Despite strict censorship, Russian literature flourished during the reign of Nicholas I (1825-1855). This era witnessed the creation of some of the most well-known Russian literary works. In Russia, this period (the first half of the nineteenth century) is known as the Golden Age of Russian Poetry, while the nineteenth century in general is celebrated as the Golden Age of Russian literature.
Lermontov, Pushkin, Tyutchev, Gogol, and Turgenev; all these authors wrote some of their finest works during the reign of Nicholas I. Incidentally all of them were occasional contributors of the magazine Sovremennnik that was established by Pushkin (1799-1837) in St. Petersburg in 1836. It was Sovremennnik that in 1837, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Moscow (Borodino), published (what is today the best known) Lermontov’s (1814-1841) poem, Borodino.
Borodino laments Russia’s great past and its “old” generation that was able to accomplish “grand things.” The poem’s narrator is an old soldier who personifies heroic Russian people that fought Napoleon in 1812. The poem would become one of the central elements of Russian/Soviet “memory” about the “Patriotic War of 1812.” In the Soviet Union and modern-day Russia, Borodino is a part of the school curriculum that every student has to study and memorize (and recite in class). Below is the original Russian version and its English translation (unfortunately, I couldn’t identify translation’s author).
https://ilibrary.ru/text/2/p.1/index.html
— Скажи-ка, дядя, ведь не даром
Москва, спаленная пожаром,
Французу отдана?
Ведь были ж схватки боевые,
Да, говорят, еще какие!
Недаром помнит вся Россия
Про день Бородина!
— Да, были люди в наше время,
Не то, что нынешнее племя:
Богатыри — не вы!
Плохая им досталась доля:
Немногие вернулись с поля…
Не будь на то господня воля,
Не отдали б Москвы!
http://www.stihi-rus.ru/1/Lermontov/11.htm
– HEY tell, old man, had we a cause
When Moscow, razed by fire, once was
Given up to Frenchman’s blow?
Old-timers talk about some frays,
And they remember well those days!
With cause all Russia fashions lays
About Borodino!
– Yea, were there men when I was young,
Whose songs your tribe is not to ‘ve sung:
They’d fight,– you ‘re none as good!
An evil lot have they been drawn:
Few left the grounds to which they had gone…
Had it not been God’s will alone,
Old Moscow should have stood!