Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev - famous Russian writer, poet, translator, member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1860).
Orel city
Lithography. 1850s
“1818 October 28, Monday, son Ivan was born, 12 vershoks, in Orel, in his house, at 12 o'clock in the morning” - this entry was made in her memorable book by Varvara Petrovna Turgeneva.
Ivan Sergeevich was her second son. The first, Nikolai, was born two years earlier, and in 1821 another boy, Sergei, appeared in the Turgenev family.
Parents
It is difficult to imagine more different people than the parents of the future writer.
Mother - Varvara Petrovna, nee Lutovinova - a powerful woman, intelligent and sufficiently educated, did not shine with beauty. She was short, short, with a broad face, spoiled by smallpox. And only the eyes were good: large, dark and shiny.
Varvara Petrovna was already thirty years old when she met a young officer Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev. He came from an old noble family, which, however, had already become scarce by that time. Only a small estate remained of the former wealth. Sergei Nikolaevich was handsome, graceful, smart. And it is not surprising that he made an irresistible impression on Varvara Petrovna, and she made it clear that if Sergei Nikolaevich wooed, then there would be no refusal.
The young officer did not hesitate long. And although the bride was six years older than him and did not differ in attractiveness, the enormous lands and thousands of serf souls that she owned determined the decision of Sergei Nikolaevich.
At the beginning of 1816, the wedding took place, and the young people settled in Orel.
Varvara Petrovna idolized and feared her husband. She gave him complete freedom and did not restrict him in anything. Sergei Nikolaevich lived the way he wanted, without burdening himself with worries about the family and household. In 1821 he retired and together with his family moved to the estate of his wife Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, seventy miles from Orel.
The future writer spent his childhood in Spassky-Lutovinovo near the town of Mtsensk, Oryol province. Much in the work of Turgenev is connected with this family estate of his mother Varvara Petrovna, a stern and imperious woman. In the estates and estates described by him, the features of his dear "nest" are invariably visible. Turgenev considered himself to be indebted to the Oryol region, its nature and inhabitants.
The estate of the Turgenevs Spasskoye-Lutovinovo was located in a birch grove on a gentle hill. Around the spacious two-story manor house with columns, to which semicircular galleries adjoined, a huge park with linden alleys, orchards and flower gardens was laid out.
Years of study
The upbringing of children at an early age was mainly occupied by Varvara Petrovna. Gusts of solicitude, attention and tenderness were replaced by bouts of bitterness and petty tyranny. By her order, children were punished for the slightest offenses, and sometimes for no reason. “I have nothing to remember my childhood with,” Turgenev said many years later. “Not a single bright memory. I was afraid of my mother like fire. I was punished for every trifle - in a word, drilled like a recruit. "
The Turgenevs' house had a fairly large library. In huge cupboards were kept works of ancient writers and poets, works of French encyclopedists: Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, novels by V. Scott, de Stael, Chateaubriand; works of Russian writers: Lomonosov, Sumarokov, Karamzin, Dmitriev, Zhukovsky, as well as books on history, natural history, botany. Soon the library became Turgenev's favorite place in the house, where he sometimes spent whole days. To a large extent, the boy's interest in literature was supported by his mother, who read quite a lot and knew well French literature and Russian poetry of the late 18th - early 19th centuries.
In early 1827, the Turgenev family moved to Moscow: it was time to prepare the children for admission to educational institutions. First, Nikolai and Ivan were placed in the private boarding school of Winterkeller, and then in the Krause boarding house, later called the Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages. The brothers did not study here for long - only a few months.
Their further education was entrusted to home teachers. With them they studied Russian literature, history, geography, mathematics, foreign languages \u200b\u200b- German, French, English, - drawing. Russian history was taught by the poet I. P. Klyushnikov, and the Russian language was taught by D. N. Dubensky, a well-known researcher of the Lay of Igor's Host.
University years. 1833-1837.
Turgenev was not yet fifteen years old when, having successfully passed the entrance exams, he became a student of the verbal department of Moscow University.
Moscow University at that time was the main center of advanced Russian thought. Among the young people who came to the university in the late 1820s and early 1830s, the memory of the Decembrists, who opposed the autocracy with arms in their hands, was sacredly kept. The students closely followed the events that took place then in Russia and in Europe. Turgenev later said that it was during these years that "very free, almost republican convictions" began to take shape in him.
Of course, Turgenev had not yet developed an integral and consistent worldview in those years. He was barely sixteen years old. It was a period of growth, a period of searching and doubt.
Turgenev studied at Moscow University for only one year. After his older brother Nikolai entered the guards artillery stationed in St. Petersburg, his father decided that the brothers should not be separated, and therefore in the summer of 1834, Turgenev applied for a transfer to the Philological Department of the Philological Faculty of St. Petersburg University.
No sooner had the Turgenev family settled in the capital than Sergei Nikolaevich suddenly died. The death of his father deeply shocked Turgenev and made him for the first time seriously think about life and death, about the place of man in the eternal movement of nature. The young man's thoughts and experiences were reflected in a number of lyric poems, as well as in the dramatic poem Steno (1834). The first literary experiments of Turgenev were created under the strongest influence of the then dominant romanticism in literature, and above all the poetry of Byron. The hero of Turgenev is an ardent, passionate, full of enthusiastic aspirations, a person who does not want to put up with the evil world around him, but also cannot find use for his forces and in the end dies tragically. Later, Turgenev was very skeptical about this poem, calling it "an absurd work in which a slavish imitation of Byron's Manfred was expressed with childish ineptitude."
However, it should be noted that the poem "Steno" reflected the thoughts of the young poet about the meaning of life and about the purpose of a person in it, that is, questions that many great poets of that time tried to resolve: Goethe, Schiller, Byron.
After the Moscow Metropolitan University, Turgenev seemed colorless. Here everything was different: there was not that atmosphere of friendship and comradeship to which he was accustomed, there was no desire for live communication and disputes, few people were interested in issues of public life. And the composition of the students was different. Among them were many young men from aristocratic families who had little interest in science.
