Encyclopedia, Difference between revisions of "Ivan Turgenev" - New World
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| − | {{epname}}{{Paid}}{{Approved}}{{Images OK}}{{Submitted}}{{Contracted}}{{Status}} | + | {{epname}}{{Copyedited}}{{Paid}}{{Approved}}{{Images OK}}{{Submitted}}{{Contracted}}{{Status}} |
| − | [[image:IvanTurgenev.jpeg|thumb|250px|right|Ivan Turgenev, photo by [[Félix Nadar]] ( | + | [[image:IvanTurgenev.jpeg|thumb|250px|right|Ivan Turgenev, photo by [[Félix Nadar]] (1820–1910)]] |
| − | '''Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev''' ({{langWithName|ru|Russian|Ива́н Серге́евич Турге́нев}}, | + | '''Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev''' ({{langWithName|ru|Russian|Ива́н Серге́евич Турге́нев}}, November 9, 1818 – September 3, 1883) was a major [[Russia]]n novelist and playwright. His [[novel]] ''[[Fathers and Sons]]*'' is regarded as a defining work of nineteenth-century [[fiction]]. Like his contemporaries, Turgenev was interested in the social and political issues of his time. ''Fathers and Sons'' captured the generation gap between Russia's first generation of liberals, and their more radical heirs. Beyond the generation gap, Turgenev portrayed the ineffectiveness of the older generation of liberals as the background for the rise of a new generation of radicals that represented a break with the past rather than an attempt to reform it. |
| − | Turgenev's novels were somewhat overshadowed by the size and scope of the other two great late | + | Turgenev's novels were somewhat overshadowed by the size and scope of the other two great late nineteenth-century [[Russia]] novelists, [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]] and [[Leo Tolstoy]]. While in content, his novels are decidedly [[Russia]]n, in style they have more in common with other nineteenth-century novelists, like [[Jane Austen]]. Like Austen, Turgenev writes novels of manners, a slice of life look at the interests and concerns of the Russian aristocracy. While best known for ''Fathers and Sons,'' he was perhaps more adept as a writer of [[short stories]]. Some of his stories are among the best in nineteenth-century [[fiction]]. |
==Life== | ==Life== | ||
| − | Turgenev was born on | + | Turgenev was born on November 9, 1818, into an old and wealthy family who owned a large estate in Orel, [[Russia]]. His father, Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev, a colonel of a cavalry regiment, died when he was sixteen, leaving Turgenev and his brother Nicholas to be brought up under the care of their abusive mother, Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova, who owned large estates and many serfs. After the normal schooling for a child of a gentleman's family, Turgenev studied for a year at the [[University of Moscow]], then the [[University of St. Petersburg]] focusing on the classics, [[Russian literature]], and [[philology]]. He was finally sent in 1838 to the [[University of Berlin]]. There his studies focused sharply on the [philosophy]] of [[Hegel]] and [[history]]. Turgenev was impressed with the more modern society he witnessed in Western Europe, returning home a committed "Westernizer." He believed that Russia could improve itself by imitating the West and abolishing outdated institutions such as serfdom. |
| − | Turgenev's early attempts in literature, poems and sketches | + | Turgenev's early attempts in literature, poems, and sketches had indications of genius and were favorably spoken of by [[Vissarion Belinsky|Belinsky]], then the leading Russian critic. During the latter part of his life, Turgenev did not reside much in Russia; he lived either at [[Baden-Baden]] or [[Paris]], often in proximity to the family of the celebrated singer [[Pauline Viardot]], for whom the author harbored an ardent, life-long admiration. His advances were rebuffed, but Turgenev became a family friend. Turgenev never married, although he had a daughter with one of his family's serfs. Tall and broad, Turgenev's personality was timid, restrained, and soft-spoken. His closest literary friend was [[Gustave Flaubert]]. Turgenev occasionally visited England, and in 1879 the degree of D.C.L. was conferred upon him by the [[University of Oxford]]. He died at [[Bougival]], near Paris, on September 4, 1883. |
