TURGENEV, IVAN SERGEYEVICH (1818-1883), Russian novelist, was born at Orel, of a family of provincial gentry. His father had married for money a woman older than himself, who made up for her thwarted affections by making herself a domestic tyrant to her children, as well as to her serfs. Turgenev was educated at home, at the Universities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and finally (1839-4o) at Berlin, where, in contact with young Russian intellectuals, he became a Westernizer. In 1843 he published Parasha, a tale in verse, which was favourably reviewed by Belinsky. Turgenev deserted the civil service for letters and was infatuated with the famous singer, Pauline Garcia (Mme. Viardot) ; this caused a breach with his mother, who cut off his allowance. He lived as a Bohemian until her death (185o) made him a rich man. His lifelong affection for Mme. Viardot, who merely tolerated his presence, met with no response, but left a deep impress on his work. Turgenev aban doned poetry for the drama (which he also abandoned after 1852) and for prose fiction. His first great success was A Sportsman's Sketches (started 1847, in book form 1852), in which the peasants appeared more attractive than their masters. It was received as a protest against serfdom. In 1852 Turgenev was exiled to his estate for a while because of his laudatory obituary on Gogol.
His masterpieces included short stories like The Backwater, Asya, First Love, and the more ambitious novels Rudin (1856), A Nest of Gentlefolk (1858), On the Eve (186o) and Fathers and Sons (1862), in which the love plot was interwoven with current social issues. All were commented on at great length by the leading critics. His attempt, however, to draw a strong man in the person of the agnostic and materialist—"nihilist"—Bazarov was resented by the Radical press as a caricature. Turgenev, being sensitive to criticism, was embittered against his countrymen and settled abroad, and his later works are mainly retrospective. The two novels in which he tried to deal with actuality, Smoke (1867) and Virgin Soil (1877), only show the depth of his bitterness and his complete loss of touch with contemporary Russia. However,
his last visit to Russia (188o) was a triumphant progress. He died in 1883, at Bougival, near Paris.
Turgenev was the first Russian author to be read and admired by Europe. During his last years he lived in close touch with the French literary world, contracted intimate friendships (es pecially with Flaubert) and was regarded as a master by younger men like Maupassant. He was very popular in this French circle, but much less so among his Russian compeers: Tolstoy, Dosto yevsky and Nekrasov all sooner or later came to detest him.
Turgenev is the most poetical (in the 19th century acceptance of the word) of the Russian realists. He had undergone the pro found influence of Pushkin (as well as of Lermontov and George Sand). His novels are largely variations on the theme of Eugene Onegin. His character drawing does not depend on analysis and psychology, but on a subtly-woven poetic atmosphere that accom panies the characters like an aura. This applies mainly to his women ; they are invariably stronger and more attractive than his men, who (with the single exception of Bazarov) are neuras thenic weaklings. His style is marked by a careful simplicity and elaborate naturalness that answered to the highest ideals of 19th century taste. Delicately-drawn landscape passages are among its most outstanding features.