Teaching at St. Petersburg University was carried out according to a fairly broad program. But students did not receive serious knowledge. There were no interesting teachers. Only the professor of Russian literature, Peter Alexandrovich Pletnev, was closer to Turgenev than others.
During his studies at the university, Turgenev developed a deep interest in music and theater. He often attended concerts, opera and drama theaters.
After graduating from the university, Turgenev decided to continue his education and in May 1838 went to Berlin.
Studying abroad. 1838-1940.
After Petersburg, Turgenev found Berlin to be prim and a little boring. "What can you say about the city," he wrote, "where they get up at six in the morning, have dinner at two and go to bed earlier than hens, about the city where at ten in the evening, only melancholy and beer-laden watchmen wander the deserted streets ..."
But the university classrooms at the University of Berlin were always crowded. The lecture was attended not only by students, but also by free listeners - officers, officials who sought to join science.
Already the first classes at the University of Berlin discovered gaps in his education in Turgenev. Later he wrote: “I studied philosophy, ancient languages, history and studied Hegel with particular zeal ... but at home I was forced to cram Latin grammar and Greek, which I knew poorly. And I was not one of the worst candidates. "
Turgenev diligently comprehended the wisdom of German philosophy, and in his free time he attended theaters and concerts. Music and theater became a true need for him. He listened to operas by Mozart and Gluck, Beethoven's symphonies, watched the dramas of Shakespeare and Schiller.
Living abroad, Turgenev never stopped thinking about his homeland, about his people, about its present and future.
Even then, in 1840, Turgenev believed in the great destiny of his people, in their strength and endurance.
Finally, listening to a course of lectures at the University of Berlin ended, and in May 1841 Turgenev returned to Russia and in the most serious way began to prepare himself for scientific activity. He dreamed of becoming a professor of philosophy.
Return to Russia. Service.
Passion for the philosophical sciences is one of the characteristic features of the social movement in Russia in the late 1830s and early 1840s. The progressive people of that time tried to explain the world around and the contradictions of Russian reality with the help of abstract philosophical categories, to find answers to the burning questions of our time that worried them.
However, Turgenev's plans changed. He became disillusioned with idealistic philosophy and gave up hope with its help to resolve the issues that worried him. In addition, Turgenev came to the conclusion that science is not his vocation.
At the beginning of 1842, Ivan Sergeevich submitted a petition to the Minister of Internal Affairs to enlist him in the service and was soon received by an official for special assignments in the office under the command of V.I. Dahl, a famous writer and ethnographer. However, Turgenev did not serve for long and in May 1845 he retired.
Staying in the public service gave him the opportunity to collect a lot of vital material associated primarily with the tragic situation of the peasants and the destructive power of serfdom, since in the office where Turgenev served, cases of punishment of serfs, all kinds of abuses of officials, etc., were often considered. It was at this time that Turgenev developed a sharply negative attitude towards the bureaucratic order prevailing in state institutions, towards the callousness and selfishness of St. Petersburg officials. In general, life in St. Petersburg made a depressing impression on Turgenev.
I.S.Turgenev's work.
The first piece I. S. Turgenev can be considered a dramatic poem "Steno" (1834), which he wrote with iambic pentameter as a student, and in 1836 showed it to his university teacher P. A. Pletnev.
The first publication in print was a small review of the book by A. N. Muravyov "A Journey to the Holy Places of Russia" (1836). Many years later, Turgenev explained the appearance of this first printed work of his: “I had just passed seventeen years, I was a student at St. Petersburg University; my relatives, in order to ensure my future career, recommended me to Serbinovich, the then publisher of the Journal of the Ministry of Education. Serbinovich, whom I saw only once, probably wishing to test my abilities, handed me ... Muravyov's book so that I could take it apart; I wrote something about it - and now, almost forty years later, I learn that this “something” has deserved to be stamped. "
His first works were poetic. His poems, beginning in the late 1830s, began to appear in the magazines Sovremennik and Otechestvennye zapiski. They clearly heard the motives of the then dominant romantic trend, echoes of the poetry of Zhukovsky, Kozlov, Benediktov. Most of the poems are elegiac reflections about love, about aimlessly spent youth. They, as a rule, were permeated with motives of sadness, grief, longing. Turgenev himself later was very skeptical of his poems and poems written at that time, and never included them in his collected works. "I feel a positive, almost physical antipathy to my poems ..." he wrote in 1874, "I would give dearly so that they do not exist at all in the world."
Turgenev was unjust when he spoke so harshly about his poetic experiences. Among them you can find many talentedly written poems, many of which were highly appreciated by readers and critics: "Ballad", "Again one, one ...", "Spring evening", "Misty morning, gray morning ..." and others ... Some of them were later set to music and became popular romances.
The beginning of his literary career Turgenev counted 1843 when his poem "Parasha" appeared in print, which opened a whole series of works devoted to the debunking of the romantic hero. "Parasha" met a very sympathetic response from Belinsky, who saw in the young author "an extraordinary poetic talent", "faithful observation, deep thought", "a son of our time, carrying in his chest all his sorrows and his questions."
First prose work I. S. Turgenev - the essay "Khor and Kalinich" (1847), published in the journal "Sovremennik" and opened a whole cycle of works under the general title "Notes of a Hunter" (1847-1852). The Hunter's Notes were created by Turgenev at the turn of the forties and early fifties and appeared in print in the form of separate stories and essays. In 1852, they were combined by the writer into a book, which became a major event in Russian social and literary life. According to ME Saltykov-Shchedrin, "Notes of a Hunter" "laid the foundation for a whole literature, which has as its object the people and their needs."
"Notes of a Hunter" is a book about the life of the people in the era of serfdom. How the living appear from the pages of the "Notes of a Hunter" images of peasants, distinguished by a sharp practical mind, a deep understanding of life, a sober look at the world around them, able to feel and understand the beautiful, respond to someone else's grief and suffering. Before Turgenev, no one had portrayed the people like that in Russian literature. And it is no coincidence, after reading the first essay from the "Notes of a Hunter -" Khor and Kalinych "," Belinsky noticed that Turgenev "came to the people from a side from which no one had come before him."