==Early Career== | ==Early Career== | ||
| − | Turgenev made his name with ''[[A Sportsman's Sketches]]'' (''Записки охотника''), also known as ''Sketches From a Hunter's Album'' or ''Notes of a Hunter'' | + | Turgenev made his name with ''[[A Sportsman's Sketches]]*'' (''Записки охотника''), also known as ''Sketches From a Hunter's Album'' or ''Notes of a Hunter.'' Based on the author's own observations while sport hunting birds and hares in his mother's estate of Spasskoye, the work appeared in a collected form in 1852. As a writer, Turgenev excelled at description, especially landscape. He did not care for the complex psychological portraits of Russia's other great nineteenth-century novelists, [[Leo Tolstoy]] and [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]]. His talent did not lie in that direction, but in his ability to evoke a mood and paint a verbal portrait of the Russian countryside. His style of writing was unique. He kept a notebook of descriptions that he would fit into appropriate places in his novels. He did not really consider himself a novelist, and his novels were quite slender in comparison to most nineteenth-century Russian novels. He wrote many short stories as well. His novels, like his short stories, were based on rather simple plots, closer to drama than most novels, with fewer characters and subplots. |
| − | In 1852, after publication of his | + | In 1852, after publication of his sketches, he wrote a now notorious obituary to his idol [[Nikolai Gogol]] in the ''St. Petersburg Gazette.'' The key passage reads: “Gogol is dead!…what Russian heart is not shaken by those three words?.... He is gone, that man whom we now have the right, the bitter right given to us by death, to call great.” For reasons known only to the censors, its publication was banned and the young writer landed in prison for a month. Afterwards, he was forced into exile at his estate for nearly two years. |
| − | His novel ''Rudin'' was important not for its artistic merit, but because it told the story of the so-called men of the | + | His novel ''Rudin'' was important not for its artistic merit, but because it told the story of the so-called men of the 1840s, the generation of Russian liberals that opposed the authoritarian regime of the arch conservative [[Tsar Nicholas I]] but were generally weak and ineffective in their opposition. This spawned a type of character that would be popularized in certain nineteenth-century Russian novels, the "superfluous man." This character is idealistic but unable to effect any positive changes. Rudin is a good example. He is no longer young, but at 35, he still hangs on to his ideals yet is unable to act on them. What might have seemed noble for a student appears slightly ridiculous in a middle-aged man. When Natasha, a young woman, is inspired by his dreams and offers to elope with him, he is unable to muster the courage of his conviction in order to act, preferring to remain alone with his ideals. |
| − | His next work was ''A Nest of Nobles'' (''Дворянское гнездо'')in 1859, and was followed the next year by ''On the Eve'' (''Накануне''), a tale which contains another of his beautiful female characters, Helen. On the whole Turgenev's female characters are more noble and resolute than the males. 'On the Eve'(of reform) portrayed the Bulgarian | + | His next work was ''A Nest of Nobles'' (''Дворянское гнездо'') in 1859, and was followed the next year by ''On the Eve'' (''Накануне''), a tale which contains another of his beautiful female characters, Helen. On the whole, Turgenev's female characters are more noble and resolute than the males. ''On the Eve'' (of reform) portrayed the Bulgarian revolutionary Dmitri, continuing Turgenev's interest in social and political topics that made him quite popular in his day. |
