Drozhzhin, Spiridon

Born Dec. 6 (18), 1848, in the village of Nizovka, now in Kalinin Oblast; died there on Dec. 24, 1930. Soviet Russian poet.

Drozhzhin’s works were first published in 1873. The son of a serf, he earned renown as a talented self-educated poet, a defender of the downtrodden, and a singer of the virtues of agricultural labor and Russian nature. Drozhzhin welcomed the October Revolution, which he saw as the realization of the people’s hopes and aspirations. This is expressed in his poems Opening Song (1920), At the Village Assembly (1920), and In Memory of V. I. Lenin (1924). Drozhzhin’s poetry, influenced by A. V. Koltsov and N. A. Nekrasov, is intimate and sincere. Its ingenuous perception and melodiousness are notable. Some of his verses have been set to music and have become part of Russian folklore. In 1938 a museum devoted to Drozhzhin was opened in the settlement of Zavidovo in Kalinin Oblast.