Chapter 4: The Natural School

Although being surrounded and shouted at with "A new Gogol has been born!" was a very satisfying thing, to avoid being kicked out by the landlord, Mikhail, after a moment of stunned silence, hurriedly said:

"Hey! Hey! Quiet down, Dem! Do you know what time it is? Why choose to come at this moment?"

"It's all because that guy Nikolai insisted on dragging me here." Hearing this, Dmitri was about to laugh out loud, but thinking of Mikhail's instructions, he finally managed to brake in time:

"After I left this morning, I went to find him immediately, but he happened to be out, so I asked the maid to leave him a note, and I left the novel too. Hey! Only God knows how worried I was! As a result, he didn't come home until very late, and after reading it, he came straight to find me. We discussed it and couldn't help but come straight to find you.

As a result, the place you live in, Misha, is truly remote, and we spent quite a while before finally finding it!"

"I see." Having roughly understood the sequence of events, Mikhail turned his gaze to the thin yet spirited young man before him and said: "Then who is this?"

"Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov." Giving his full name, the young man solemnly extended his hand: "Very pleased to meet you!"

Nekrasov?

The long string of names before made Mikhail feel a headache, but this last surname directly triggered a keyword in Mikhail's memory.

As for what this name signifies, in short, the young man before him is the "midwife of Russian realist literature."

Although Russian literature had already shown signs of realism with Pushkin and Gogol, it was only with Belinsky that it was systematically summarized and expounded, and in this process, this old fellow contributed quite a bit.

Like many Russian nobles, this old fellow also displayed his traditional skills; born into a noble family, his father was a retired officer. Originally, in 1838, his father intended to send him to St. Petersburg for a military academy, essentially paving the way for his son.

But Nekrasov went against his father's wishes and chose to take the university entrance exam. After failing, he persisted in attending lectures at St. Petersburg University as an auditor.

In a fit of rage, his father cut off all financial support for him. Thus, the seventeen-year-old Nekrasov at that time fell into a long period of poverty marked by hunger and cold.

But this old fellow was indeed talented; in the same year, he published poems in Russia's top literary journal, The Fatherland Notes, and continued to publish in other magazines, barely managing to sustain his livelihood through this.

However, his literary path was not smooth sailing. His first poetry collection, *Fancies and Voices*, published in 1840, was severely criticized by Belinsky, who was already an emerging leader of the literary world, because most of the works were imitations.

In pain, he once stopped writing poetry.

But although he suffered mentally, life had to go on, otherwise it would likely become even more painful.

Therefore, this old fellow began writing letters and drafting petitions for peasants, writing advertisements for merchants... while persisting in literary creation.

And the turning point of fate arrived very quickly.

After long years of struggle, Nekrasov figured out some ways of the cultural market. He discovered that the "Urban Physiology" and "Naturalism" sketches appearing in Paris, France, were very popular with readers. In short, this series of collections all depicted the lower-class people of Paris.

This coincided perfectly with the new trends in Russian literature reflected in Pushkin's *The Station Master* and Gogol's *The Nose* and *The Overcoat*.

And Nekrasov instinctively sensed the huge potential of this new trend and began to strive with all his might for it.

And starting from 1845, he edited a collection depicting the living conditions of the lower-class people in Russia.

This naturally aroused strong dissatisfaction among some conservatives, who believed that such works, focusing exclusively on "filthy" themes, were the 'Natural School' lacking artistic beauty.

While conservatives opposed it, the literary leader Belinsky at that time stood completely on Nekrasov's side, adopted the term "Natural School," and vigorously praised the "Natural School" for daring to write truthfully and possessing a humanitarian spirit daring to expose the dark side of Russian society.

In other words, this was the turning point where Russia shifted from Romanticism towards Realism.

As for what significance this work actually held, let's put it this way: after this trend, familiar names like Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy began to appear in people's vision, leading Russian literature to leap forward and become an absolutely unignorable peak in world literature.

This period is also known as the Golden Age of Russian literature.

And at this current point in time, although Nekrasov was still young, he had already made friends with many prominent figures in St. Petersburg and could be said to have opened up a situation in the Cultural Circle.

And he is currently probably officially engaged in the publishing business, rushing around everywhere to organize *St. Petersburg Physiology*.

As for Mikhail, an unknown among the unknowns.

But Nekrasov was obviously much more solemn than Mikhail.

At this very moment, looking at the young man before him, Mikhail also extended his hand and shook hands with the other party, then gave his own name:

"Mikhail Romanovich Raskolnikov. Are you the poet Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov who published *Fancies and Voices*?"

"It is me, you have heard of it?" Stunned for a moment, Nekrasov was both surprised and delighted, but thinking of his very immature poetry collection, he said somewhat ashamedly: "I never expected you to know about this, but compared to your novel, my poetry is nothing."

Oh right, at this time this old fellow had not yet entered the mature period of his creation, and was even somewhat depressed by Belinsky's criticism.

"You will be." Mikhail said with a smile: "There is something precious in your poetry; at the right time and with the right subject matter, it will surely be unleashed. Becoming a great poet is only a matter of time."

"That is truly"

Normally, this might have been a historic meeting, but unfortunately, before the two parties could talk freely, the landlady, broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, with arms that seemed capable of running horses, came charging over. Before she arrived, her coarse voice struck first:

"Did someone in your family die?! Otherwise, why start praying for them at this hour?! Go to hell!"

"Sleeping, sleeping!" Quickly closing the door and replying, Mikhail looked at the two and said: "Dem, Nikolai, we will discuss the rest when dawn breaks. We must be quiet for a while now."

(End of this chapter)