Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Tapio Riikonen and PG
Distributed Proofreaders
Translated by Juliet M. Soskice
With an Introduction by Dr. David Soskice
1917
[Illustration: Nicholas 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 Russiain 1879. In 'The World's Classics' this translation was first publishedin 1917.
Western Europe has only lately begun to explore the rich domain ofRussian literature, and is not yet acquainted with all even of itsgreatest figures. Treasures of untold beauty and priceless value, whichfor many decades have been enlarging and elevating the Russian mind,still await discovery here. Who in England, for instance, has heard thenames of Saltykov, Uspensky, or Nekrassov? Yet Saltykov is the greatestof Russian satirists; Uspensky the greatest story-writer of the lives ofthe Russian toiling masses; while Nekrassov, "the poet of the people'ssorrow," whose muse "of grief and vengeance" has supremely dominated theminds of the Russian educated classes for the last half century, is thesole and rightful heir of his two great predecessors, Pushkin andLermontov.
Russia is a country still largely mysterious to the denizenof Western Europe, and the Russian peasant, the moujik, animpenetrable riddle to him. Of all the great Russian writers not one hascontributed more to the interpretation of the enigmatical soul of themoujik than Russia's great poet, Nekrassov, in his life-work thenational epic, Who can be Happy in Russia?
There are few literate persons in Russia who do not know whole pages ofthis poem by heart. It will live as long as Russian literature exists;and its artistic value as an instrument for the depiction of Russiannature and the soul of the Russian people can be compared only with thatof the great epics of Homer with regard to the legendary life ofancient Greece.
Nekrassov seemed destined to dwell from his birth amid such surroundingsas are necessary for the creation of a great national poet.
Nicholas Alexeievitch Nekrassov was th