Turgenev wrote most of the Hunter's Notes in France.
Works by I.S.Turgenev
Stories: a collection of stories "Notes of a Hunter" (1847-1852), "Mumu" (1852), "The Story of Father Alexei" (1877), etc .;
Stories: Asya (1858), First Love (1860), Spring Waters (1872), etc .;
Novels: Rudin (1856), Noble Nest (1859), On the Eve (1860), Fathers and Sons (1862), Smoke (1867), New (1877);
Plays: "Breakfast at the Leader's" (1846), "Where it is thin, there it breaks" (1847), "Bachelor" (1849), "Provincial" (1850), "A month in the country" (1854), etc .;
Poetry: the dramatic poem Steno (1834), poems (1834-1849), the poem Parasha (1843), etc., the literary and philosophical Poems in Prose (1882);
Translations Byron D., Goethe I., Whitman W., Flaubert G.
As well as criticism, journalism, memoirs and correspondence.
Love through life
Turgenev met the famous French singer Pauline Viardot back in 1843, in St. Petersburg, where she came on tour. The singer performed a lot and successfully, Turgenev attended all her performances, told everyone about her, extolled her everywhere, and quickly separated from the crowd of her countless fans. Their relationship developed and soon reached its climax. The summer of 1848 (like the previous one, as well as the next), he spent in Courtavenel, on the estate of Pauline.
Love for Pauline Viardot remained both happiness and torment of Turgenev until his last days: Viardot was married, she was not going to divorce her husband, but she did not drive Turgenev. He felt himself on a leash. but he could not break this thread. For more than thirty years, the writer, in fact, turned into a member of the Viardot family. Pauline's husband (a man, apparently, of angelic patience), Louis Viardot, he survived by only three months.
Sovremennik magazine
Belinsky and his associates have long dreamed of having their own organ. This dream came true only in 1846, when Nekrasov and Panaev managed to purchase the Sovremennik magazine on lease, founded in due time by A. Pushkin and published by P. A. Pletnev after his death. Turgenev took the most direct part in the organization of the new magazine. According to PV Annenkov, Turgenev was “the soul of the whole plan, its organizer ... Nekrasov consulted with him every day; the magazine was filled with his works ”.
In January 1847, the first issue of the updated Sovremennik was published. Turgenev published several works in it: a cycle of poems, a review of N. V. Kukolnik's tragedy "Lieutenant General Patkul ...", "Contemporary Notes" (together with Nekrasov). But the essay "Khor and Kalinich", which opened a whole cycle of works under the general title "Notes of a Hunter", was the real decoration of the first book of the magazine.
Recognition in the West
Since the 60s, the name of Turgenev has become widely known in the West. Turgenev maintained close friendly relations with many Western European writers. He was well acquainted with P. Mérimée, J. Sand, G. Flaubert, E. Zola, A. Daudet, Guy de Maupassant, and knew many figures of English and German culture. All of them considered Turgenev an outstanding realist painter and not only highly appreciated his works, but also learned from him. Addressing Turgenev, J. Sand said: “Teacher! "We must all go through your school!"
Turgenev spent almost his entire life in Europe, only visiting Russia. He was a prominent figure in the literary life of the West. He closely communicated with many French writers, and in 1878 he even chaired (together with Victor Hugo) at the International Literary Congress in Paris. It is no accident that it was with Turgenev that the worldwide recognition of Russian literature began.
Turgenev's greatest merit was that he was an active promoter of Russian literature and culture in the West: he himself translated the works of Russian writers into French and German, edited translations of Russian authors, contributed in every way to the publication of the works of his compatriots in different countries of Western Europe, introduced the Western European public to works of Russian composers and artists. About this side of his activity, Turgenev said not without pride: "I consider it a great happiness of my life that I have brought my fatherland a little closer to the perception of the European public."
Connection with Russia
Almost every spring or summer Turgenev came to Russia. Each of his visits became a whole event. The writer was a welcome guest everywhere. He was invited to speak at all kinds of literary and charity evenings, at friendly meetings.
At the same time, Ivan Sergeevich kept the "lordly" habits of a native Russian nobleman until the end of his life. The very appearance betrayed its origin to the inhabitants of European resorts, despite the impeccable command of foreign languages. In the best pages of his prose, there is a lot of the silence of the manor house life of landlord Russia. Hardly any of the writers of Turgenev's contemporaries have so pure and correct the Russian language, capable, as he himself used to say, "to perform miracles in capable hands." Turgenev often wrote his novels "on the topic of the day."
The last time Turgenev visited his homeland was in May 1881. To his friends, he repeatedly "expressed his determination to return to Russia and settle there." However, this dream did not come true. At the beginning of 1882, Turgenev fell seriously ill, and there could be no question of moving. But all his thoughts were at home, in Russia. He was thinking about her, bedridden with a serious illness, about her future, about the glory of Russian literature.
Shortly before his death, he expressed a desire to be buried in St. Petersburg, at the Volkov cemetery, next to Belinsky.
The last will of the writer was done
"Poems in Prose".
"Poems in Prose" are rightly considered the final chord of the writer's literary activity. They reflected almost all the themes and motives of his work, as if re-experienced by Turgenev in his declining years. He himself considered "Poems in Prose" only sketches of his future works.
Turgenev called his lyrical miniatures "Selenia" ("Senile"), but the editor of the "Vestnik Evropy" Stasi-levich replaced him with another, which remained forever, - "Poems in Prose". In his letters, Turgenev sometimes called them "Zigzags", thereby emphasizing the contrast of themes and motives, images and intonations, the uniqueness of the genre. The writer feared that "the river of time in its course" "will carry away these light sheets." But "Poems in Prose" met the most cordial welcome and forever entered the golden fund of our literature. It is not without reason that PV Annenkov called them “a cloth of the sun, rainbows and diamonds, women's tears and the nobility of men's thought”, expressing the general opinion of the reading public.
