A short biography of Nekrasov is the most important thing in life. Biography of Nekrasov: the life path and work of the great folk poet

1. The first years in St. Petersburg
2. “Who should live well in Rus'”: 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 developed 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:

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, which consisted 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 very favorably about the beginning poet, 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 vaudevilles “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 Rus'".

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 Rus'" 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 cheerfully, freely in Rus'", 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.

Nekrasov Nikolai Alekseevich, (1821-1877) Russian poet

Born in the town of Nemirovo (Podolsk province) in the family of a small estate nobleman. Childhood years were spent in the village of Greshnevo in the family estate of his father, an extremely despotic man. At the age of 10 he was sent to the Yaroslavl gymnasium.

At the age of 17 he moved to St. Petersburg, but, refusing to devote himself to a military career, as his father insisted, he was deprived of material support. In order not to die of hunger, he began to write poetry commissioned by booksellers. At this time, he met V. Belinsky.

In 1847, Nekrasov and Panaev purchased the Sovremennik magazine founded by A.S. Pushkin. The influence of the magazine grew every year, until in 1862 the government suspended its publication, and then completely banned the magazine.

During the period of work on Sovremennik, Nekrasov published several collections of poems, including Peddlers (1856) and Peasant Children (1856), which brought him fame as a poet.

In 1869, Nekrasov acquired the right to publish the journal Domestic Notes and published it. While working in Otechestvennye Zapiski, he created the poems “Who Lives Well in Rus'” (1866-1876), “Grandfather” (1870), “Russian Women” (1871-1872), wrote a series of satirical works, the peak of which was the poem “ Contemporaries" (1875).

At the beginning of 1875, Nekrasov fell seriously ill, neither the famous surgeon nor the operation could stop the rapidly developing rectal cancer. At this time, he began work on the Last Songs cycle (1877), a kind of poetic testament dedicated to Fekla Anisimovna Viktorova (in the work of Zinaida Nekrasov), the poet's last love. Nekrasov died at the age of 56.

Very short biography (in a nutshell)

Born December 10, 1821 in Nemirov, Podolsk province. Father - Alexei Sergeevich Nekrasov (1788-1862), lieutenant. Mother - Elena Andreevna Zakrevskaya (1801-1841). In 1832 he entered the Yaroslavl gymnasium. From 1839 to 1841 he studied at St. Petersburg University. He died on January 8, 1878, at the age of 56 in St. Petersburg. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in St. Petersburg. The main works: “Who should live well in Rus'”, “Grandfather Mazai and hares”, “Frost, red nose”, “Russian women”, “Peasant children”, “Grandfather” and others.

Brief biography (detailed)

Nikolai Nekrasov is a Russian poet, writer, essayist and classic of Russian literature. In addition, Nekrasov was a democratic revolutionary, head of the Sovremennik magazine and editor of the Domestic Notes magazine. The most famous work of the writer is the poem-novel "To whom in Rus' to live well."

Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov was born on December 10, 1821 in Nemirov into a noble family. The writer spent his childhood in the Yaroslavl province. At the age of 11, he entered the Yaroslavl gymnasium, where he studied for 5 years.

The writer's father was a rather despotic person. When Nikolai refused to become a military man at the insistence of his father, he was deprived of material support.

At the age of 17, the writer moved to St. Petersburg, where, in order to survive, he wrote poems to order. During this period he met Belinsky. When Nekrasov was 26 years old, together with the literary critic Panaev, he bought the Sovremennik magazine. The magazine quickly gained momentum and had a great influence in society. However, in 1862 the government forbade its publication.

While working at Sovremennik, several collections of Nekrasov's poems were published. Among them are those that brought him fame in wide circles. For example, "Peasant Children" and "Pedlars". In the 1840s, Nekrasov also began to collaborate with the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine, and in 1868 he rented it from Kraevsky.

During the same period, he wrote the poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'", as well as "Russian Women", "Grandfather" and a number of satirical works, including the popular poem "Contemporaries".

In 1875, the poet became terminally ill. In recent years, he worked on a cycle of poems "Last Songs", which he dedicated to his wife and last love, Zinaida Nikolaevna Nekrasova. The writer died on January 8, 1878 and was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in St. Petersburg.