==Fathers and Sons== | ==Fathers and Sons== | ||
| − | In 1862 his best and most successful novel,''Fathers and Sons'' (''Отцы и дети''), was published. The novel takes up the social | + | In 1862, his best and most successful novel, ''Fathers and Sons'' (''Отцы и дети''), was published. The novel takes up the social themes of the day, but as the title suggests, it is structured around a generational gap between two brothers, both "men of the 40s" and two representatives of the new radical intelligentsia, or "men of the 60s." Arkady Kirsanov is the son of a well-to-do landowner who invites his friend Bazarov to stay the summer with him at his family estate. This sets up a series of encounters with Arkady's father and especially his uncle, Pavel. Bazarov is a nihilist whose ideas elicit a heated response from Pavel. For the most part, Bazarov is more intelligent and gets the best of Pavel, leading to heated exchanges. When Pavel suspects Bazarov of trying to seduce his brother's mistress and challenges him to a duel, he is slightly wounded, but his ego takes a more grievous hit. However, while Bazarov easily bests Pavel, professing no belief other than science while dismissing liberal culture, he nonetheless falls in love with Madame Odintsova. She rejects him and, heartbroken, he lets himself go. Failing to dress a wound inflicted while dissecting a corpse, his wound becomes infected and he dies. Bazarov is heralded by many as one of the finest characters of the nineteenth-century novel, but he was not accepted by the younger generation, who thought that Turgenev was mocking them. Turgenev's more conservative readers did not appreciate his treatment of Pavel. They saw in him a caricature of their romantic idealism. The stinging criticism, especially from younger radicals, disappointed Turgenev and he wrote very little in the years following ''Fathers and Sons.'' |
==Later Career== | ==Later Career== | ||
| − | Turgenev's later novels, with their antiquated language and stilted situations, are considered inferior to his earlier efforts. ''Smoke'' (''Дым'') was published in 1867 and his last work of any length, ''Virgin Soil'' (''Новь''), was published in 1877. Aside from his longer stories, many shorter ones were produced, some of great beauty and full of subtle psychological analysis, such as ''[[Torrents of Spring]]'' (''Вешние воды''), ''[[First Love (novella)|First Love]]'' | + | Turgenev's later novels, with their antiquated language and stilted situations, are considered inferior to his earlier efforts. ''Smoke'' (''Дым'') was published in 1867 and his last work of any length, ''Virgin Soil'' (''Новь''), was published in 1877. Aside from his longer stories, many shorter ones were produced, some of great beauty and full of subtle psychological analysis, such as ''[[Torrents of Spring]]*'' (''Вешние воды''), ''[[First Love (novella)|First Love]]*,'' ''Asya,'' and others. These were later collected into three volumes. His last works were ''Poems in Prose'' and ''Clara Milich,'' which appeared in the ''European Messenger.'' Turgenev is considered one of the great [[Victorian era|Victorian]] novelists, ranked with [[William Makepeace Thackeray|Thackeray]], [[Nathaniel Hawthorne|Hawthorne]], and [[Henry James]]. A melancholy tone pervades his writings, conveying a tone of lost ideals and weakness. |
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'''Novels''' | '''Novels''' | ||
| − | * 1857 - ''[[Rudin]]'' | + | * 1857 - ''[[Rudin]]*'' |
| − | * 1859 - ''Дворянское гнездо'' (''Dvoryanskoye Gnezdo'' or ''[[Home of the Gentry]]'' | + | * 1859 - ''Дворянское гнездо'' (''Dvoryanskoye Gnezdo'' or ''[[Home of the Gentry]]*,'' ''A Nest of Gentlefolk,'' or ''A Nest of Nobles'') |