"Poems in Prose" is an amazing fusion of poetry and prose into a kind of unity that allows you to fit "the whole world" into the grain of small reflections, called by the author "the last breaths of ... the old man." But these "sighs" brought to our days the inexhaustible energy of the writer.
Monuments to I.S.Turgenev
Literary critics argue that the artistic system created by the classic changed the poetics of the novel in the second half of the 19th century. Ivan Turgenev was the first to feel the appearance of the "new man" - the sixties - and showed him in his work "Fathers and Sons". Thanks to the realist writer, the term "nihilist" was born in Russian. Ivan Sergeevich introduced into everyday life the image of a compatriot, who received the definition of "Turgenev girl".
Childhood and youth
One of the pillars of classical Russian literature was born in Orel, in an old noble family. Ivan Sergeevich's childhood passed in the mother's estate Spasskoye-Lutovinovo not far from Mtsensk. He became the second son of three born to Varvara Lutovinova and Sergei Turgenev.
The family life of the parents did not work out. The father, who had missed the fortune of a handsome cavalry guard, by calculation married not a beautiful woman, but a wealthy girl, Barbara, who was 6 years older than him. When Ivan Turgenev turned 12, his father left the family, leaving three children in the care of his wife. 4 years later, Sergei Nikolaevich died. Soon the youngest son Sergei died of epilepsy.
Nikolai and Ivan had a hard time - their mother had a despotic character. An intelligent and educated woman had a lot of grief in her childhood and youth. Varvara Lutovinova's father died when her daughter was a child. Mother, an absurd and oppressive lady, whose image the readers saw in Turgenev's story "Death", remarried. The stepfather drank and did not hesitate to beat and humiliate his stepdaughter. She did not treat her daughter and mother in the best way. Due to the cruelty of her mother and the beatings of her stepfather, the girl fled to her uncle, who left her niece after her death as an inheritance of 5 thousand serfs.
The mother, who did not know affection in childhood, although she loved children, especially Vanya, but treated them in the same way as her parents treated her in childhood - the sons will forever remember mother's heavy hand. Despite her absurd disposition, Varvara Petrovna was an educated woman. With her family, she spoke exclusively in French, demanding the same from Ivan and Nikolai. A rich library was kept in Spasskoye, consisting mainly of French books.
Ivan Turgenev at the age of 7 When Ivan Turgenev turned 9, the family moved to the capital, to a house on Neglinka. Mom read a lot and instilled in the children a love of literature. Preferring French writers, Lutovinova-Turgeneva followed literary novelties, and was friends with Mikhail Zagoskin. Varvara Petrovna thoroughly knew the work, and quoted them in her correspondence with her son.
The education of Ivan Turgenev was carried out by tutors from Germany and France, on whom the landowner spared no money. The wealth of Russian literature was discovered by the serf valet Fyodor Lobanov, who became the prototype of the hero of the story "Punin and Baburin".
After moving to Moscow, Ivan Turgenev was assigned to the boarding house of Ivan Krause. At home and in private boarding houses, the young master completed a high school course, at the age of 15 he became a student at the Moscow University. At the Faculty of Literature, Ivan Turgenev studied a course, then transferred to St. Petersburg, where he received a university education at the Faculty of History and Philosophy.
In his student years, Turgenev translated poetry and the Lord and dreamed of becoming a poet.
After receiving his diploma in 1838, Ivan Turgenev continued his education in Germany. In Berlin he attended a course of university lectures on philosophy and philology, wrote poetry. After the Christmas holidays in Russia, Turgenev went to Italy for six months, from where he returned to Berlin.
In the spring of 1841, Ivan Turgenev arrived in Russia and a year later passed the exams, receiving a master's degree in philosophy at St. Petersburg University. In 1843, he entered the Ministry of the Interior, but his love for writing and literature outweighed.
Literature
For the first time Ivan Turgenev appeared in print in 1836, having published a review of Andrei Muravyov's book "A Journey to the Holy Places". A year later he wrote and published the poems "Calm at Sea", "Phantasmagoria on a Moonlit Night" and "Dream".
Fame came in 1843, when Ivan Sergeevich composed the poem Parasha, approved by Vissarion Belinsky. Soon, Turgenev and Belinsky became so close that the young writer became the godfather of the son of the famous critic. Rapprochement with Belinsky and Nikolai Nekrasov influenced the creative biography of Ivan Turgenev: the writer finally said goodbye to the genre of romanticism, which became apparent after the publication of the poem "Landowner" and the stories "Andrei Kolosov", "Three portraits" and "Breter".
Ivan Turgenev returned to Russia in 1850. He lived first in his family estate, then in Moscow, then in Petersburg, where he wrote plays that were successfully performed in theaters in the two capitals.
In 1852 Nikolai Gogol passed away. Ivan Turgenev responded to the tragic event with an obituary, but in St. Petersburg, at the behest of the chairman of the censorship committee, Alexei Musin-Pushkin, they refused to publish it. The newspaper "Moskovskie vedomosti" dared to place Turgenev's note. The censor did not forgive disobedience. Musin-Pushkin called Gogol a "lackey writer" not worthy of mention in society, moreover, he saw in the obituary a hint of violation of the unspoken prohibition - not to recall in the open press Alexander Pushkin, who died in a duel, etc.
The censor wrote a report to the emperor. Ivan Sergeevich, who was under suspicion because of his frequent trips abroad, communication with Belinsky and Herzen, radical views on serfdom, incurred even greater anger from the authorities.
Ivan Turgenev with his colleagues at Sovremennik In April of the same year, the writer was imprisoned for a month, and then sent under house arrest on the estate. For a year and a half Ivan Turgenev stayed in Spasskoye without a break, for 3 years he had no right to leave the country.
Turgenev's fears about the prohibition of censorship on the publication of "Notes of a Hunter" as a separate book did not materialize: a collection of stories, previously published in "Sovremennik", came out. For permission to publish the book, the official Vladimir Lvov, who served in the censorship department, was fired. The cycle includes stories "Bezhin Meadow", "Biryuk", "Singers", "Uyezdny Healer". Separately, the novels did not pose a danger, but, put together, they were anti-serfdom in nature.
