The Prose Poet

The poet of prose

"Russia can go without each of us, but none of us can go without her."

-- Ivan Turgenev

Turgenev knew well the truth of his words -- circumstances forced him to live outside Russia for too long.

Ivan Turgenev was born 180 years ago, on October 28, 1818, in the Russian town of Oryol, to a rich aristocratic family. He spent his childhood at his family estate Spasskoye-Lutovinovo. His father, a handsome, refined man, with many a love conquest on his record, paid little attention to his son's education and Turgenev's jealousy and longing for his father's attention was partially reflected in his semi-autobiographical, romantic novel First Love.

Physically, Turgenev was the spitting image of his less attractive mother, a cruel, authoritarian woman who personified Russia's autocratic system built atop serfdom. As a result, the young Turgenev developed an active hatred of oppression in general and serfdom in particular. (His mother's cruelty  arguably served as an inspiration for his novel Mumu -- the name of a dog belonging to the serf Gerasim, whom Gerasim's cruel baroness ordered to drown because its barking was a nuisance to her.)

Turgenev received one of the best educations of his time. He graduated from the Moscow University Pension for the children of the nobility, then from the St. Petersburg State University Philosophy Faculty (specializing in linguistics). By the time of his graduation, he had authored numerous poems and plays, such as A Month in the Country, The Boarder and The Bachelor. But it was his famous selection of short stories, Notes of a Hunter (Zapiski Okhotnika) which earned him an indisputable and well-deserved place on the Russian literary Olympus of the 1840s and 1850s.

Notes of a Hunter (Turgenev was a passionate hunter) played a crucial role in Turgenev's literary and personal fate. In the first place, Notes heralded the arrival of yet another fine lyricist of the Russian landscape -- Turgenev is still one of the finest -- if not the finest -- prose painters of nature. His style is simply impeccable. Yet, the Notes are also distinguished by their anti-serfdom tone. Turgenev's sincere compassion for the Russian peasant -- who he saw as talented, kind, open to harmony and the beauty of the universe, but oppressed and humiliated like a slave for centuries -- raised havoc with reactionary critics and with the tsar's government. His subsequent literary essay In Memory of Gogol (1852) only added fuel to the fire. Turgenev turned this eulogy to the great writer Nikolai Gogol into a strong, socio-political essay proclaiming a progressive stance against serfdom and for aesthetic and realistic principles in Russian literature. The article drew the ire of Tsar Nicholas I, who exiled the writer, who also was close to progressive literary circles, especially at the famous literary journal Sovremennik (Contemporary), the critic Vissarion Belinsky, poet Nikolai Nekrasov, Lev Tolstoy and Nikolai Chernyshevsky, to Spasskoye-Lutovinovo.

However, on the threshold of the 1860s, as Russia prepared to cast off serfdom, Turgenev quit Sovremennik in disagreement with "the muzhik-like democratic views" of social-democrats Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov on serfdom. Turgenev believed that, by simply freeing the serfs and not giving him land plots, the reform of 1861 robbed the Russian muzhik and abandoned him to die hungry and empty-handed. Even though the plot belonged to the barin -- Turgenev argued -- it wall cultivated by the same muzhiks for decades and fed him well.

The socio-political events of the 1850s and 1860s were grist for the mill of Turgenev's art, and he portrayed the heroes of the time -- the nascent democrats and revolutionaries -- in his novels Rudin (1856) Nakanune (On the Eve)(1860), Dym (Smoke) (1867) and Nov (New) (1877). All were acclaimed both by critics and the general public. But his novel Fathers and Sons (1862) was of special importance, in which he showed little sympathy for his nihilist or socialist characters, while he paid tribute to conservatives, who held to certain principles.

"There is hardly a major phenomenon in contemporary Russian society which Turgenev would not have taken with a staggering sensitivity," wrote another classic Russian writer, Mikhail Saltykov-Schedrin. Such sensitivity was behind Turgenev's incessant search for ideal types, in the first place for an ideal woman. Hence the Russian idiom, "a Turgenev woman"  (see Russian Life interview with the painter Shilov, March 1998). A Turgenev woman is kind, intelligent, tender, sincerely aspiring to spiritual perfection and sharing compassion with human sorrow. She is  also a woman full of abnegating faithful love. In the last century, a Turgenev woman was Russia's female ideal to be sought after and which served as a spiritual foundation of the Russian society. In the 20th though we realize that Turgenev's woman is just that combination of traits of a Russian woman which Turgenev masterfully combined in his literary characters.

