Ivan Surikov
Ivan Zakharovich Surikov was a Russian selftaught peasant poet, best known for his folkloreinfluenced ballads, some of which were put to music by wellknown composers , while some became real folk songs.
Ivan Surikov was born in Novosyolovo village near Uglich, son of Zakhar Adrianovich Surikov, a rentpaying peasant who worked for Count Sheremetyev. Ivan spent the first eight years of his life in the village with his mother and grandmother, then in 1849 moved to Moscow where his father had started a small grocery shop at Ordynka. Neighbouring nuns taught the boy reading and writing soon he became acquainted with Russian poetry and started to write himself, Aleksey Merzlyakov and Nikolay Tsyganovs songs providing the primary impulse. His father deemed bookreading to be harmful to good traders mentality, but Ivan persisted in studying. In the late 1850s the shop went bust, and Zakhar Surikov returned to Novosyolovo, leaving the boy as an employee at a shop owned by his uncle, suffering from nearpoverty and humiliation. In 1859 father returned to Moscow where he bought another shop and started trading in iron and coal, bringing his son in, as an aid.
Source: Wikipedia