1821–1878
○ Intestinal cancer
Poet-publisher who sang the peasants' suffering and turned Pushkin's Sovremennik into the center of revolutionary literature
"You may not be a poet, but you must be a citizen" — the line from Nekrasov's "The Poet and the Citizen" that defined the social mission of Russian literature.
The poet and publisher at the center of Russian realist literature, Nekrasov acquired Pushkin's Sovremennik and built it into the era's foremost literary journal, where the criticism of Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, and Dobrolyubov crossed paths with the fiction of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Turgenev. His verse, which gave voice to the serf in the peasant's own language and folk rhythms, became scripture for the revolutionary democrats; his epic masterpiece Who Is Happy in Russia? remains the most comprehensive verse inquiry into the contradictions of the Russian countryside. At his funeral in 1878, four thousand mourners turned the procession into a political rally, and when Dostoevsky eulogized him as 'the greatest poet since Pushkin,' young revolutionaries shouted back, 'No, greater!'
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1839–1841Auditor, Faculty of Philosophy, St. Petersburg University
- 1840Published first poetry collection, Dreams and Sounds
- 1840–1846Contributed to Otechestvennye Zapiski and other journals, wrote plays and vaudevilles
- 1845–1846Edited and published almanacs The Physiology of Saint Petersburg and Saint Petersburg Collection — featuring Dostoevsky's debut
- 1847–1866Publisher and editor of Sovremennik (The Contemporary)
- 1856Published The Poems by N. Nekrasov — sold out instantly, brought nationwide fame
- 1868–1878Publisher and editor of Otechestvennye Zapiski (Notes of the Fatherland)
- 1873–1876Wrote his masterpiece, Who Is Happy in Russia?
Editing Sovremennik amid literary politics and censorship
Nikolay Nekrasov and Ivan Panaev took charge of Sovremennik in January 1847. Nekrasov restored the journal’s financial footing and recruited contributions from Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov, Alexander Herzen, Nikolai Ogaryov, and others. In the 1850s he secured agreements for leading contributors to publish their new work exclusively in the journal; 1852–1862 is often regarded as its most brilliant period. After Belinsky’s death, Nikolay Chernyshevsky and Nikolay Dobrolyubov became central to its criticism, while the journal addressed the emancipation of the serfs and became a forum for revolutionary-democratic debate. From 1858 it polemicized with liberal and conservative newspapers, and in 1859–1861 argued with Herzen’s Kolokol over the aims of Russian democracy.
This editorial work unfolded amid changing censorship and shifts within the journal. From 1847 to 1855, the government tightened press controls after the European revolutions of 1848. Domestic policies liberalized after 1855 as the Great Reforms were prepared, but publication was suspended after the Saint Petersburg fires of 1862. The phase led by Chernyshevsky ended with the suspension in June 1862; Nekrasov resumed publication in January 1863 with an editorial team that included Saltykov-Shchedrin and others. The journal appeared until May 1866 and was closed after the attempt on Alexander II’s life prompted a harsh official reaction. A recent topic analysis of the journal’s full run finds that politically sensitive topics were juxtaposed with literary discussion differently across censorship regimes and editorial policies, while its authors caution that the results only partially support their hypotheses.