Russian writer Turgenev biography. Turgenev, Ivan Sergeevich - biography. Origin and early years

Literary critics claim to have been created by a classic art system changed the poetics of the second novel half of the 19th century century. Ivan Turgenev was the first to sense the emergence of a “new man” - the sixties - and showed it in his essay “Fathers and Sons”. Thanks to the realist writer, the term “nihilist” was born in the Russian language. Ivan Sergeevich introduced into use the image of a compatriot, which received the definition of “Turgenev’s girl.”

Childhood and youth

One of the pillars of classical Russian literature was born in Orel, into an old noble family. Ivan Sergeevich spent his childhood on his mother’s estate, Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, not far from Mtsensk. He became the second son of three born to Varvara Lutovinova and Sergei Turgenev.

Family life parents didn’t work out. The father, a handsome cavalry guard who had squandered his fortune, married not a beauty, but a wealthy girl, Varvara, 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 died of epilepsy younger son Sergey.

Nikolai and Ivan had a hard time - their mother had a despotic character. An intelligent and educated woman suffered a lot of grief in her childhood and youth. Varvara Lutovinova's father died when her daughter was a child. The mother, a quarrelsome and despotic lady, whose image readers saw in Turgenev’s story “Death,” remarried. The stepfather drank and did not hesitate to beat and humiliate his stepdaughter. Not in the best possible way treated the daughter and mother. Because of her mother’s cruelty and her stepfather’s beatings, the girl fled to her uncle, who left her niece an inheritance of 5 thousand serfs after her death.

The mother, who did not know affection in childhood, although she loved the children, especially Vanya, treated them the same way her parents treated her in childhood - her sons would forever remember their mother’s heavy hand. Despite her quarrelsome disposition, Varvara Petrovna was an educated woman. She spoke to her family only in French, demanding the same from Ivan and Nikolai. A rich library was kept in Spassky, consisting mainly of French books.

When Ivan Turgenev turned 9, the family moved to the capital, to a house on Neglinka. Mom read a lot and instilled in her children a love of literature. Preferring French writers, Lutovinova-Turgeneva followed literary novelties, and was friends with Mikhail Zagoskin. Varvara Petrovna knew the works thoroughly and quoted them in correspondence with her son.

The education of Ivan Turgenev was carried out by tutors from Germany and France, on whom the landowner spared no expense. The wealth of Russian literature was revealed to the future writer 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 took a course high school, at the age of 15 he became a student at the capital's university. Ivan Turgenev studied at the Faculty of Literature, then transferred to St. Petersburg, where he received a university education at the Faculty of History and Philosophy.

IN student years Turgenev translated poetry and the Lord and dreamed of becoming a poet.

Having received his diploma in 1838, Ivan Turgenev continued his education in Germany. In Berlin, he attended a course of university lectures on philosophy and philology, and 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 took a position in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but his love for writing and literature prevailed.

Literature

Ivan Turgenev first appeared in print in 1836, publishing a review of Andrei Muravyov’s book “Journey to Holy Places.” A year later he wrote and published the poems “Calm on the Sea”, “Phantasmagoria in 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 godfather son of a famous critic. The rapprochement with Belinsky and Nikolai Nekrasov influenced creative biography Ivan Turgenev: the writer finally said goodbye to the genre of romanticism, which became obvious after the publication of the poem “The Landowner” and the stories “Andrei Kolosov”, “Three Portraits” and “Breter”.

Ivan Turgenev returned to Russia in 1850. He lived sometimes on the family estate, sometimes in Moscow, sometimes in St. Petersburg, where he wrote plays that were successfully performed in theaters in 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 Moskovskie Vedomosti newspaper dared to publish Turgenev’s note. The censor did not forgive the disobedience. Musin-Pushkin called Gogol a “lackey writer”, not worthy of mention in society, and moreover, he saw in the obituary a hint of a violation of the unspoken ban - not to remember in the open press Alexander Pushkin and those who died in a duel.

The censor wrote a report to the emperor. Ivan Sergeevich, who was under suspicion due to his frequent trips abroad, communication with Belinsky and Herzen, and radical views on serfdom, incurred even greater wrath from the authorities.

In April of the same year, the writer was put in custody for a month, and then sent under house arrest on the estate. For a year and a half, Ivan Turgenev stayed in Spassky without a break; for 3 years he did not have the right to leave the country.

Turgenev’s fears about the censorship ban on the release of “Notes of a Hunter” as a separate book were not justified: the collection of stories, previously published in Sovremennik, was published. For allowing the book to be printed, the official Vladimir Lvov, who served in the censorship department, was fired. The cycle included the stories “Bezhin Meadow”, “Biryuk”, “Singers”, “District Doctor”. Individually, the novellas did not pose a danger, but when collected together they were anti-serfdom in nature.

Ivan Turgenev wrote for both adults and children. The prose writer gave the little readers fairy tales and observation stories “Sparrow”, “Dog” and “Pigeons”, written in rich language.

In rural solitude, the classic composed the story “Mumu”, which also became an event in cultural life Russian novels " Noble Nest", "The Eve", "Fathers and Sons", "Smoke".

Ivan Turgenev went abroad in the summer of 1856. In winter in Paris, he completed the dark story “A Trip to Polesie.” In Germany in 1857 he wrote “Asya” - a story translated during the writer’s lifetime into European languages. Critics consider Turgenev's daughter Polina Brewer and illegitimate half-sister Varvara Zhitova to be the prototype of Asya, the daughter of a master and a peasant woman born out of wedlock.

