M with Turgenev. Ivan Turgenev: biography, life path and creativity. Novels and stories. Origin and early years

Ivan Turgenev photography

What does he see in his house?

His parents are an example to him!

The form is simple, but in essence a very wise poem of three lines expresses the idea that a child learns the main science of life in the family.

Please note: in the poem the emphasis is not on what the child hears “in his home”, not on what his parents instill in him, but on what he himself sees. But what exactly does he see that teaches him and educates him? The way he sees us treat each other? How long do we work and for what? What are we reading? What if it’s neither one nor the other, nor the third, but something completely different?! When raising a child, parents do their best. And sometimes he grows up completely different from what they dreamed of. Why? How could this happen? There is a universal answer to this kind of difficult and bitter questions: “the ways of the Lord are mysterious!..” But let’s try to figure it out using one example: why in a certain family at a certain time a child grew up the way he, it would seem, should not have grown up? We will talk about the great Russian writer Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, by the way, the author of the famous novel called “Fathers and Sons” - precisely dedicated to the continuity of generations.

About the childhood of the writer himself. we know something. For example, the fact that Turgenev’s parents were rich from the Mtsensk district of the Oryol province, convinced and harsh serf owners. (Don’t expect that new materials will be discovered that refute this fact - there are none!) But have we ever asked the question: why does such parents have a son who grows up to be a convinced anti-serfdom, a kind and kind-hearted person by nature? (There was even a case when young Turgenev took up a gun in order not to offend a peasant needlewoman from his village.) The answer seems to suggest itself: he had seen enough of the horrors and abominations of serfdom in the possession of souls - and so he hated it. Yes, this is the answer, but it’s too simple. Indeed, at the same time, in the neighboring estates of the Mtsensk district, the sons of the landowners, from a young age, kicked and mangled the servants, and having taken possession of the estate, they unbridled themselves worse than their parents, doing to people what is now called lawlessness. Well, they and Ivan Turgenev were not cut from the same cloth? Did you breathe a different air, did you study from more than one textbook?..

To understand what made Turgenev spiritually the direct opposite of his parents, one would need to get to know them better. Firstly, with my mother, Varvara Petrovna. Colorful figure! On the one hand, he speaks and writes fluently in French, reads Voltaire and Rousseau, is friends with the great poet V. Zhukovsky, loves the theater, loves growing flowers...

On the other hand, for the disappearance of just one tulip from the garden, he gives the order to flog all the gardeners... He can’t get enough of his sons, especially the middle one, Ivan (not knowing how to express his tenderness for him, sometimes he calls him... . “my beloved Vanya”!), spares neither effort nor money to give them a good education. At the same time, in the Turgenev house, children are often whipped! “Rarely a day passed without rods,” recalled Ivan Sergeevich, “when I dared to ask why I was being punished, my mother categorically declared: “You better know about this, guess.”

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When a son, studying in Moscow or abroad, does not write letters home for a long time, his mother threatens him for this... to flog one of the servants. And so with her, the servant, she does not stand on ceremony. The freedom-loving Voltaire and Rousseau do not in the least prevent her from exiling an offending maid to a remote, remote village, forcing a serf artist to paint the same thing a thousand times, and terrifying the elders and peasants during trips around their estates...

“I have nothing to remember my childhood with,” Ivan Sergeevich sadly admits. – Not a single bright memory. I was afraid of my mother like hell..."

Let’s not ignore the writer’s father, Sergei Nikolaevich. He behaves more balanced, less cruel and picky than Varvara Petrovna. But his hand is also heavy. Maybe, for example, a home teacher he didn’t like for some reason could be thrown right down a flight of stairs. And he treats children without unnecessary sentimentality and takes almost no part in their upbringing. But, as you know, “the absence of education is also education.”

“My father had a strange influence on me...” writes Turgenev in one of his stories, into which he invested a lot of personal things. - He... never insulted me, he respected my freedom - he was even, so to speak, polite to me... only he did not allow me to come near him. I loved him, I admired him, he seemed to me a model of a man, and, my God, how passionately I would have become attached to him if I had not constantly felt his deflecting hands!..” Let us add on our own behalf: Sergei Nikolaevich is still far from children and because he rarely sees them.

