What family was Turgenev born into? Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev: short biography

Born on October 28 (November 9, n.s.) 1818 in Orel into a noble family. Father, Sergei Nikolaevich, a retired hussar officer, came from an old noble family; mother, Varvara Petrovna, is from the wealthy landowner family of the Lutovinovs. Turgenev spent his childhood on the family estate Spasskoye-Lutovinovo. He grew up under the care of “tutors and teachers, Swiss and Germans, home-grown uncles and serf nannies.”

In 1827 the family moved to Moscow; At first, Turgenev studied in private boarding schools and with good home teachers, then, in 1833, he entered the literature department of Moscow University, and in 1834 he transferred to the history and philology department of St. Petersburg University. One of the strongest impressions of his early youth (1833), falling in love with Princess E. L. Shakhovskaya, who was experiencing an affair with Turgenev’s father at that time, was reflected in the story “First Love” (1860).

During his student years, Turgenev began to write. His first poetic experiments were translations, short poems, lyric poems and the drama “The Wall” (1834), written in the then fashionable romantic spirit. Among Turgenev’s university professors, Pletnev stood out, one of Pushkin’s close friends, “a mentor of the old century... not a scientist, but in his own way, wise.” Having become acquainted with Turgenev’s first works, Pletnev explained to the young student their immaturity, but singled out and published 2 of the most successful poems, encouraging the student to continue his studies in literature.
November 1837 - Turgenev officially finishes his studies and receives a diploma from the Faculty of Philosophy of St. Petersburg University for the title of candidate.

In 1838-1840 Turgenev continued his education abroad (at the University of Berlin he studied philosophy, history and ancient languages). During his free time from lectures, Turgenev traveled. During more than two years of his stay abroad, Turgenev was able to travel all over Germany, visit France, Holland and even live in Italy. The disaster of the steamship “Nicholas I”, on which Turgenev sailed, will be described by him in the essay “Fire at Sea” (1883; in French).

In 1841 Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev returned to his homeland and began preparing for his master's exams. It was at this time that Turgenev met such great people as Gogol and Asakov. Having met Bakunin back in Berlin, in Russia he visits their Premukhino estate and becomes friends with this family: soon an affair with T. A. Bakunina begins, which does not interfere with the connection with the seamstress A. E. Ivanova (in 1842 she will give birth to Turgenev’s daughter Pelageya) .

In 1842 he successfully passed his master's exams, hoping to get a position as a professor at Moscow University, but since philosophy was taken under suspicion by the Nicholas government, philosophy departments were abolished in Russian universities, and he failed to become a professor.

But Turgenev had already lost his passion for professional learning; he is becoming more and more attracted to literary activities. He published short poems in Otechestvennye Zapiski, and in the spring of 1843 he published the poem “Parasha” as a separate book under the letters T. L. (Turgenev-Lutovinov).

In 1843 he entered the service as an official of the “special office” of the Minister of the Interior, where he served for two years. In May 1845 I.S. Turgenev resigns. By this time, the writer’s mother, irritated by his inability to serve and his incomprehensible personal life, completely deprives Turgenev of material support, the writer lives in debt and from hand to mouth, while maintaining the appearance of well-being.

Belinsky's influence largely determined the formation of Turgenev's social and creative position; Belinsky helped him take the path of realism. But this path turns out to be difficult at first. Young Turgenev tries himself in a variety of genres: lyrical poems alternate with critical articles, following “Parasha” the poetic poems “Conversation” (1844) and “Andrey” (1845) appear. From romanticism, Turgenev turned to the ironic and morally descriptive poems “The Landowner” and the prose “Andrei Kolosov” in 1844, “Three Portraits” in 1846, “Breter” in 1847.

1847 - Turgenev brought Nekrasov to Sovremennik his story “Khor and Kalinich,” to which Nekrasov subtitled “From the Notes of a Hunter.” This story began Turgenev's literary activity. In the same year, Turgenev took Belinsky to Germany for treatment. Belinsky dies in Germany in 1848.

In 1847, Turgenev went abroad for a long time: his love for the famous French singer Pauline Viardot, whom he met in 1843 during her tour in St. Petersburg, took him away from Russia. He lived for three years in Germany, then in Paris and on the estate of the Viardot family. Turgenev lived in close contact with Viardot’s family for 38 years.

I.S. Turgenev wrote several plays: “The Freeloader” 1848, “The Bachelor” 1849, “A Month in the Country” 1850, “Provincial Woman” 1850.

In 1850 the writer returned to Russia and worked as an author and critic at Sovremennik. In 1852, the essays were published as a separate book called “Notes of a Hunter.” Impressed by Gogol's death in 1852, Turgenev published an obituary, which was prohibited by censorship. For this he was arrested for a month and then deported to his estate without the right to leave the Oryol province. In 1853, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was allowed to come to St. Petersburg, but the right to travel abroad was returned only in 1856.

During his arrest and exile, he created the stories “Mumu” (1852) and “The Inn” (1852) on a “peasant” theme. However, he was increasingly occupied by the life of the Russian intelligentsia, to whom the stories “The Diary of an Extra Man” (1850), “Yakov Pasynkov” (1855), “Correspondence” (1856) are dedicated.

In 1856, Turgenev received permission to travel abroad and went to Europe, where he would live for almost two years. In 1858, Turgenev returned to Russia. There is controversy about his stories, literary critics give opposite assessments of Turgenev’s works. After his return, Ivan Sergeevich publishes the story “Asya”, around which the controversy of famous critics unfolds. In the same year the novel “The Noble Nest” was published, and in 1860 the novel “On the Eve” was published.

After “On the Eve” and N. A. Dobrolyubov’s article dedicated to the novel, “When will the real day come?” (1860) Turgenev breaks up with the radicalized Sovremennik (in particular, with N.A. Nekrasov; their mutual hostility persisted until the end).

In the summer of 1861 there was a quarrel with L.N. Tolstoy, which almost turned into a duel (reconciliation in 1878).

In February 1862, Turgenev published the novel “Fathers and Sons,” in which he tried to show Russian society the tragic nature of the growing conflicts. The stupidity and helplessness of all classes in the face of a social crisis threatens to develop into confusion and chaos.

Since 1863, the writer settled with the Viardot family in Baden-Baden. At the same time he began to collaborate with the liberal-bourgeois Vestnik Evropy, which published all of his subsequent major works.

In the 60s, he published a short story “Ghosts” (1864) and a sketch “Enough” (1865), which conveyed sad thoughts about the ephemerality of all human values. He lived in Paris and Baden-Baden for almost 20 years, being interested in everything that happened in Russia.

1863 - 1871 - Turgenev and Viardot live in Baden, after the end of the Franco-Prussian War they move to Paris. At this time, Turgenev became friends with G. Flaubert, the Goncourt brothers, A. Daudet, E. Zola, G. de Maupassant. Gradually, Ivan Sergeevich takes on the function of an intermediary between Russian and Western European literature.

The writer met the social upsurge of the 1870s in Russia, associated with the Narodniks’ attempts to find a revolutionary way out of the crisis, with interest, became close to the leaders of the movement, and provided financial assistance in the publication of the collection “Forward.” His long-standing interest in folk themes was reawakened, he returned to the “Notes of a Hunter,” supplementing them with new essays, and wrote the stories “Punin and Baburin” (1874), “The Clock” (1875), etc. As a result of living abroad, the largest volume from Turgenev’s novels - “New” (1877).

Turgenev's worldwide recognition was expressed in the fact that he, together with Victor Hugo, was elected co-chairman of the First International Congress of Writers, which took place in 1878 in Paris. In 1879 he received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University. In his later years, Turgenev wrote his famous “poems in prose,” which presented almost all the motifs of his work.

In 1883 On August 22, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev died. This sad event happened in Bougival. Thanks to the will drawn up, Turgenev’s body was transported and buried in Russia, in St. Petersburg.

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. Born on October 28 (November 9), 1818 in Orel - died on August 22 (September 3), 1883 in Bougival (France). Russian realist writer, poet, publicist, playwright, translator. One of the classics of Russian literature who made the most significant contribution to its development in the second half of the 19th century. Corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of Russian language and literature (1860), honorary doctor of the University of Oxford (1879).

The artistic system he created influenced the poetics of not only Russian, but also Western European novels of the second half of the 19th century. Ivan Turgenev was the first in Russian literature to begin to study the personality of the “new man” - the sixties, his moral qualities and psychological characteristics, thanks to him the term “nihilist” began to be widely used in the Russian language. He was a promoter of Russian literature and drama in the West.

The study of the works of I. S. Turgenev is a mandatory part of general education school programs in Russia. The most famous works are the cycle of stories “Notes of a Hunter”, the story “Mumu”, the story “Asya”, the novels “The Noble Nest”, “Fathers and Sons”.

The family of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev came from an ancient family of Tula nobles, the Turgenevs. In a memorial book, the mother of the future writer wrote: “On October 28, 1818, on Monday, a son, Ivan, 12 inches tall, was born in Orel, in his house, at 12 o’clock in the morning. Baptized on the 4th of November, Feodor Semenovich Uvarov and his sister Fedosya Nikolaevna Teplova.”

The mother of the future writer, Varvara Petrovna, came from a wealthy noble family. Her marriage to Sergei Nikolaevich was not happy.

The father died in 1834, leaving three sons - Nikolai, Ivan and Sergei, who died early from epilepsy. The mother was a domineering and despotic woman. She herself lost her father at an early age, suffered from the cruel attitude of her mother (whom her grandson later portrayed as an old woman in the essay “Death”), and from a violent, drinking stepfather, who often beat her. Due to constant beatings and humiliation, she later moved in with her uncle, after whose death she became the owner of a magnificent estate and 5,000 souls.

In Varvara Petrovna’s family, everyone spoke exclusively French to each other, even prayers in the house were said in French. She traveled a lot and was an enlightened woman, she read a lot, but also mainly in French. But her native language and literature were not alien to her: she herself had excellent, figurative Russian speech, and Sergei Nikolaevich demanded that the children write letters to him in Russian during their father’s absences.

The Turgenev family maintained connections with V. A. Zhukovsky and M. N. Zagoskin. Varvara Petrovna followed the latest literature, was well aware of the works of N.M. Karamzin, V.A. Zhukovsky, and, whom she readily quoted in letters to her son.