| − | * 1860 - ''Накануне'' (''Nakanune'' or ''[[On the Eve]]'') | + | * 1860 - ''Накануне'' (''Nakanune'' or ''[[On the Eve]]*'') |
| − | * 1862 - ''Отцы и дети'' (''Ottsy i Deti'' or ''[[Fathers and Sons]]'') | + | * 1862 - ''Отцы и дети'' (''Ottsy i Deti'' or ''[[Fathers and Sons]]*'') |
| − | * 1867 - ''Дым'' (''Dym'' or ''[[Smoke (novel) | Smoke]]'') | + | * 1867 - ''Дым'' (''Dym'' or ''[[Smoke (novel) | Smoke]]*'') |
| − | * 1877 - ''Новь'' (''[[Virgin Soil]]'') | + | * 1877 - ''Новь'' (''[[Virgin Soil]]*'') |
'''Short Stories''' | '''Short Stories''' | ||
| − | * 1850 - ''Dnevnik Lishnego Cheloveka'' (''[[The Diary of a Superfluous Man]]'') | + | * 1850 - ''Dnevnik Lishnego Cheloveka'' (''[[The Diary of a Superfluous Man]]*'') |
| − | * 1851 - ''Provintsialka'' (''[[The Provincial Lady]]'') | + | * 1851 - ''Provintsialka'' (''[[The Provincial Lady]]*'') |
| − | * 1852 - ''Записки охотника'' (''Zapiski Okhotnika'' or ''[[A Sportsman's Sketches]]'') | + | * 1852 - ''Записки охотника'' (''Zapiski Okhotnika'' or ''[[A Sportsman's Sketches]]*'') |
| − | * 1858 - ''Acia'' (''[[Asia (novel) | Asia ]]'') | + | * 1858 - ''Acia'' (''[[Asia (novel)|Asia ]]*'') |
| − | * 1860 - ''<nowiki>Pervaia Liubov'</nowiki>'' (''[[First Love (novella)|First Love]]'') | + | * 1860 - ''<nowiki>Pervaia Liubov'</nowiki>'' (''[[First Love (novella)|First Love]]*'') |
| − | * 1870 - ''<nowiki>Stepnoy Korol' Lir</nowiki>'' (''[[A Lear of the Steppes]]'') | + | * 1870 - ''<nowiki>Stepnoy Korol' Lir</nowiki>'' (''[[A Lear of the Steppes]]*'') |
| − | * 1872 - | + | * 1872 - ''Вешние воды'' (''Veshinye Vody'' or ''[[Torrents of Spring]]*'' or ''Spring Torrents'') |
| − | * 1881 - ''<nowiki>Pesn' Torzhestvuiushchei Liubvi</nowiki>'' (''[[The Song of the Triumphant Love]]'') | + | * 1881 - ''<nowiki>Pesn' Torzhestvuiushchei Liubvi</nowiki>'' (''[[The Song of the Triumphant Love]]*'') |
| − | * 1882 - ''Klara Milich'' (''[[The Mysterious Tales]]'') | + | * 1882 - ''Klara Milich'' (''[[The Mysterious Tales]]*'') |
'''Plays''' | '''Plays''' | ||
| − | * 1849/1856 - ''[[Zavtrak u Predvoditelia]]'' | + | * 1849/1856 - ''[[Zavtrak u Predvoditelia]]*'' |
| − | * 1850/1851 - ''Razgovor na Bol'shoi Doroge'' (''[[A Conversation on the Highway]]'') | + | * 1850/1851 - ''Razgovor na Bol'shoi Doroge'' (''[[A Conversation on the Highway]]*'') |
| − | * 1846/1852 - ''Bezdenezh'e'' (''[[The Poor Gentleman]]'') | + | * 1846/1852 - ''Bezdenezh'e'' (''[[The Poor Gentleman]]*'') |
| − | * 1857/1862 - ''Nakhlebnik'' (''[[The Family Charge]]'') | + | * 1857/1862 - ''Nakhlebnik'' (''[[The Family Charge]]*'') |
| − | * 1855/1872 - ''Mesiats v Derevne'' (''[[A Month in the Country (play)|A Month in the Country]]'') | + | * 1855/1872 - ''Mesiats v Derevne'' (''[[A Month in the Country (play)|A Month in the Country]]*'') |
| − | * 1882 - ''Vecher V Sorrente'' (''[[An Evening in Sorrento]]'') | + | * 1882 - ''Vecher V Sorrente'' (''[[An Evening in Sorrento]]*'') |
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | |||
==External Links== | ==External Links== | ||
Revision as of 20:15, 7 April 2006
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (Russian: Ива́н Серге́евич Турге́нев, November 9, 1818 – September 3, 1883) was a major Russian novelist and playwright. His novel Fathers and Sons is regarded as a defining work of nineteenth-century fiction. Like his contemporaries, Turgenev was interested in the social and political issues of his time. Fathers and Sons captured the generation gap between Russia's first generation of liberals, and their more radical heirs. Beyond the generation gap, Turgenev portrayed the ineffectiveness of the older generation of liberals as the background for the rise of a new generation of radicals that represented a break with the past rather than an attempt to reform it.