Varvara Petrovna rules the roost in the house. She is the one who is involved in raising her children, she is the one who teaches “beloved Vanechka” object lessons in self-will...

Yes, but then what about the fact that “the child learns what he sees in his home” and that “parents are an example to him”? According to all the rules of genetics and family pedagogy, a father - a cold egoist and a mother with a despotic character - should have grown into a moral monster. But we know: he grew up to be a great writer, a man of great soul... No, whatever you say, the Turgenev parents are an example to their son, an impressive example of how not to treat people. After all, the child also learns what he hates “in his home”!

Thank God, such a variant of generational continuity is also provided: children grow up, as they say, in the exact opposite direction from their fathers... What young Turgenev was more fortunate in than his peers from landowner families was that his parents, for all their selfishness and cruelty, both are smart, well-educated people. And, most importantly, they are interesting, extraordinary in their own way, as if woven from blatant contradictions. Varvara Petrovna alone is worth so much! A writer (and Ivan Sergeevich was undoubtedly born to him) definitely needs something beyond the norm, something out of the ordinary. In this sense, Turgenev’s parents, with their colorfulness, will serve their talented son well: they will inspire him to create unforgettably believable types of that time...

Of course, a child “in his home” sees not only the bad. He learns (and much more willingly!) from good examples. Did Ivan Turgenev love his parents? Freezing from timidity and fear - yes, he loved. And, probably, for some reason he felt sorry for both of them. After all, if you thoroughly delve into the life of each of them, you won’t envy...Varenka Lutovinova’s (her maiden name) father dies early, and her stepfather is so rude and headstrong (can you smell it?) that she, unable to bear the abuse of herself, runs away from Houses. Her uncle takes her under protection and guardianship. But he is also a man with tricks: he keeps his niece locked up almost always. Perhaps she is afraid that she will lose her virginity before marriage. But, it seems, his fears are in vain: Varenka, to put it delicately, does not shine with beauty... However, when her uncle dies, she, his heir, will one day become the richest landowner of the Oryol province...

Her time has come! Varvara Petrovna now takes everything from life - and even more. The son of a neighboring landowner, lieutenant cavalry guard Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev, catches her eye. A man is good for everyone: handsome, stately, intelligent, six years younger than her. But - poor. However, for the rich woman Lutovinova, the latter does not matter at all. And when the lieutenant proposes to her, she, beside herself with happiness, accepts him...

This is not the first time that wealth has been combined with beauty and youth. This is not the first time it has become fragile. Having given up on his military career, Sergei Nikolaevich indulges in hunting, carousing (usually on the side), card games, and starts one affair after another. Varvara Petrovna knows about everything (there are always more helpful people in this regard than are needed), but she endures: she values ​​and loves her handsome husband to such an extent. And, as they say in these cases, he turns his unspent tenderness into sophisticated mockery of people...

Ivan Sergeevich learns about everything that his mother experienced and felt during her life only after her death. After reading Varvara Petrovna’s diaries, he exclaims: “What a woman!.. May God forgive her everything... But what a life!” Even as a child, observing the behavior of his parents, he sees a lot and guesses a lot. This is how any child works, especially a gifted one: not yet having much knowledge and solid life experience, he uses what caring and wise nature generously endows him with, perhaps even more generously than an adult - intuition. It is she who helps “unreasonable” children make correct, sometimes amazingly correct, conclusions. It is thanks to her that the child sees best “in his home” exactly what adults carefully hide from him. That is why we can say: not just anywhere, but precisely in his home, no matter how rich, just as unhappy, the future writer Ivan Turgenev will understand how incomprehensibly complex life is and what an abyss of secrets any human soul keeps within itself...

