Andrey Fedotov and Pavel Uspenskij: The Military Man in Poetry of Nikolai Nekrasov-Two Case Studies

Join us for another 19v seminar! This talk will focus on two important poems, both unusual for Nekrasov’s oeuvre — “Внимая ужасам войны…” (“Listening to the Horrors of War…”) and “— Так, служба, сам ты в той войне…” (“Yes, Soldier! You in That War…” ). Both texts grapple with the experiences of men confronting military events. We will show that “Внимая ужасам войны…” constructs a civilian subject in the context of the era of the Crimean War and thus fills an important gap in the poetry of 1853-1856. While the poem “— Так, служба, сам ты в той войне…” appears at first glance to address the distant era of 1812, we argue that it, too, was probably a reaction to the Crimean War, particularly in its mode of problematizing the brutality of the folk in their armed opposition to the invaders.