In 1827, the Turgenevs, in order to give their children an education, settled in Moscow, buying a house on Samotek. The future writer first studied at the Weidenhammer boarding school, then became a boarder with the director of the Lazarev Institute I.F. Krause.

In 1833, at the age of 15, Turgenev entered the literature department of Moscow University. At the same time, they also studied here. A year later, after Ivan’s older brother joined the Guards Artillery, the family moved to St. Petersburg, where Ivan Turgenev transferred to the Faculty of Philosophy at St. Petersburg University. At the university, T. N. Granovsky, the future famous scientist-historian of the Western school, became his friend.

At first, Turgenev wanted to become a poet. In 1834, as a third-year student, he wrote a dramatic poem in iambic pentameter "Steno". The young author showed these samples of writing to his teacher, professor of Russian literature P. A. Pletnev. During one of his lectures, Pletnev quite strictly analyzed this poem, without revealing its authorship, but at the same time also admitted that there was “something in the author.”

These words prompted the young poet to write a number of more poems, two of which Pletnev published in 1838 in the Sovremennik magazine, of which he was the editor. They were published under the signature “....въ”. The debut poems were “Evening” and “To the Venus of Medicine”. Turgenev's first publication appeared in 1836 - in the Journal of the Ministry of Public Education, he published a detailed review of A. N. Muravyov's “On a Journey to Holy Places.”

By 1837, he had already written about a hundred short poems and several poems (the unfinished “The Old Man’s Tale,” “Calm on the Sea,” “Phantasmagoria on a Moonlit Night,” “Dream”).

In 1836, Turgenev graduated from the university with the degree of a full student. Dreaming of scientific activity, the following year he passed the final exam and received a candidate's degree.

In 1838 he went to Germany, where he settled in Berlin and took up his studies seriously. At the University of Berlin he attended lectures on the history of Roman and Greek literature, and at home he studied the grammar of ancient Greek and Latin. Knowledge of ancient languages allowed him to read the ancient classics fluently.

In May 1839, the old house in Spassky burned down, and Turgenev returned to his homeland, but already in 1840 he went abroad again, visiting Germany, Italy and Austria. Impressed by his meeting with a girl in Frankfurt am Main, Turgenev later wrote a story "Spring Waters".

In 1841, Ivan returned to Lutovinovo.

At the beginning of 1842, he submitted a request to Moscow University for admission to the exam for the degree of Master of Philosophy, but at that time there was no full-time professor of philosophy at the university, and his request was rejected. Unable to find a job in Moscow, Turgenev satisfactorily passed the exam for a master's degree in Greek and Latin philology in Latin at St. Petersburg University and wrote a dissertation for the literature department. But by this time, the craving for scientific activity had cooled, and literary creativity began to attract more and more.

Having refused to defend his dissertation, he served until 1844 with the rank of collegiate secretary in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

In November 1843, Turgenev created a poem "Foggy Morning", set to music over the years by several composers, including A.F. Gedicke and G.L. Catoire. The most famous, however, is the romance version, originally published under the signature “Music of Abaza.” Whether it belongs to V.V. Abaza, E.A. Abaza or Yu.F. Abaza has not been definitively established. After its publication, the poem was perceived as a reflection of Turgenev's love for Pauline Viardot, whom he met at this time.

A poem was written in 1844 "Pop", which the writer himself characterized rather as fun, devoid of any “deep and significant ideas.” Nevertheless, the poem attracted public interest for its anti-clerical nature. The poem was truncated by Russian censorship, but was published in its entirety abroad.

In 1846, the stories “Breter” and “Three Portraits” were published. In “The Breter,” which became Turgenev’s second story, the writer tried to imagine the struggle between Lermontov’s influence and the desire to discredit posturing. The plot for his third story, “Three Portraits,” was drawn from the Lutovinov family chronicle.

Since 1847, Ivan Turgenev participated in the transformed Sovremennik, where he became close to N. A. Nekrasov and P. V. Annenkov. His first feuilleton “Modern Notes” was published in the magazine, the first chapters began to be published "Notes of a Hunter". In the very first issue of Sovremennik, the story “Khor and Kalinich” was published, which opened countless editions of the famous book. The subtitle “From the Notes of a Hunter” was added by editor I. I. Panaev to attract the attention of readers to the story. The success of the story turned out to be enormous, and this gave Turgenev the idea of writing a number of others of the same kind.

In 1847, Turgenev and Belinsky went abroad and in 1848 lived in Paris, where he witnessed revolutionary events.

Having witnessed the killing of hostages, many attacks, the construction and fall of the barricades of the February French Revolution, he forever endured a deep disgust for revolutions in general. A little later, he became close to A.I. Herzen and fell in love with Ogarev’s wife N.A. Tuchkova.

The late 1840s - early 1850s became the time of Turgenev's most intense activity in the field of drama and a time of reflection on issues of history and theory of drama.

In 1848 he wrote such plays as “Where it is thin, there it breaks” and “Freeloader”, in 1849 - “Breakfast at the Leader” and “Bachelor”, in 1850 - “A Month in the Country”, in 1851 -m - “Provincial”. Of these, “Freeloader”, “Bachelor”, “Provincial Woman” and “A Month in the Country” enjoyed success thanks to excellent stage performances.

To master the literary techniques of drama, the writer also worked on translations of Shakespeare. At the same time, he did not try to copy Shakespeare’s dramatic techniques, he only interpreted his images, and all attempts by his contemporaries-playwrights to use Shakespeare’s work as a role model and to borrow his theatrical techniques only caused Turgenev irritation. In 1847 he wrote: “Shakespeare’s shadow looms over all dramatic writers; they cannot rid themselves of memories; These unfortunates read too much and lived too little.”

In 1850, Turgenev returned to Russia, but he never saw his mother, who died that same year. Together with his brother Nikolai, he shared his mother’s large fortune and, if possible, tried to ease the hardships of the peasants he inherited.

After Gogol's death, Turgenev wrote an obituary, which St. Petersburg censorship did not allow. The reason for her dissatisfaction was that, as the chairman of the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee M. N. Musin-Pushkin put it, “it is criminal to speak so enthusiastically about such a writer.” Then Ivan Sergeevich sent the article to Moscow, V.P. Botkin, who published it in Moskovskie Vedomosti. The authorities saw a rebellion in the text, and the author was placed in a moving house, where he spent a month. On May 18, Turgenev was exiled to his native village, and only thanks to the efforts of Count A.K. Tolstoy, two years later the writer again received the right to live in the capitals.

Censor Lvov, who allowed “Notes of a Hunter” to be published, was, by personal order of Nicholas I, dismissed from service and deprived of his pension.

Russian censorship also banned the re-publication of Notes of a Hunter, explaining this step by the fact that Turgenev, on the one hand, poeticized the serfs, and on the other hand, depicted “that these peasants are oppressed, that the landowners behave indecently and illegally... finally, that it is more comfortable for the peasant to live in freedom "

During his exile in Spassky, Turgenev went hunting, read books, wrote stories, played chess, listened to Beethoven’s “Coriolanus” performed by A.P. Tyutcheva and her sister, who lived in Spassky at that time, and from time to time was subjected to raids by the police officer .

Most of the “Notes of a Hunter” were created by the writer in Germany.

“Notes of a Hunter” was published in Paris in a separate edition in 1854, although at the beginning of the Crimean War this publication was in the nature of anti-Russian propaganda, and Turgenev was forced to publicly express his protest against the poor quality French translation by Ernest Charrière. After the death of Nicholas I, four of the writer’s most significant works were published one after another: “Rudin” (1856), “The Noble Nest” (1859), “On the Eve” (1860) and “Fathers and Sons” (1862).

In the fall of 1855, Turgenev's circle of friends expanded. In September of the same year, Tolstoy’s story “Cutting the Forest” was published in Sovremennik with a dedication to I. S. Turgenev.

Turgenev took an active part in the discussion of the upcoming Peasant Reform, participated in the development of various collective letters, draft addresses addressed to the sovereign, protests, etc.

In 1860, Sovremennik published an article “When will the real day come?”, in which the critic spoke very flatteringly about the new novel “On the Eve” and Turgenev’s work in general. Nevertheless, Turgenev was not satisfied with Dobrolyubov’s far-reaching conclusions that he made after reading the novel. Dobrolyubov connected the idea of Turgenev’s work with the events of the approaching revolutionary transformation of Russia, which the liberal Turgenev could not reconcile with.

In 1863, Turgenev settled in Baden-Baden. The writer actively participated in the cultural life of Western Europe, establishing acquaintances with the greatest writers of Germany, France and England, promoting Russian literature abroad and introducing Russian readers to the best works of contemporary Western authors. Among his acquaintances or correspondents were Friedrich Bodenstedt, William Thackeray, Henry James, Charles Saint-Beuve, Hippolyte Taine, Prosper Mérimée, Ernest Renan, Théophile Gautier, Edmond Goncourt, Alphonse Daudet, .

Despite living abroad, all of Turgenev’s thoughts were still connected with Russia. He wrote a novel "Smoke"(1867), which caused a lot of controversy in Russian society. According to the author, everyone scolded the novel: “both red and white, and above, and below, and from the side - especially from the side.”

In 1868, Turgenev became a permanent contributor to the liberal magazine “Bulletin of Europe” and broke ties with M. N. Katkov.

Since 1874, famous Bachelor's "dinners of five" - Flaubert, Edmond Goncourt, Daudet, Zola and Turgenev. The idea belonged to Flaubert, but Turgenev was given the main role in them. Luncheons took place once a month. They raised various topics - about the features of literature, about the structure of the French language, told stories and simply enjoyed delicious food. Dinners were held not only at Parisian restaurateurs, but also at the homes of the writers themselves.

In 1878, at the international literary congress in Paris, the writer was elected vice-president.

On June 18, 1879, he was awarded the title of honorary doctor of the University of Oxford, despite the fact that the university had never given such an honor to any fiction writer before him.

The fruit of the writer’s thoughts in the 1870s became the largest in volume of his novels - "Nove"(1877), which was also criticized. For example, he regarded this novel as a service to the autocracy.

In April 1878, Leo Tolstoy invited Turgenev to forget all the misunderstandings between them, to which Turgenev happily agreed. Friendly relations and correspondence were resumed. Turgenev explained the significance of modern Russian literature, including Tolstoy's work, to Western readers. In general, Ivan Turgenev played a big role in promoting Russian literature abroad.