Turgenev's novels were somewhat overshadowed by the size and scope of the other two great late nineteenth-century Russia novelists, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. While in content, his novels are decidedly Russian, in style they have more in common with other nineteenth-century novelists, like Jane Austen. Like Austen, Turgenev writes novels of manners, a slice of life look at the interests and concerns of the Russian aristocracy. While best known for Fathers and Sons, he was perhaps more adept as a writer of short stories. Some of his stories are among the best in nineteenth-century fiction.
Life
Turgenev was born on November 9, 1818, into an old and wealthy family who owned a large estate in Orel, Russia. His father, Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev, a colonel of a cavalry regiment, died when he was sixteen, leaving Turgenev and his brother Nicholas to be brought up under the care of their abusive mother, Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova, who owned large estates and many serfs. After the normal schooling for a child of a gentleman's family, Turgenev studied for a year at the University of Moscow, then the University of St. Petersburg focusing on the classics, Russian literature, and philology. He was finally sent in 1838 to the University of Berlin. There his studies focused sharply on the [philosophy]] of Hegel and history. Turgenev was impressed with the more modern society he witnessed in Western Europe, returning home a committed "Westernizer." He believed that Russia could improve itself by imitating the West and abolishing outdated institutions such as serfdom.
Turgenev's early attempts in literature, poems, and sketches had indications of genius and were favorably spoken of by Belinsky, then the leading Russian critic. During the latter part of his life, Turgenev did not reside much in Russia; he lived either at Baden-Baden or Paris, often in proximity to the family of the celebrated singer Pauline Viardot, for whom the author harbored an ardent, life-long admiration. His advances were rebuffed, but Turgenev became a family friend. Turgenev never married, although he had a daughter with one of his family's serfs. Tall and broad, Turgenev's personality was timid, restrained, and soft-spoken. His closest literary friend was Gustave Flaubert. Turgenev occasionally visited England, and in 1879 the degree of D.C.L. was conferred upon him by the University of Oxford. He died at Bougival, near Paris, on September 4, 1883.
Early Career
Turgenev made his name with A Sportsman's Sketches (Записки охотника), also known as Sketches From a Hunter's Album or Notes of a Hunter. Based on the author's own observations while sport hunting birds and hares in his mother's estate of Spasskoye, the work appeared in a collected form in 1852. As a writer, Turgenev excelled at description, especially landscape. He did not care for the complex psychological portraits of Russia's other great nineteenth-century novelists, Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky. His talent did not lie in that direction, but in his ability to evoke a mood and paint a verbal portrait of the Russian countryside. His style of writing was unique. He kept a notebook of descriptions that he would fit into appropriate places in his novels. He did not really consider himself a novelist, and his novels were quite slender in comparison to most nineteenth-century Russian novels. He wrote many short stories as well. His novels, like his short stories, were based on rather simple plots, closer to drama than most novels, with fewer characters and subplots.
In 1852, after publication of his sketches, he wrote a now notorious obituary to his idol Nikolai Gogol in the St. Petersburg Gazette. The key passage reads: “Gogol is dead!…what Russian heart is not shaken by those three words?.... He is gone, that man whom we now have the right, the bitter right given to us by death, to call great.” For reasons known only to the censors, its publication was banned and the young writer landed in prison for a month. Afterwards, he was forced into exile at his estate for nearly two years.
His novel Rudin was important not for its artistic merit, but because it told the story of the so-called men of the 1840s, the generation of Russian liberals that opposed the authoritarian regime of the arch conservative Tsar Nicholas I but were generally weak and ineffective in their opposition. This spawned a type of character that would be popularized in certain nineteenth-century Russian novels, the "superfluous man." This character is idealistic but unable to effect any positive changes. Rudin is a good example. He is no longer young, but at 35, he still hangs on to his ideals yet is unable to act on them. What might have seemed noble for a student appears slightly ridiculous in a middle-aged man. When Natasha, a young woman, is inspired by his dreams and offers to elope with him, he is unable to muster the courage of his conviction in order to act, preferring to remain alone with his ideals.
His next work was A Nest of Nobles (Дворянское гнездо) in 1859, and was followed the next year by On the Eve (Накануне), a tale which contains another of his beautiful female characters, Helen. On the whole, Turgenev's female characters are more noble and resolute than the males. On the Eve (of reform) portrayed the Bulgarian revolutionary Dmitri, continuing Turgenev's interest in social and political topics that made him quite popular in his day.