Abroad, Ivan Turgenev closely followed the cultural life of Russia, corresponded with writers who remained in the country, and communicated with emigrants. Colleagues considered the prose writer 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 on Sovremennik, he spoke out in its 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 quarreled with the literary community, which was called progressive.

Ivan Turgenev was the first Russian writers received recognition in Europe as a novelist. In France, he became close to the realist writers, the Goncourt brothers, and Gustave Flaubert, who became his close friend.

In the spring of 1879, Turgenev arrived in St. Petersburg, where young people greeted him as an idol. Delight from the visit famous writer did not share power, letting Ivan Sergeevich understand that a long stay of a 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 was in 1880. In Moscow, he attended the opening 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 homeland.

Personal life

Heinrich Heine compared the femme fatale, who became the love of the writer’s life, to a landscape, “at the same time monstrous and exotic.” The Spanish-French singer Pauline Viardot, a short and stooping woman, had large masculine features, a large mouth and bulging eyes. But when Polina sang, she transformed fabulously. At such a moment, Turgenev saw the singer and fell in love for the rest of his life, for the remaining 40 years.

The prose writer's personal life before meeting Viardot was like a roller coaster. The first love, which Ivan Turgenev told with grief in story of the same name, painfully wounded a 15-year-old boy. He fell in love with his neighbor Katenka, the daughter of Princess Shakhovskaya. What a disappointment befell Ivan when he learned that his “pure and immaculate” Katya, who captivated with her childish spontaneity and girlish blush, was the mistress of her father, Sergei Nikolaevich, a seasoned womanizer.

The young man became disillusioned with the “noble” girls and turned his attention to simple girls - serf peasant women. One of the undemanding beauties, seamstress Avdotya Ivanova, gave birth to Ivan Turgenev’s daughter Pelageya. But, traveling around Europe, the writer met Viardot, and Avdotya remained in the past.

Ivan Sergeevich met the singer’s husband, Louis, and began to enter their house. Turgenev's contemporaries, the writer's friends 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 Polina and Louis. Viardot's husband turned a blind eye to Turgenev's relationship with his wife and allowed her to live in their house for months. There is an opinion that the biological father of Paul, the son of Polina and Louis, is Ivan Turgenev.

The writer’s mother did not approve of the relationship and dreamed that her beloved offspring would settle down, marry a young noblewoman and give him legitimate grandchildren. Varvara Petrovna did not favor Pelageya; she saw her as a serf. Ivan Sergeevich loved and pitied his daughter.

Polina Viardot, hearing about the bullying of her despotic grandmother, was imbued with sympathy for the girl and took her into her home. Pelageya turned into Polynet and grew up with Viardot's children. To be fair, it is worth noting that Pelageya-Polinet Turgeneva did not share her father’s love for Viardot, believing that the woman stole the attention of her loved one from her.

Cooling in the relationship between Turgenev and Viardot came after a three-year separation, which occurred due to the writer’s house arrest. Ivan Turgenev made attempts to forget his fatal passion twice. In 1854, the 36-year-old writer met the young beauty Olga, the daughter of his cousin. But when a wedding appeared on the horizon, Ivan Sergeevich began to yearn for Polina. Not wanting to ruin the life of an 18-year-old girl, Turgenev confessed his love for Viardot.

The last attempt to escape from the embrace of a French woman happened in 1879, when Ivan Turgenev turned 61 years old. Actress Maria Savina was not afraid of the age difference - her lover turned out to be twice as old. But when the couple went to Paris in 1882, in the home of her future husband, Masha saw many things and trinkets that reminded her of her rival, and realized that she was superfluous.

Death

In 1882, after breaking up with Savinova, Ivan Turgenev fell ill. The doctors made a disappointing diagnosis - spinal bone cancer. The writer died in a foreign land long and painfully.

In 1883, Turgenev was operated on in Paris. The last months of his life, Ivan Turgenev was happy, as happy as a person 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 Polina's daughter, Claudia Viardot. The writer was buried at the Volkov Cemetery in St. Petersburg.

Calling Turgenev “a thorn in his side,” he reacted to the death of the “nihilist” with relief.

Bibliography

• 1855 – “Rudin”
• 1858 – “The Noble Nest”
• 1860 – “On the Eve”
• 1862 – “Fathers and Sons”
• 1867 – “Smoke”
• 1877 – “Nove”
• 1851-73 - “Notes of a Hunter”
• 1858 – “Asya”
• 1860 – “First Love”
• 1872 – “Spring Waters”

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was born on October 28 (November 9), 1818 in the city of Orel. His family, both on his mother’s and father’s sides, belonged to the noble class.

The first education in Turgenev’s biography was received at the Spassky-Lutovinovo estate. The boy was taught literacy by German and French teachers. Since 1827, the family moved to Moscow. Turgenev then studied in private boarding schools in Moscow, and then at Moscow University. Without graduating, Turgenev transferred to the Faculty of Philosophy of St. Petersburg University. He also studied abroad and then traveled around Europe.

The beginning of a literary journey

While studying in his third year at the institute, in 1834 Turgenev wrote his first poem called “Wall”. And in 1838, his first two poems were published: “Evening” and “To the Venus of Medicine.”

In 1841, having returned to Russia, he was engaged in scientific activities, wrote a dissertation and received a master's degree in philology. Then, when the craving for science cooled, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev served as an official in the Ministry of Internal Affairs until 1844.