Collection of short stories by Ivan Turgenev "Notes of a Hunter" Ivan Turgenev wrote for both adults and children. The prose writer presented the young readers with fairy tales and observation stories "Sparrow", "Dog" and "Doves", written in a rich language.
In rural solitude, the classic wrote the story "Mumu", as well as the novels "Noble Nest", "On the Eve", "Fathers and Sons", "Smoke", which became an event in the cultural life of Russia.
Ivan Turgenev went abroad in the summer of 1856. In the winter in Paris, he completed the dark story "A Trip to Polesie". In Germany in 1857 he wrote Asya, a story translated into European languages \u200b\u200bduring the writer's lifetime. The prototype of Asya, the daughter of a landowner and a peasant, born out of wedlock, is considered by critics to be Turgenev's daughter Pauline Brewer and the illegitimate half-sister Varvara Zhitova.
Ivan Turgenev's novel "Rudin" Abroad, Ivan Turgenev closely followed the cultural life of Russia, corresponded with writers who remained in the country, communicated with emigrants. Colleagues considered the prose writer a controversial personality. After an ideological disagreement with the editors of Sovremennik, which became the mouthpiece of revolutionary democracy, Turgenev broke with the magazine. But, having learned about the temporary ban of Sovremennik, he spoke out in his defense.
During his life in the West, Ivan Sergeevich entered into long conflicts with Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Nikolai Nekrasov. After the release of the novel "Fathers and Sons", he fell out with the literary community, which was called progressive.
Ivan Turgenev was the first Russian writer to be recognized in Europe as a novelist. In France, he became close to the realist writers, the Goncourt brothers, and Gustave Flaubert, who became a close friend to him.
In the spring of 1879, Turgenev arrived in St. Petersburg, where young people met him as an idol. The authorities did not share the enthusiasm for the visit of the famous writer, making Ivan Sergeyevich understand that a long stay of the writer in the city was undesirable.
In the summer of the same year, Ivan Turgenev visited Britain - at Oxford University, the Russian prose writer was given the title of honorary doctor.
The penultimate time Turgenev came to Russia in 1880. In Moscow, he attended the unveiling of a monument to Alexander Pushkin, whom he considered a great teacher. The classic called the Russian language support and support "in the days of painful thoughts" about the fate of the motherland.
Personal life
Heinrich Heine compared the femme fatale, who became the love of the writer's entire life, to a landscape “both monstrous and exotic”. The Spanish-French singer Pauline Viardot, a short and stooped woman, had large masculine features, a large mouth and bulging eyes. But when Polina sang, she was fabulously transformed. At such a moment, Turgenev saw the singer and fell in love for life, for the remaining 40 years.
The personal life of the prose writer before meeting Viardot was like a roller coaster. The first love, which Ivan Turgenev sadly told in the story of the same name, painfully wounded a 15-year-old boy. He fell in love with his neighbor Katenka, the daughter of Princess Shakhovskoy. What a disappointment befell Ivan when he learned that his "pure and immaculate" Katya, captivated by her childish spontaneity and girlish blush, was the mistress of his father, Sergei Nikolaevich, a hardened womanizer.
The young man became disillusioned with the "noble" girls and turned his eyes to ordinary girls - serfs. One of the undemanding beauties - seamstress Avdotya Ivanova - gave birth to Ivan Turgenev's daughter Pelageya. But while traveling through Europe, the writer met Viardot, and Avdotya remained in the past.
Ivan Sergeevich met the singer's husband, Louis, and became a part of their house. Turgenev's contemporaries, friends of the writer and biographers disagreed about this union. Some call it sublime and platonic, others talk about the considerable sums that the Russian landowner left in the house of Pauline and Louis. Viardot's husband turned a blind eye to Turgenev's relationship with his wife and allowed him to live in their house for months. It is believed that the biological father of Paul, the son of Pauline and Louis, is Ivan Turgenev.
The writer's mother did not approve of the connection and dreamed that her beloved son would settle down, marry a young noblewoman and give legal grandchildren. Varvara Petrovna did not favor Pelageya, she saw her as a serf. Ivan Sergeevich loved and pitied his daughter.
Pauline Viardot, hearing about the bullying of a tyrannical grandmother, was imbued with sympathy for the girl and took her to her house. Pelagia turned into Polynette and grew up with Viardot's children. In fairness, it should be noted that Pelageya-Polinet Turgeneva did not share her father's love for Viardot, believing that the woman stole the attention of a loved one from her.
The cooling in the relationship between Turgenev and Viardot came after a three-year separation, which happened due to the writer's house arrest. Ivan Turgenev made two attempts to forget the fatal passion. In 1854, the 36-year-old writer met a young beauty Olga, the daughter of a cousin. But when a wedding dawned on the horizon, Ivan Sergeevich yearned for Polina. Not wanting to ruin the life of an 18-year-old girl, Turgenev confessed his love for Viardot.
The last attempt to break free from the embrace of a Frenchwoman happened in 1879, when Ivan Turgenev was 61 years old. Actress Maria Savina was not frightened by the age difference - her lover was twice as old. But when the couple went to Paris in 1882, Masha saw many things and trinkets reminiscent of a rival in the home of her future spouse, and realized that she was superfluous.
Death
In 1882, after parting with Savinova, Ivan Turgenev fell ill. The doctors made a disappointing diagnosis - cancer of the bones of the spine. The writer died in a foreign land for a long time and painfully.
In 1883, Turgenev was operated on in Paris. The last months of his life, Ivan Turgenev was happy, how happy a man tormented by pain can be - his beloved woman was next to him. After her death, she inherited Turgenev's property.
The classic died on August 22, 1883. His body was delivered to St. Petersburg on September 27. From France to Russia, Ivan Turgenev was accompanied by Pauline's daughter, Claudia Viardot. The writer was buried at the St. Petersburg Volkov cemetery.
