highly appreciated by leading critics represented by Belinsky.
Success inspired Nekrasov, and he conceived a new literary venture - to publish his own magazine. With the help of friends, the poet, together with the writer I. I. Panaev, at the end of 1846, rented the magazine Sovremennik. Nekrasov made a complete reorganization of the journal. V. G. Belinsky, A. I. Herzen, I. S. Turgenev, I. A. Goncharov and other leading writers and poets of that time became the leading contributors to Sovremennik.
The first issue of the updated Sovremennik went out of print in January 1847.
4. Creativity of Nekrasov in the 1850s
Back in the early 1850s, Nekrasov fell seriously ill. The disease progressed every year: the years of poverty, hunger, hard, exhausting labor affected. The poet was convinced that his days were numbered, and decided that it was time for him to take stock of his creative path. To this end, he undertook the publication of a collection of poems, for which he selected the best works written by him in the period from 1845 to 1856 and most fully reflecting the characteristic features of his poetic muse.
The collection "Poems by N. Nekrasov" was published in the spring of 1856. His appearance became an important social and literary event.
The collection was opened by Nekrasov's programmatic poem "The Poet and the Citizen", where the idea was clearly voiced that poetry is an important public matter, that the poet has no right to shy away from the struggle for progressive ideals, that his duty is to be a citizen of his homeland, fearlessly going into battle "for the honor of the fatherland, for beliefs, for love":
Be a citizen! serving the art
Live for the good of your neighbor
Subordinating your genius to feeling
All-embracing love...
The composition of the collection "Poems by N. Nekrasov" was deeply thought out by the poet. At the beginning of it, Nekrasov placed works depicting the life of representatives of the people. These are such poems as “On the Road”, “Vlas”, “Gardener”, “Forgotten Village”, etc.
The second section of the collection consisted of works depicting those who exploited and enslaved the people: landlords, officials, bourgeois capitalists. These were, as a rule, satirical poems: “Hound Hunt”, “Lullaby”, “Philanthropist”, “Modern Ode”, “Moral Man”.
In the third section, Nekrasov included the poem "Sasha", in which he was one of the first in Russian literature to raise the question that in the conditions of a powerful social upsurge that had come in the country, a new hero was needed, that the time when the leading role in public life belonged to representatives noble intelligentsia, passed, as they turned out to be unstable in their convictions and could not translate word into deed. The poem depicts a charming image of the girl Sasha, striving to find her place in life and be useful to people:
All her poor friends are friends:
Feeds, caresses and heals ailments.
The collection "Poems by N. Nekrasov" was a huge success. The entire edition sold out in a few days. Such a thing in Russian literature, according to Turgenev, "has not happened since the time of Pushkin.")
The main, fundamental theme of Nekrasov's work has always been the theme of peasant life. No wonder the poet was called the singer of the plowman people, the peasant democrat. He wrote about the hard, joyless life of rural workers throughout his entire career. The poet dedicated many of his works to the bitter share of the rural working people: “The Uncompressed Strip”, “The Forgotten Village” and others.
etc.................
At the turn of the 1830s-1840s, a change of literary epochs took place in Russian literature: after the death of Pushkin and Lermontov, Russian poetry enters a new era of development, and the poetry of Tyutchev, Nekrasov, Fet and a large group of new poets comes to the fore. Of course, these changes do not occur because new poets simply took the place of their great predecessors, but a different socio-historical time came that needed its own poetry. The need for artistic understanding of the new position of man in the world and society manifested itself in the philosophical poetry of Tyutchev, personal life, experiences of nature and love became the content of Fet's lyrics. Nekrasov in his lyrics from the very beginning of his work focuses on social issues, and civic pathos becomes the ideological dominant of his poetry.
The social orientation of Nekrasov's lyrics, the sharpness of its social themes, sympathy for the Russian disadvantaged person were predetermined by the very life of the poet. Nekrasov spent his childhood in the village of Greshnevo, Yaroslavl province, on the estate of his father, a poor nobleman, retired lieutenant Alexei Sergeevich Nekrasov. Love and bright memories of his mother, Elena Andreevna, which the poet carried through his whole life, were reflected in his work with penetrating attention to the female fate. From childhood, Nekrasov recognized the need, and since the father, who served as a police officer, often took the boy with him, traveling on business, he more than once turned out to be a witness to human misfortunes.