In 1843, Turgenev met Belinsky, they struck up a friendly relationship. Under the influence of Belinsky, new poems by Turgenev, poems, stories were created and published, including: “Parasha”, “Pop”, “Breter” and “Three Portraits”.

Creativity flourishes

To others famous works The writer can be attributed to: the novels “Smoke” (1867) and “Nov” (1877), novellas and short stories “Diary extra person"(1849), "Bezhin Meadow" (1851), "Asya" (1858), "Spring Waters" (1872) and many others.

In the fall of 1855, Turgenev met Leo Tolstoy, who soon published the story “Cutting the Forest” with a dedication to I. S. Turgenev.

Last years

In 1863 he went to Germany, where he met outstanding writers Western Europe, promotes Russian literature. He works as an editor and consultant, himself translating from Russian into German and French and vice versa. He becomes the most popular and read Russian writer in Europe. And in 1879 he received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University.

It was thanks to the efforts of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev that the best works of Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy were translated.

It is worth briefly noting that in the biography of Ivan Turgenev in the late 1870s - early 1880s, his popularity quickly increased, both at home and abroad. And critics began to rank him among the best writers century.

Since 1882, the writer began to be overcome by illnesses: gout, angina pectoris, neuralgia. As a result of a painful illness (sarcoma), he died on August 22 (September 3), 1883 in Bougival (a suburb of Paris). His body was brought to St. Petersburg and buried at the Volkovsky cemetery.

Chronological table

Other biography options

• In his youth, Turgenev was frivolous and spent a lot parental money for entertainment. For this, his mother once taught him a lesson, sending him bricks in a parcel instead of money.
• The writer’s personal life was not very successful. He had many affairs, but none of them ended in marriage. Most great love in his life there was Opera singer Polina Viardot. For 38 years, Turgenev knew her and her husband Louis. He traveled all over the world for their family, lived with them in different countries. Louis Viardot and Ivan Turgenev died in the same year.
• Turgenev was a clean man and dressed neatly. The writer loved to work in cleanliness and order - without this he never began to create.
• see all

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev born on August 22, 1818 in the city of Orel, Oryol region. Father, Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev (1793-1834), was a retired cuirassier colonel. Mother, Varvara Petrovna Turgeneva (before Lutovinov’s marriage) (1787-1850), came from a wealthy noble family.

Family Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev came from an ancient family of Tula nobles, the Turgenevs. It is curious that the great-grandfathers were involved in the events of the times of Ivan the Terrible: the names of such representatives of this family as Ivan Vasilyevich Turgenev, who was Ivan the Terrible’s nursery (1550-1556); Dmitry Vasilyevich was a governor in Kargopol in 1589. And in Time of Troubles Pyotr Nikitich Turgenev was executed at the Execution Ground in Moscow for denouncing False Dmitry I; great-grandfather Alexey Romanovich Turgenev was a participant Russian-Turkish war under Catherine II.

Up to 9 years Ivan Turgenev lived in the hereditary estate Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, 10 km from Mtsensk, Oryol province. In 1827, the Turgenevs, in order to give their children an education, settled in Moscow, in a house bought on Samotyok.

The first romantic interest of young Turgenev was falling in love with the daughter of Princess Shakhovskaya, Ekaterina. The estates of their parents in the Moscow region bordered, they often exchanged visits. He is 14, she is 18. In letters to her son, V.P. Turgenev called E.L. Shakhovskaya a “poet” and a “villain,” since Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev himself, his son’s happy rival, could not resist the charms of the young princess. The episode was revived much later, in 1860, in the story “First Love.”

After his parents went abroad, Ivan Sergeevich first studied at the Weidenhammer boarding school, then he was sent as a boarder to the director of the Lazarev Institute, Kruse. In 1833, 15-year-old Turgenev entered the literature department of Moscow University. Herzen and Belinsky studied here at that time. A year later, after Ivan’s older brother joined the Guards Artillery, the family moved to St. Petersburg, and Ivan Turgenev then moved to the Faculty of Philosophy at St. Petersburg University. Timofey Granovsky became his friend.

While Turgenev I saw myself in the poetic field. In 1834 he wrote the dramatic poem “Steno” and several lyric poems. The young author showed these samples of writing to his teacher, professor of Russian literature P. A. Pletnev. Pletnev called the poem a weak imitation of Byron, but noted that the author “has something.” By 1837, he had already written about a hundred small poems. At the beginning of 1837, an unexpected and short meeting took place with A.S. Pushkin. In the first issue of the Sovremennik magazine for 1838, which after Pushkin’s death was published under the editorship of P. A. Pletnev, Turgenev’s poem “Evening” was published with the caption “- - -v”, which is the author’s debut.

In 1836, Turgenev graduated from the course with the degree of a full student. Dreaming about scientific activity, he is in next year again took the final exam, received a candidate's degree, and in 1838 went to Germany. During the trip, a fire broke out on the ship, and the passengers miraculously managed to escape. Turgenev, who feared for his life, asked one of the sailors to save him and promised him a reward from his rich mother if he managed to fulfill his request. Other passengers testified that the young man plaintively exclaimed: “To die so young!”, while pushing women and children away from the lifeboats. Fortunately, the shore was not far.