When a child is afraid of his mother “like fire,” when he constantly stumbles upon the “rejecting hands” of his father, where should he look for love and understanding, without which life is not life? He goes where children who have not received the warmth of home have always gone and go today - “out into the street.” In Russian estates, the “street” is the courtyard, and its inhabitants are called courtyards. These are nannies, tutors, bartenders, errand boys (there was such a position), grooms, foresters, etc. They may not speak French, they may not have read Voltaire and Rousseau. But they have enough natural intelligence to understand: Barchuk Ivan’s life, like theirs, is not easy. And they are kind enough to at least somehow caress him. One of them, at the risk of being flogged, helps the barchuk open a cabinet with old books, another takes him hunting with him, the third takes him into the depths of the famous Spassky-Lutovinovsky park and together with him reads poems and stories with inspiration...

It is with such love and trepidation that Ivan Sergeevich, who himself said that his biography is in his works, describes childhood episodes dear to his heart in one of his stories: “...And so we managed to escape unnoticed, now we are sitting side by side, now The book is already opening, emitting a sharp, for me then inexplicably pleasant smell of mold and old stuff!.. The first sounds of reading are heard! Everything around disappears... no, it doesn’t disappear, but becomes distant, covered in haze, leaving behind only the impression of something friendly and patronizing! These trees, these green leaves, these tall grasses obscure, shelter us from the rest of the world, no one knows where we are, what we are - and poetry is with us, we are imbued with it, we revel in it, an important, great, secret thing is happening with us ..."

Close communication with people of the lower class, as they said then, would largely predetermine Turgenev as a writer. It is he who will bring into Russian literature a man from the Russian hinterland - economical, skillful, with a certain amount of cunning and trickery. There is no need to prove the nationality of his works: the many-faced Russian people act, speak, and suffer in them. Many writers are recognized only after their death. Turgenev was read by people even during his lifetime, and among others, ordinary people read books - the very ones whom he bowed to all his life...

Among other things, Turgenev differs from other outstanding writers of Russia in that his descriptions of nature take many, many pages. The modern reader, accustomed to prose with a dynamic (sometimes too much) narrative, sometimes becomes unbearable. But if you read carefully, these are wonderful and unique descriptions, like Russian nature itself! It feels like Turgenev, when writing, saw the mysterious depths of the Russian forest right in front of him, squinted from the silver light of the autumn sun, heard the morning call of sweet-voiced birds. And he really saw and heard all this, even when he lived far from Spassky - in Moscow, Rome, London, Paris... Russian nature is his second home, his second mother, she, too, is his biography. There is a lot of it in Turgenev’s works because then there was a lot of it in general, and a lot in his life, in particular.

Thanks to his parents, Ivan Sergeevich saw the world as a child (the family traveled for many months around European countries), received an excellent education in Russia and abroad, and for a long time, while he was looking for his calling, he lived on money sent by his mother. (Turgenev’s father died quite early.) Having met Turgenev, Dostoevsky wrote about him: “Poet, talent, aristocrat, handsome, rich, smart, 25 years old. I don’t know what nature denied him.” In a word, a difficult childhood, despotic order in the house, apparently, did not outwardly affect him. As for his character, spiritual harmony... Most likely, the strong, domineering nature of his mother was one of the reasons that, for all his beauty and talent, Ivan Sergeevich was often timid and indecisive, especially in relationships with women. His personal life turned out to be somewhat awkward: after several more or less serious hobbies, he gave his heart to the singer Viardot, and since she was a married woman, he entered into a strange coexistence with this family, living with her under the same roof for many years . As if carrying within himself the weakened bacilli of maternal pride and intolerance, Ivan Sergeevich is easily vulnerable, touchy, often quarrels with friends (Nekrasov, Goncharov, Herzen, Tolstoy, etc.), but, it is true, he is often the first to extend the hand of reconciliation. As if to reproach the indifference of his late father, he takes care of his illegitimate daughter Polina as best he can (he pays her mother a lifelong pension), but from an early age the girl cannot remember what the word “bread” means in Russian, and no which does not justify, no matter how hard Turgenev tries, the aspirations of his father...

Turgenev, among other things, also differs from other outstanding Russian writers in his height. He was so tall that wherever he appeared, he was visible, like a bell tower, from everywhere. A giant and a bearded man, with a soft, almost childish voice, friendly in character, hospitable, he, living abroad for a long time, being a very famous person there too, contributed greatly to the spread of the legend of the “Russian bear” in the West. But he was a very unusual “bear”: he wrote brilliant prose and fragrant blank verse, knew philosophy and philology very well, spoke German in Germany, Italian in Italy, French in France, Spanish with his beloved woman, Spanish Viardot...