ON THE. Nekrasov entered Russian literature as the author of a collection called “Poems by N.A. Nekrasov", which was published in 1856 and was a huge success among the contemporaries of Nikolai Alekseevich, unseen since the time of Pushkin. This book was the result of many years of work - it included the best that Nekrasov had written by that time.

But the poet's first appearance in print was not at all so successful. His collection "Dreams and Sounds", published in 1840, which included the youthful poems of the beginning poet, repeated the sad fate of the first book of Gogol, so highly valued later by Nekrasov: like Gogol's "Hans Küchelgarten", his first collection was destroyed by the author himself. In the article, we will consider what these early lyrics of Nekrasov were like, why he suffered such a clear creative failure, and what lesson Nekrasov learned from his first attempt to gain fame and glory.

Nikolai Alekseevich went to St. Petersburg from the Greshnevo family estate, located in the Yaroslavl province. Father Alexei Sergeevich Nekrasov took his son from the Yaroslavl gymnasium, where Nikolai entered at the age of 10, before completing the course, in order to send him to study at the St. Petersburg Cadet Corps. But Nikolai himself dreamed of something else: he was not attracted to military service, he wanted to enter St. Petersburg University. The mother of the future poet, Elena Andreevna, also dreamed of the same, who from an early age tried to instill in children a love of literature - she told them about great writers, introduced them to the works of Shakespeare, Dante, Pushkin. In the gymnasium, where education was not at a high level, Nekrasov devoted a lot of time to independent reading. Nekrasov's childhood was marked by the fact that his interests were connected with the then popular romantic poetry - Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Byron. Under the influence of these writers, he himself began to try to compose poetry. Even then, the young man dreams of seeing his works in print, unaware of their immaturity and obvious secondary nature in relation to the great literary samples.

That is why, contrary to the will of his father, Nekrasov was so eager to enter the university: the excellent liberal arts education that he could receive there would allow him to continue his studies in literature at a higher level. But everything turned out differently. Upon learning that his son had disobeyed, his father, who had a quick temper, refused him financial assistance. So Nekrasov's childhood was marked by a tragic episode - 16-year-old Nikolai was left completely alone in a large, cold, hostile city - without money and without any help. Perhaps even Gogol did not experience such hardships and hardships at the beginning of his Petersburg life.

The room had to be rented the most modest, on Vasilyevsky Island, and in order to pay less, Nekrasov settled there with the same poor man, the young artist Danenberg. “In order to feed themselves and pay rent, young people began to sell their things. Soon it got to the point that there was nothing to sell. Then it was decided to sell Nekrasov's overcoat, and be content with Danenberg's overcoat for both of them ... Both Nekrasov and Danenberg had the same boots, and they wore them in turn, ”says the writer N. Uspensky. It is not surprising that during these years Nikolai was seriously ill a lot, which further aggravated the need. He even sometimes had to spend the night in doss houses, along with the beggars. It was then that he acquired that sad, but very valuable experience for a democratic writer, which allowed him to tell so accurately in his poems about the life of the urban poor ("Am I driving down a dark street at night ...", "Masha", the cycle "About the weather " and etc.).

But all these hardships did not break the resolve of the young man, who knew for sure why he went for it. Nekrasov's youth is marked by the fact that he did not neglect any work: he gave private lessons, corrected proofs, wrote petitions, letters, etc. For all this paid a pittance, but still it was better than nothing. We can say that at that time Nikolai Alekseevich lived like many of the heroes of the works of F.M. Dostoevsky - his colleague in the "natural school", whom the poet met a few years later. But unlike them, Nikolai was firm in his intention to go to university and become a writer.

And he got his way. Nekrasov entered St. Petersburg University - he managed to do this only after two attempts. Finally, he was enrolled as a volunteer, began to attend lectures, but again, because of the need, he could not study regularly and systematically. But now he has begun to fulfill his cherished dream - with the support of friends, in 1840 Nekrasov publishes a collection of his poems Dreams and Sounds, most of which were written back in his gymnasium years. And here Nekrasov's youth was marked by a terrible blow: instead of fame and recognition, he met with extremely harsh criticism, even from such a meter as V.G. Belinsky, who noted in his review that "mediocrity in poetry is intolerable."