Once on the shore, the young man was ashamed of his cowardice. Rumors of his cowardice permeated society and became the subject of ridicule. The event played a certain negative role in the subsequent life of the author and was described by Turgenev himself in the short story “Fire at Sea.” Having settled in Berlin, Ivan took up his studies. Listening to lectures at the university on the history of Rome and Greek literature, at home he studied the grammar of ancient Greek and Latin languages. Here he became close to Stankevich. In 1839 he returned to Russia, but already in 1840 he again left for Germany, Italy, and Austria. Impressed by his meeting with a girl in Frankfurt am Main, Turgenev later wrote the story “Spring Waters”.

In 1841, Ivan returned to Lutovinovo. He became interested in the seamstress Dunyasha, who in 1842 gave birth to his daughter Pelageya. Dunyasha was married off, leaving her daughter in an ambiguous position.

At the beginning of 1842, Ivan Sergeevich submitted a request to Moscow University for admission to the exam for the degree of Master of Philosophy. At the same time he began his literary activity.

The largest printed work of this time was the poem “Parasha”, written in 1843. Not hoping for positive criticism, he took the copy to V. G. Belinsky at Lopatin’s house, leaving the manuscript with the critic’s servant. Belinsky praised Parasha, publishing two months later positive feedback in Otechestvennye zapiski. From that moment their acquaintance began, which over time grew into a strong friendship.

In the autumn of 1843, Turgenev saw Pauline Viardot on stage for the first time opera house, When great singer came on tour to St. Petersburg. Then, while hunting, he met Polina’s husband, the director of the Italian Theater in Paris, famous critic and art critic Louis Viardot, and on November 1, 1843 he was introduced to Polina herself. Among the mass of fans, she did not particularly single out Turgenev, who was better known as an avid hunter rather than a writer. And when her tour ended, Turgenev, together with the Viardot family, left for Paris against the will of his mother, without money and still unknown to Europe. 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.

In 1846 he took part in updating Sovremennik. Nekrasov - his best friend. With Belinsky he travels abroad in 1847 and in 1848 lives in Paris, where he witnesses revolutionary events. He becomes close to Herzen and falls in love with Ogarev's wife Tuchkova. In 1850-1852 he lived either in Russia or abroad. Most of“Notes of a Hunter” was created by a writer in Germany.

Without an official marriage, Turgenev lived in the Viardot family. Pauline Viardot raised illegitimate daughter Turgenev. Several meetings with Gogol and Fet date back to this time.

In 1846, the stories “Breter” and “Three Portraits” were published. Later he wrote such works as “The Freeloader” (1848), “The Bachelor” (1849), “Provincial Woman”, “A Month in the Village”, “Quiet” (1854), “Yakov Pasynkov” (1855), “Breakfast at the Leader’s "(1856), etc. He wrote "Mumu" in 1852, while in exile in Spassky-Lutovinovo because of the obituary on the death of Gogol, which, despite the ban, he published in Moscow.

A collection was published in 1852 short stories Turgenev under common name"Notes of a Hunter", which was published in Paris in 1854. After the death of Nicholas I, four major works of the writer were published one after another: “Rudin” (1856), “The Noble Nest” (1859), “On the Eve” (1860) and “Fathers and Sons” (1862). The first two were published in Nekrasov's Sovremennik. The next two are in the “Russian Bulletin” by M. N. Katkov. Leaving Sovremennik marked a break with the radical camp of N. G. Chernyshevsky and N. A. Dobrolyubov.

Turgenev gravitates towards the circle of Westernized writers who profess the principles of “pure art”, opposing the tendentious creativity of the common revolutionaries: P. V. Annenkov, V. P. Botkin, D. V. Grigorovich, A. V. Druzhinin. For a short time, Leo Tolstoy, who lived for some time in Turgenev’s apartment, also joined this circle. After Tolstoy’s marriage to S.A. Bers, Turgenev found a close relative in Tolstoy, but even before the wedding, in May 1861, when both prose writers were visiting A.A. Fet on the Stepanovo estate, a serious quarrel occurred between the two writers, barely which did not end in a duel and spoiled the relationship between the writers for 17 long years.

From the beginning of the 1860s, Turgenev settled in Baden-Baden. The writer actively participates in the cultural life of Western Europe, making acquaintances with the greatest writers of Germany, France and England, promoting Russian literature abroad and introducing Russian readers to the best works contemporary Western authors. Among his acquaintances or correspondents are Friedrich Bodenstedt, Thackeray, Dickens, Henry James, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Saint-Beuve, Hippolyte Taine, Prosper Mérimée, Ernest Renan, Théophile Gautier, Edmond Goncourt, Emile Zola, Anatole France, Guy de Maupassant , Alphonse Daudet, Gustave Flaubert. In 1874, the famous bachelor dinners of the five began in the Parisian restaurants of Riche or Pellet: Flaubert, Edmond Goncourt, Daudet, Zola and Turgenev.

I. S. Turgenev acts as a consultant and editor for foreign translators of Russian writers; he himself writes prefaces and notes to translations of Russian writers into European languages, as well as to Russian translations of works by famous European writers. He translates Western writers into Russian and Russian writers and poets into French and German languages. This is how translations of Flaubert’s works “Herodias” and “The Tale of St. Julian the Merciful" for the Russian reader and Pushkin's works for the French reader. For some time, Turgenev became the most famous and most widely read Russian author in Europe. In 1878, at the international literary congress in Paris, the writer was elected vice-president; in 1879 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford.

Despite living abroad, all of Turgenev’s thoughts were still connected with Russia. He writes the novel “Smoke” (1867), which caused a lot of controversy in Russian society. According to the author, everyone criticized the novel: “both red and white, and above, and below, and from the side - especially from the side.” The fruit of his intense thoughts in the 1870s was the largest in volume of Turgenev’s novels, Nov (1877).