Those who called Turgenev "a thorn in his own eye" reacted to the death of the "nihilist" with relief.
Bibliography
- 1855 - Rudin
- 1858 - "Nest of Nobility"
- 1860 - "The Eve"
- 1862 - "Fathers and Sons"
- 1867 - "Smoke"
- 1877 - "New"
- 1851-73 - "Notes of a Hunter"
- 1858 - "Asya"
- 1860 - "First Love"
- 1872 - "Spring Waters"
Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) - world famous Russian writer-prose writer, poet, playwright, critic, memoirist and translator of the XIX century, recognized as a classic of world literature. He wrote many outstanding works that have become literary classics, the reading of which is mandatory for school and university curricula.
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev is from the city of Orel, where he was born on November 9, 1818, into a noble family in his mother's family estate. Sergei Nikolaevich, father - a retired hussar who served in the cuirassier regiment before the birth of his son, Varvara Petrovna, mother - a representative of an old noble family. In addition to Ivan, the family had another eldest son, Nikolai, the childhood of the little Turgenevs passed under the vigilant supervision of numerous servants and under the influence of the rather heavy and unbending temper of their mother. Although mother was distinguished by a special imperiousness and severity of character, she was reputed to be a rather educated and enlightened woman, it was she who interested her children in science and fiction.
At first, the boys studied at home, after the family moved to the capital, they continued their education with the teachers there. Then follows a new round in the fate of the Turgenev family - a trip and subsequent life abroad, where Ivan Turgenev lives and is brought up in several prestigious boarding houses. Upon arrival at his homeland (1833), at the age of fifteen, he entered the Faculty of Literature of Moscow State University. After the eldest son Nikolai becomes a guards cavalryman, the family moves to St. Petersburg and the younger Ivan becomes a student of the philosophy department of the local university. In 1834, from the pen of Turgenev, the first poetic lines appeared, saturated with the spirit of romanticism (a trend that was fashionable at that time). Poetic lyrics were highly appreciated by his teacher and mentor Pyotr Pletnev (a close friend of A.S. Pushkin).
After graduating from St. Petersburg University in 1837, Turgenev leaves to continue his studies abroad, where he attends lectures and seminars at the University of Berlin, while traveling across Europe. Returning to Moscow and successfully passing his master's exams, Turgenev hopes to become a professor at Moscow University, however, due to the abolition of philosophy departments at all universities in Russia, this desire is not destined to come true. At that time, Turgenev became more and more interested in literature, several of his poems were published in the newspaper Otechestvennye zapiski, the spring of 1843 was the time when his first small book appeared, where the poem Parasha was published.
In 1843, at the insistence of his mother, he became an official in the "special office" at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and served there for two years, then retired. An imperious and ambitious mother, dissatisfied with the fact that her son did not justify her hopes both in career and in personal terms (he did not find a worthy party for himself, and even had an illegitimate daughter Pelageya from an affair with a seamstress), refuses his maintenance and Turgenev has to live from hand to mouth and go into debt.
Acquaintance with the famous critic Belinsky turned Turgenev's work towards realism, and he begins to write poetic and ironic moral narrative poems, critical articles and stories.
In 1847, Turgenev brings to the Sovremennik magazine the story "Khor and Kalinych" which Nekrasov publishes with the subtitle "From the Notes of a Hunter", this is how Turgenev's real literary activity begins. In 1847, because of his love for the singer Pauline Viardot (he met her in 1843 in St. Petersburg, where she came on tour), he left Russia for a long time and lived first in Germany, then in France. During his life abroad, several dramatic plays were written: "Freeloader", "Bachelor", "A Month in the Country", "Provincial".
In 1850 the writer returned to Moscow, worked as a critic for the Sovremennik magazine, and in 1852 published a book of his essays entitled “Notes of a Hunter”. At the same time, impressed by the death of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, he writes and publishes an obituary, officially banned by the tsarist caesura. This is followed by arrest for one month, deportation to the family estate without the right to leave the Oryol province, the prohibition of travel abroad (until 1856). During the exile, the story "Mumu", "Inn", "Diary of a Superfluous Person", "Yakov Pasynkov", "Correspondence", the novel "Rudin" (1855) were written.
After the end of the ban on traveling abroad, Turgenev leaves the country and lives in Europe for two years. In 1858 he returned to his homeland and published his story "Asya", around her among the critics, heated disputes and disputes immediately flared up. Then the novel "Noble Nest" (1859), 1860 - "On the Eve" was born. After that, Turgenev ruptures with such radical writers as Nekrasov and Dobrolyubov, a quarrel with Leo Tolstoy and even the latter's challenge to a duel, which eventually ended in peace. February 1862 - the publication of the novel "Fathers and Sons", in which the author showed the tragedy of the growing conflict between generations in the context of a growing social crisis.
From 1863 to 1883, Turgenev lived first with the Viardot family in Baden-Baden, then in Paris, never ceasing to be interested in the events in Russia and acting as a kind of mediator between Western European and Russian writers. During his life abroad, "Notes of a Hunter" were supplemented, the stories "Hours", "Punin and Baburin" were written, the largest of all his novels "Nov".
Together with Victor Hugo, Turgenev was elected co-chairman of the First International Congress of Writers, held in Paris in 1878, in 1879 the writer was elected an honorary doctor of the oldest university in England - Oxford. In his declining years, Turgenevsky did not stop engaging in literary activity, and several months before his death, Poems in Prose were published, prose fragments and miniatures characterized by a high degree of lyricism.
Turgenev dies in August 1883 from a serious illness in the French Bougival (a suburb of Paris). In accordance with the last will of the deceased, recorded in his will, his body was transported to Russia and buried at the Volkovo cemetery in St. Petersburg.
He understands Russia ...
V.G. Belinsky
Turgenev lived a long life in literature, was familiar with all Russian writers, except for Chekhov, with many European ones.
