Ivan Turgenev

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Ivan Turgenev, photo by Félix Nadar (1820-1910)

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, also spelled Tourgueniev, (Ива́н Серге́евич Турге́нев, November 9, 1818 - September 3, 1883) was a major Russian novelist and playwright. Although his reputation has suffered some setbacks during last century, the novel Fathers and Sons should still be regarded as one of the definitive works of the 19th-century prose.

Early life

Turgenev was born into an old and wealthy family at Orel, in the government of the same name, in 1818. His father, the colonel of a cavalry regiment, died when our author was sixteen years of age, leaving two sons, Nicholas and Ivan, who were brought up under the care of their emotional and abusive mother, a lady who owned large estates and many serfs. After the normal schooling for a child of a gentleman's family, Ivan studied for a year at the university of Moscow, then at St Petersburg, and was finally sent in 1843 to Berlin. For his first acquaintance with the literature of his country the future novelist was indebted to a serf of the family, who used to read to him verses from the Rossiad of Kheraskov, a once celebrated poet of the eighteenth century. Turgueniev's early attempts in literature, consisting of poems and trifling sketches, may be passed over here; they were not without indications of genius, and were favorably spoken of by Belinsky, then the leading Russian critic, for whom Turgueniev ever cherished a warm regard.

First novels

Our author first made a name by his striking sketches The Papers of a Sportsman (Çàïèñêè îõîòíèêà), in which the miserable condition of the peasants was described with mild realism and deeply poetic compassion. The work appeared in a collected form in 1852. It was read by all classes, including the emperor himself, and it undoubtedly hurried on the great work of emancipation. Tourgueniev had always sympathized with the muzhiks; he had often been witness of the cruelties of his mother, a narrow-minded and vindictive woman. According to Nabokov and Tolstoy, The Papers of a Sportsman contain the finest pages ever written by Tourgueniev.

The next production of the novelist was A Nest of Nobles (Äâîðÿíñêîå ãíåçäî), a singularly pathetic story, which greatly increased his reputation. This appeared in 1859, and was followed the next year by On the Eve (Íàêàíóíå), a tale which contains one of his most beautiful female characters, Helen. In 1862 was published Fathers and Sons (Îòöû è äåòè), an admirably-structured novel in which the author famously described the revolutionary doctrines then beginning to spread in Russia. According to some writers he invented the word nihilism.

Tourgueniev's life in Europe

During the latter part of his life, Tourgueniev did not reside much in Russia; he lived either at Baden-Baden or Paris, and chiefly with the family of the celebrated singer Viardot Garcia, to the members of which he was much attached. Literature-wise, his closest friend was Gustave Flaubert. Tourgueniev occasionally visited England, and in 1879 the degree of D.C.L. was conferred upon him by the university of Oxford. He died at Bougival, near Paris, on the 4th of September 1883.

Tourgueniev's later novels are sometimes considered inferior to his earlier efforts. In 1867 appeared Smoke (Äûì), and in 1877 his last work of any length, Virgin Soil (Íîâü). Besides his longer stories, many shorter ones were produced, some of great beauty and full of subtle psychological analysis, such as The Torrents of Spring (Âåøíèå âîäû), Asya and others. These were afterwards collected into three volumes. The last works of the great novelist were Poetry in Prose and Clara Milich, which appeared in the European Messenger.

Assessment

Unquestionably Tourgueniev may be considered one of the great Victorian novelists, worthy to be ranked with Thackeray, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry James; with the genius of the last of these he has many affinities. His studies of human nature are profound, and he has the wide sympathies which are essential to genius of the highest order. A melancholy, almost pessimist, feeling pervades his writings, a morbid self-analysis which seems natural to the Slavonic mind. The closing chapter of Fathers and Sons is one of the saddest and at the same time truest pages in the whole range of existing novels.

Public Domain This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

Works

Novels

Plays

See also

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