Turgenev was friends with the Milyutin brothers (comrade of the Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of War), A.V. Golovnin (Minister of Education), M.H. Reitern (Minister of Finance).

At the end of his life, Turgenev decides to reconcile with Leo Tolstoy; he explains the significance of modern Russian literature, including Tolstoy’s work, to the Western reader. In 1880, the writer took part in Pushkin celebrations dedicated to the opening of the first monument to the poet in Moscow, organized by the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature. The writer died in Bougival near Paris on August 22 (September 3), 1883 from myxosarcoma. Turgenev's body was, according to his wishes, brought to St. Petersburg and buried in the Volkovsky cemetery in front of a large crowd of people.

08/22/1883 (09/04). – Writer Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (born 10/28/1818) died near Paris.

I.S. Turgenev

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (28.10.1818–22.8.1883), Russian writer, author of “Notes of a Hunter”, “Fathers and Sons”. Born in Orel into a noble family. His father, a retired hussar officer, came from an old noble family; mother is from a wealthy landowner family, the Lutovinovs. Turgenev spent his childhood on the family estate Spassky-Lutovinovo. Turgenev’s mother Varvara Petrovna ruled her “subjects” in the manner of an autocratic empress - with “police” and “ministers” who sat in special “institutions” and ceremoniously came to report to her every morning (about this in the story “The Master’s Own Office”). Her favorite saying was “I want execution, I want sweetheart.” She treated her naturally good-natured and dreamy son harshly, wanting to raise him as a “real Lutovinov,” but in vain. She only wounded the boy’s heart, causing offense to those of her “subjects” to whom he had become attached (later she would become the prototype of the capricious ladies in the story “Mumu”, etc.).

At the same time, Varvara Petrovna was an educated woman and not alien to literary interests. She did not skimp on mentors for her sons (Ivan was the second of three). From an early age, Turgenev was taken abroad; after the family moved to Moscow in 1827, he was taught by the best teachers; from childhood he spoke French, German, English languages. In the fall of 1833, before reaching the age of fifteen, he entered the University, and the following year he transferred to St. Petersburg University, from which he graduated in 1836 in the verbal department of the Faculty of Philosophy.

In May 1837 he went to Berlin to listen to lectures on classical philosophy (how could we live without advanced Europe...). The reason for his departure was hatred of the man who had darkened his childhood: “I could not breathe the same air, stay close to what I hated... I needed to move away from my enemy so that from my very distance I could attack him more strongly. In my eyes, this enemy had a certain image, wore famous name: this enemy was - serfdom" In Germany, he became friends with the ardent revolutionary demon M. Bakunin (who partly served as the prototype for Rudin in novel of the same name), meetings with him may have been much more higher value than lectures by Berlin professors. He combined his studies with long travels: he traveled around Germany, visited Holland and France, and lived in Italy for several months. But it seems that he learned little from his four years of experience abroad. The West did not arouse in him the desire to know Russia through comparison.

Returning to Russia in 1841, he settled in Moscow, where he intended to teach philosophy (German, of course) and prepared for master's exams, attended literary circles and salons: he met,. On one of the trips to St. Petersburg - with. The circle of friends, as we see, includes both Slavophiles and Westerners, but Turgenev rather belonged to the latter not because of his ideological convictions, but because of his mental make-up.

In 1842, he successfully passed his master's exams, hoping to get a professorship at Moscow University, but since the department of philosophy, as an obvious hotbed of Westernism, was abolished, he failed to become a professor.

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 the same year, an acquaintance with Belinsky and his entourage took place. Turgenev's social and literary views during this period were determined mainly by the influence of Belinsky. Turgenev publishes his poems, poems, dramatic works, stories. The Social Democratic critic guided his work with his assessments and friendly advice.

In 1847, Turgenev again went abroad for a long time: love for French singer Pauline Viardot(married), whom he met in 1843 during her tour in St. Petersburg, took him away from Russia. He lived for three years, first in Germany, then in Paris and on the estate of the Viardot family.

Writer's fame came to him even before his departure: the essay "Khor and Kalinich" published in Sovremennik was a success. The following essays from folk life published in the same journal for five years. In 1852 it was published as a separate book under the now famous title “Notes of a Hunter.” Perhaps some nostalgia for his childhood years in the Russian village gave his stories artistic insight. This is how he took his place in Russian literature.

In 1850 he returned to Russia, collaborating as an author and critic in Sovremennik, which became the center of Russian literary life. Impressed by Gogol's death in 1852, he published a daring obituary, prohibited by censorship. For this he is arrested for a month, and then sent to his estate under police supervision without the right to travel outside the Oryol province. In 1853 it was allowed to come to St. Petersburg, but the right to travel abroad was returned only in 1856 (Here it is, all the cruelty of the “unbearable Nicholas despotism”...)

Along with “hunting” stories, Turgenev wrote several plays: “The Freeloader” (1848), “The Bachelor” (1849), “A Month in the Country” (1850), “Provincial Woman” (1850). During his exile, he wrote the stories "Mumu" (1852) and "The Inn" (1852) on peasant theme. However, he is increasingly occupied by the life of the Russian “intelligentsia”, to whom the stories “The Diary of an Extra Man” (1850) are dedicated; "Yakov Pasynkov" (1855); "Correspondence" (1856). Working on stories naturally led to the genre of the novel. In the summer of 1855, “Rudin” was written in Spassky; in 1859 – “The Noble Nest”; in 1860 - “On the Eve”.