However, in the novel “Demons” he portrayed Turgenev as the “great writer Karmazinov” - a loud, petty, well-worn and practically mediocre writer who considers himself a genius and is holed up abroad. Such an attitude towards Turgenev by the always needy Dostoevsky was caused, among other things, by Turgenev’s secure position in his noble life and the very high literary fees for those times: “To Turgenev for his “Noble Nest” (I finally read it. Extremely well) Katkov himself (from whom I I ask for 100 rubles per sheet) I gave 4000 rubles, that is, 400 rubles per sheet. My friend! I know very well that I write worse than Turgenev, but not too much worse, and finally, I hope to write not worse at all. Why am I, with my needs, taking only 100 rubles, and Turgenev, who has 2000 souls, 400 each?”

Turgenev, without hiding his hostility towards Dostoevsky, in a letter to M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in 1882 (after Dostoevsky’s death) also did not spare his opponent, calling him “the Russian Marquis de Sade.”

His visits to Russia in 1878-1881 were real triumphs. All the more alarming in 1882 was the news of a severe exacerbation of his usual gouty pain.

In the spring of 1882, the first signs of the disease were discovered, which soon turned out to be fatal for Turgenev. With temporary relief from the pain, he continued to work and a few months before his death he published the first part of “Poems in Prose” - a cycle of lyrical miniatures, which became his kind of farewell to life, homeland and art.

Parisian doctors Charcot and Jacquot diagnosed the writer with angina pectoris. Soon intercostal neuralgia joined her. The last time Turgenev was in Spassky-Lutovinovo was in the summer of 1881. The sick writer spent the winters in Paris, and in the summer he was transported to Bougival to the Viardot estate.

By January 1883 the pain had become so severe that he could not sleep without morphine. He had surgery to remove a neuroma in the lower abdomen, but the surgery helped little because it did not relieve the pain in the thoracic region of the spine. The disease progressed; in March and April the writer suffered so much that those around him began to notice momentary cloudings of reason, caused in part by taking morphine.

The writer was fully aware of his imminent death and came to terms with the consequences of the disease, which deprived him of the ability to walk or simply stand.

The confrontation between “an unimaginably painful illness and an unimaginably strong organism” (P.V. Annenkov) ended on August 22 (September 3), 1883 in Bougival near Paris. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev died from myxosarcoma (a malignant tumor of the bones of the spine). Doctor S.P. Botkin testified that the true cause of death was clarified only after an autopsy, during which his brain was also weighed by physiologists. As it turned out, among those whose brains were weighed, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev had the largest brain (2012 grams, which is almost 600 grams more than the average weight).

Turgenev's death was a great shock for his admirers, resulting in a very impressive funeral. The funeral was preceded by mourning celebrations in Paris, in which over four hundred people took part. Among them were at least a hundred Frenchmen: Edmond Abou, Jules Simon, Emile Ogier, Emile Zola, Alphonse Daudet, Juliette Adam, artist Alfred Dieudonnet, composer Jules Massenet. Ernest Renan addressed the mourners with a heartfelt speech.

Even from the border station of Verzhbolovo, memorial services were held at stops. On the platform of the St. Petersburg Warsaw Station there was a solemn meeting between the coffin and the body of the writer.

There were some misunderstandings. The day after the funeral service for Turgenev’s body in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral on Daru Street in Paris, on September 19, the famous emigrant populist P. L. Lavrov published a letter in the Paris newspaper Justice, edited by the future socialist prime minister, in which he reported that S. Turgenev, on his own initiative, transferred 500 francs to Lavrov annually for three years to facilitate the publication of the revolutionary emigrant newspaper “Forward”.

The trace of Turgenev's ashes greatly worried the Minister of Internal Affairs D. A. Tolstoy, who feared spontaneous rallies. According to the editor of Vestnik Evropy, M. M. Stasyulevich, who accompanied Turgenev’s body, the precautions taken by officials were as inappropriate as if he were accompanying the Nightingale the Robber, and not the body of the great writer.

Personal life of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev:

The first romantic interest of young Turgenev was falling in love with the daughter of Princess Shakhovskaya - Ekaterina Shakhovskaya(1815-1836), young poetess. The estates of their parents in the Moscow region bordered, they often exchanged visits. He was 15, she was 19.

In letters to her son, Varvara Turgenev called Ekaterina Shakhovskaya a “poet” and a “villain,” since Sergei Nikolaevich himself, Ivan Turgenev’s father, to whom the girl reciprocated, could not resist the charms of the young princess, which broke the heart of the future writer. The episode much later, in 1860, was reflected in the story “First Love,” in which the writer endowed the heroine of the story, Zinaida Zasekina, with some of the traits of Katya Shakhovskaya.

In 1841, during his return to Lutovinovo, Ivan became interested in the seamstress Dunyasha ( Avdotya Ermolaevna Ivanova). A romance began between the young couple, which ended in the girl’s pregnancy. Ivan Sergeevich immediately expressed a desire to marry her. However, his mother made a serious scandal about this, after which he went to St. Petersburg. Turgenev's mother, having learned about Avdotya's pregnancy, hastily sent her to Moscow to her parents, where Pelageya was born on April 26, 1842. Dunyasha was married off, leaving her daughter in an ambiguous position. Turgenev officially recognized the child only in 1857.

Soon after the episode with Avdotya Ivanova, Turgenev met Tatiana Bakunina(1815-1871), sister of the future emigrant revolutionary M. A. Bakunin. Returning to Moscow after his stay in Spassky, he stopped at the Bakunin estate Premukhino. The winter of 1841-1842 was spent in close communication with the circle of Bakunin brothers and sisters.

All of Turgenev's friends - N.V. Stankevich, V.G. Belinsky and V.P. Botkin - were in love with Mikhail Bakunin's sisters, Lyubov, Varvara and Alexandra.

Tatyana was three years older than Ivan. Like all young Bakunins, she was passionate about German philosophy and perceived her relationships with others through the prism of Fichte’s idealistic concept. She wrote letters to Turgenev in German, full of lengthy reasoning and self-analysis, despite the fact that the young people lived in the same house, and she also expected from Turgenev an analysis of the motives of her own actions and reciprocal feelings. “The ‘philosophical’ novel,” as G. A. Byaly noted, “in the vicissitudes of which the entire younger generation of Premukha’s nest took an active part, lasted several months.” Tatyana was truly in love. Ivan Sergeevich did not remain completely indifferent to the love he awakened. He wrote several poems (the poem “Parasha” was also inspired by communication with Bakunina) and a story dedicated to this sublimely ideal, mostly literary and epistolary hobby. But he could not respond with serious feelings.

Among the writer’s other fleeting hobbies, there were two more that played a certain role in his work. In the 1850s, a fleeting romance broke out with a distant cousin, eighteen-year-old Olga Alexandrovna Turgeneva. The love was mutual, and the writer was thinking about marriage in 1854, the prospect of which at the same time frightened him. Olga later served as the prototype for the image of Tatyana in the novel “Smoke”.

Turgenev was also indecisive with Maria Nikolaevna Tolstoy. Ivan Sergeevich wrote about Leo Tolstoy’s sister to P.V. Annenkov: “His sister is one of the most attractive creatures I have ever met. Sweet, smart, simple - I couldn’t take my eyes off her. In my old age (I turned 36 on the fourth day) - I almost fell in love.”

For the sake of Turgenev, twenty-four-year-old M.N. Tolstaya had already left her husband; she mistook the writer’s attention to herself for true love. But Turgenev limited himself to a platonic hobby, and Maria Nikolaevna served him as a prototype for Verochka from the story “Faust”.

In the fall of 1843, Turgenev first saw her on the stage of the opera house, when the great singer came on tour to St. Petersburg. Turgenev was 25 years old, Viardot was 22 years old. Then, while hunting, he met Polina’s husband, the director of the Italian Theater in Paris, a famous critic and art critic, Louis Viardot, and on November 1, 1843, he was introduced to Polina herself.

Among the mass of fans, she did not particularly single out Turgenev, who was better known as an avid hunter rather than a writer. And when her tour ended, Turgenev, together with the Viardot family, left for Paris against the will of his mother, still unknown to Europe and without money. And this despite the fact that everyone considered him a rich man. But this time his extremely cramped financial situation was explained precisely by his disagreement with his mother, one of the richest women in Russia and the owner of a huge agricultural and industrial empire.

For his attachment to the “damned gypsy,” his mother did not give him money for three years. During these years, his lifestyle bore little resemblance to the stereotype of the life of a “rich Russian” that had developed about him.

In November 1845, he returned to Russia, and in January 1847, having learned about Viardot’s tour in Germany, he left the country again: he went to Berlin, then to London, Paris, a tour of France and again to St. Petersburg. Without an official marriage, Turgenev lived with the Viardot family “on the edge of someone else’s nest,” as he himself said.

Polina Viardot raised Turgenev's illegitimate daughter.

In the early 1860s, the Viardot family settled in Baden-Baden, and with them Turgenev (“Villa Tourgueneff”). Thanks to the Viardot family and Ivan Turgenev, their villa became an interesting musical and artistic center.

The war of 1870 forced the Viardot family to leave Germany and move to Paris, where the writer also moved.

The true nature of the relationship between Pauline Viardot and Turgenev is still a matter of debate. There is an opinion that after Louis Viardot was paralyzed as a result of a stroke, Polina and Turgenev actually entered into a marital relationship. Louis Viardot was twenty years older than Polina; he died the same year as I. S. Turgenev.

The writer's last love was the actress of the Alexandrinsky Theater. Their meeting took place in 1879, when the young actress was 25 years old and Turgenev was 61 years old. The actress at that time played the role of Verochka in Turgenev’s play “A Month in the Village.” The role was played so vividly that the writer himself was amazed. After this performance, he went to the actress backstage with a large bouquet of roses and exclaimed: “Did I really write this Verochka?!”

Ivan Turgenev fell in love with her, which he openly admitted. The rarity of their meetings was compensated by regular correspondence, which lasted four years. Despite Turgenev's sincere relationship, for Maria he was more of a good friend. She was planning to marry someone else, but the marriage never took place. Savina’s marriage to Turgenev was also not destined to come true - the writer died in the circle of the Viardot family.

