Nikolay Nekrasov

Nikolay Alexeyevich Nekrasov (Russian: Никола́й Алексе́евич Некра́сов, IPA: [nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɐlʲɪkˈsʲejɪvʲɪtɕ nʲɪˈkrasəf] , 10 December [O.S. 28 November] 1821 – 8 January 1878 [O.S. 27 December 1877]) was a Russian poet, writer, critic and publisher, whose deeply compassionate poems about the Russian peasantry made him a hero of liberal and radical circles in the Russian intelligentsia of the mid-nineteenth century, particularly as represented by Vissarion Belinsky and Nikolay Chernyshevsky. He is credited with introducing ternary meters and the technique of dramatic monologue (On the Road, 1845) to Russian poetry. As the editor of several literary journals, notably Sovremennik, Nekrasov was also singularly successful and influential.

Biography

Early years

Nikolay Alexeyevich Nekrasov was born in Nemyriv (now in Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine), in the Bratslavsky Uyezd of Podolia Governorate. His father, Alexey Sergeyevich Nekrasov (1788–1862), was descended from Russian landed gentry and was an officer in the Imperial Russian Army. There is some uncertainty as to his mother's origins. According to the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (and this corresponds with Nekrasov's 1887 autobiographical notes), Nekrasov's mother was Alexandra Zakrzewska, a Polish noblewoman and the daughter of a wealthy landlord who belonged to the szlachta. The church records tell a different story, and modern Russian scholars have her name as Yelena Andreyevna. "Up until recently the poet's biographers had it that his mother belonged to a Polish family. In fact she was the daughter of Ukrainian state official Alexander Semyonovich Zakrevsky, the owner of Yuzvino, a small village in the Podolia Governorate," Korney Chukovsky asserted in 1967.