At the age of seventeen, Nekrasov, following the will of his father, went to St. Petersburg to get a job in the military, but soon disobeyed and, despite the threat of losing material support, preferred literary activity. Nekrasov became a volunteer at the philological faculty of St. Petersburg University and at the same time was looking for ways to earn a living. Nekrasov recalled that time of his life as the most difficult - it was a time of malnutrition, constant need and concern for the future. Nekrasov was helped in many ways by rapprochement with V.G. Belinsky. He became a permanent member of Belinsky's literary circle, began to collaborate in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski. In the 1840s, Nekrasov, being an energetic, enterprising and talented person, was already familiar with the entire literary society of St. Petersburg. Among his friends and good acquaintances were I.S. Turgenev, F.M. Dostoevsky, D.V. Grigorovich, V.I. Dahl, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I.I. Panaev and many other writers. The swift success of Nekrasov is evidenced by the fact that already in 1846, together with I.I. Panaev, he bought the famous, organized by A.S. Pushkin magazine "Contemporary". Under the new leadership, the magazine became the center of the literary life of St. Petersburg. Belinsky also played a significant role in the development of Sovremennik, and later N.G. Chernyshevsky and N.A. Dobrolyubov.
Nekrasov's creative and social activities were embodied in his literary writings, journalism and publishing work. Great is the social significance of the journals Sovremennik and Otechestvennye Zapiski, published by Nekrasov for thirty years, because thanks to them, Russian society got acquainted with the best modern works, learned about new writers and critics.
However, Nekrasov's true vocation was poetry. At the age of twenty, he wrote his first collection of poems, Dreams and Sounds. The poems of this collection are still immature, imitative, they lack independence, their own poetic voice. Nekrasov was so dissatisfied with his collection that he later even destroyed the published copies. In the early years of creativity, Nekrasov had a period when he tried to write prose, but these attempts were unsuccessful. Nekrasov had to find his theme in poetry so that his poetic talent could be fully manifested.
The subject of Nekrasov's poetry turned out to be very broad and versatile. At first, the image of human suffering in a big city, love lyrics, elegies prevailed. Later, the poet's civic lyrics cover deeper topics, she addresses the life of the people, especially the peasantry, and topical social issues. Such are the poems "Uncompressed lane" (1854), "Schoolboy" (1856), "Reflections at the front door" (1858), "Railway" (1864). The public position of the poet was clearly manifested in poems written in memory of his associates in activity: “In Memory of Belinsky” (1853), “On the Death of Shevchenko” (1861), “In Memory of Dobrolyubov” (1864). The theme of the poet and poetry in the work of Nekrasov occupied a special place, and it manifested itself most clearly in the poem "Elegy" ("Let the changing fashion tell us ...", 1874). Deep tenderness sounds in Nekrasov's poems about children and women, such as "The Song of Yeryomushka" (1859), "Peasant Children" (1861), "Mother" (1868). In the poems "Sasha" (1855), "Frost, Red Nose" (1862-1864), "Russian Women" (1871-1872), the life of Russia is shown from different sides, but the image of a Russian woman invariably turns out to be in the center: whether it be a woman with lofty aspirations, or a peasant woman with a tragic fate, or the devoted wives of the Decembrists. In the last period of his work, Nekrasov is working on the epic poem “Who Lives Well in Russia” (1863-1876), in which the poet created a grandiose picture of post-reform Russia, capturing all the great diversity of her life in a rich gallery of images of peasants, soldiers, artisans, and ordinary people , landlords, clergy. The poem absorbed Russian folk art: songs, legends, proverbs, fairy-tale elements. The work is dominated by the tale form of narration, Russian colloquial speech. In terms of artistic power and ideological significance, the images of Savely, the Holy Russian hero, the peasant woman Matryona and the people's protector Grisha Dobrosklonov, are important. They embody the main idea of Nekrasov's work, expressed in the song that concludes the poem "Who Lives Well in Russia":
You are poor
You are abundant
You are beaten
You are almighty
Mother Russia!
Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov Born October 10 (November 28), 1821 in Ukraine, not far from Vinnitsa, in the town of Nemirov. The boy was not even three years old when his father, a Yaroslavl landowner and retired officer, moved his family to the Greshnevo family estate. Childhood passed here - among the apple trees of a vast garden, near the Volga, which Nekrasov called the cradle, and next to the famous Sibirka, or Vladimirka, which he recalled: "Everything that walked and rode along it and was led, starting with postal troikas and ending with prisoners chained, escorted by escorts, was the constant food of our childish curiosity."
1832 - 1837 - studying at the Yaroslavl gymnasium. Nekrasov studies averagely, periodically conflicting with his superiors because of his satirical poems.
In 1838 his literary life began, which lasted for forty years.
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.
Also in 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.