Why, then, did the one who later became a friend, colleague, and ideological inspirer of Nikolai Alekseevich, so severely evaluate his first poetic experiments? Indeed, Nekrasov's early lyrics were immature, imitative, and artistically weak. The idea of ​​​​it can be formed from the ballad "The Raven". It talks about how a hungry raven turns to the horse, which brought the knight Thebald to a date with his bride Veronica, and asks him to kill his rider. The horse, seduced by the speeches of the raven, threw off and killed the rider - "the will of fate has come true." The bride, seeing the dead lover, also fell down dead. And this bloody story ends with the words: "... a terrible fate / Tebald befell with Veronica." Other works from this collection also tell about knights, evil spirits, fantastic creatures and mystical events (ballads "Knight", "Waterman", "Witches' Feast", etc.).
At the same time, this collection already included several poems that differ from romantic-fantastic ballads. They feel what will become a distinctive feature of Nekrasov's poetry: the desire to express in verse genuine suffering and pain, sympathy for the humiliated and oppressed.

But there were very few such poems in the collection, and they hardly stood out among the romantic lyrics and ballads that formed its basis. Together with the failure of this book, Nekrasov not only lost hope of gaining fame, but he also failed to improve his financial situation. But the young man drew the necessary conclusions for himself from this whole story. He realized that literature is a very serious matter, to which one must give all the strength of the soul and heart. But even this is not enough: one must have certain knowledge about life, about literature, one must look for one's own place and one's own style in it. And for this he still had a lot to do, a lot to understand, to understand the current literary life.

That is why Nekrasov almost stopped writing poetry and plunged headlong into journalism. He becomes a regular contributor to such publications as the magazine "Pantheon of Russian and all European theaters", "Literaturnaya gazeta". Their editor was F.I. Horses. The young employee had a lot of work: he prints essays, short stories, novellas, feuilletons, critical articles, reviews. Nekrasov’s dramatic experiments also date back to that time: like many other contemporary writers, he writes small comic plays and vaudevilles for the Alexandrinsky Theater to order - such works of the light genre were popular with the public, although most often they were not original works, but only alterations from the repertoire of French theaters. But already here that lively, witty, apt language appears, which later will be a distinctive feature of Nekrasov's style.

True, he tried not to sign these works with his own name, but used various pseudonyms: Naum Perepelsky, Feklist Onufrich Bob, etc. How can one not recall the beginning of the creative path of A.P. Chekhov, because he also had to do daily work in various magazines, mostly humorous, and also in those years the future great Russian writer and playwright used pseudonyms: Antosha Chekhonte, Brother of his brother, etc. This difficult period of their creative life gave each of the writers a lot, not only in terms of material, but also the development of certain artistic principles and techniques. After all, it was not for nothing that Nekrasov’s poetry was then so close to the “prose of the day”, in verse the poet managed to talk about such “non-poetic” things that could only be written about in prose before.

It is also significant that the work on a large novel called The Life and Adventures of Tikhon Trosnikov (1843) also belongs to Nekrasov’s early work. It outlines the theme that will later enter as the main one in Nekrasov's poetry. The novel is largely autobiographical: it tells about the life of the urban poor, which is opposed to the life of the rich - generals, officials, famous journalists. Petersburg is already presented here by the writer as a city of terrible social contrasts, and his sympathy is entirely on the side of those who live in poverty and cannot even come close to the luxurious mansions of nobles.

The picture drawn by Nekrasov is strikingly similar to those we know from Dostoevsky's works. Obviously, the commonality of ideological and aesthetic principles was also felt by many other contemporary writers of Nikolai Alekseevich, who soon united around Belinsky. Nekrasov's acquaintance with him took place in 1841 and soon turned into friendship. It was the acquaintance with the critic that helped the poet finish his “universities”, better understand both the surrounding life and his own path in literature. In the group of young writers of the “natural school”, Nekrasov became one of the leaders, and with the purchase of the Sovremennik magazine, he plunged headlong into editorial and publishing work.