Turgenev's personal life was not entirely successful. Having lived for 38 years in close contact with the Viardot family, the writer felt deeply lonely. Under these conditions, Turgenev’s depiction of love was formed, but love that was not entirely characteristic of his melancholy creative manner. There is almost no happy ending in his works, and the last chord is often sad. But nevertheless, almost none of the Russian writers paid so much attention to the depiction of love; no one idealized a woman to such an extent as Ivan Turgenev.

Turgenev never started his own family. The writer's daughter from seamstress Avdotya Ermolaevna Ivanova, married to Brewer (1842-1919), from the age of eight was raised in the family of Pauline Viardot in France, where Turgenev changed her name from Pelageya to Polina (Polinet, Paulinette), which seemed more euphonious to him.

Ivan Sergeevich arrived in France only six years later, when his daughter was already fourteen. Polinette almost forgot the Russian language and spoke exclusively French, which touched her father. At the same time, he was upset that the girl had a difficult relationship with Viardot herself. The girl was hostile to her father's beloved, and soon this led to the fact that the girl was sent to a private boarding school. When Turgenev next came to France, he took his daughter from the boarding school, and they moved in together, and a governess from England, Innis, was invited for Polynet.

At the age of seventeen, Polynet met the young entrepreneur Gaston Brewer, who made a pleasant impression on Ivan Turgenev, and he agreed to his daughter’s marriage. As a dowry, my father gave a considerable amount for those times - 150 thousand francs. The girl married Brewer, who soon went bankrupt, after which Polynette, with the assistance of her father, hid from her husband in Switzerland.

Since Turgenev's heir was Polina Viardot, after his death his daughter found herself in a difficult financial situation. She died in 1919 at the age of 76 from cancer. Polynet's children - Georges-Albert and Jeanne - had no descendants.

Georges-Albert died in 1924. Zhanna Brewer-Turgeneva never married - she lived, earning a living by giving private lessons, since she was fluent in five languages. She even tried herself in poetry, writing poems in French. She died in 1952 at the age of 80, and with her the family branch of the Turgenevs along the line of Ivan Sergeevich ended.

Bibliography of Turgenev:

1855 - “Rudin” (novel)
1858 - “The Noble Nest” (novel)
1860 - “On the Eve” (novel)
1862 - “Fathers and Sons” (novel)
1867 - “Smoke” (novel)
1877 - “Nov” (novel)
1844 - “Andrei Kolosov” (story)
1845 - “Three Portraits” (story)
1846 - “The Jew” (story)
1847 - “Breter” (story)
1848 - “Petushkov” (story)
1849 - “The Diary of an Extra Man” (short story)
1852 - “Mumu” (story)
1852 - “The Inn” (story)

“Notes of a Hunter”: a collection of stories

1851 - “Bezhin Meadow”
1847 - “Biryuk”
1847 - “The Burmister”
1848 - “Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky district”
1847 - “Two Landowners”
1847 - “Yermolai and the miller’s wife”
1874 - “Living Relics”
1851 - “Kasyan with a Beautiful Sword”
1871-72 - “The End of Tchertopkhanov”
1847 - "Office"
1847 - “Swan”
1848 - “Forest and steppe”
1847 - “Lgov”
1847 - “Raspberry Water”
1847 - “My neighbor Radilov”
1847 - “Ovsyannikov’s Palace”
1850 - "Singers"
1864 - “Peter Petrovich Karataev”
1850 - "Date"
1847 - "Death"
1873-74 - “Knocks!”
1847 - “Tatyana Borisovna and her nephew”
1847 - “County doctor”
1846-47 - “Khor and Kalinich”
1848 - “Tchertophanov and Nedopyuskin”

1855 - “Yakov Pasynkov” (story)
1855 - “Faust” (story)
1856 - “Quiet” (story)
1857 - “A Trip to Polesie” (story)
1858 - “Asya” (story)
1860 - “First Love” (story)
1864 - “Ghosts” (story)
1866 - “Brigadier” (story)
1868 - “The Unhappy” (story)
1870 - “Strange Story” (short story)
1870 - “King of the Steppes Lear” (story)
1870 - “Dog” (story)
1871 - “Knock... knock... knock!..” (story)
1872 - “Spring Waters” (story)
1874 - “Punin and Baburin” (story)
1876 - “The Hours” (story)
1877 - “Dream” (story)
1877 - “The Story of Father Alexei” (short story)
1881 - “Song of Triumphant Love” (short story)
1881 - “The Master’s Own Office” (story)
1883 - “After Death (Klara Milich)” (story)
1878 - “In memory of Yu. P. Vrevskaya” (poem in prose)
1882 - “How beautiful, how fresh the roses were...” (prose poem)
18?? - “Museum” (story)
18?? - “Farewell” (story)
18?? - “The Kiss” (story)
1848 - “Where it is thin, there it breaks” (play)
1848 - “Freeloader” (play)
1849 - “Breakfast at the Leader’s” (play)
1849 - “The Bachelor” (play)
1850 - “A Month in the Country” (play)
1851 - “Provincial Girl” (play)
1854 - “A few words about the poems of F. I. Tyutchev” (article)
1860 - “Hamlet and Don Quixote” (article)
1864 - “Speech on Shakespeare” (article)

Ivan Turgenev is one of the world's greatest classics. Thanks to his work, Russian literature became popular abroad in the 19th century. Moreover, the artistic system created by Turgenev influenced the Western European novel.

A lot of interesting things can be said about literary works of this outstanding personality. But in today’s article we will talk about Turgenev not as a writer, but as a person with an interesting and vivid biography. How were the early years of the prose writer? Where was Turgenev born? In which city did he create his most famous works?

Origin

The writer was a representative of an ancient noble family. His father, Sergei Nikolaevich, once served in a cavalry regiment. He led a carefree lifestyle, was known as a handsome man, and loved to live in grand style. He was probably quite a practical person, because in 1816 he married Varvara Lutovinova, the heiress of a huge fortune. In the small town where Turgenev was born, this lady had a huge estate. Now there is a state museum, which will be discussed later.

When was Turgenev born? The future writer was born in 1818. Twelve years later, his father left the family - the profitable marriage turned out to be unhappy. In 1834, Turgenev Sr. died.

The classic's mother was a difficult woman. It miraculously coexisted feudal habits with progressive views. Despotism still prevailed in her manner of education. It has already been said above in what year Turgenev was born. Varvara Lutovinova was 25 years old by that time. She had two more sons - Nikolai and Sergei, who died at an early age from epilepsy.

This woman beat not only serfs, but also her own children. At the same time, she gave each of them an excellent education. The family spoke exclusively French. But the mother of the future writer was also partial to Russian literature.

Where was Turgenev born?

Ten kilometers from Mtsensk there is a small settlement called Spasskoye-Lutovinovo. Now there is a museum-reserve dedicated to the life and work of the writer.

The Lutovinov family estate, where Turgenev was born, has a long interesting history. The village of Spasskoye was granted to one of the representatives of an old noble family by Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century. The locality where Turgenev was born cannot be called a city. This is a small village, known today thanks to the estate, converted into a museum in the 20th century. The history of the Lutovinov estate is outlined below. Let's return to the life and work of the creator of “Spring Waters” and other wonderful books.

early years

The future writer lived on his mother’s estate until he was nine years old. It is noteworthy that the serf valet instilled in him a love of literature. This man, by the way, became the prototype of one of Turgenev’s characters. In 1822 the family went to Europe. Five years later, the Turgenevs settled in Moscow.

At the age of 15, Ivan entered the literature department, where Belinsky and Herzen also studied at that time. However, I did not have the opportunity to graduate from Moscow University Turgenev Ivan Sergeevich. Where did the idea of becoming a writer come from? This happened in St. Petersburg, where the family moved after the eldest son joined the Guards artillery. Ivan Turgenev moved to the local university at the Faculty of Philosophy. Here he decided to connect his life with literature. However, initially I wanted to become not a writer, but a poet.

The beginning of creativity

And in 1834, Ivan Turgenev was a third-year student at the Faculty of Philosophy. It was at this time that his literary debut took place. He wrote a dramatic poem, then showed his composition to the teacher. The literature professor was quite strict about the young author’s work. True, he answered that there was “something” in the poem. These seemingly neutral words prompted Turgenev to write a number of more poetic works. Some of them were published in the Sovremennik magazine.

Abroad

Turgenev graduated from the University in 1836. Soon he received a candidate's degree. In 1838 he left for Germany, where he actively studied ancient languages and attended lectures on Greek and Roman literature. Turgenev met Zhukovsky, Koltsov, Lermontov. There were only a few meetings with the latter, which, although they did not lead to close communication, had a certain influence on Turgenev.

Staying abroad had a strong influence on the writer’s work. Turgenev came to the conclusion that only the assimilation of the foundations of universal human culture can bring Russia out of the darkness in which it is immersed. Since then, he has become a convinced “Westernizer.”

"Spring Waters"

In 1839, the house in which Turgenev was born burned down. In what city was the writer at that time? He then lived in Frankfurt am Main. Having learned about the fire, he returned home. But soon he left his homeland again. In Germany one day he met a girl who made a strong impression on him. Returning home once again, the writer sat down to write a novel, which, after publication, gained worldwide fame. We are talking about the book “Spring Waters”.

Confession

In the forties, Turgenev became close to Annenkov and Nekrasov. At this time, he took an active part in the activities of the literary magazine Sovremennik. “Notes of a Hunter” were published in one of the issues. The success of the work was enormous, which inspired Turgenev to create other stories.

Turgenev was an ardent opponent of serfdom, which, according to many biographers, forced him to leave Russia so often. However, in 1848, while staying in Paris, he witnessed revolutionary events, which, as expected, were accompanied by bloodshed. From then on, he forever hated the word “revolution.”

The beginning of the 50s saw the heyday of Turgenev's creativity. Such works as “The Freeloader”, “Breakfast at the Leader’s”, “A Month in the Village” have already been published. The writer also worked on translations of Shakespeare and Byron. In 1855, Turgenev returned to Russia. Shortly before his arrival, Varvara Lutovinova passed away. The writer was unable to see his mother for the last time.