Nekrasov's poems appeared in print in 1838, and in 1840 the first collection of poems, Dreams and Sounds, signed N.N., was published at his own expense. The collection was not successful even after criticism by V.G. Belinsky in "Notes of the Fatherland" was destroyed by Nekrasov and became a bibliographic rarity.
For the first time, his attitude to the living conditions of the poorest sections of the Russian population and outright slavery was expressed in the poem "Govorun" (1843). From this period, Nekrasov began to write poems of a virtually social orientation, which censorship became interested in a little later. Such anti-serfdom poems appeared as "The Coachman's Tale", "Motherland", "Before the Rain", "Troika", "Gardener". The poem "Motherland" was immediately banned by censors, but was distributed in manuscripts and became especially popular among revolutionaries. Belinsky appreciated this poem so highly that he was completely delighted.
With the borrowed money, the poet, together with the writer Ivan Panaev, rented the Sovremennik magazine in the winter of 1846. Young progressive writers and all those who hated serfdom flock to the journal. The first issue of the new Sovremennik took place in January 1847. It was the first magazine in Russia expressing revolutionary democratic ideas and, most importantly, having a coherent and clear program of action. In the very first issues, "The Thieving Magpie" and "Who is to blame?" Herzen, stories from Turgenev's Notes of a Hunter, Belinsky's articles and many other works of the same kind. Nekrasov published "Hound Hunting" from his works.
The influence of the magazine grew every year, until in 1862 the government suspended its publication, and then completely banned the magazine.
In 1866 Sovremennik was closed. Nekrasov in 1868 acquired the right to publish the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, with which the last years of his life were associated. ), "Russian Women" (1871-1872), wrote a series of satirical works, the top of which was the poem "Contemporaries" (1878).
The last years of the poet's life were covered by elegiac motifs associated with the loss of friends, the realization of loneliness, and a serious illness. During this period, works appear: "Three Elegies" (1873), "Morning", "Despondency", "Elegy" (1874), "Prophet" (1874), "To the Sowers" (1876). In 1877, a cycle of poems "Last Songs" was created.
The funeral of Nekrasov at the Novodevichy Cemetery in St. Petersburg acquired the character of a socio-political manifestation. Dostoevsky, P. V. Zasodimsky, G. V. Plekhanov, and others delivered speeches at the funeral service. In 1881, a monument was erected on the grave (sculptor M. A. Chizhov).
Streets were named after Nekrasov: in St. Petersburg in 1918 (former Basseynaya, see Nekrasov Street), in Rybatsky, Pargolovo. His name was given to Library No. 9 of the Smolninsky District and Pedagogical School No. 1. In 1971, a monument to Nekrasov was unveiled at the corner of Nekrasov Street and Grechesky Prospekt (sculptor L. Yu. Eidlin, architect V. S. Vasilkovsky).
Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov was born in the family of an officer on November 28 (December 10), 1821. Two years after the birth of his son, his father retired and settled on his estate in the village of Greshnevo. Childhood years left heavy memories in the soul of the poet. And this was primarily due to the despotic nature of his father, Alexei Sergeevich. For several years Nekrasov studied at the Yaroslavl gymnasium. In 1838, following the will of his father, he left for St. Petersburg to enter the Noble Regiment: the retired major wanted to see his son as an officer. But, once in St. Petersburg, Nekrasov violates his father's will and tries to enter the university. The punishment was very severe: the father refused his son financial assistance, and Nekrasov had to earn his own living. The difficulty lay in the fact that Nekrasov's preparation was not enough to enter the university. The dream of the future poet to become a student never came true.
Nekrasov became a literary day laborer: he wrote articles for newspapers and magazines, poems for the occasion, vaudeville for the theater, feuilletons - everything that was in great demand. It gave little money, obviously not enough to live on. Much later, in their memoirs, his contemporaries would draw a portrait of the young Nekrasov that they remembered, “trembling in deep autumn in a light coat and unreliable boots, even in a straw hat from a push market.” The difficult years of his youth then affected the health of the writer. But the need to earn his own living turned out to be the strongest impulse to the writing field. Much later, in his autobiographical notes, he recalled the first years of his life in the capital in this way: “It’s incomprehensible to the mind how much I worked, I think I won’t exaggerate if I say that in a few years I completed up to two hundred printed sheets of journal work.” Nekrasov writes mostly prose: stories, stories, feuilletons. His dramatic experiments, primarily vaudeville, also belong to the same years.
The romantic soul of the young man, all his romantic impulses, echoed in a collection of poetry with the characteristic title "Dreams and Sounds". It came out in 1840, but did not bring the young author the expected fame. Belinsky wrote a negative review of it, and this was a verdict for the young author. “You see from his poems,” Belinsky argued, “that he has both a soul and a feeling, but at the same time you see that they remained in the author, and only abstract thoughts, commonplaces, correctness, smoothness passed into the verses. , and boredom. Nekrasov bought up most of the publication and destroyed it.