In those years, he almost never published as a poet, but a deep internal restructuring had already begun to bear fruit. Belinsky saw a gifted writer in Nekrasov, welcomed the appearance of new poems, which were not at all like early immature creativity. One of these poems, written in 1845, delighted the critic. "Do you know that you are a poet - and a true poet!" Belinsky said to Nekrasov. It was the poem "On the Road", which in the famous collection of 1856 opened its first section. Thus ended the first student experiences of the poet, and the road to great literature really opened before him, where he has since taken the place of one of the most original, unlike any other Russian poets.

Nikolai Nekrasov is the progenitor of a new literary speech, which contemporaries successfully recreated and improved at the beginning of the 20th century.

The revolution of Nikolai Alekseevich went in two directions at once: meaningful (the writer touched on topics in his works that were not customary to talk about even in prose) and metric (poetry, squeezed into iambic and trochee, thanks to him received the richest arsenal of tripartite meters).

Russian literature, like Russian social life, developed within the framework of a dichotomy until the end of the 1960s. Nekrasov in his work pushed the boundaries of consciousness, explaining to people that there are at least three points of view on the same question.

Childhood and youth

Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov was born on November 28, 1821 in the Podolsk province, where he quartered the 36th Jaeger Infantry Regiment, in which his father served as a captain.

The head of the family, Alexei Sergeevich, was a despot who was proud of his noble origin. The inveterate gambler was not interested in either poetry or prose. The mentally unbalanced man was only good at two things - hunting and assault. Despite the fact that intellectual requests were alien to Alexei, it was in his father’s library that young Nekrasov read the ode “Liberty”, which was forbidden at that time.

Mother Elena Alekseevna was the complete opposite of her husband. A gentle young lady with a fine mental organization played music and read all the time. In the illusory world of books, she escaped from the harsh everyday realities. Subsequently, Nekrasov will dedicate the poem "Mother" and "Knight for an Hour" to this "holy" woman.

Nekrasov was not the only child. In the difficult situation of the father's brutal reprisals against the peasants, the stormy orgies of Alexei Sergeevich with serf mistresses and the cruel attitude towards the "recluse" wife, another 13 children grew up.

In 1832, Nekrasov entered the Yaroslavl gymnasium, where he only reached the 5th grade. The father always wanted his son to follow in his footsteps and become a military man. In 1838, 17-year-old Nikolai went to St. Petersburg to be assigned to a noble regiment.

In the cultural capital, the young man met his countryman - Andrei Glushitsky, who told the poet about the delights of studying at a higher educational institution. Inspired by Nekrasov, contrary to his father's instructions, he decides to enter the philological faculty of St. Petersburg University. However, the ambitious guy flunks the entrance exam and earns the status of a volunteer (1831-1841).

As a student, Nikolai Nekrasov endured a terrible need. Left without material support, he spent the night in doorways and cellars, and saw a full meal only in his dreams. Terrible hardships not only prepared the future writer for adulthood, but also tempered his character.

Literature

The first collection of poems by young Nekrasov was Dreams and Sounds. The book was prepared in 1839, but Nekrasov was in no hurry to publish his "brainchild". The writer doubted the poetic maturity of his poems and was looking for a strict adviser.

Having proofreading in hand, the novice writer asked the founder of romanticism to familiarize himself with it. Vasily Andreevich advised not to publish the book under his own name, explaining that in the future Nekrasov would write great works, and Nikolai Alekseevich would be ashamed of this "unprofessionalism".

As a result, the collection was published under the pseudonym N.N. This collection was not successful with the public, and after criticism by Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky in the literary magazine Otechestvennye Zapiski, it was personally destroyed by Nekrasov.

Together with the writer Ivan Ivanovich Panaev, in the winter of 1846, the poet rented the Sovremennik with borrowed money. The publication published progressive writers and all those who hated serfdom. In January 1847, the first issue of the updated Sovremennik took place. In 1862, the government suspended the work of the journal, which was objectionable to the highest ranks, and in 1866 closed it altogether.