Link

In the early fifties, Turgenev often visited St. Petersburg. After Gogol's death, he wrote an obituary, which was not missed by censors. Then the writer sent his note to Moscow, where it was successfully published. The authorities did not like the obituary, the author of which too openly admired the creator of Dead Souls. Turgenev was sent into exile in Spasskoye-Lutovinovo.

True, there is an assumption that the reason for the authorities’ dissatisfaction was not the note dedicated to Gogol’s death. In Russia, many did not like the excessive radicalism of the prose writer’s views, his suspiciously frequent trips abroad, and sympathetic stories about serfs.

Turgenev did not always manage to find a common language with his fellow writers. It is known that he left the Sovremennik magazine due to a conflict with Dobrolyubov. Turgenev preferred to communicate with Westernized writers, to whom Leo Tolstoy also belonged for some time. Turgenev had friendly relations with this writer. However, in 1861, a quarrel occurred between the prose writers, which almost ended in a duel. Turgenev and Tolstoy did not communicate for 17 years. The author of Fathers and Sons also had difficult relationships with Goncharov and Dostoevsky.

Spasskoye-Lutovinovo

The estate, which once belonged to Turgenev’s mother, is located in the Mtsensk region. After the death of Varvara Lutovinova, the writer ceded his Moscow house and profitable estates to his brother. He himself became the owner of the family nest, where he spent his early years. Turgenev was in exile until 1853, but after his release he returned to Spasskoye more than once. Fet, Tolstoy, and Aksakov visited him at the estate.

The last time Ivan Turgenev visited the family estate was in 1881. The writer died in France. The heirs removed almost all the furniture from the estate. In 1906 it burned down. And 12 years later, the remaining property of Ivan Turgenev was nationalized.

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (October 28 (November 9) 1818, Oryol, Russian Empire - August 22 (September 3) 1883, Bougival, France) - Russian realist writer, poet, publicist, playwright, translator. One of the classics of Russian literature who made the most significant contribution to its development in the second half of the 19th century. Corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of Russian language and literature (1860), honorary doctor of the University of Oxford (1879).

I.S. Turgenev at the age of 20.

Artist K. Gorbunov. 1838-1839 Watercolor

Origin and early years

Ivan's father Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev (1793-1834) served at that time in a cavalry regiment. The carefree lifestyle of the handsome cavalry guard upset his finances, and to improve his position, in 1816 he entered into a marriage of convenience with the middle-aged, unattractive, but very wealthy Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova (1787-1850). In 1821, my father retired with the rank of colonel of a cuirassier regiment. Ivan was the second son in the family. The mother of the future writer, Varvara Petrovna, came from a wealthy noble family. Her marriage to Sergei Nikolaevich was not happy. The father died in 1834, leaving three sons - Nikolai, Ivan and Sergei, who died early from epilepsy. The mother was a domineering and despotic woman. She herself lost her father at an early age, suffered from the cruel attitude of her mother (whom her grandson later portrayed as an old woman in the essay “Death”), and from a violent, drinking stepfather, who often beat her. Due to constant beatings and humiliation, she later moved in with her uncle, after whose death she became the owner of a magnificent estate and 5,000 souls.

Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev, father of the writer

Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova, mother of the writer

Varvara Petrovna was a difficult woman. Feudal habits coexisted in her with being well-read and educated; she combined concern for raising children with family despotism. Ivan was also subjected to maternal beatings, despite the fact that he was considered her beloved son. The boy was taught literacy by frequently changing French and German tutors. In Varvara Petrovna’s family, everyone spoke exclusively French to each other, even prayers in the house were said in French. She traveled a lot and was an enlightened woman, she read a lot, but also mainly in French. But her native language and literature were not alien to her: she herself had excellent, figurative Russian speech, and Sergei Nikolaevich demanded that the children write letters to him in Russian during their father’s absences. The Turgenev family maintained connections with V. A. Zhukovsky and M. N. Zagoskin. Varvara Petrovna followed the latest literature, was well informed about the works of N. M. Karamzin, V. A. Zhukovsky, A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov and N. V. Gogol, whom she readily quoted in letters to her son.

I.S. Turgenev at the age of 7 years.

Unknown artist. 1825 Watercolor

I.S. Turgenev at the age of 12 years.

Artist I.Pirks. 1830 Watercolor

A love of Russian literature was also instilled in young Turgenev by one of the serf valets (who later became the prototype of Punin in the story “Punin and Baburin”). Until he was nine years old, Ivan Turgenev lived on his mother’s hereditary estate Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, 10 km from Mtsensk, Oryol province. In 1822, the Turgenev family made a trip to Europe, during which four-year-old Ivan almost died in Bern, falling from the railing of a moat with bears (Berengraben); His father saved him by catching him by the leg. In 1827, the Turgenevs, in order to give their children an education, settled in Moscow, buying a house on Samotek. The future writer first studied at the Weidenhammer boarding school, then became a boarder with the director of the Lazarev Institute I. F. Krause

Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, Artist Nikolai Bodarevsky

Spasskoye-Lutovinovo

Spasskoye Lutovinovo - Sorokina Olga Aleksandrovna

Education. Beginning of literary activity

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

In 1833, at the age of 15, Turgenev entered the literature department of Moscow University. At the same time, A. I. Herzen and V. G. Belinsky studied here. A year later, after Ivan’s older brother joined the Guards Artillery, the family moved to St. Petersburg, where Ivan Turgenev transferred to the Faculty of Philosophy at St. Petersburg University. At the university, T. N. Granovsky, the future famous scientist-historian of the Western school, became his friend.

Timofey Granovsky (1813-1855), Russian historian

Pyotr Zakharov-Chechen

At first, Turgenev wanted to become a poet. In 1834, as a third-year student, he wrote the dramatic poem “Stheno” in iambic pentameter. The young author showed these samples of writing to his teacher, professor of Russian literature P. A. Pletnev. During one of his lectures, Pletnev quite strictly analyzed this poem, without revealing its authorship, but at the same time also admitted that there was “something in the author.” These words prompted the young poet to write a number of more poems, two of which Pletnev published in 1838 in the Sovremennik magazine, of which he was the editor. They were published under the signature “…..въ”. The debut poems were “Evening” and “To the Venus of Medicine”.

Portrait of Pyotr Pletnev (1836). Pushkin Museum in St. Petersburg.

Alexey Tyranov

Turgenev’s first publication appeared in 1836 - in the Journal of the Ministry of Public Education he published a detailed review of A. N. Muravyov’s “On a Journey to Holy Places.” By 1837, he had already written about a hundred small poems and several poems (the unfinished “The Old Man’s Tale”, “Calm on the Sea”, “Phantasmagoria on a Moonlit Night”, “Dream”)

Andrei Nikolaevich Muravyov, chamberlain of the Russian imperial court; Orthodox spiritual writer and Church historian, pilgrim and traveler; playwright, poet. Honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (1836).

P.Z.Zakharova-Chechen, 1838

After graduation. Abroad

In 1836, Turgenev graduated from the university with the degree of a full student. Dreaming of scientific activity, the following year he passed the final exam and received a candidate's degree. In 1838 he went to Germany, where he settled in Berlin and took up his studies seriously. At the University of Berlin he attended lectures on the history of Roman and Greek literature, and at home he studied the grammar of ancient Greek and Latin. Knowledge of ancient languages allowed him to read the ancient classics fluently. During his studies, he became friends with the Russian writer and thinker N.V. Stankevich, who had a noticeable influence on him. Turgenev attended lectures by the Hegelians and became interested in German idealism with its teaching about world development, about the “absolute spirit” and about the high calling of the philosopher and poet. In general, the entire way of Western European life made a strong impression on Turgenev. The young student came to the conclusion that only the assimilation of the basic principles of universal human culture can lead Russia out of the darkness in which it is immersed. In this sense, he became a convinced “Westerner.”

Nikolai Vladimirovich Stankevich (1813-1840), public figure, philosopher, writer

Humboldt University in Berlin, 19th century

In the 1830-1850s, an extensive circle of literary acquaintances of the writer was formed. Back in 1837, there were fleeting meetings with A.S. Pushkin. At the same time, Turgenev met V. A. Zhukovsky, A. V. Nikitenko, A. V. Koltsov, and a little later - with M. Yu. Lermontov. Turgenev had only a few meetings with Lermontov, which did not lead to a close acquaintance, but Lermontov’s work had a certain influence on him. He tried to master the rhythm and stanza, stylistics and syntactic features of Lermontov's poetry. Thus, the poem “The Old Landowner” (1841) is in some places close in form to Lermontov’s “Testament,” and in “The Ballad” (1841) the influence of “Song about the Merchant Kalashnikov” is felt. But the most tangible connection with Lermontov’s work is in the poem “Confession” (1845), the accusatory pathos of which brings it closer to Lermontov’s poem “Duma”.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin

Orest Adamovich Kiprensky

Mikhail Yurjevich Lermontov

Zabolotsky, Pyotr Efimovich

"Spring Waters"

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

Eugene Louis Lamy (1800-1890)

In 1843, Turgenev wrote the poem “Parasha”. Not really hoping for a positive review, he nevertheless took the copy to V.G. Belinsky. Belinsky praised Parasha, publishing his review in Otechestvennye zapiski two months later. From that time on, their acquaintance began, which later grew into a strong friendship; Turgenev was even godfather to Belinsky’s son, Vladimir. The poem was published in the spring of 1843 as a separate book under the initials “T. L." (Turgenev-Lutovinov). In the 1840s, in addition to Pletnev and Belinsky, Turgenev met with A. A. Fet.

Vissarion Belinsky

In November 1843, Turgenev created the poem “Foggy Morning,” which was set to music over the years by several composers, including A. F. Gedicke and G. L. Catuar. The most famous, however, is the romance version, originally published under the signature “Music of Abaza”; its affiliation with V.V. Abaza, E.A. Abaza or Yu.F. Abaza has not been definitively established. After its publication, the poem was perceived as a reflection of Turgenev's love for Pauline Viardot, whom he met at this time.

Portrait of singer Pauline Viardot

Karl Bryullov

In 1844, the poem “Pop” was written, which the writer himself characterized rather as fun, devoid of any “deep and significant ideas.” Nevertheless, the poem attracted public interest for its anti-clerical nature. The poem was truncated by Russian censorship, but was published in its entirety abroad.

