NEKRASOV or NEKRASSOV, NIKOLAI ALEXEY EVICH (1821-1877), Russian poet, was born on NOV. 22 (0.5.) 1821, in Podolia, the son of a landowner in the government of Yaroslav, where the boy was brought up. He studied at St. Petersburg, against the will of his father, who left him to his own resources. At the age of 19 he published a small volume of poems (Dreams and Sounds), most of which had appeared in periodicals, and in 1846 he bought from Pletnev the Sovremennik, which in his hands became from 1856 onwards the favourite organ of young radical writers. It was suppressed in 1866, but in 1868 Nekrasov acquired, with Saltykov, the Otechestvennye Zapiski, in which the traditions of the Sovremennik were maintained. He died at St. Petersburg on Dec. 27 (0.S.) 1877.
Nekrasov was a people's poet, and expressed the sorrows and sufferings of the common people in poems which made him the idol of the reformers, and the joy and humour of every-day life in admirable adaptations of folksong, and in charming poems for children. Among the most famous of his works are The Red-Nosed Frost (1863), depicting a heroic peasant woman, and the great satirical work "Who can be happy and free in Russia?" (2879, Eng. trans. J. M. Soskice, 1901.) The latter is a species of Can
terbury Tales, though with a definite purpose running through the series. Seven peasants make their way on foot throughout Russia to solve the question of who is happy. They are told a series of tales, by typical characters, landowners, priests, peasants and others, and Nekrasov concludes on a note of hope for the future. This last canto, owing to the censorship, did not appear until 1881. His work includes love poems, elegies and narrative poems. The most recent edition of his poems was published in 2 vols. in 1919, and they have been translated into German by H. J. Kocher (2 vols. Leipzig, 1885-88). English translations of some of his poems, including The Red-Nosed Frost, are to be found in C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics (1887) ; and J. Pollen, Rhymes from the Russian (1891). See also a French translation of some of his poems Poesies populaires, by E. Halperine-Kaminsky and C. Morice, with a preface by E. M. Vogiie.