In 1868, Nikolai Alekseevich bought the rights to the Notes of the Fatherland. There the classic was published all subsequent years of his short life.

Among the great variety of works of the writer, the poems “Russian Women” (1873), “Frost, Red Nose” (1863), “Peasant Children” (1861), “On the Volga” (1860) and the poem “Grandfather Mazai and Hares" (1870), "A Peasant with a Marigold" (1861), "Green Noise" (1862-1863), "Listening to the Horrors of War" (1855).

Personal life

Despite the successful literary policy and the fantastic amount of information that the writer issued every month (more than 40 printed sheets of proofs) and processed, Nekrasov was an extremely unhappy person.

Sudden bouts of apathy, when the poet had not contacted anyone for weeks, and night-long "cart battles" made arranging his personal life almost impossible.

In 1842, at a poetry evening, Nikolai Alekseevich met the wife of the writer Ivan Panaev, Avdotya. The woman was pretty, had an extraordinary mind and excellent oratorical skills. Being the mistress of a literary salon, she constantly “gathered” eminent literary figures (Chernyshevsky, Belinsky) around her.

Despite the fact that Ivan Panaev was an avid rake, and any woman would be glad to get rid of such a would-be husband, Nekrasov had to make considerable efforts in order to earn the favor of a charming young lady. It is authentically known that he was in love with the beauty and, however, he failed to achieve reciprocity.

At first, the wayward woman rejected the courtship of 26-year-old Nekrasov, which is why he almost committed suicide. But during a joint trip to the Kazan province, the charming brunette and the budding writer nevertheless confessed their feelings to each other. Upon their return, they, together with Avdotya's legal husband, began to live in a civil marriage in the Panaevs' apartment.

The triple alliance lasted 16 years. All this action caused censure from the public - they said about Nekrasov that he lives in a strange house, loves a strange wife, and at the same time rolls scenes of jealousy to his lawful husband.

Despite the slander and misunderstanding, Nekrasov and Panaeva were happy. In tandem, the lovers write a poetic cycle, calling it "Panaevsky". Biographical elements and a dialogue now with the heart, now with the mind, contrary to popular belief, make the works in this collection absolutely unlike The Denisiev Cycle.

In 1849, the eminent poet's muse bore him a son. However, the “heir of the talents” of the writer lived only a couple of hours. Six years later, the young lady again gives birth to a boy. The child was extremely weak and died after four months. On the basis of the impossibility of having children in a pair of Nekrasov and Panaeva, quarrels begin. The once harmonious couple can no longer find "common points of contact."

In 1862, Avdotya's legal husband, Ivan Panaev, dies. Soon the woman realizes that Nikolai Alekseevich is not the hero of her novel, and leaves the poet. It is reliably known that in the writer's will there is a mention of "the love of his life."

On a trip abroad in 1864, Nekrasov lived for 3 months in apartments with his companions - his sister Anna Alekseevna and the Frenchwoman Selina Lefren, whom he met back in St. Petersburg in 1863.

Selina was an actress of the French troupe who performed at the Mikhailovsky Theater, and because of her easy temper did not take her relationship with the poet seriously. In the summer of 1866, Lefren spent in Karabikha, and in the spring of 1867 she again went abroad with Nekrasov. However, this time the fatal beauty never returned to Russia. This did not interrupt their relationship - in 1869 the couple met in Paris and spent the whole of August by the sea in Dieppe. In his dying will, the writer mentioned her.

At the age of 48, Nekrasov met the simple-minded 19-year-old village girl Fekla Anisimovna Viktorova. And although the young lady did not have outstanding external data and was extremely modest, she immediately liked the master of the literary word. For Thekla, the poet became the man of her life. He not only revealed to the woman the vicissitudes of love, but also showed the world.

Nekrasov and his young girlfriend lived together for five happy years. Their love story was reminiscent of the plot of the play Pygmalion. The lessons of French, Russian grammar, vocals and playing the piano transformed the civil wife of the writer so much that instead of an overly common name, the poet began to call her Zinaida Nikolaevna, giving her patronymic from his own name.

