But very few of these aspirants to fame possessed any originality or serious worth.
Poetry had advanced not a single step since the days of Nekrasoff and Shevtchenko, so far as national independence was concerned.
The most talented of the young poets of this period was Semen Yakovlevitch Nadson (1862-1887).

His grandfather, a Jew who had joined the Russian Church, lived in Kieff.

His father, a gifted man and a fine musician, died young.

His mother, a Russian gentlewoman, died at the age of thirty-one, of consumption.

At the age of sixteen, Nadson fell in love with a young girl, and began to write poetry.