Creativity flourishes

Since 1847, Ivan Turgenev participated in the transformed Sovremennik, where he became close to N. A. Nekrasov and P. V. Annenkov.

Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov

Pavel Vasilievich Annenkov

The magazine published his first feuilleton, “Modern Notes,” and began publishing the first chapters of “Notes of a Hunter.” In the very first issue of Sovremennik, the story “Khor and Kalinich” was published, which opened countless editions of the famous book. The subtitle “From the Notes of a Hunter” was added by editor I. I. Panaev to attract the attention of readers to the story. The success of the story turned out to be enormous, and this gave Turgenev the idea of writing a number of others of the same kind. According to Turgenev, “Notes of a Hunter” was the fulfillment of his Hannibal oath to fight to the end against the enemy whom he hated since childhood. “This enemy had a certain image, bore a well-known name: this enemy was serfdom.” To fulfill his intention, Turgenev decided to leave Russia. “I could not,” Turgenev wrote, “breathe the same air, stay close to what I hated<…>I needed to move away from my enemy so that from my very distance I could attack him more strongly.”

"Khor and Kalinich." Illustration by Elisabeth Böhm. 1883

Illustration for the story by I.S. Turgenev “Lgov” (from the series “Notes of a Hunter”).

Petr Petrovich Sokolov

Illustration for the story by I.S. Turgenev “The Swan” (from the series “Notes of a Hunter”).

Petr Petrovich Sokolov

Illustration for the story by I.S. Turgenev “Peter Petrovich Karataev” (from the series “Notes of a Hunter”).

Petr Petrovich Sokolov

Illustration for the story by I.S. Turgenev “Office” (from the series “Notes of a Hunter”).

Petr Petrovich Sokolov

In 1847, Turgenev and Belinsky went abroad and in 1848 lived in Paris, where he witnessed revolutionary events. Having witnessed the killing of hostages, the many attacks, the construction and fall of the barricades of the February French Revolution, he forever developed a deep disgust for revolutions in general. A little later, he became close to A.I. Herzen and fell in love with Ogarev’s wife N.A. Tuchkova.

Alexander Ivanovich Herzen

Dramaturgy

The late 1840s - early 1850s became the time of Turgenev's most intense activity in the field of drama and a time of reflection on issues of history and theory of drama. In 1848 he wrote such plays as “Where it is thin, there it breaks” and “The Freeloader”, in 1849 - “Breakfast with the Leader” and “The Bachelor”, in 1850 - “A Month in the Country”, in 1851 -m - “Provincial”. Of these, “Freeloader”, “Bachelor”, “Provincial Woman” and “A Month in the Country” enjoyed success thanks to excellent stage performances. The success of “The Bachelor” was especially dear to him, which became possible largely thanks to the performing skills of A. E. Martynov, who played in four of his plays. Turgenev formulated his views on the situation of Russian theater and the tasks of dramaturgy back in 1846. He believed that the crisis in the theatrical repertoire observed at that time could be overcome by the efforts of writers committed to Gogol's dramaturism. Turgenev also counted himself among the followers of Gogol the playwright.

"In the box. 1909", Kustodiev

To master the literary techniques of drama, the writer also worked on translations of Byron and Shakespeare. At the same time, he did not try to copy Shakespeare’s dramatic techniques, he only interpreted his images, and all attempts by his contemporaries-playwrights to use Shakespeare’s work as a role model and to borrow his theatrical techniques only caused Turgenev irritation. In 1847 he wrote: “Shakespeare’s shadow looms over all dramatic writers; they cannot rid themselves of memories; These unfortunates read too much and lived too little.”

1850s

Nikolai Sergeevich Turgenev, brother of the writer

In 1850-1852 he lived either in Russia or abroad, and saw N.V. Gogol. After Gogol's death, Turgenev wrote an obituary, which St. Petersburg censorship did not allow. The reason for her dissatisfaction was that, as the chairman of the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee M. N. Musin-Pushkin put it, “it is criminal to speak so enthusiastically about such a writer.” Then Ivan Sergeevich sent the article to Moscow, V.P. Botkin, who published it in Moskovskie Vedomosti. The authorities saw a rebellion in the text, and the author was placed in a moving house, where he spent a month. On May 18, Turgenev was exiled to his native village, and only thanks to the efforts of Count A.K. Tolstoy, two years later the writer again received the right to live in the capitals.

Botkin Vasily Petrovich

Portrait of the writer Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy

Ilya Repin

There is an opinion that the real reason for the exile was not Gogol’s obituary, but the excessive radicalism of Turgenev’s views, manifested in sympathy for Belinsky, suspiciously frequent trips abroad, sympathetic stories about serfs, and a laudatory review of Turgenev by the emigrant Herzen. In addition, it is necessary to take into account V.P. Botkin’s warning to Turgenev in a letter on March 10, so that he should be careful in his letters, referring to third-party transmitters of advice to be more careful (the said letter from Turgenev is completely unknown, but its excerpt is from a copy in the file of the III Department - contains a harsh review of M. N. Musin-Pushkin). The enthusiastic tone of the article about Gogol only filled the gendarmerie's patience, becoming an external reason for punishment, the meaning of which was thought out by the authorities in advance. Turgenev feared that his arrest and exile would interfere with the publication of the first edition of Notes of a Hunter, but his fears were not justified - in August 1852 the book passed censorship and was published.

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

However, the censor V.V. Lvov, who allowed “Notes of a Hunter” to be published, was, by personal order of Nicholas I, dismissed from service and deprived of his pension (“The highest forgiveness” followed on December 6, 1853). Russian censorship also imposed a ban on the re-publication of “Notes of a Hunter,” explaining this step by the fact that Turgenev, on the one hand, poeticized the serfs, and on the other hand, depicted “that these peasants are oppressed, that the landowners behave indecently and It’s illegal... finally, that it’s more comfortable for a peasant to live in freedom.”

Franz Kruger

In 1852, while still in exile in Spassky-Lutovinovo, he wrote the now textbook story “Mumu”. Most of the “Notes of a Hunter” were created by the writer in Germany. “Notes of a Hunter” was published in Paris in a separate edition in 1854, although at the beginning of the Crimean War this publication was in the nature of anti-Russian propaganda, and Turgenev was forced to publicly express his protest against the poor quality French translation by Ernest Charrière. After the death of Nicholas I, four of the writer’s most significant works were published one after another: “Rudin” (1856), “The Noble Nest” (1859), “On the Eve” (1860) and “Fathers and Sons” (1862). The first two were published in Nekrasov’s Sovremennik, the other two in M. N. Katkov’s Russky Vestnik.

Illustrations for I.S. Turgenev’s story “Mumu”

Rudakov Konstantin Ivanovich - illustrations for the novel by I.S. Turgenev "Noble Nest"

Illustrations for the novel by I.S. Turgenev “Fathers and Sons”

Sovremennik employees I. S. Turgenev, N. A. Nekrasov, I. I. Panaev, M. N. Longinov, V. P. Gaevsky, D. V. Grigorovich sometimes gathered in the “warlocks” circle organized by A. V. Druzhinin. The humorous improvisations of the “warlocks” sometimes went beyond censorship, so they had to be published abroad. Later, Turgenev took part in the activities of the “Society for Benefiting Needy Writers and Scientists” (Literary Fund), founded on the initiative of the same A.V. Druzhinin. From the end of 1856, the writer collaborated with the magazine “Library for Reading,” published under the editorship of A. V. Druzhinin. But his editorship did not bring the expected success to the publication, and Turgenev, who in 1856 hoped for close magazine success, in 1861 called the “Library,” edited by A.F. Pisemsky by that time, “a dead hole.”

In the fall of 1855, Turgenev's circle of friends was replenished with Leo Tolstoy. In September of the same year, Tolstoy’s story “Cutting the Forest” was published in Sovremennik with a dedication to I. S. Turgenev.

Employees of the Sovremennik magazine. Top row: L. N. Tolstoy, D. V. Grigorovich; bottom row: I. A. Goncharov, I. S. Turgenev, A. V. Druzhinin, A. N. Ostrovsky. Photo by S. L. Levitsky, February 15, 1856

Turgenev took an active part in the discussion of the upcoming Peasant Reform, participated in the development of various collective letters, draft addresses addressed to Emperor Alexander II, protests, etc. From the first months of publication of Herzen’s “Bell,” Turgenev was his active collaborator. He himself did not write for Kolokol, but helped in collecting materials and preparing them for publication. An equally important role of Turgenev was to mediate between A.I. Herzen and those correspondents from Russia who, for various reasons, did not want to be in direct relations with the disgraced London emigrant. In addition, Turgenev sent detailed review letters to Herzen, information from which, without the author’s signature, was also published in Kolokol. At the same time, Turgenev every time spoke out against the harsh tone of Herzen’s materials and excessive criticism of government decisions: “Please don’t scold Alexander Nikolaevich, - otherwise he is already cruelly scolded by all the reactionaries in St. Petersburg, - why bother him like that from both sides “He’ll probably lose his spirit.”

Portrait of Emperor Alexander II. 1874. State Historical Museum

Alexey Kharlamov

In 1860, Sovremennik published an article by N. A. Dobrolyubov, “When will the real day come?”, in which the critic spoke very flatteringly about the new novel “On the Eve” and Turgenev’s work in general. Nevertheless, Turgenev was not satisfied with Dobrolyubov’s far-reaching conclusions that he made after reading the novel. Dobrolyubov connected the idea of Turgenev’s work with the events of the approaching revolutionary transformation of Russia, which the liberal Turgenev could not reconcile with. Dobrolyubov wrote: “Then a complete, sharply and vividly outlined image of the Russian Insarov will appear in literature. And we won’t have to wait long for him: this is guaranteed by the feverish, painful impatience with which we await his appearance in life.<…>This day will finally come! And, in any case, the eve is not far from the next day: just some night separates them!...” The writer gave N.A. Nekrasov an ultimatum: either he, Turgenev, or Dobrolyubov. Nekrasov preferred Dobrolyubov. After this, Turgenev left Sovremennik and stopped communicating with Nekrasov, and subsequently Dobrolyubov became one of the prototypes for the image of Bazarov in the novel Fathers and Sons.

