On his father's side he was of Hebrew extraction. His grandfather had
formerly embraced the orthodox faith, and his father, from whom he
inherited his musical talent, died in an asylum, in the extreme youth of
the poet. His mother, after contracting a second marriage, which ended
unhappily, died at the age of thirty-one, of consumption. The boy
learned to read and write at the age of four, from an old servant. At
nine he had read widely. In 1875 he suffered from religious doubts, and
even lost his faith in humanity, but his violin and Nature were still of
unfailing support even in this crisis. Before her death his mother had
placed him in the second Cadet Corps as a "pensionnaire." At first he
did well, but soon he began to neglect his school work for poetry. A
poem of his soon appeared in print, and that same year he fell in love
with a girl of sixteen who died with rapid consumption; the M.D.B. of
his poems. Smitten by this blow, he left the school and went to the
Pawlonische Military School. Here he contracted a lung trouble and was
sent to the Caucas. He remained there a year, but was always haunted by
thought of the military career before him, for which he was morally and
physically unfit. His dear dream of the University could not be
realized, and on his return he went again to the military school for two
years of camp life and maneuvres. In September, 1882, he was made second
lieutenant of a Caspian regiment and stationed at Kronstadt. Already the
young poet was making himself known through the journals, and in 1884 he
left off his hated military service. For a short time he was connected
with _Die Woche_, but already signs of tuberculosis had appeared and he
found that a journey abroad was indispensable. On the funds raised by
influential friends, and the prize awarded him by the Russian Literary
Society, he was enabled to go abroad this same year, accompanied by a
friend of his mother. He went to Wiesbaden, Nice, Mentonne, Berne, was
operated upon three times for the trouble in his foot, but to no avail.
His only desire became to return to his native land to die. In the
summer of 1885, he went back to Kiew, where for a time he seemed to
improve and was able to write some criticisms for the journals. When his
left lung gave out, he moved to Yalta in the Crimea. Here he received
the glad news that the Academy had given him the Pushkin award of five
hundred roubles.
In November he bequeathed all he had written to the literary fund; whose
Nadson capital now amounts to more than two hundred thousand roubles
from the sale of his works. He died in January, 1889. His body was
brought to Petersburg and interred with public honors. His grave, which
is near other celebrated Russian writers, is adorned by a bust from the
hand of the famous sculptor Antokolsky. His poetry enjoys a popularity
beyond that of any one poet in Russian, and has been carried to the
eighteenth edition of one hundred and twenty thousand volumes each.
Sketches of the lives of the poets here represented by a single poem are
omitted as unnecessary to enjoyment of their work.