Poems by Nekrasov and Surikov

Ivan Zakharovich Surikov (1841–1880) was a Russian poet who wrote about ordinary people. The excerpt from «В ночном» describes a summer village night. «Ночное» is when village boys drive horses to pasture and watch them overnight. In the poem it slowly darkens, birds fall silent, far away «зарницы» (flashes of heat lightning) flicker. A bell and a horse’s snort break the silence. The children remember their grandmothers’ tales: a witch flying on a broom, a leshy (forest spirit) above the forest, a winged serpent. So the night landscape becomes fantastic. The frightened children light a fire, and it lights up the dark. Real scenery and imagination mix in the poem — the childhood feeling on the border between tale and life. Sound imagery (звукопись) gives the poem a living tone.