So to whom do Russia and the world owe this miracle of physical and intellectual perfection, multifaceted talent and spiritual wealth? Are we really going to put his mother Varvara Petrovna and father Sergei Nikolaevich out of brackets? Let's pretend that he owes his beauty and outstanding growth, great diligence and aristocratically refined culture not to them, but to someone else?..

It was not without reason that Varvara Petrovna counted her son Ivan among her favorites - you can’t deny her insight. “I love you both passionately, but in different ways,” she writes to “beloved Vanechka,” slightly contrasting him with Nikolai, her eldest son. – You make me especially sick... (How wonderfully they expressed it in the old days!). If I can explain with an example. If they squeezed my hand, it would hurt, but if they stepped on my callus, it would be unbearable.” She realized before many literary critics that her son had a high gift for writing. (Showing a subtle literary taste, she writes to her son that his first published poem “smells of strawberries.”) Towards the end of her life, Varvara Petrovna changes greatly, becomes more tolerant, and in the presence of her son Ivan tries to do something kind and merciful. Well, in this regard, we can say that the continuity of generations is a two-way street: the time comes when parents learn something from their children...

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 Girl” 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, wrote the stories "Punin and Baburin" (1874), "The Clock" (1875), etc. As a result of living abroad, the largest volume from Turgenev’s novels - “Nov” (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, 1872

Vasily Perov

Personal life

The first romantic interest of young Turgenev was falling in love with the daughter of Princess Shakhovskaya, Ekaterina (1815-1836), a 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, could not resist the charms of the young princess, to whom the girl reciprocated, 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 some of the features of Katya Shakhovskaya with the heroine of the story, Zinaida Zasekina.

David Borovsky. Illustrations by I.S. Turgenev “First Love”

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

I.S. Turgenev at the age of 20.

Artist K. Gorbunov. 1838-1839 Watercolor

Spasskoye-Lutovinovo

Soon after the episode with Avdotya Ivanova, Turgenev met Tatyana Bakunina (1815-1871), the 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.

Watercolor self-portrait of Mikhail Bakunin.

Bakunina Tatyana Alexandrovna

Evdokia Bakunina

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.

Bakunin House in Pryamukhin

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”

Maria Nikolaevna Tolstaya

In the fall of 1843, Turgenev first saw Pauline Viardot 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.

Portrait of singer Pauline Viardot

Karl Bryullov

Louis Viardot

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.

Pauline Viardot (1821-1910).

Karl Timoleon von Neff -

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

Pauline Viardot

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

Pauline Viardot in Baden-Baden

Paris Salon of Pauline Viardot

The writer's last love was the actress of the Alexandrinsky Theater Maria Savina. 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

Maria Gavrilovna Savina

"Turgenev girls"

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 melancholic 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.

The characters of the female characters in his works of the 1850s - 1880s - the images of integral, pure, selfless, morally strong heroines - together formed the literary phenomenon of the “Turgenev girl” - the typical heroine of his works. Such are Liza in the story “The Diary of an Extra Person”, Natalya Lasunskaya in the novel “Rudin”, Asya in the story of the same name, Vera in the story “Faust”, Elizaveta Kalitina in the novel “The Noble Nest”, Elena Stakhova in the novel “On the Eve”, Marianna Sinetskaya in novel "Nov" and others.

Vasily Polenov. "Grandmother's Garden", 1878

Offspring

Turgenev never started his own family. The writer's daughter from the seamstress Avdotya Ermolaevna Ivanova Pelageya Ivanovna Turgeneva, 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 to him more euphonious. 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.

Pelageya Turgeneva (married Buer, 1842-1918), daughter of the writer Ivan Turgenev.

At the age of seventeen, Polynette met the young entrepreneur Gaston Brewer (1835-1885), 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. Polynette's children - Georges-Albert and Jeanne - had no descendants. Georges-Albert died in 1924. Zhanna Brewer-Turgeneva never married; lived by giving private lessons for a living, as 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.

