Trefolev Leonid Nikolaevich

Born Sept. 9 (21), 1839, in the city of Liubim, in what is now Yaroslavl Oblast; died Nov. 28 (Dec. 11), 1905, in Yaroslavl. Russian poet.

Trefolev was active in a local zemstvo (district or provincial assembly) and became interested in the study of local lore. He began publishing in 1857. He contributed to the journals Iskra (The Spark), Budil’nik (Alarm Clock), and Oskolki (Splinters). A follower of N. A. Nekrasov, Trefolev followed the democratic and realistic traditions of Russian poetry. Many of his poems depicted the hard lot of the peasantry and the urban poor. Trefolev satirized the supporters of reaction and the tsar himself in the poems “Our Tsar Is a Young Musician, ” “The Musician, ” and “Alexander III and the Priest Ivan.” Revolutionary motifs were apparent in such late poems as “To Freedom” and “The Stream of Blood.”

Trefolev’s poems, which are closely related to folklore, were widely popular, and some became folk songs, for example, “The Song About the Kamarinskii Muzhik” and “The Postrider” (“When I was a postrider, ” a translation of W. Syrokomla’s poem “The Postrider”). Trefolev also translated works by Western European poets.