Semyon Nadson (Russian Biographical Dictionary)

Born in St. Petersburg on December 14, 1862. His mother came from the Russian noble family of the Mamontovs; father, of Jewish origin, was an official; a gifted man and very musical, he died when Nadson was 2 years old. Left without any means with two children, his widow first lived as a governess in Kyiv, then remarried. This marriage was extremely unhappy. The poet’s memory left an indelible impression of difficult family scenes that ended with the suicide of his stepfather, after which Nadson’s mother, along with her children, settled in St. Petersburg with her brother, but soon died. Left in the care of his uncle, with whom he did not get along well, Nadson in 1872 was sent as a boarder to the 2nd Military Gymnasium (now the 2nd Cadet Corps), where he completed the course. Having entered the Pavlovsk Military School, he caught a cold while studying. Doctors confirmed the onset of consumption, and he was sent to Tiflis at government expense, where he spent a year. In 1882, Nadson was released as a second lieutenant in the Caspian Regiment, located in Kronstadt. This was the best period of his life; his bright mood was reflected in one of the few poems not poisoned by heavy thoughts: Everything that I dreamed of behind the school walls as a young man, looking into the future, came true. The rapidly growing literary fame, lively disposition, wit, kind heart - all this endeared his comrades and acquaintances to Nadson; he was surrounded by care and concern. Military service, however, weighed heavily on Nadson, and he retired at the first opportunity (1884). For several months he was the editorial secretary of Nedelya, but soon The chest illness took such a turn that the poet’s friends, with the help of the Literary Fund, sent him first to Wiesbaden, then to Nice. Neither the warm climate nor the two painful operations for a tuberculous leg fistula that he underwent in Bern led to anything, and in the summer of 1885 his friends decided to take him back to Russia. Slowly fading, he lived for about 1 1/2 more years, first in the Podolsk province, then near Kiev and finally in Yalta, where he died on January 19, 1887. During this time, his popularity grew, and a collection of poems published in 1885 quickly sold out, a second and a third were needed, the Academy of Sciences awarded him the Pushkin Prize, illustrated publications included his portrait, he received many sympathetic letters. When he organized an evening in Kyiv in favor of the literary fund, he They were greeted with a thunderous ovation, and after the reading they were carried out in their arms. Living near Kiev and looking for income so as not to need the help of friends and the Literary Fund, Nadson began writing literary feuilletons in the Kyiv newspaper Zarya. This involved him in a controversy with the critic of “New Time”, V.P. Burenin, who in transparent hints charged Nadson that his illness was feigned and served as a pretext for begging for benefits. The dying poet, deeply struck by this accusation, was going to go to St. Petersburg and arrange a court of honor, but his friends were not allowed to do so. After some time, the attacks resumed with renewed vigor; The last feuilleton of “New Time” directed against Nadson came to Yalta after his death. The poet's body was transported to St. Petersburg and buried in the Volkov cemetery. A few years later, with money raised by subscription, a monument was erected over Nadson’s grave. Nadson began writing very early; Already in 1878, one of his poems was published in “Svet” by N.P. Wagner; then he placed poems in “Word”, “Foundations”, “Thoughts”. In 1882, A.N. met him. Pleshcheev, who treated the debutant extremely warmly and opened the way for him to Otechestvennye Zapiski. Nadson's poems placed here attracted everyone's attention. Interest in Nadson's poetry has not waned to this day. The ownership of Nadson's works, according to his will, belongs to the Literary Fund, to which he thus paid a hundredfold for support. Formed through the sale of Nadson's poems, the fund's "Nadson capital" currently amounts to about 200 thousand rubles. During the 28 years since his death, his poems went through 28 editions (6,000 copies each, and in recent years 12,000 copies each). Many at first attributed this unprecedented success to sympathy for the unfortunate fate of the untimely death of the poet and, as it were, a protest against the slander that poisoned his last days of life. However, many years have passed, the hardships have been forgotten, and the success of Nadson’s poems remains the same. It is necessary, therefore, to look for its explanation in Nadson’s very verses. Nadson reflected the transitional mood that characterized the activities of the best representative of the literary generation of the late 1870s and early 80s - Garshin. Nadson is the personification of Ryabinin in Garshin’s famous story: “Artists”. Like Ryabinin, he exclaims: “But to remain silent when sobs and when you so greedily strive to appease them, under the threat of struggle and in the face of suffering... Brother, I don’t want, I can’t remain silent." There was a time when "poetry carried with it unknown feelings, the harmony of heaven