poems, "On the Road" and "My Motherland," attracted the attention of
Byelinsky, when the young poet brought some of his work to show the
great critic. With tears in his eyes Byelinsky embraced Nekrassov and
said to him:

"Do you know that you are a poet, a true poet?"

This decree of Byelinsky brought fame to Nekrassov, for Byelinsky's word
was law in Russia then, and his judgement was never known to fail. His
approval gave Nekrassov the confidence he lacked, and he began to devote
most of his time to poetry.

The epoch in which Nekrassov began his literary career in St.
Petersburg, the early forties of last century, was one of a great
revival of idealism in Russia. The iron reaction of the then Emperor
Nicholas I. made independent political activity an impossibility. But
the horrible and degrading conditions of serfdom which existed at that
time, and which cast a blight upon the energy and dignity of the Russian
nation, nourished feelings of grief and indignation in the noblest minds
of the educated classes, and, unable to struggle for their principles in
the field of practical politics, they strove towards abstract idealism.
They devoted their energies to philosophy, literature, and art. It was
then that Tolstoy, Turgenieff, and Dostoyevsky embarked upon their
phenomenal careers in fiction. It was then that the impetuous essayist,
Byelinsky, with his fiery and eloquent pen, taught the true meaning and
objects of literature. Nekrassov soon joined the circles of literary
people dominated by the spirit of Byelinsky, and he too drank at the
fountain of idealism and imbibed the gospel of altruistic toil for his
country and its people, that gospel of perfect citizenship expounded by
Byelinsky, Granovsky, and their friends. It was at this period that his