More than 2,200 years ago, the great Carthaginian commander Hannibal was born. When he was nine years old, he swore that he would always resist Rome, with which Carthage had been at war for many years at that time. And he followed his word, devoting his entire life to struggle. What does Turgenev’s short biography have to do with it? - you ask. Read on and you will certainly understand everything.

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Hannibal's oath

The writer was a great humanist and did not understand how one could deprive a living person of the most necessary rights and freedoms. And in his time it was even more common than it is now. Then the Russian analogue of slavery flourished: serfdom. He hated him, and he dedicated his fight to him.

Ivan Sergeevich was not as brave as the Carthaginian commander. He would not fight a bloody war with his enemy. Yet he found a way to fight and win.

Sympathizing with the serfs, Turgenev writes his “Notes of a Hunter,” with which he draws public attention to this problem. Emperor Alexander I. himself, having read these stories, became imbued with the seriousness of this problem and after about 10 years abolished serfdom. Of course, it cannot be said that the reason for this was only “Notes of a Hunter,” but it is also incorrect to deny their influence.

This is how big a role a simple writer can play.

Childhood

On November 9, 1818, Ivan Turgenev was born in the city of Orel.. The writer's biography begins from this moment. The parents were hereditary nobles. His mother had a greater influence on him, since his father, who had married for convenience, left the family early. Ivan was then a 12-year-old child.

Varvara Petrovna (that was the name of the writer’s mother) was of a difficult character, since she had a difficult childhood - a drinking stepfather, beatings, an overbearing and demanding mother. Now her sons were about to experience a difficult childhood.

However, she also had advantages: an excellent education and security in funds. What is worth mentioning is the fact that in their family it was customary to speak exclusively French, according to the fashion of that time. As a result, Ivan received an excellent education.

He was taught by tutors until he was nine years old, and then the family moved to Moscow. Moscow at that time was not the capital, but the educational institutions there were first-class, and getting there from the Oryol province was three times closer than to the capital St. Petersburg.

Turgenev studied at the boarding houses of Weidenhammer and the director of the Lazarev Institute Ivan Krause, and at the age of fifteen he entered the literature department of Moscow University. A year later, he entered the capital’s university at the Faculty of Philosophy: his family moved to St. Petersburg.

At that time, Turgenev was fond of poetry and soon attracted the attention of university professor Pyotr Pletnev to his creations. In 1838, he published the poems “Evening” and “To the Venus of Medicine” in the Sovremennik magazine, where he was editor. This was the first publication of the artistic work of Ivan Turgenev. However, two years earlier it had already been published: then it was a review of Andrei Muravyov’s book “On a Journey to Holy Places.”

Ivan Sergeevich attached great importance to his activities as a critic and subsequently wrote many more reviews. He often combined them with his activities as a translator. He wrote critical works on the Russian translation of Goethe's Faust and Schiller's William Tell.

The writer published his best critical articles in the first volume of his collected works, published in 1880.

Academic life

In 1836 he graduated from the university, a year later he passed the exam and received the academic degree of a candidate from the university. This means graduated with honors and, in modern terms, received a master's degree.

In 1838, Turgenev traveled to Germany and attended lectures there at the University of Berlin on the history of Greek and Roman literature.

In 1842, he passed the exam for a master's degree in Greek and Latin philology, wrote a dissertation, but did not defend it. His interest in this activity is cooling.

Sovremennik magazine

In 1836, Alexander Pushkin organized the production of a magazine called Sovremennik. It was dedicated, of course, to literature. It contained both works by contemporary Russian authors of that time, as well as journalistic articles. There were also translations of foreign works. Unfortunately, even during Pushkin’s lifetime the magazine was not very successful. And with his death in 1837, it gradually fell into disrepair, although not immediately. In 1846, Nikolai Nekrasov and Ivan Panaev bought it.