Childhood of the future writer
By birth, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev belonged to an old and wealthy noble family. Turgenev's ancestors were mentioned in the chronicles of the time of Ivan the Terrible. By the beginning of the 19th century, the Turgenev family had become impoverished, and the young lieutenant of the cavalry regiment Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev decided to improve his condition by marrying one of the richest landowners of the Oryol province - Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova. The bride was 6 years older than the groom, did not differ in beauty, but was very smart, well educated, possessed a delicate taste and strong character. Perhaps these qualities, along with wealth, influenced the decision of the young officer.
The Turgenevs spent the first years after their marriage in Orel. Here their first-born Nikolai was born, and two years later, on November 9 (October 28), 1818, their second son, Ivan. The childhood of the future writer was spent in the estate of his mother - Spassky-Lutovinovo near the town of Mtsensk, Oryol province.
Ivan was the beloved son of Varvara Petrovna, but it was hard, jealous, selfish love. The mother demanded from everyone around her, especially from her son Ivan, boundless adoration, refusal for the sake of love for her from any other interests. Until the end of her life, two feelings fought in Turgenev's meek and tender heart: love for her mother and the desire to free herself from her tyrannical care. His father, occupied only with himself, did not interfere in anything. Varvara Petrovna hosted the house, unrestrictedly showing her despotic character. The senseless cruelty was strangely combined with the love of beauty. She was very fond of nature: the magnificent Lutovinovsky park had no equal in the district. The estate had a home theater and a rich library.
Education
In an effort to give children the best education, the Turgenevs spared neither money nor their own efforts. Already in early childhood, the future writer spoke and wrote well in French, German, and English. The family paid special attention to the knowledge of the Russian language.
In 1827, the parents moved to Moscow to continue their children's education. First, Ivan Sergeevich studied in private boarding schools, then, under the guidance of teachers invited to the house, he prepared for entering the university. At the age of fifteen, Turgenev successfully passed the entrance exams at Moscow University, and after completing his first year he moved to St. Petersburg. His first literary experiments date back to this time: the dramatic poem "Steno" and several works in the romantic spirit.
Turgenev devotes a lot of time to the study of philosophy, ancient languages, history, literature - German, French, English, Italian. He is also fond of music, painting, theater. After graduating from St. Petersburg University, Turgenev entered Berlin, traveled around Italy, getting acquainted with the treasures of art, walked Switzerland ... He was an erudite in the highest sense of the word.
After graduating from the University of Berlin, Turgenev returned to his homeland and in the spring of 1842 held master's exams in St. Petersburg, but everything was in vain: the authorities did not allow the restoration of the department of philosophy, which was closed after the Decembrist uprising. Dreams of an academic career were crumbling.
Service
In June 1843, Turgenev joined the Ministry of the Interior. Turgenev's chief in the service was Vladimir Ivanovich Dal, a famous writer and a major expert on the Russian language. However, Turgenev was not attracted to official activity - after a year and a half, Turgenev retired.
First works
In 1843, the first significant work of I.S. Turgenev - the poem "Parasha". Turgenev called it a novel in verse. In the same year, the writer met with the talented singer Pauline Viardot, who became his closest friend for life.
Turgenev's mother, dissatisfied with the fact that her son chose an unworthy nobleman, in her opinion, writing and was carried away by the "damned gypsy", as she called Pauline Viardot, stopped sending him money. However, wanting to keep her son, who was leaving her influence, she achieved the opposite: Turgenev became even more distant from his mother and became a professional writer living off his literary earnings.
Hunter's Notes
During 1847-1851. Turgenev wrote a series of essays that made up the notes of the hunter. Turgenev - the first Russian writer - showed the living souls of ordinary Russian peasants. Each story by Turgenev is a statement that a man is a person worthy of respect.
By order of Nicholas I, the censor, who had skipped a separate edition of the Hunter's Notes, was removed from office. Turgenev was arrested at a police station. While under arrest, he writes the story "Mumu". Portraying an old lady, the writer gives her the features of his mother, and the story is based on a real incident from her life. In its anti-serfdom orientation, Mumu is a direct continuation of the Hunter's Notes.
Turgenev is looking for ways leading to the transformation of the social structure of Russia. The will and intelligence, righteousness and kindness, revealed to him in the Russian peasant, already seem to the writer insufficient for this purpose. Turgenev addresses people from the educated class. The peasantry moves to the periphery of his creativity.
Homework
Preparation of messages on the "Notes of a Hunter" (2-3 stories), the novels "Rudin", "Noble Nest", "On the Eve", "Smoke" (optional).
Literature
Vladimir Korovin. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. // Encyclopedias for children "Avanta +". Volume 9. Russian literature. Part one. M., 1999
N.I. Yakushin. I.S. Turgenev in life and work. M .: Russian word, 1998
L.M. Lotman. I.S. Turgenev. History of Russian Literature. Volume three. Leningrad: Nauka, 1982.S. 120 - 160
Biography and episodes of life Ivan Turgenev. When born and died Ivan Turgenev, memorable places and dates of important events in his life. Writer quotes, images and videos.
Ivan Turgenev's life years:
born October 28, 1818, died August 22, 1883
Epitaph
“Days are passing. And now for ten years
It has been since death bowed to you.
But there is no death for your creatures,
The crowd of your visions, oh poet,
Immortality forever illuminated. "
Konstantin Balmont, from the poem "In memory of I. Turgenev"
Biography
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was not only one of the greatest Russian writers who literally became classics of Russian literature during their lifetime. He also became the most famous Russian writer in Europe. Turgenev was respected and revered by such great people as Maupassant, Zola, Galsworthy, he lived abroad for a long time and was a kind of symbol, the quintessence of the best features that distinguished the Russian nobleman. Moreover, Turgenev's literary talent put him on a par with the greatest writers of Europe.
Turgenev was the heir to a wealthy noble family (by his mother) and therefore never needed funds. Young Turgenev studied at St. Petersburg University, then went to complete his education in Berlin. The future writer was impressed by the European way of life and upset by the striking contrast with Russian reality. Since then, Turgenev lived abroad for a long time, returning to St. Petersburg only on short visits.
