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This paper argues that Nikolai Nekrasov's "V derevne" explores the limits of the Romantic view of lyricism as a socially isolated endeavor and attempts instead to use the lyric form to express social relationships. It contends that the poem works to conceptualize a social whole in which peasant and non-peasant are directly connected. Tragedy emerges as the mode of this connection: the lyric hero of the poem's first monologue and the lamenting peasant in the poem's second part each turn inward to bemoan circumstances which they feel they cannot change, including, in the case of the lyric hero, their own individual moods. This is the essence of Nekrasov's tragic pathos. As a folkloric omen, the poem's central image of gathering crows introduces a supernatural element to the poem which, rather than distinguishing a space separate from socio-economic realities, renders what might otherwise be considered natural an intentional effect. The poem's allusions through the crow omen to supernatural forces points to the actual social forces that structure the poem's world. The mysteriousness of these forces is thematized as a shared alienation, which is experienced even by the peasant in her presumably collective sphere as her mourning becomes a more modern sense of melancholia. Representing a collective experience of shared isolation, the poem attempts to embody the social totality which no single individual can grasp, in this way drawing on tragedy to offer a new form of lyric which does not ignore social divisions but rather expresses them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The folkloric elements in Nikolai Nekrasov's "V derevne" ("In the Village," 1854) go beyond metric and stylistic affinities, and include, among others, the crows that flock as if from around the world; the well, the name Kasyanovna; and the final image of the black net. The paper will describe the dynamics of these elements' interaction within the text, suggesting that in the poem, the lyric author's engagement with the two genres of folk poetry, namely, the epic and the lament (plach, prichitanie), brings about a transformative experience for the lyric hero. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Nikolai Nekrasov's poem is closely related to a topical discussion on the representation of peasants in literary texts that was unfolding in the criticism of 1850s. Critics such as Pavel Annenkov, who published his articles in The Contemporary edited by Nekrasov, insisted that the modern literature created by the westernized elites was incapable of correctly describing the social and psychological circumstances of the life of common people. His opponent Stepan Dudyshkin, to whom Nekrasov dedicated the first edition of his poem, replied that the whole idea of a perfectly correct representation of human life in a work of art is an illusion created by German philosophers, while a poet should rather influence the reader and evoke strong feelings. Analyzing the poem by Nekrasov, I demonstrate that he closely follows the advice of Dudyshkin, showing that such feelings as pity and sympathy can overcome social and cultural borders between the characters of his poem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]