Personal life of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. Biography of Turgenev

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev is a famous Russian prose writer, poet, classic of world literature, playwright, critic, memoirist and translator. He is the author of many outstanding works. The fate of this great writer will be discussed in this article.

Early childhood

Turgenev's biography (brief in our review, but very rich in reality) began in 1818. The future writer was born on November 9 in the city of Orel. His dad, Sergei Nikolaevich, was a combat officer in a cuirassier regiment, but retired soon after Ivan’s birth. The boy’s mother, Varvara Petrovna, was a representative of a wealthy noble family. It was on the family estate of this powerful woman - Spasskoye-Lutovinovo - that the first years of Ivan’s life passed. Despite her difficult, unbending disposition, Varvara Petrovna was a very enlightened and educated person. She managed to instill in her children (in the family, besides Ivan, his older brother Nikolai was raised) a love of science and Russian literature.

Education

The future writer received his primary education at home. So that it could continue in a dignified manner, the Turgenev family moved to Moscow. Here Turgenev’s biography (short) took a new turn: the boy’s parents went abroad, and he was kept in various boarding houses. First he lived and was brought up in Weidenhammer's establishment, then in Krause's. At the age of fifteen (in 1833), Ivan entered Moscow State University at the Faculty of Literature. After the eldest son Nikolai joined the Guards cavalry, the Turgenev family moved to St. Petersburg. Here the future writer became a student at a local university and began studying philosophy. In 1837, Ivan graduated from this educational institution.

Trying out the pen and further education

For many, Turgenev’s work is associated with writing prose works. However, Ivan Sergeevich initially planned to become a poet. In 1934, he wrote several lyrical works, including the poem “The Wall,” which was appreciated by his mentor, P. A. Pletnev. Over the next three years, the young writer has already composed about a hundred poems. In 1838, several of his works (“To the Venus of Medicine,” “Evening”) were published in the famous Sovremennik. The young poet felt an inclination towards scientific activity and in 1838 went to Germany to continue his education at the University of Berlin. Here he studied Roman and Greek literature. Ivan Sergeevich quickly became imbued with the Western European way of life. A year later, the writer returned to Russia briefly, but already in 1840 he left his homeland again and lived in Italy, Austria and Germany. Turgenev returned to Spasskoye-Lutovinovo in 1841, and a year later he turned to Moscow State University with a request to allow him to take the exam for a master's degree in philosophy. This was denied to him.

Pauline Viardot

Ivan Sergeevich managed to obtain a scientific degree at St. Petersburg University, but by that time he had already lost interest in this type of activity. In search of a worthy career in life, in 1843 the writer entered the service of the ministerial office, but his ambitious aspirations quickly faded away. In 1843, the writer published the poem “Parasha,” which impressed V. G. Belinsky. Success inspired Ivan Sergeevich, and he decided to devote his life to creativity. In the same year, Turgenev’s (brief) biography was marked by another fateful event: the writer met the outstanding French singer Pauline Viardot. Having seen the beauty at the St. Petersburg Opera House, Ivan Sergeevich decided to meet her. At first, the girl did not pay attention to the little-known writer, but Turgenev was so amazed by the singer’s charm that he followed the Viardot family to Paris. For many years he accompanied Polina on her foreign tours, despite the obvious disapproval of his relatives.

Creativity flourishes

In 1946, Ivan Sergeevich actively took part in updating the Sovremennik magazine. He meets Nekrasov, and he becomes his best friend. For two years (1950-1952) the writer was torn between abroad and Russia. During this period, Turgenev's creativity began to gain serious momentum. The series of stories “Notes of a Hunter” was almost entirely written in Germany and made the writer famous throughout the world. In the next decade, the classic author created a number of outstanding prose works: “The Noble Nest”, “Rudin”, “Fathers and Sons”, “On the Eve”. During the same period, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev quarreled with Nekrasov. Their controversy over the novel “On the Eve” ended in a complete break. The writer leaves Sovremennik and goes abroad.

Abroad

Turgenev's life abroad began in Baden-Baden. Here Ivan Sergeevich found himself in the very center of Western European cultural life. He began to maintain relationships with many world literary celebrities: Hugo, Dickens, Maupassant, France, Thackeray and others. The writer actively promoted Russian culture abroad. For example, in 1874 in Paris, Ivan Sergeevich, together with Daudet, Flaubert, Goncourt and Zola, organized the now famous “bachelor dinners at five” in the capital’s restaurants. Turgenev's characterization during this period was very flattering: he turned into the most popular, famous and read Russian writer in Europe. In 1878, Ivan Sergeevich was elected vice-president of the International Literary Congress in Paris. Since 1877, the writer has been an honorary doctor of Oxford University.