Thus, Turgenev was not only a writer, but also public figure, whom his fellow revolutionaries included in their circle of fighters against the autocracy. At the same time, Turgenev criticized his friends Herzen, Dobrolyubov, Chernyshevsky, Bakunin for nihilism. Thus, in the article “Hamlet and Don Quixote” he wrote: “In denial, like in fire, there is a destroying force - and how to keep this force within boundaries, how to show it exactly where it should stop, when what it should destroy and what it should spare are often merged and inextricably linked ».

Turgenev's conflict with the revolutionary democrats influenced the design of his most famous novel, Fathers and Sons (1861). The dispute here is precisely between liberals, such as Turgenev and his closest friends, and revolutionary democrats like Dobrolyubov (who partly served as the prototype for Bazarov). At first glance, Bazarov turns out to be stronger in disputes with the “fathers” and emerges victorious. However, the inconsistency of his nihilism is proven not by his father, but by the entire artistic structure of the novel. Slavophile N.N. Strakhov defined Turgenev’s “mysterious moral teaching” as follows: “Bazarov turns away from nature; ...Turgenev paints nature in all its beauty. Bazarov does not value friendship and renounces romantic love; ... the author depicts Arkady’s friendship for Bazarov himself and his happy love to Katya. Bazarov denies close ties between parents and children; ...the author unfolds before us a picture of parental love...” The love rejected by Bazarov chained him to the cold “aristocrat” Odintsova and broke him mental strength. He dies by an absurd accident: a cut on his finger was enough to kill the “giant of free thought.”

The situation in Russia at that time was changing rapidly: the government announced its intention, preparations for reform began, giving rise to numerous plans for the upcoming restructuring. Turgenev takes an active part in this process, becoming an unofficial collaborator of Herzen, sending incriminating material to his emigrant magazine "Bell". Nevertheless, he was far from the revolution.

In the fight against serfdom, writers different directions Only at first they acted as a united front, but then natural and sharp disagreements arose. There was a break between Turgenev and the Sovremennik magazine, the reason for which was Dobrolyubov’s article “When will the real day come?” dedicated to the novel Turgenev's "On the Eve", in which the critic predicted the imminent appearance of the Russian Insarov, the approaching day of the revolution. Turgenev did not accept this interpretation of the novel and asked not to publish this article. Nekrasov took the side of Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky, and Turgenev left Sovremennik. By 1862–1863 refers to his polemic with Herzen on the issue of further paths of development of Russia, which led to a divergence between them. Placing hopes on reforms “from above,” Turgenev considered Herzen’s then-faith in the revolutionary and socialist aspirations of the peasantry unfounded.

Since 1863, the writer was abroad again: he settled with the Viardot family in Baden-Baden. At the same time he began to collaborate with the liberal-bourgeois "Bulletin of Europe", which published all of his subsequent major works, including last novel"Nov" (1876), in which both the revolutionary and liberal-cosmopolitan path of development of Russia are questioned - the writer no longer wants to participate even in the second, preferring to live private life Abroad. Following the Viardot family, he moved to Paris. The writer also takes his daughter to France, who was adopted in her youth from a relationship with a serf peasant woman. The ambiguity of the position of the Russian nobleman, famous writer, “at the beck and call” of a married French singer, amused the French public. In the days (spring 1871) Turgenev left for London, after its collapse he returned to France, where he remained until the end of his life, spending winters in Paris, and summer months outside the city, in Bougival, and making short trips to Russia every spring.

Strangely, such a frequent and ultimately long stay in the West (including the experience of the revolutionary Commune), unlike most Russian writers (Gogol, even the revolutionaries Herzen and) did not prompt such a talented Russian writer to spiritually feel the meaning of Orthodox Russia. Perhaps because during these years Turgenev received European recognition. Flattery is rarely useful.

Revolutionary movement of the 1870s in Russia, connected with the activities of the populists, Turgenev again met with interest, became close to the leaders of the movement, provided financial assistance in the publication of the collection "Forward". His long-standing interest in folk theme, he returns to “Notes of a Hunter,” supplementing them with new essays, writes the stories “Lunin and Baburin” (1874), “The Clock” (1875), etc.

A “progressive” revival begins among student youth, and a diverse “intelligentsia” (translated into Russian: umniki) is formed. Turgenev's popularity, once shaken by his break with Sovremennik, is now being restored and growing rapidly in these circles. In February 1879, when he arrived in Russia after sixteen years of emigration, these “progressive” circles honored him at literary evenings and gala dinners, strongly inviting them to stay in their homeland. Turgenev was even inclined to stay, but this intention was not realized: Paris became more familiar. In the spring of 1882, the first signs of a serious illness were discovered, which deprived the writer of the ability to move (cancer of the spine).

On August 22, 1883, Turgenev died in Bougival. According to the writer's will, his body was transported to Russia and buried in St. Petersburg.

The writer's funeral showed that the socialist revolutionaries considered him one of their own. In their magazine "Bulletin" Narodnaya Volya“An obituary was published with the following assessment: “The deceased was never a socialist or a revolutionary, but Russian socialist-revolutionaries will not forget that an ardent love for freedom, hatred of the tyranny of the autocracy and the deadening element of official Orthodoxy, humanity and a deep understanding of the beauty of developed human personality constantly animated this talent and further strengthened its significance, as greatest artist and an honest citizen. During the time of universal slavery, Ivan Sergeevich was able to notice and reveal the type of protesting rarity, developed and developed a Russian personality and took an honorable place among the spiritual fathers of the liberation movement.”