Fathers and Sons
In 1862, his best and most successful novel, Fathers and Sons (Отцы и дети), was published. The novel takes up the social themes of the day, but as the title suggests, it is structured around a generational gap between two brothers, both "men of the 40s" and two representatives of the new radical intelligentsia, or "men of the 60s." Arkady Kirsanov is the son of a well-to-do landowner who invites his friend Bazarov to stay the summer with him at his family estate. This sets up a series of encounters with Arkady's father and especially his uncle, Pavel. Bazarov is a nihilist whose ideas elicit a heated response from Pavel. For the most part, Bazarov is more intelligent and gets the best of Pavel, leading to heated exchanges. When Pavel suspects Bazarov of trying to seduce his brother's mistress and challenges him to a duel, he is slightly wounded, but his ego takes a more grievous hit. However, while Bazarov easily bests Pavel, professing no belief other than science while dismissing liberal culture, he nonetheless falls in love with Madame Odintsova. She rejects him and, heartbroken, he lets himself go. Failing to dress a wound inflicted while dissecting a corpse, his wound becomes infected and he dies. Bazarov is heralded by many as one of the finest characters of the nineteenth-century novel, but he was not accepted by the younger generation, who thought that Turgenev was mocking them. Turgenev's more conservative readers did not appreciate his treatment of Pavel. They saw in him a caricature of their romantic idealism. The stinging criticism, especially from younger radicals, disappointed Turgenev and he wrote very little in the years following Fathers and Sons.
Later Career
Turgenev's later novels, with their antiquated language and stilted situations, are considered inferior to his earlier efforts. Smoke (Дым) was published in 1867 and his last work of any length, Virgin Soil (Новь), was published in 1877. Aside from his longer stories, many shorter ones were produced, some of great beauty and full of subtle psychological analysis, such as Torrents of Spring (Вешние воды), First Love, Asya, and others. These were later collected into three volumes. His last works were Poems in Prose and Clara Milich, which appeared in the European Messenger. Turgenev is considered one of the great Victorian novelists, ranked with Thackeray, Hawthorne, and Henry James. A melancholy tone pervades his writings, conveying a tone of lost ideals and weakness.
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
Bibliography
Novels
- 1857 - Rudin
- 1859 - Дворянское гнездо (Dvoryanskoye Gnezdo or Home of the Gentry, A Nest of Gentlefolk, or A Nest of Nobles)
- 1860 - Накануне (Nakanune or On the Eve)
- 1862 - Отцы и дети (Ottsy i Deti or Fathers and Sons)
- 1867 - Дым (Dym or Smoke)
- 1877 - Новь (Virgin Soil)
Short Stories
- 1850 - Dnevnik Lishnego Cheloveka (The Diary of a Superfluous Man)
- 1851 - Provintsialka (The Provincial Lady)
- 1852 - Записки охотника (Zapiski Okhotnika or A Sportsman's Sketches)
- 1858 - Acia (Asia )
- 1860 - Pervaia Liubov' (First Love)
- 1870 - Stepnoy Korol' Lir (A Lear of the Steppes)
- 1872 - Вешние воды (Veshinye Vody or Torrents of Spring or Spring Torrents)
- 1881 - Pesn' Torzhestvuiushchei Liubvi (The Song of the Triumphant Love)
- 1882 - Klara Milich (The Mysterious Tales)
Plays
- 1849/1856 - Zavtrak u Predvoditelia
- 1850/1851 - Razgovor na Bol'shoi Doroge (A Conversation on the Highway)
- 1846/1852 - Bezdenezh'e (The Poor Gentleman)
- 1857/1862 - Nakhlebnik (The Family Charge)
- 1855/1872 - Mesiats v Derevne (A Month in the Country)
- 1882 - Vecher V Sorrente (An Evening in Sorrento)
External Links
- Short biography
- Works by Ivan Turgenev. Project Gutenberg
Credits
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