On the Place of ‘‘Prologue’’ in the Text of the Poem “Who Lives Happily in Russia”

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-8297-2023-29-230-237
EDN:

https://elibrary.ru/GIYLXX
УДК / UDK: 821.161.1.0
Issue:

2023 №29
Author: Mikhail S. Makeev
About the author:

Mikhail S. Makeev — DSc in Philology, Professor, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 1 Leninskie Gory, 119991 Moscow, Russia. Leading Research Fellow, Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 4 Makarova Emb., 199034 St. Petersburg, Russia.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5798-6892

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Abstract:

The article proposes a clarification to the interpretation of the composition of the poem by N.A. Nekrasov “Who Lives Happily in Russia.” In post-war Soviet editions, “Prologue” (“In what year — guess...”) was constantly published as part of the first part of the poem. The article argues for the need to print it before the whole poem, since in the last lifetime editions of the poet’s poems “Prologue” was “out of place” as a result of external circumstances. The fact is that the very division into parts in the poem appeared when the 5th part of the edition of 1869–1873. (containing the prologue and the first five chapters) was already typed and the changes had to be made to the finished layout.
Keywords: textual criticism, N.A. Nekrasov, the poem “Who Lives Happily in Russia,” Russian classic literature edition, author’s will, editor’s research, Russian poetry of the 19th century.
For citation:

Makeev, M.S. “On the Place of ʽPrologue’ in the Text of the Poem ʽWho Lives Happily in Russia’.” Literaturnyi fakt, no. 3(29), 2023, pp. 230–237. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-8297-2023-29-230-237
References:

1. Makeev, M.S. “Nekrasovskaia tekstologiia v XXI veke: problemy novogo nauchnogo izdaniia stikhotvorenii N.A. Nekrasova v serii ʽNovaia biblioteka poeta’.” [“Nekrasov Textual Criticism in the 21st Century: Problems of the New Academic Edition of N.A. Nekrasov’s Poems in the The New Library of the Poet Series”]. Russkaia literatura, no. 4, 2021, pp. 27–38. DOI: 10.31860/0131-6095-2021-4-27-38 (In Russ.)

2. Letopis’ zhizni i tvorchestva N.A. Nekrasova: v 3 t. [Chronicle of N.A. Nekrasov’s Life and Work: in 3 vols.], vol. 3. St. Petersburg, Nauka Publ., 2009. 704 p. (In Russ.)

3. Nekrasov, N.A. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem: v 15 t. [Complete Works and Letters: in 15 vols.]. Leningrad, Nauka Publ., 1981–2000. (In Russ.)

4. Tverdokhlebov, I.Iu. Poema Nekrasova “Komu na Rusi zhit’ khorosho” [Nekrasov’s Poem “Who Lives Happily in Russia”]. Moscow, Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union Publ., 1954. 206 p. (In Russ.)