This was, of course, an exaggeration, nevertheless, it contributed to the so-called. " liberation movement"Ivan Sergeevich, unfortunately, contributed, therefore taking a corresponding place in the Soviet school education system. She, of course, exaggerated the oppositional side of him social activities without proper spiritual analysis and to the detriment of its undoubted artistic merit... True, it is difficult to include all the images of the notorious “Turgenev women” among them, some of whom showed the great importance of the Russian woman in her love for her family and homeland, while others in their dedication were far from the Orthodox worldview.

Meanwhile, exactly spiritual analysis Turgenev's creativity allows us to understand both his personal life drama and his place in Russian literature. M.M. wrote well about this. Dunaev in connection with the published letters of Ivan Sergeevich with the words: “I want truth, not salvation, I expect it from my own mind, and not from Grace” (1847); “I’m not a Christian in your sense, and perhaps not in any sense” (1864).

“Turgenev... unambiguously outlined the state of his soul, which he would strive to overcome throughout his life and the struggle with which would become the true, albeit hidden plot of his literary creativity. In this struggle, he will gain insight into the deepest truths, but will also experience severe defeats, learn ups and downs - and will give every reader with a non-lazy soul the precious experience of striving from unbelief to faith (regardless of what the writer’s own conclusion was). life path)" (Dunaev M.M. "Orthodoxy and Russian Literature". Vol. III).

Materials also used:
Russian writers and poets. Brief biographical dictionary. Moscow, 2000.
Ivan and Polina Turgenev and Viardot

Against the background of speculation and biography of the writer described above, one can more accurately evaluate his famous statement about the Russian language:
“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! Without you, how can one not fall into despair at the sight of everything that is happening at home? But one cannot believe that such a language was not given to a great people!”