Creativity of recent years

Turgenev's biography - short but vivid - indicates that the long years spent abroad did not alienate the writer from Russian life and its pressing problems. He still writes a lot about his homeland. So, in 1867, Ivan Sergeevich wrote the novel “Smoke,” which caused a large-scale public outcry in Russia. In 1877, the writer composed the novel “New,” which became the result of his creative reflections in the 1870s.

Demise

For the first time, a serious illness that interrupted the writer’s life made itself felt in 1882. Despite severe physical suffering, Ivan Sergeevich continued to create. A few months before his death, the first part of the book “Poems in Prose” was published. The great writer died in 1883, on September 3, in the suburbs of Paris. Relatives carried out the will of Ivan Sergeevich and transported his body to his homeland. The classic was buried in St. Petersburg at the Volkov cemetery. He was accompanied on his last journey by numerous admirers.

This is the biography of Turgenev (short). This man devoted his entire life to his favorite work and forever remained in the memory of posterity as an outstanding writer and famous public figure.

A classic of Russian literature, a genius and a quiet revolutionary - Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev - significantly influenced the development of culture and thought in our country. It was taught to more than one generation of the youth of our country. Although few today know what influenced the development of the writer’s worldview, how he lived, worked, and where Turgenev was born.

Earlier childhood

It is customary to begin the study of the work of any writer with a study of his childhood, first impressions, as well as the environment that influenced him in one way or another. Uninformed people, especially schoolchildren, confuse where Turgenev was born and in what city, calling his mother’s estate his homeland. In fact, although the Russian classic spent most of his childhood there, he was still born in the city of Orel.

Researchers of the work of the famous writer of the 19th century note that all the childhood impressions of the Russian classic were subsequently reflected in his works. The time and place where Turgenev was born became the determining factors in his attitude towards the existing government.

Reflection of childhood memories in literature

Ivan Sergeevich came from an ancient noble family, his father - refined, noble, a favorite of women and society - sharply contrasted with the domineering and despotic mother Varvara Petrovna, née Lutovinova. Later, all the memories of where Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was born, grew up and was brought up, will be included in some of the plots of his works. And the images of the mother and grandmother will become prototypes of the domineering and heartless landowners from the “Notes of a Hunter” series.

The area where Turgenev was born was rich in truly Russian traditions and ancient customs. Ivan Sergeevich listened with pleasure to the stories of his mother’s serfs, and was imbued with their dreams and suffering. It was here, in the family estate, that the writer understood what slavery was and fiercely hated this phenomenon. Childhood impressions shaped the writer’s unyielding position; all his life he advocated for the freedom of every person, regardless of his origin.

The most striking image of Turgenev's creativity is a fading old estate, which personified the decline of the nobility, the crushing of the souls and actions of the intelligentsia. All these thoughts were inspired precisely by the environment of the family nest.

Estate Spasskoye-Lutovinovo

When the question arises about where Turgenev was born, everyone immediately remembers the picture from the school textbook. the rays of the setting sun penetrating through the foliage and an old house with white columns. Not everyone will remember the name of the estate where Turgenev was born, and yet the local environment greatly influenced the writer’s work; one can say that Russian literary classics were born here.

Here, in forced exile, the stories “The Inn” and the unpublished work “Two Generations”, the essay “On Nightingales”, as well as the famous novel about the failed revolutionary “Rudin” were written. Silence and natural beauty reigned here, all this was conducive to creativity and self-criticism. It is not surprising that the classic always returned here after long trips to European countries.

Turgenev not only verbally opposed slavery; after he gave freedom to his serfs (many of whom remained in the service as free people), the writer organized a school for children and a kind of home for the elderly on the estate. Until the end of his life, Ivan Sergeevich adhered to the European traditions of respect for the freedoms of every person.

Link

After the death of his mother, the writer ceded most of his inheritance to his brother Nikolai, but left himself the only place where he was happy - the family estate Spasskoye-Lutovinovo. It was here that Nicholas I exiled him in the hope of bringing the obstinate writer to reason. But the punishment failed, Ivan Sergeevich released all his serfs and continued to write books that were objectionable to the court.