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

Turgenev gravitated toward the circle of Westernized writers who professed the principles of “pure art,” which opposed the tendentious creativity of the common revolutionaries: P. V. Annenkov, V. P. Botkin, D. V. Grigorovich, A. V. Druzhinin. For a short time Leo Tolstoy also joined this circle. For some time, Tolstoy lived in Turgenev’s apartment. After Tolstoy’s marriage to S.A. Bers, Turgenev found a close relative in Tolstoy, but even before the wedding, in May 1861, when both prose writers were visiting A.A. Fet on the Stepanovo estate, a serious quarrel occurred between them, almost which ended in a duel and spoiled the relationship between the writers for 17 long years. For some time, the writer developed complex relationships with Fet himself, as well as with some other contemporaries - F. M. Dostoevsky, I. A. Goncharov

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy

Dmitry Vasilievich Grigorovich

Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy

“Portrait of the poet Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet.”

Ilya Efimovich Repin

Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

Vasily Perov.

Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov

In 1862, good relations with former friends of Turgenev’s youth began to become complicated - A. I. Herzen and M. A. Bakunin. From July 1, 1862 to February 15, 1863, Herzen’s “Bell” published a series of articles “Ends and Beginnings” consisting of eight letters. Without naming the addressee of Turgenev’s letters, Herzen defended his understanding of the historical development of Russia, which, in his opinion, should move along the path of peasant socialism. Herzen contrasted peasant Russia with bourgeois Western Europe, whose revolutionary potential he considered already exhausted. Turgenev objected to Herzen in private letters, insisting on the commonality of historical development for different states and peoples.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin

At the end of 1862, Turgenev was involved in the trial of the 32 in the case of “persons accused of having relations with London propagandists.” After the authorities ordered an immediate appearance at the Senate, Turgenev decided to write a letter to the sovereign, trying to convince him of the loyalty of his convictions, “completely independent, but conscientious.” He asked for the interrogation points to be sent to him in Paris. In the end, he was forced to go to Russia in 1864 for Senate interrogation, where he managed to avert all suspicions from himself. The Senate found him not guilty. Turgenev’s appeal personally to Emperor Alexander II caused Herzen’s bilious reaction in The Bell. Much later, this moment in the relationship between the two writers was used by V.I. Lenin to illustrate the difference between the liberal vacillations of Turgenev and Herzen: “When the liberal Turgenev wrote a private letter to Alexander II with assurance of his loyal feelings and donated two gold pieces for the soldiers wounded during the pacification of the Polish uprising , “The Bell” wrote about “the gray-haired Magdalene (masculine), who wrote to the sovereign that she did not know sleep, tormented, that the sovereign did not know about the repentance that had befallen her.” And Turgenev immediately recognized himself.” But Turgenev’s hesitation between tsarism and revolutionary democracy manifested itself in another way.

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

In 1863, Turgenev settled in Baden-Baden. The writer actively participated in the cultural life of Western Europe, establishing acquaintances with the greatest writers of Germany, France and England, promoting Russian literature abroad and introducing Russian readers to the best works of contemporary Western authors. Among his acquaintances or correspondents were Friedrich Bodenstedt, William Thackeray, Charles Dickens, Henry James, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Charles Saint-Beuve, Hippolyte Taine, Prosper Mérimée, Ernest Renan, Théophile Gautier, Edmond Goncourt, Emile Zola, Anatole France , Guy de Maupassant, Alphonse Daudet, Gustave Flaubert.

I. S. Turgenev at the dacha of the Milyutin brothers in Baden-Baden, 1867

Despite living abroad, all of Turgenev’s thoughts were still connected with Russia. He wrote the novel “Smoke” (1867), which caused a lot of controversy in Russian society. According to the author, everyone criticized the novel: “both red and white, and above, and below, and from the side - especially from the side.

In 1868, Turgenev became a permanent contributor to the liberal magazine “Bulletin of Europe” and broke ties with M. N. Katkov. The breakup did not go easily - the writer began to be persecuted in the Russky Vestnik and in the Moskovskie Vedomosti. The attacks especially intensified at the end of the 1870s, when, regarding the ovation that Turgenev received, the Katkovsky newspaper assured that the writer was “tumbling” in front of progressive youth

Since 1874, the famous bachelor “dinners of the five” - Flaubert, Edmond Goncourt, Daudet, Zola and Turgenev - were held in the Parisian restaurants of Riche or Pellet. The idea belonged to Flaubert, but Turgenev was given the main role in them. Luncheons took place once a month. They raised various topics - about the features of literature, about the structure of the French language, told stories and simply enjoyed delicious food. Dinners were held not only at Parisian restaurateurs, but also at the homes of the writers themselves.

A feast of the classics. A. Daudet, G. Flaubert, E. Zola, I. S. Turgenev

I. S. Turgenev acted as a consultant and editor for foreign translators of Russian writers, wrote prefaces and notes to translations of Russian writers into European languages, as well as to Russian translations of works by famous European writers. He translated Western writers into Russian and Russian writers and poets into French and German. This is how translations of Flaubert’s works “Herodias” and “The Tale of St. Julian the Merciful" for Russian readers and Pushkin's works for French readers. For some time, Turgenev became the most famous and most read Russian author in Europe, where criticism ranked him among the first writers of the century. In 1878, at the international literary congress in Paris, the writer was elected vice-president. On June 18, 1879, he was awarded the title of honorary doctor of the University of Oxford, despite the fact that the university had never given such an honor to any fiction writer before him.

Photo by I.S. Turgenev (from the collection of A.F. Onegin in Paris). Filmed in Baden-Baden, 1871. The photograph was first published in print on August 25, 1913.

The fruit of the writer’s thoughts in the 1870s was the largest of his novels in terms of volume, Nov (1877), which was also criticized. For example, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin regarded this novel as a service to the autocracy.

Turgenev was friends with the Minister of Education A.V. Golovnin, with the Milyutin brothers (comrade of the Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of War), N.I. Turgenev, and was closely acquainted with the Minister of Finance M.H. Reitern. At the end of the 1870s, Turgenev became closer friends with the leaders of revolutionary emigration from Russia; his circle of acquaintances included P. L. Lavrov, P. A. Kropotkin, G. A. Lopatin and many others. Among other revolutionaries, he put German Lopatin above everyone else, admiring his intelligence, courage and moral strength.

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, 1872

Vasily Perov

However, Dostoevsky in his novel “Demons” portrayed Turgenev as the “great writer Karmazinov” - a loud, petty, well-worn and practically mediocre writer who considers himself a genius and is holed up abroad. Such an attitude towards Turgenev by the always needy Dostoevsky was caused, among other things, by Turgenev’s secure position in his noble life and the very high literary fees for those times: “To Turgenev for his “Noble Nest” (I finally read it. Extremely well) Katkov himself (from whom I I ask for 100 rubles per sheet) I gave 4000 rubles, that is, 400 rubles per sheet. My friend! I know very well that I write worse than Turgenev, but not too much worse, and finally, I hope to write not worse at all. Why am I, with my needs, taking only 100 rubles, and Turgenev, who has 2000 souls, 400?”

Nikolay Dmitriev-Orenburgsky

His visits to Russia in 1878-1881 were real triumphs. All the more alarming in 1882 was the news of a severe exacerbation of his usual gouty pain. In the spring of 1882, the first signs of the disease were discovered, which soon turned out to be fatal for Turgenev. With temporary relief from the pain, he continued to work and a few months before his death he published the first part of “Poems in Prose” - a cycle of lyrical miniatures, which became his kind of farewell to life, homeland and art. The book opened with the prose poem “Village”, and ended with “Russian Language” - a lyrical hymn in which the author invested his faith in the great destiny of his country:

In days of doubt, in days of painful thoughts about the fate of my homeland, you alone are my support and support, oh great, powerful, truthful and free Russian language!.. Without you, how would I not fall into despair at the sight of everything that is happening at home. But one cannot believe that such a language was not given to a great people!

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, 1879

Ilya Repin

Parisian doctors Charcot and Jacquot diagnosed the writer with angina pectoris; Soon she was joined by intercostal neuralgia. The last time Turgenev was in Spassky-Lutovinovo was in the summer of 1881. The sick writer spent the winters in Paris, and in the summer he was transported to Bougival to the Viardot estate.

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

Ilya Repin

Death and funeral

Turgenev's death was a great shock for his admirers, resulting in a very impressive funeral. The funeral was preceded by mourning celebrations in Paris, in which over four hundred people took part. Among them were at least a hundred Frenchmen: Edmond Abou, Jules Simon, Emile Ogier, Emile Zola, Alphonse Daudet, Juliette Adam, artist Alfred Dieudonnet (French) Russian, composer Jules Massenet. Ernest Renan addressed the mourners with a heartfelt speech. In accordance with the will of the deceased, on September 27 his body was brought to St. Petersburg

Ivan Turgenev on his deathbed. A drawing sketched in Bougival, on the day of the death of the great writer, by the artist E. Lipgardt

The reception of the coffin in St. Petersburg and its passage to the Volkovo cemetery presented unusual spectacles in their beauty, majestic character and complete, voluntary and unanimous observance of order. A continuous chain of 176 deputations from literature, from newspapers and magazines, scientists, educational and educational institutions, from zemstvos, Siberians, Poles and Bulgarians occupied a space of several miles, attracting the sympathetic and often moved attention of the huge public, crowding the sidewalks - carried by deputations graceful, magnificent wreaths and banners with meaningful inscriptions. So, there was a wreath “To the Author of “Mum”” from the Society for the Protection of Animals... a wreath with the inscription “Love is stronger than death” from women’s pedagogical courses...

— A.F. Koni, “Turgenev’s Funeral,” Collected Works in eight volumes. T. 6. M., Legal literature, 1968. Pp. 385-386.

There were some misunderstandings. The day after the funeral of Turgenev’s body in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral on Daru Street in Paris, on September 19, the famous emigrant populist P. L. Lavrov published in the Paris newspaper “Justice” (French) Russian, edited by the future socialist Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau a letter in which he reported that I. S. Turgenev, on his own initiative, transferred 500 francs to Lavrov annually for three years to facilitate the publication of the revolutionary emigrant newspaper “Forward”.