Ivan Sergeevich tried himself in poetry, which, however, did not seem good enough to his contemporaries. But as an excellent writer and a true master of words, Russia learned about Turgenev after the publication of fragments of his “Notes of a Hunter” in Sovremennik. During this period, Turgenev decided that his duty was to fight serfdom, and therefore went abroad again, since he could not "breathe the same air, stay close to what he hated."
Portrait of I. Turgenev by Repin, 1879
Returning to Russia in 1850, Turgenev wrote an obituary to N. Gogol, which caused extreme discontent with the censorship: the writer was sent to his native village, forbidden to live in the capitals for two years. It was during this period, in the village, that the famous story "Mumu" was written.
After complications in relations with the authorities, Turgenev moved to Baden-Baden, where he quickly entered the circle of the European intellectual elite. He communicated with the greatest minds of the time: Georges Sand, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Victor Hugo, Prosper Mérimée, Anatole France. By the end of his life, Turgenev became an unconditional idol both in his homeland and in Europe, where he continued to live permanently.
Ivan Turgenev died in a suburb of Paris, Bougival, after several years of a painful illness. Only after death, doctor S.P.Botkin discovered the true cause of death - myxosarcoma (cancer of the spine). Before the funeral of the writer in Paris, events were held, which were attended by more than four hundred people.
Ivan Turgenev, photograph of the 1960s
Life line
October 28, 1818 Date of birth of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev.
1833 g. Admission to the Faculty of Words of Moscow University.
1834 g. Moving to St. Petersburg and transfer to the philosophy department of St. Petersburg University.
1836 g. The first publication of Turgenev in the "Journal of the Ministry of Public Education".
1838 g. Arrival in Berlin and study at the University of Berlin.
1842 g. Obtaining a master's degree in Greek and Latin philology at St. Petersburg University.
1843 g. Publication of the first poem "Parasha" highly appreciated by Belinsky.
1847 g. Work in the Sovremennik magazine together with Nekrasov and Annenkov. Publication of the story "Khor and Kalinich". Departure abroad.
1850 g. Return to Russia. Link to his native village of Spasskoye-Lutovinovo.
1852 g. The publication of the book "Notes of a Hunter".
1856 g. Rudin is published in Sovremennik.
1859 g. The "Sovremennik" publishes "The Noble Nest".
1860 g. The "Russian Bulletin" publishes "On the Eve". Turgenev becomes a corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences.
1862 g. "Fathers and Sons" are published in the "Russian Bulletin".
1863 g. Moving to Baden-Baden.
1879 g. Turgenev becomes an honorary doctor of the Oxford University.
August 22, 1883 Date of death of Ivan Turgenev.
August 27, 1883 Turgenev's body was transported to St. Petersburg and buried at the Volkovskoye cemetery.
Memorable places
1. House number 11 on the street. Turgenev in Orel, the city where Turgenev was born; now - the writer's museum.
2. Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, where the hereditary estate of Turgenev was located, now - a house-museum.
3. House number 37/7, building 1 on the street. Ostozhenka in Moscow, where Turgenev lived with his mother from 1840 to 1850, visiting Moscow. Today it is the Turgenev House Museum.
4. House number 38 on the emb. the Fontanka River in St. Petersburg (Stepanov's apartment house), where Turgenev lived in 1854-1856.
5. House No. 13 on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street in St. Petersburg (Weber's apartment building), where Turgenev lived in 1858-1860.
6. House number 6 on Bolshaya Morskaya Street in St. Petersburg (formerly the hotel "France"), where Turgenev lived in 1864-1867.
7. Baden-Baden, where Turgenev lived for a total of about 10 years.
8. House number 16 on the emb. Turgenev in Bougival (Paris), where he lived for many years and died Turgenev; now - the writer's house-museum.
9. Volkovskoe cemetery in St. Petersburg, where Turgenev is buried.
Episodes of life
There were many hobbies in the life of Turgenev, and they were often reflected in his work. So, one of the first ended with the appearance in 1842 of an illegitimate daughter, whom Turgenev officially recognized in 1857.But the most famous (and most doubtful) episode in Turgenev's personal life, who never got his own family, was his relationship with the actress Polina Viardot and his life with the Viardot couple in Europe for many years.
Ivan Turgenev was one of the most passionate hunters in Russia of his time. When meeting Pauline Viardot, he was recommended to the actress as "a glorious hunter and a bad poet."
Living abroad, from 1874 Turgenev participated in the so-called bachelor "dinners of five" - \u200b\u200bmonthly meetings with Flaubert, Edmond Goncourt, Daudet and Zola in Parisian restaurants or in the apartments of writers.
Turgenev became one of the most highly paid writers in the country, which caused rejection and envy among many - in particular, FM Dostoevsky. The latter considered such high fees to be unfair given the already magnificent condition of Turgenev, which he got after the death of his mother.
Covenants
“In days of doubt, in days of painful thoughts about the fate of my homeland, you alone are my support and support, oh great, mighty, truthful and free Russian language! .. Do not be 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! "
“Our life does not depend on us; but we all have one anchor from which, if you don’t want to yourself, you’ll never lose it: a sense of duty. ”
“Whatever a person prays for, he prays for a miracle. Any prayer boils down to the following: "Great God, make sure that twice two - not four!"
"If you wait for a minute when everything, absolutely everything will be ready, you will never have to start."
Documentary and publicistic film “Turgenev and Viardot. More than love"
Condolences
"And yet it hurts ... Russian society owes too much to this person to treat his death with simple objectivity."
Nikolai Mikhailovsky, critic, literary critic and theorist of populism
“Turgenev was also a native Russian in his spirit. Didn't he know the genius of the Russian language with impeccable perfection, accessible only to him, perhaps, to Pushkin alone? "
Dmitry Merezhkovsky, writer and critic
"If now the English novel has some kind of manners and grace, then this is primarily due to Turgenev."
John Galsworthy, English novelist and playwright
