Komu je dobro u Rusiji?

Nikolay Nekrasov’s Who Can Be Happy and Free in Russia? is an epic poem about the search for happiness within a deeply unequal society. Seven peasants begin arguing over who enjoys a good life in Russia. Unable to agree, they set out to seek an answer among people from different social classes.

Their encounters reveal a country where the abolition of serfdom has left poverty and dependence firmly in place. Priests, landowners and peasants offer competing accounts of their lives, exposing dissatisfaction and insecurity beneath assumptions of privilege. Women’s experiences receive particular attention through accounts of exhausting labour, family pressures and loss.

Nekrasov combines storytelling with songs, folk expressions, satire and moving personal testimony. The journey becomes a broad portrait of Russian rural life, transforming a seemingly simple question about individual happiness into an examination of freedom and social justice.

Although unfinished, the poem develops a powerful tension between suffering and hope. Grisha Dobrosklonov suggests another understanding of fulfilment through commitment to the people and their future. Social criticism and the rhythms of oral tradition give this work its distinctive voice.