Two more years passed, and the poet and the critic met. During these two years, Nekrasov has changed. I.I. Panaev, the future co-editor of the Sovremennik magazine, believed that Belinsky was attracted to Nekrasov's "sharp, somewhat hardened mind." He fell in love with the poet "for the suffering that he experienced so early, seeking a piece of daily bread, and for that bold practical look beyond his years, which he took out of his hard-working and suffering life - and which Belinsky always envied painfully." Belinsky's influence was enormous. One of the poet's contemporaries, P.V. Annenkov wrote: “In 1843, I saw how Belinsky set to work on him, revealing to him the essence of his own nature and its strength, and how the poet dutifully listened to him, saying: “Belinsky makes me from a literary vagabond into a nobleman.”
But the point is not only in the writer's own searches, his own development. Beginning in 1843, Nekrasov also acted as a publisher, he played a very important role in uniting the writers of the Gogol school. Nekrasov initiated the publication of several almanacs, the most famous of which is "Physiology of Petersburg" (1844-1845), "almost the best of all the almanacs that have ever been published," according to Belinsky. Four articles by Belinsky, an essay and a poem by Nekrasov, works by Grigorovich, Panaev, Grebenka, Dahl (Lugansky), and others were published in two parts of the almanac. But Nekrasov achieves even greater success both as a publisher and as the author of another almanac published by him - “The Petersburg Collection "(1846). Belinsky and Herzen, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Odoevsky took part in the collection. Nekrasov placed a number of poems in it, including the immediately famous "On the Road".
The "unprecedented success" (to use Belinsky's words) of the publications undertaken by Nekrasov inspired the writer to implement a new idea - to publish a magazine. From 1847 to 1866, Nekrasov edited the Sovremennik magazine, whose importance in the history of Russian literature can hardly be overestimated. On its pages appeared the works of Herzen ("Who is to blame?", "The Thieving Magpie"), I. Goncharov ("Ordinary History"), stories from the series "Notes of a Hunter" by I. Turgenev, stories by L. Tolstoy, articles by Belinsky. Under the auspices of Sovremennik, the first collection of Tyutchev's poems is published, first as an appendix to the magazine, then as a separate publication. During these years, Nekrasov also acts as a prose writer, novelist, author of the novels "Three Countries of the World" and "Dead Lake" (written in collaboration with A.Ya. Panaeva), "The Thin Man", and a number of stories.
In 1856, Nekrasov's health deteriorated sharply, and he was forced to transfer the editing of the magazine to Chernyshevsky and go abroad. In the same year, the second collection of Nekrasov's poems was published, which had a tremendous success.
1860s belong to the most intense and intense years of creative and editorial activity of Nekrasov. New co-editors come to Sovremennik - M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, M.A. Antonovich and others. The journal is engaged in a fierce polemic with the reactionary and liberal Russky Vestnik and Otechestvennye Zapiski. During these years, Nekrasov wrote the poems "Pedlars" (1861), "Railway" (1864), "Frost, Red Nose" (1863), work began on the epic poem "Who Lives Well in Russia."
The ban on Sovremennik in 1866 forced Nekrasov to give up his editorial work for a while. But a year and a half later, he managed to negotiate with the owner of the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine, A.A. Kraevsky about transferring the editorial board of this journal into his hands. During the years of editing Otechestvennye Zapiski, Nekrasov attracted talented critics and prose writers to the magazine. In the 70s. he creates the poems “Russian Women” (1871-1872), “Contemporaries” (1875), chapters from the poem “Who Lives Well in Russia” (“Last Child”, “Peasant Woman”, “Feast for the Whole World”).
In 1877, Nekrasov's last lifetime collection of poems was published. At the end of this year, Nekrasov died.
In his penetrating word about Nekrasov, Dostoevsky accurately and succinctly defined the pathos of his poetry: “It was a wounded heart, once for a lifetime, and this wound that did not close was the source of all his poetry, all this man’s passionate to torment love for everything that suffers from violence, from the cruelty of unbridled will that oppresses our Russian woman, our child in a Russian family, our commoner in his bitter, so often, share of him ... ”, - F.M. said about Nekrasov. Dostoevsky. These words, indeed, are a kind of key to understanding the artistic world of Nekrasov's poetry, to the sound of his most intimate themes - the theme of the fate of the people, the future of the people, the theme of the purpose of poetry and the role of the artist.