Other geniuses of Russian literature often came to where he was born and where he was imprisoned by order of the emperor. Nikolai Nekrasov, Afanasy Fet and Lev Tolstoy visited Spasskoye-Lutovinovo at different times to support their comrade. After each trip abroad, Turgenev returns precisely here, to the family estate. Here he writes “The Noble Nest”, “Fathers and Sons” and “On the Eve”, and no serious philological study of these works is possible without correlating the events of the novels with the history of the Spasskoye-Lutovinovo estate.

Turgenev Museum

Today in Russia there are many abandoned and destroyed noble estates. Many of them were destroyed during the Civil War, some were nationalized or demolished, and some simply collapsed due to time and lack of repair.

The history of the estate where Ivan Turgenev was born is also quite tragic. The house burned down several times, the property was confiscated, and the famous alleys were overgrown with dense grass. But thanks to connoisseurs of Russian classical literature, back in Soviet times, the estate was restored according to the remaining drawings and drawings. Gradually, the garden plot was put in order, and today a museum named after Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, a world classic and famous genius of Russian literature, is opened here.

Literary critics argue that the artistic system created by the classic changed the poetics of the novel in the second half of the 19th century. Ivan Turgenev was the first to 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.

The family life of the parents did not 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 the youngest son Sergei died of epilepsy.

Nikolai and Ivan had a hard time - their mother had a despotic character. An intelligent and educated woman 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. The mother did not treat her daughter in the best way either. 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 exclusively to her family in French, demanding the same from Ivan and Nikolai. Spassky kept a rich library, 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 innovations 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 completed a high school course, and 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.

During his 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 on a Moonlit Night” and “Dream”.

Fame came in 1843, when Ivan Sergeevich composed the poem “Parasha”, approved by Vissarion Belinsky. Soon Turgenev and Belinsky became so close that the young writer became the godfather of the son of a famous critic. The rapprochement with Belinsky and Nikolai Nekrasov influenced the creative biography of Ivan Turgenev: the writer finally said goodbye to the genre of romanticism, which became 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 author composed the story “Mumu”, as well as the novels “The Noble Nest”, “On the Eve”, “Fathers and Sons”, “Smoke”, which became an event in the cultural life of Russia.

Ivan Turgenev went abroad in the summer of 1856. In 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 a controversial person. 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 writer to receive 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. The delight from the visit of the famous writer was not shared by the authorities, making Ivan Sergeevich understand that a long stay of the writer in the city was undesirable.

In the summer of the same year, Ivan Turgenev visited Britain - at Oxford University the Russian prose writer was given the title of honorary doctor.

The penultimate time Turgenev came to Russia 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 sadly told about in the story of the same name, painfully wounded the 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 while 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, a future world-famous writer, was born on November 9, 1818. Place of birth - the city of Orel, parents - nobles. He began his literary activity not with prose, but with lyrical works and poems. Poetic notes are also felt in many of his subsequent stories and novels.

It is very difficult to briefly introduce Turgenev’s work; the influence of his creations on all Russian literature of that time was too great. He is a prominent representative of the golden age in the history of Russian literature, and his fame extended far beyond Russia - abroad, in Europe the name Turgenev was also familiar to many.

Turgenev's pen includes the typical images of new literary heroes he created - serfs, superfluous people, fragile and strong women and commoners. Some of the topics he touched on more than 150 years ago are still relevant today.

If we briefly characterize Turgenev’s work, then researchers of his works conventionally distinguish three stages in it:

1. 1836 – 1847.
2. 1848 – 1861.
3. 1862 – 1883.

Each of these stages has its own characteristics.

1) Stage one is the beginning of a creative path, writing romantic poems, searching for yourself as a writer and your own style in different genres - poetry, prose, drama. At the beginning of this stage, Turgenev was influenced by the philosophical school of Hegel, and his work was of a romantic and philosophical nature. In 1843, he met the famous critic Belinsky, who became his creative mentor and teacher. A little earlier, Turgenev wrote his first poem called “Parasha”.

Turgenev’s work was greatly influenced by his love for the singer Pauline Viardot, after whom he left for France for several years. It is this feeling that explains the subsequent emotionality and romanticism of his works. Also, during his life in France, Turgenev met many talented wordsmiths of this country.

The creative achievements of this period include the following works:

1. Poems, lyrics - “Andrey”, “Conversation”, “Landowner”, “Pop”.
2. Dramaturgy – plays “Carelessness” and “Lack of Money”.
3. Prose – stories and stories “Petushkov”, “Andrey Kolosov”, “Three Portraits”, “Breter”, “Mumu”.

The future direction of his work—works in prose—is emerging more and more clearly.