And from that moment on, Ivan Turgenev, brought by Nekrasov, joined the magazine. The first chapters of “Notes of a Hunter” are published in Sovremennik. By the way, this title was originally the subtitle of the first story, and Ivan Panaev came up with it in the hope of interest the reader. The hope was justified: the stories were extremely popular. This is how Ivan Turgenev’s dream began to come true - to change public consciousness, to introduce into it the idea that serfdom was inhumane.

These stories were published in the magazine one at a time, and the censorship was lenient towards them. However, when they were published as a whole collection in 1852, the official who authorized the printing was fired. This was justified by the fact that when the stories are collected all together, they direct the reader’s thoughts in a reprehensible direction. Meanwhile, Turgenev never called for any revolutions and tried to be in harmony with the authorities.

But sometimes his works were misinterpreted, and this led to problems. So, in 1860, Nikolai Dobrolyubov wrote and published a laudatory review of Turgenev’s new book “On the Eve” in Sovremennik. In it, he interpreted the work in such a way that the writer was supposedly looking forward to the revolution. Turgenev adhered to liberal views and was offended by this interpretation. Nekrasov did not take his side and Ivan Sergeevich left Sovremennik.

Turgenev was not a supporter of revolutions for good reason. The fact is that he was in France in 1848 when the revolution began there. Ivan Sergeevich saw with his own eyes all the horrors of the military coup. Of course, he did not want a repetition of this nightmare in his homeland.

​Seven women in Turgenev’s life are known:

We cannot ignore the relationship between Ivan Turgenev and Pauline Viardot. He first saw her on stage in 1840. She performed the main role in the opera production of The Barber of Seville. Turgenev was captivated by her and passionately wanted to get to know her. The occasion presented itself three years later, when she went on tour again.

While hunting, Ivan Sergeevich met her husband, a famous art critic and theater director in Paris. Then he was introduced to Polina. Seven years later, he wrote to her in a letter that the memories associated with her were the most precious in his life. And one of them is how he first spoke to her on Nevsky Prospekt, in the house opposite the Alexandrinsky Theater.

Daughter

Ivan and Polina became very close friends. Polina raised Turgenev's daughter from Avdotya. Ivan was in love with Avdotya in 1941, he even wanted to marry, but his mother did not give her blessing, and he backed down. He went to Paris, where he lived for a long time with Polina and her husband Louis. And when he arrived home, a surprise awaited him: his eight-year-old daughter. It turns out that she was born on April 26, 1842. His mother was unhappy with his passion for Polina, did not help him financially, and did not even inform him about the birth of her daughter.

Turgenev decided to take care of the fate of his child. He agreed with Polina that she would raise her, and for this occasion he changed his daughter’s name to French - Polinette.

However, the two Polinas did not get along with each other and after some time Polinette went to a private boarding school, and then began to live with her father, which she was very happy about. She loved her father very much and he loved her too, although he never missed an opportunity to write to her in letters of instructions and comments about her shortcomings.

Polynette had two children:

1. Georges-Albert;
2. Zhanna.

Death of a Writer

After the death of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, all of his property, including intellectual property, went to Pauline Viardot in his will. Turgenev's daughter was left with nothing and had to work hard to provide for herself and her two children. Apart from Polinette, Ivan had no children. When she (like her father - from cancer) and her two children died, there were no descendants of Turgenev left.

He died on September 3, 1883. Next to him was his beloved Polina. Her husband died four months before Turgenev, having been paralyzed after a stroke for the last almost ten years of his life. Many people saw off Ivan Turgenev on his last journey in France, among them was Emile Zola. Turgenev was buried, according to his wishes, in St. Petersburg, next to his friend Vissarion Belinsky.

The most significant works

1. "Noble Nest";
2. "Notes of a Hunter";
3. "Asya";
4. "Ghosts";
5. "Spring Waters";
6. "A month in the village."

1. Fiction writer and playwright
2. 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 vershoks [about 53 centimeters] tall”. There were three children in the Turgenev family: Nikolai, Ivan and Sergei.

Until the age of nine, 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 Woman” were very popular with the public and warmly received by critics.

In 1847, Turgenev’s story “Khor and Kalinich” was published in the Sovremennik magazine, created under the impression of the writer’s hunting travels. 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 whom 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.