N. A. Nekrasov, Komu na Rusi zhit' khorosho? [Who is to Live Well in Russia?]

Michael Ransome

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.1.00: Slavic and Russian Writing and Culture: Old, Medieval and Tsarist, 700-1917.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1866

Places

Ukraine (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poetry (any)

Resources

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Who is to Live Well in Russia?

(

Komu na Rusi zhit’ khorosho?

) was the major creation undertaken by the nineteenth-century Russian civic poet Nikolai Alekeseevich Nekrasov and was his self-confessed “favourite child”. Grandiose in design and epic in intention, this narrative poem occupied the poet’s attention virtually for the last twenty years of his life and ultimately remained unfinished. Nekrasov’s premature death prevented its revision and completion, leaving the work as an imperfect legacy, the purpose and quality of which have been hotly debated by critics.

Who is to Live Well in Russia? is by far the longest creation of its author’s Muse, constituting over eight and a half thousand lines of verse in the form in which it has come down to us. Thematically closely linked

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2126 words

Citation: Ransome, Michael. "Komu na Rusi zhit' khorosho?". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 March 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=15156, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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