2) Stage two is the most successful and fruitful in Turgenev’s work. He enjoys the well-deserved fame that arose after the publication of the first story from “Notes of a Hunter” - the essay story “Khor and Kalinich”, published in 1847 in the Sovremennik magazine. Its success marked the beginning of five years of work on the remaining stories in the series. In the same year, 1847, when Turgenev was abroad, the following 13 stories were written.

The creation of “Notes of a Hunter” carries an important meaning in the work of the writer:

- firstly, Turgenev was one of the first Russian writers to touch upon a new topic - the topic of the peasantry, revealing their image more deeply; He portrayed the landowners in a real light, trying not to embellish or criticize without reason;

- secondly, the stories are imbued with a deep psychological meaning, the writer does not just depict a hero of a certain class, he tries to penetrate his soul, understand his way of thinking;

- thirdly, the authorities did not like these works, and for their creation Turgenev was first arrested and then sent into exile to his family estate.

Creative heritage:

1. Novels – “Rud”, “On the Eve” and “The Noble Nest”. The first novel was written in 1855 and was a great success among readers, and the next two further strengthened the writer’s fame.
2. The stories are “Asya” and “Faust”.
3. Several dozen stories from “Notes of a Hunter.”

3) Stage three is the time of mature and serious works of the writer, in which the writer touches on deeper issues. It was in the sixties that Turgenev’s most famous novel, “Fathers and Sons,” was written. This novel raised questions about the relationship between different generations that are still relevant today and gave rise to many literary discussions.

An interesting fact is also that at the dawn of his creative activity, Turgenev returned to where he started - to lyrics and poetry. He became interested in a special type of poetry - writing prose fragments and miniatures in lyrical form. Over the course of four years, he wrote more than 50 such works. The writer believed that such a literary form could fully express the most secret feelings, emotions and thoughts.

Works from this period:

1. Novels – “Fathers and Sons”, “Smoke”, “New”.
2. Stories - “Punin and Baburin”, “King of the Steppes Lear”, “Brigadier”.
3. Mystical works - “Ghosts”, “After Death”, “The Story of Lieutenant Ergunov”.

In the last years of his life, Turgenev was mainly abroad, without forgetting his homeland. His work influenced many other writers, opened up many new questions and images of heroes in Russian literature, therefore Turgenev is rightfully considered one of the most outstanding classics of Russian prose.

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Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev is a great Russian poet, writer, translator, playwright, philosopher and publicist. Born in Orel in 1818. in a family of nobles. The boy spent his childhood on the family estate of Spasskoye-Lutovinovo. Little Ivan was educated at home, as was customary in noble families of that time, by French and German teachers. In 1927 the boy was sent to study at a private Moscow boarding school, where he spent 2.5 years.

By the age of fourteen I.S. Turgenev knew three foreign languages ​​well, which helped him without much effort to enter Moscow University from where, a year later, he transferred to the University of St. Petersburg to the Faculty of Philosophy. Two years after graduation, Turgenev goes to study in Germany. In 1841 he returns to Moscow with the goal of finishing his studies and getting a place at the department of philosophy, but due to the tsarist ban on this science, his dreams were not destined to come true.

In 1843 Ivan Sergeevich entered service in one of the offices of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where he worked for only two years. During the same period of time, his first works began to be published. In 1847 Turgenev, following his beloved, singer Polina Viardot, goes abroad and spends three years there. All this time, longing for his homeland did not leave the writer and in a foreign land he wrote several essays, which would later be included in the book “Notes of a Hunter,” which brought Turgenev popularity.

Upon returning to Russia, Ivan Sergeevich worked as a writer and critic in the Sovremennik magazine. In 1852 he publishes an obituary of N. Gogol, prohibited by censorship, for which he is sent to the family estate located in the Oryol province, without the opportunity to leave it. There he writes several works on “peasant” themes, one of which is “Mumu,” beloved by many since childhood. The writer's exile ends in 1853, he is allowed to visit St. Petersburg, and later (in 1856) leave the country and Turgenev leaves for Europe.

In 1858 he will return to his homeland, but not for long. During his stay in Russia, such famous works as “Asya”, “The Noble Nest”, “Fathers and Sons” came from the writer’s pen. In 1863 Turgenev and his beloved Viardot's family moved to Baden-Baden, and in 1871. - to Paris, where he and Victor Hugo were elected co-chairs of the first international congress of writers in Paris.

I.S. Turgenev died in 1883. in Bougival, a suburb of Paris. The cause of his death was sarcoma (oncological disease) of the spine. According to the writer’s last will, he was buried at the Volkovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg.

Brief information about Turgenev.