The poet had the most tender feelings for Fekla, but throughout his life he yearned both for the carefree Frenchwoman Selina Lefren, with whom he had an affair abroad, and for the obstinate Avdotya Yakovlevna.

Death

The last years of the life of the great writer were filled with agony. The publicist acquired the "one-way ticket" in early 1875, when he fell seriously ill.

The classic, who did not particularly care about his health, went to the doctor only in December 1876, after his affairs became very thin. The examination was carried out by Professor Nikolai Sklifosovsky, who was then working at the Medical-Surgical Academy. With a digital examination of the rectum, he clearly identified a neoplasm the size of an apple. The eminent surgeon immediately informed both Nekrasov and his assistants about the tumor in order to collectively decide what to do next.

Although Nikolai Alekseevich understood that he was seriously ill, he refused to increase the dose of opium to the last. Already a middle-aged writer was afraid of losing his ability to work and becoming a burden on his family. It is authentically known that during the days of remission, Nekrasov continued to write poems and completed the fourth part of the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”. On the Internet, to this day, you can find photographs where the “enslaved by the disease” classic lies on the bed with a piece of paper and looks thoughtfully into the distance.

The treatment used was losing effectiveness, and in 1877 the desperate poet turned to the surgeon E.I. Bogdanovsky. The writer's sister, having learned about the surgical intervention, wrote a letter to Vienna. In it, a woman tearfully asked the eminent professor Theodor Billroth to come to St. Petersburg and operate on her beloved brother. On April 5, consent came. For the work, a close friend of Johann Brahms requested 15 thousand Prussian marks. Preparing for the arrival of the surgeon, N.A. Nekrasov borrowed the necessary amount of money from his brother Fedor.

The attending physicians had to agree with the decision and wait for the arrival of a colleague. Professor T. Billroth arrived in St. Petersburg on April 11, 1877. The luminary of medicine was immediately acquainted with the medical history of the classic. On April 12, Theodore examined Nekrasov and scheduled the operation for the evening of the same day. The hopes of family and friends did not come true: the painful operation did not lead to anything.

The news of the poet's fatal illness spread throughout the country in the blink of an eye. People from all over Russia sent letters and telegrams to Nikolai Alekseevich. Despite the terrible torment, the eminent literary figure continued to correspond with not indifferent citizens until he was completely paralyzed.

In the book “Last Songs” written during this time, the literary figure summed up the results, drawing an invisible line between life and work. The works included in the collection are the literary confession of a man who foresees his imminent death.

In December, the publicist's condition deteriorated sharply: along with an increase in general weakness and emaciation, there were constantly growing pains in the gluteal area, chills, swelling on the back of the thigh and swelling in the legs. Among other things, fetid pus began to stand out from the rectum.

Before his death, Nekrasov decided to legalize relations with Zinaida. The patient did not have the strength to go to church, and the wedding took place at home. On December 14, N.A., who observed the patient, The white-headed man determined complete paralysis of the right half of the body and warned his relatives that the condition would progressively worsen with each passing day.

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

On December 30, despite the severe frost, a crowd of thousands accompanied the poet "on the last let" from his house on Liteiny Prospekt to the place of his eternal rest - the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent.

In his farewell speech, Dostoevsky awarded Nekrasov the third place in Russian poetry after Pushkin and. The crowd interrupted the writer with shouts of "Yes, higher, higher than Pushkin!"

Immediately after the funeral, Zinaida Nikolaevna turned to the abbess of the monastery with a request to sell her a place next to her husband's grave for her future burial.

Bibliography

• "Actor" (play, 1841)
• "Rejected" (play, 1859)
• The Official (play, 1844)
• "Theoklistos Onufrich Bob, or the Husband is out of his element" (play, 1841)
• "Youth of Lomonosov" (dramatic fantasy in verse in one act with an epilogue, 1840)
• "Contemporaries" (poem, 1875)
• "Silence" (poem, 1857)
• "Grandfather" (poem, 1870)
• "Cabinet of Wax Figures" (poem, 1956)
• “Who in Rus' should live well” (poem, 1863-1876)
• Peddlers (poem, 1861)
• "Recent Times" (poem, 1871)