and devotion to a dream, and there was its law - art for art's sake, and her behest was the service of beauty." But "from the very first steps, luxurious flowers were torn from her brow and trampled into dust - and her virginally beautiful features were covered with a dark cloud of doubt and sadness." Refusing the poetry of pleasure and serene contemplation, Nadson , like Garshin’s Ryabinin, he did not find his purpose in the fight against evil. He himself is very well aware of this: “and among the fighters I am not a stern fighter, but only a groaning, tired invalid, looking with envy at their crown of thorns.” therefore the general character of poetic Nadson’s activities represent him as a “civilian” poet par excellence. Nadson’s “civic” mood, like all his moods in general, was deeply sincere, but it is only part of his creative impulses and is, as it were, the fulfillment of what he considered the moral duty of every person and citizen who loves his homeland. Due to the purely literary qualities of his talent, he gravitated towards lyrical impulses, alien to trends. This is evident both from many places in his critical notes and from the prevailing tone of the poems that he left in his portfolio and which were published only after his death. Especially good artistically are those poems in which he is more a poet than a citizen: “On cemetery", "In the Wilderness", lovely "Excerpt from a letter to M.V. Watson", graceful piece “Creeped into my corner secretly”, “Everything came true”, “Again moonlit night”, “I took a closer look at her”, “No, muse, don’t call”, “In the spring”, “My muse died” (the last poem is one of the most touching plays of Russian poetry, which can stand next to Nikitin’s poem: “A deep hole was dug with a spade”). Already in one of his early poems, “The Poet” Nadson simultaneously worships two ideals of poetry - civil and purely artistic. In later poems, next to the call to fight, there is a “painful argument” in his soul with doubt about the need for struggle (“I’ll be left alone a little”); Along with faith in the final triumph of goodness ("My Friend, My Brother", "Spring Tale") there is a bitter conclusion, "that in the struggle and turmoil of the universe there is only one goal - the peace of non-existence" ("The Future"), "darkness" reigns hopelessness in the tormented chest" ("The veil has been lifted") and the consciousness of the insignificance of efforts "before the flowing blood of a suffering century, before the eternal evil of man and eternal enmity" becomes stronger ("I did not spare myself"). Sometimes in the soul of the poet a conflict arises with the desire for the personal happiness. In one of his most popular poems, Nadson says that “yesterday I was still glad to renounce happiness” - but “today it’s spring, all in flowers, and the window looked in,” and “I madly, painfully want happiness, a woman’s. affection, and tears, and love without end." Nadson's lack of straightforwardness, however, has nothing in common with instability; his hesitations, like Garshin's, are united by a common humane mood, not far-fetched, but deep. Nadson's ideal is Christ: " my God is the God of the suffering, the God stained with blood, the God - a man and a brother with a heavenly soul, and before suffering and pure love I bow with my fervent prayer." Nadson himself gave the definition of his poetry in the poem "Dreams": "I cry with the weeping, with the suffering I suffer, and I give my hand to the weary." In These words also define the place occupied by Nadson in the history of Russian poetry. The native daughter of Nekrasov’s muse, Nadson’s muse has her own individual characteristics. She is more prone to complaints than to protest, but she is also less severe. Nadson nevertheless has great poetic merits. He has a very musical, sometimes figurative verse, a sincere tone, and most importantly, he has great conciseness. His favorite saying was: “so that words are cramped, thoughts are spacious.” several very apt poetic formulas that are engraved in the memory. The poems: “how little has been lived, how much has been experienced”, “even if the harp is broken - the chord is still crying”, “the flowers have flown around, the lights have burned out” - they became winged and entered into everyday speech. Nadson’s strength is also the complete absence of artificial elation and rhetoric. Nadson's critical experiments, collected in the book "Literary Essays" (St. Petersburg, 1888), do not represent anything outstanding. In 1912, the Literary Fund published a collection: “Prose, diaries, letters” by Nadson (with biographical notes, N.K. Piksanov). – Wed. biography of Nadson, with poems (compiled by M.V. Watson); Arsenyev "Critical Studies"; N.K. Mikhailovsky "Works". vol. VI; Or. Miller, in "Russian Antiquity" (1888); "Collection of articles dedicated to in memory of Nadson" (St. Petersburg, 1887); N.A. Kotlyarevsky "Poetry of anger and sorrow" (M., 1890); A. Tsarevsky "Nadson and his poetry of thought and sadness" (Kazan, 1890); P. Grinevich (P.F. Yakubovich) “Essays on Russian Poetry” (St. Petersburg, 1904); M. Protopopov “Critical Articles” (M., 1902); M. Menshikov “Critical Essays” (St. Petersburg, 1899). . Vengerov. Source: Russian Biographical Dictionary.