Who Can Be Happy and Free in Russia

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Russia? by Nicholas Nekrassov
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Title: Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia?
Author: Nicholas Nekrassov
Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9619]
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[This file was first posted on October 10,
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Language: English
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHO HAPPY
IN RUSSIA ***
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WHO CAN BE HAPPY AND FREE IN RUSSIA?
BY
NICHOLAS NEKRASSOV
Translated by Juliet M. Soskice
With an Introduction by Dr. David Soskice
1917
[Illustration: Nicholas Nekrassov]
NICHOLAS ALEXEIEVITCH NEKRASSOV
Born, near the town Vinitza, province of Podolia, November 22, 1821
Died, St. Petersburg, December 27, 1877.
_'Who can be Happy and Free in Russia?' was first published in Russia
in 1879. In 'The World's Classics' this translation was first published in
1917._
CONTENTS:
NICHOLAS NEKRASSOV: A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE
PROLOGUE
PART I.
CHAP.

I. THE POPE
II. THE VILLAGE FAIR
III. THE DRUNKEN
NIGHT
IV. THE HAPPY ONES
V. THE POMYÉSHCHICK
PART II.--THE LAST POMYÉSHCHICK
PROLOGUE
I. THE DIE-HARD
II. KLIM, THE ELDER
PART III.--THE PEASANT WOMAN
PROLOGUE
I. THE WEDDING
II. A SONG
III. SAVYÉLI

IV. DJÓMUSHKA
V. THE SHE-WOLF
VI. AN UNLUCKY
YEAR
VII. THE GOVERNOR'S LADY
VIII. THE WOMAN'S
LEGEND
PART IV.--A FEAST FOR THE WHOLE VILLAGE
PROLOGUE
I. BITTER TIMES--BITTER SONGS
II.
PILGRIMS AND WANDERERS
III. OLD AND NEW
EPILOGUE
NICHOLAS NEKRASSOV: A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE
Western Europe has only lately begun to explore the rich domain of
Russian literature, and is not yet acquainted with all even of its greatest
figures. Treasures of untold beauty and priceless value, which for many
decades have been enlarging and elevating the Russian mind, still await
discovery here. Who in England, for instance, has heard the names of
Saltykov, Uspensky, or Nekrassov? Yet Saltykov is the greatest of
Russian satirists; Uspensky the greatest story-writer of the lives of the
Russian toiling masses; while Nekrassov, "the poet of the people's
sorrow," whose muse "of grief and vengeance" has supremely
dominated the minds of the Russian educated classes for the last half
century, is the sole and rightful heir of his two great predecessors,
Pushkin and Lermontov.
Russia is a country still largely mysterious to the denizen of Western

Europe, and the Russian peasant, the moujik, an impenetrable riddle to
him. Of all the great Russian writers not one has contributed more to
the interpretation of the enigmatical soul of the moujik than Russia's
great poet, Nekrassov, in his life-work the national epic, Who can be
Happy in Russia?
There are few literate persons in Russia who do not know whole pages
of this poem by heart. It will live as long as Russian literature exists;
and its artistic value as an instrument for the depiction of Russian
nature and the soul of the Russian people can be compared only with
that of the great epics of Homer with regard to the legendary life of
ancient Greece.
Nekrassov seemed destined to dwell from his birth amid such
surroundings as are necessary for the creation of a great national poet.
Nicholas Alexeievitch Nekrassov was the descendant of a noble family,
which in former years had been very wealthy, but subsequently had lost
the greater part of its estates. His father was an officer in the army, and
in the course of his peregrinations from one end of the country to the
other in the fulfilment of his military duties he became acquainted with
a young Polish girl, the daughter of a wealthy Polish aristocrat. She was
seventeen, a type of rare Polish beauty, and the handsome, dashing
Russian officer at once fell madly in love with her. The parents of the
girl, however, were horrified at the notion of marrying their daughter to
a "Muscovite savage," and her father threatened her with his curse if
ever again she held communication with her lover. So the matter was
secretly arranged between the two, and during a ball