Russian liberals were outraged by this news, considering it a provocation. The conservative press represented by M. N. Katkov, on the contrary, took advantage of Lavrov’s message to posthumously persecute Turgenev in the Russky Vestnik and Moskovskiye Vedomosti in order to prevent the honoring in Russia of the deceased writer, whose body “without any publicity, with special caution” should was to arrive in the capital from Paris for burial. The trace of Turgenev's ashes greatly worried the Minister of Internal Affairs D. A. Tolstoy, who feared spontaneous rallies. According to the editor of Vestnik Evropy, M. M. Stasyulevich, who accompanied Turgenev’s body, the precautions taken by officials were as inappropriate as if he had accompanied the Nightingale the Robber, and not the body of the great writer

Tombstone bust of Turgenev at Volkovskoye Cemetery

Monument to I. S. Turgenev

Bust of I. S. Turgenev

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turgenev,_Ivan_Sergeevich

Fiction writer and playwright
From “Smoke” to “Prose Poems”

And van Turgenev was one of the most significant Russian writers of the 19th century. The artistic system he created changed the poetics of the novel both in Russia and abroad. His works were praised and harshly criticized, and Turgenev spent his entire life searching in them for a path that would lead Russia to well-being and prosperity.

“Poet, talent, aristocrat, handsome”

Ivan Turgenev's family came from an old family of Tula nobles. His father, Sergei Turgenev, served in a cavalry regiment and led a very wasteful lifestyle. To improve his financial situation, he was forced to marry an elderly (by the standards of that time), but very wealthy landowner Varvara Lutovinova. The marriage became unhappy for both of them, their relationship did not work out. Their second son, Ivan, was born two years after the wedding, in 1818, in Orel. The mother wrote in her diary: “...on Monday my son Ivan was born, 12 inches tall [about 53 centimeters]”. There were three children in the Turgenev family: Nikolai, Ivan and Sergei.

Until he was nine years old, Turgenev lived on the Spasskoye-Lutovinovo estate in the Oryol region. His mother had a difficult and contradictory character: her sincere and heartfelt care for the children was combined with severe despotism; Varvara Turgeneva often beat her sons. However, she invited the best French and German tutors to her children, spoke exclusively French to her sons, but at the same time remained a fan of Russian literature and read Nikolai Karamzin, Vasily Zhukovsky, Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol.

In 1827, the Turgenevs moved to Moscow so that their children could receive a better education. Three years later, Sergei Turgenev left the family.

When Ivan Turgenev was 15 years old, he entered the literature department of Moscow University. It was then that the future writer first fell in love with Princess Ekaterina Shakhovskaya. Shakhovskaya exchanged letters with him, but reciprocated with Turgenev’s father and thereby broke his heart. Later, this story became the basis of Turgenev’s story “First Love.”

A year later, Sergei Turgenev died, and Varvara and her children moved to St. Petersburg, where Turgenev entered the Faculty of Philosophy at St. Petersburg University. Then he became seriously interested in lyricism and wrote his first work - the dramatic poem “Steno”. Turgenev spoke of her like this: “A completely absurd work, in which, with frenzied ineptitude, a slavish imitation of Byron’s Manfred was expressed.”. In total, during his years of study, Turgenev wrote about a hundred poems and several poems. Some of his poems were published by the Sovremennik magazine.

After his studies, 20-year-old Turgenev went to Europe to continue his education. He studied ancient classics, Roman and Greek literature, traveled to France, Holland, and Italy. The European way of life amazed Turgenev: he came to the conclusion that Russia must get rid of incivility, laziness, and ignorance, following the Western countries.

Unknown artist. Ivan Turgenev at the age of 12 years. 1830. State Literary Museum

Eugene Louis Lamy. Portrait of Ivan Turgenev. 1844. State Literary Museum

Kirill Gorbunkov. Ivan Turgenev in his youth. 1838. State Literary Museum

In the 1840s, Turgenev returned to his homeland, received a master's degree in Greek and Latin philology at St. Petersburg University, and even wrote a dissertation - but did not defend it. Interest in scientific activities replaced the desire to write. It was at this time that Turgenev met Nikolai Gogol, Sergei Aksakov, Alexei Khomyakov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Afanasy Fet and many other writers.

“The other day the poet Turgenev returned from Paris. What a man! Poet, talent, aristocrat, handsome, rich, smart, educated, 25 years old - I don’t know what nature denied him?”
Fyodor Dostoevsky, from a letter to his brother

When Turgenev returned to Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, he had an affair with a peasant woman, Avdotya Ivanova, which ended in the girl’s pregnancy. Turgenev wanted to get married, but his mother sent Avdotya to Moscow with a scandal, where she gave birth to a daughter, Pelageya. Avdotya Ivanova’s parents hastily married her off, and Turgenev recognized Pelageya only a few years later.

In 1843, Turgenev’s poem “Parasha” was published under the initials T.L. (Turgenev-Lutovinov). Vissarion Belinsky appreciated her very highly, and from that moment their acquaintance grew into a strong friendship - Turgenev even became the godfather of the critic’s son.

“This man is unusually smart... It’s gratifying to meet a person whose original and characteristic opinion, when colliding with yours, produces sparks.”
Vissarion Belinsky

In the same year, Turgenev met Polina Viardot. Researchers of Turgenev’s work are still arguing about the true nature of their relationship. They met in St. Petersburg when the singer came to the city on tour. Turgenev often traveled with Polina and her husband, art critic Louis Viardot, around Europe and stayed in their Parisian home. His illegitimate daughter Pelageya was raised in the Viardot family.

Fiction writer and playwright

In the late 1840s, Turgenev wrote a lot for the theater. His plays “The Freeloader”, “The Bachelor”, “A Month in the Country” and “Provincial Girl” were very popular with the public and warmly received by critics.

In 1847, Turgenev’s story “Khor and Kalinich”, created under the impression of the writer’s hunting travels, was published in the Sovremennik magazine. A little later, stories from the collection “Notes of a Hunter” were published there. The collection itself was published in 1852. Turgenev called it his “Annibal's Oath” - a promise to fight to the end against the enemy he hated since childhood - serfdom.

“Notes of a Hunter” is marked by such a powerful talent that has a beneficial effect on me; understanding nature often appears to you as a revelation.”
Fedor Tyutchev

This was one of the first works that openly spoke about the troubles and harm of serfdom. The censor who allowed “Notes of a Hunter” to be published was, by personal order of Nicholas I, dismissed from service and deprived of his pension, and the collection itself was prohibited from being republished. The censors explained this by saying that Turgenev, although he poeticized the serfs, criminally exaggerated their suffering from landlord oppression.

In 1856, the writer’s first major novel, “Rudin,” was published, written in just seven weeks. The name of the hero of the novel has become a household name for people whose words do not agree with deeds. Three years later, Turgenev published the novel “The Noble Nest,” which turned out to be incredibly popular in Russia: every educated person considered it his duty to read it.

“Knowledge of Russian life, and, moreover, knowledge not from books, but from experience, taken from reality, purified and comprehended by the power of talent and reflection, appears in all of Turgenev’s works...”
Dmitry Pisarev

From 1860 to 1861, excerpts from the novel Fathers and Sons were published in the Russian Messenger. The novel was written on the “spite of the day” and explored the public mood of the time - mainly the views of nihilistic youth. Russian philosopher and publicist Nikolai Strakhov wrote about him: “In Fathers and Sons he showed more clearly than in all other cases that poetry, while remaining poetry... can actively serve society...”

The novel was well received by critics, although it did not receive the support of liberals. At this time, Turgenev's relations with many friends became complicated. For example, with Alexander Herzen: Turgenev collaborated with his newspaper “Bell”. Herzen saw the future of Russia in peasant socialism, believing that bourgeois Europe had outlived its usefulness, and Turgenev defended the idea of strengthening cultural ties between Russia and the West.

Sharp criticism fell on Turgenev after the release of his novel “Smoke”. It was a novel-pamphlet that equally sharply ridiculed both the conservative Russian aristocracy and revolutionary-minded liberals. According to the author, everyone scolded him: “both red and white, and above, and below, and from the side - especially from the side.”

From “Smoke” to “Prose Poems”

Alexey Nikitin. Portrait of Ivan Turgenev. 1859. State Literary Museum

Osip Braz. Portrait of Maria Savina. 1900. State Literary Museum

Timofey Neff. Portrait of Pauline Viardot. 1842. State Literary Museum

After 1871, Turgenev lived in Paris, occasionally returning to Russia. He actively participated in the cultural life of Western Europe and promoted Russian literature abroad. Turgenev communicated and corresponded with Charles Dickens, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Prosper Merimee, Guy de Maupassant, and Gustave Flaubert.

In the second half of the 1870s, Turgenev published his most ambitious novel, Nov, in which he sharply satirically and critically portrayed members of the revolutionary movement of the 1870s.

“Both novels [“Smoke” and “Nov”] only revealed his increasing alienation from Russia, the first with its impotent bitterness, the second with insufficient information and the absence of any sense of reality in the depiction of the powerful movement of the seventies.”
Dmitry Svyatopolk-Mirsky

This novel, like “Smoke,” was not accepted by Turgenev’s colleagues. For example, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote that Nov was a service to the autocracy. At the same time, the popularity of Turgenev’s early stories and novels did not decrease.

The last years of the writer’s life became his triumph both in Russia and abroad. Then a cycle of lyrical miniatures “Poems in Prose” appeared. The book opened with the prose poem “Village”, and ended with “Russian Language” - the famous hymn about faith in the great destiny of one’s country: “In days of doubt, in days of painful thoughts about the fate of my homeland, you alone are my support and support, oh great, powerful, truthful and free Russian language!.. Without you, how not to fall into despair at the sight of everything that is happening at home . But one cannot believe that such a language was not given to a great people!” This collection became Turgenev's farewell to life and art.

At the same time, Turgenev met his last love - actress of the Alexandrinsky Theater Maria Savina. She was 25 years old when she played the role of Verochka in Turgenev's play A Month in the Country. Seeing her on stage, Turgenev was amazed and openly confessed his feelings to the girl. Maria considered Turgenev more of a friend and mentor, and their marriage never took place.

In recent years, Turgenev was seriously ill. Parisian doctors diagnosed him with angina pectoris and intercostal neuralgia. Turgenev died on September 3, 1883 in Bougival near Paris, where magnificent farewells were held. The writer was buried in St. Petersburg at the Volkovskoye cemetery. The writer's death came as a shock to his fans - and the procession of people who came to say goodbye to Turgenev stretched for several kilometers.