Nikolay Nekrasov - Career As Publisher

Career As Publisher

Ironically, Nekrasov joined the staff of Отечественные Записки (Notes of the Fatherland) under his critic Belinsky, and became close friends with the critic. Soon Belinsky recognized Nekrasov's talent, and promoted him to position as a junior editor. From 1843-46 Nekrasov edited various anthologies for the magazine, one of which, "A Petersburg Collection," included Dostoyevsky's first novel, Poor Folk. At the end of 1846, Nekrasov acquired a popular magazine The Contemporary (also known as "Sovremennik") from Pyotr Pletnev. Much of the staff of the old NoF, including Belinksy, abandoned Pyotr Krayevsky's magazine, and joined "Sovremennik" to work with Nekrasov. Before his death in 1848, Belinsky granted Nekrasov rights to publish various articles and other material originally planned for an almanac, to be called the Leviathan.

Together with Avdotya Panaeva, who wrote under the pseudonym of V. Stanitsky, Nekrasov published two very long picturesque novels: Three Countries of the World and Dead Lake.

By the middle of 1850s Nekrasov had become seriously ill. He left Russia for Italy to recover. It was around this time that Chernyshevsky and Nikolai Dobrolyubov, two of the most radical and unabashedly revolutionary writers of the time, had joined the staff and became the major critics for the magazine. Nekrasov was attacked by his old friends for allowing his journal to become the vehicle for Chernyshevsky's sloppy and often poorly written broadside attacks on polite Russian society. By 1860 I. S. Turgenev, the naysayer of nihilism, refused to have any more of his work published in the journal.

After the closure of the Contemporary in 1866, Nekrasov made peace with his old enemy Kraevsky, and obtained from his ownership of Отечественные Записки (Notes of the Fatherland). He achieved new success with the journal over the next ten years.