Born in the city of Orel on November 9 (October 28, old style) 1818 into a noble family. Father, Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev (1793-1834), was a retired cuirassier colonel. Mother, Varvara Petrovna Turgeneva (before Lutovinov’s marriage) (1787-1850), came from a wealthy noble family. Until the age of 9 Ivan Turgenev lived in the hereditary estate Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, 10 km from Mtsensk, Oryol province. In 1827 Turgenevs, in order to give their children an education, they settled in Moscow, in a house bought on Samotyok. After the parents went abroad, Ivan Sergeevich first he studied at the Weidenhammer boarding school, then at the boarding school of the director of the Lazarevsky Institute, Krause. In 1833, a 15-year-old Turgenev entered the literature department of Moscow University. Where they studied at that time Herzen and Belinsky. A year later, after Ivan's older brother joined the Guards Artillery, the family moved to St. Petersburg, and Ivan Turgenev At the same time he moved to the Faculty of Philosophy at St. Petersburg University. Timofey Granovsky became his friend. In 1834 he wrote the dramatic poem “Wall” and several lyric poems. The young author showed these samples of writing to his teacher, professor of Russian literature P. A. Pletnev. Pletnev called the poem a weak imitation of Byron, but noted that the author “has something.” By 1837, he had already written about a hundred small poems. At the beginning of 1837, an unexpected and short meeting took place with A.S. Pushkin. In the first issue of the Sovremennik magazine for 1838, which after his death Pushkin published under the editorship of P. A. Pletnev, with the signature “- - -въ” the poem was printed Turgenev“Evening”, which is the author’s debut. In 1836 Turgenev graduated from the course with the degree of a valid student. Dreaming of scientific activity, the following year he again took the final exam, received a candidate's degree, and in 1838 he went to Germany. During the trip, a fire broke out on the ship, and the passengers miraculously managed to escape. Fearing for his life Turgenev asked one of the sailors to save him and promised him a reward from his rich mother if he managed to fulfill his request. Other passengers testified that the young man plaintively exclaimed: “To die so young!”, while pushing women and children away from the lifeboats. Fortunately, the shore was not far away. Once on the shore, the young man was ashamed of his cowardice. Rumors of his cowardice permeated society and became the subject of ridicule. The event played a certain negative role in the subsequent life of the author and was described by Turgenev in the short story "Fire at Sea". Having settled in Berlin, Ivan took up his studies. While listening to lectures on the history of Roman and Greek literature at the university, at home he studied the grammar of ancient Greek and Latin. Here he became close to Stankevich. In 1839 he returned to Russia, but already in 1840 he again left for Germany, Italy, and Austria. Impressed by meeting a girl in Frankfurt am Main Turgenev later the story “Spring Waters” was written. In 1841 Ivan returned to Lutovinovo. He became interested in the seamstress Dunyasha, who in 1842 gave birth to his daughter Pelageya (Polina). Dunyasha was married off, her daughter was left in an ambiguous position. At the beginning of 1842 Ivan Turgenev submitted a request to Moscow University for admission to the exam for the degree of Master of Philosophy. At the same time, he began his literary activity. The largest published work of this time was the poem “Parasha,” written in 1843. Not hoping for positive criticism, he took the copy to V. G. Belinsky at Lopatin’s house, leaving the manuscript with the critic’s servant. Belinsky praised Parasha, publishing a positive review in Otechestvennye zapiski two months later. From that moment their acquaintance began, which over time grew into a strong friendship. In the autumn of 1843 Turgenev I first saw Polina Viardot on the stage of the opera house when the great singer came on tour to St. Petersburg. Then, while hunting, he met Polina’s husband, the director of the Italian Theater in Paris, a famous critic and art critic, Louis Viardot, and on November 1, 1843, he was introduced to Polina herself. Among the mass of fans, she didn’t particularly stand out Turgenev, better known as an avid hunter rather than a writer. And when her tour ended, Turgenev Together with the Viardot family, he left for Paris against his mother’s will, without money and still unknown to Europe. 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. In 1846 participates in the update of Sovremennik. Nekrasov- his best friend. With Belinsky he travels abroad in 1847 and in 1848 lives in Paris, where he witnesses revolutionary events. He becomes close to Herzen and falls in love with Ogarev's wife Tuchkova. In 1850-1852 he lived either in Russia or abroad. Most of the “Notes of a Hunter” were created by the writer in Germany. Without having an official marriage, Turgenev lived in the Viardot family. Pauline Viardot raised an illegitimate daughter Turgenev. Several meetings with Gogol And Fet In 1846, the stories “Breter” and “Three Portraits” were published. Later he wrote such works as “The Freeloader” (1848), “The Bachelor” (1849), “Provincial Woman”, “A Month in the Village”, “Quiet” (1854), “Yakov Pasynkov” (1855), “Breakfast at the Leader’s "(1856), etc. He wrote "Mumu" in 1852, while in exile in Spassky-Lutovinovo due to an obituary for his death Gogol, which, despite the ban, was published in Moscow. In 1852, a collection of short stories was published Turgenev under the general title “Notes of a Hunter,” which was published in Paris in 1854. After the death of Nicholas I, four major works of the writer were published one after another: “Rudin” (1856), “The Noble Nest” (1859), “On the Eve” (1860) and “Fathers and Sons” (1862). The first two were published in Nekrasov's Sovremennik. The next two are in the “Russian Bulletin” by M. N. Katkov. In 1860, the Sovremennik published an article by N. A. Dobrolyubov “When will the real day come?”, in which the novel “On the Eve” and Turgenev’s work in general were rather harshly criticized . Turgenev put Nekrasov ultimatum: or he, Turgenev, or Dobrolyubov. The choice fell on Dobrolyubova, which later became one of the prototypes for the image of Bazarov in the novel “Fathers and Sons”. After that Turgenev left Sovremennik and stopped communicating with Nekrasov.Turgenev gravitates towards the circle of Westernized writers who profess the principles of “pure art”, opposing the tendentious creativity of the common revolutionaries: P. V. Annenkov, V. P. Botkin, D. V. Grigorovich, A. V. Druzhinin. For a short time Leo Tolstoy, who lived in the apartment for some time, also joined this circle Turgenev. After marriage Tolstoy on S. A. Bers Turgenev found in Tolstoy a close relative, however, even before the wedding, in May 1861, when both prose writers were visiting A. A. Fet on the Stepanovo estate, a serious quarrel occurred between the two writers, which almost ended in a duel and spoiled the relationship between the writers for many 17 years. From the early 1860s Turgenev settles in Baden-Baden. The writer actively participates in the cultural life of Western Europe, making acquaintances with the greatest writers of Germany, France and England, promoting Russian literature abroad and introducing Russian readers to the best works of contemporary Western authors. Among his acquaintances or correspondents are Friedrich Bodenstedt, Thackeray, Dickens, Henry James, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Saint-Beuve, Hippolyte Taine, Prosper Mérimée, Ernest Renan, Théophile Gautier, Edmond Goncourt, Emile Zola, Anatole France, Guy de Maupassant , Alphonse Daudet, Gustave Flaubert. In 1874, the famous bachelor dinners of the five began in the Parisian restaurants of Riche or Pellet: Flaubert, Edmond Goncourt, Daudet, Zola and Turgenev. I. S. Turgenev acts as a consultant and editor for foreign translators of Russian writers; he himself writes prefaces and notes to translations of Russian writers into European languages, as well as to Russian translations of works of famous European writers. He translates Western writers into Russian and Russian writers and poets into French and German. This is how translations of Flaubert’s works “Herodias” and “The Tale of St. Julian the Merciful" for the Russian reader and Pushkin's works for the French reader. For some time Turgenev becomes the most famous and most read Russian author in Europe. In 1878, at the international literary congress in Paris, the writer was elected vice-president; in 1879 he was an honorary doctor of Oxford University. Despite living abroad, all thoughts Turgenev were still connected with Russia. He writes the novel “Smoke” (1867), which caused a lot of controversy in Russian society. According to the author, everyone criticized the novel: “both red and white, and above, and below, and from the side - especially from the side.” The fruit of his intense thoughts in the 1870s was the largest in volume of Turgenev’s novels, Nov (1877). Turgenev was friends with the Milyutin brothers (fellow Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of War), A.V. Golovnin (Minister of Education), M.H. Reitern (Minister of Finance). At the end of his life Turgenev decides to reconcile with Leo Tolstoy, he explains the significance of modern Russian literature, including creativity Tolstoy, to the Western reader. In 1880, the writer took part in Pushkin celebrations dedicated to the opening of the first monument to the poet in Moscow, organized by the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature. The writer died in Bougival near Paris on August 22 (September 3), 1883 from myxosarcoma. Turgenev's body was, according to his wishes, brought to St. Petersburg and buried in the Volkov cemetery in front of a large crowd of people.

Works