In any case, to the artist himself, the woman of his life, the French singer Poline Guiardo, was likely a "Turgenev woman." He met Guiardo in Paris in 1843 and, from the point on, his life was "split between two houses." France became his second home and, from the 1860s on, he resided permanently in Paris, occupying the second floor of the mansion owned by Poline Guiardo and her husband Louis, a famous translator and journalist. Today, critics and biographers speculate on the platonic nature of Turgenev's relations with Poline and recall how tragic this love was for Turgenev, as it forced him to sacrifice his love for Russia.

In any case, it was thanks to this love triangle and Turgenev's connection to this family that he  met the great French writers and poets of his age, like Gustav Flaubert, George Sands, Emile Zola, Prosper Merime and Guy de Maupassant. These contacts contributed to a mutual influence and interaction between Russian and world literature. Turgenev shared the revolutionary ideals of France and the progressive ideas of its writers, yet his love for French culture could not weaken his love for Russia. On the contrary, his patriotism grew stronger as a result. In one of his letters written in the late 1850s, Turgenev would admit: "Whatever I hear or see somehow makes me feel closer to Russia..." And then there was his Russian language. That he could live abroad despite his nostalgia for Russia was mostly thanks to the "powerful and mighty" Russian language which he used so masterfully in his works.

French writers reciprocated Turgenev's love for French culture, admiring the "giant with a silver head," as Guy de Maupassant nicknamed him, because of his rich gray cheveulure. It was mostly thanks to Turgenev's efforts and his contacts with Russian publishing houses that Russian readers of the 19th century became familiar with the best works of French literature.

English speaking writers as well appreciated Turgenev's impact on the West. Writes John Goldsworthy: "The critics usually talk at length about Turgenev's detachment from his native Russian culture, about the difference between him and the spontaneous giant Gogol and another amorphous giant, Dostoevsky, making a point to classify Turgenev as a Westerner. They didn't notice that it was not the West which had influenced him but rather he who had influenced the West. Turgenev had secured an exclusive position on his own: he was a poet by nature, the finest poet who has ever written novels."

The legitimacy of Goldsworthy's opinion was confirmed by Turgenev's literary swan song -- Poems in Prose -- fine small lyric miniatures. This unique genre, known as "small prose," was introduced to Russian literature by Turgenev. To commemorate his 180th anniversary, on November 13-15, a Festival of Small Prose was to be held in Moscow during Turgenev Days.

Towards the end of his life, Turgenev, already quite sick, made a trip to Russia with dreams of reviving his Spasskoye-Lutovinovo estate. He even nurtured plans to invite his beloved Poline Guiardo to his family estate. Yet these plans failed to materialize and he died near Paris, at Bougivales, on August 22 1883. Later, his remnants were moved St. Petersburg and interred at Volkov cemetery.

In Brief

1 On October 1, 1998 Russia will celebrate the International Day of the Elderly. Next year (see Note Book, page ??), Russia, along with the rest of the world, will commemorate the International Year of the Elderly.

3 October 3 is the 125th anniversary of Vyacheslav Shyshkov (1873-1945),  author of several short stories and two major books. He worked on his saga Grim River (Ugryum reka), dedicated to the life of Siberian merchants, for 14 years. He completed his three-volume epic Yemelyan Pugachev, dedicated to Russia's famous rebel in Leningrad, during the WWII blockade.

4 145 years ago,  in 1853, Russian researcher and geographer Gennady Nevelskoy raised the Russian flag on Sakhalin island during his Amur expedition of 1850-1855, refuting the assertions of his predecessor Ivan Kruzenshtern that Sakhalin was a peninsula. A bay, a mountain and a city on Sakhalin are named after Nevelskoy.

6 200 years ago saw the beginning of the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774 (known as the First Russian-Turkish War), whose hero was count Pyotr Rumayntsev. Rumyantsev won two brilliant victories on the land and Catherine's the Great's favorite, Count Alexei Orlov, destroyed the Turkish fleet. Under the peace Treaty of 1774, Russia received a fair portion of the Azov and Black sea coasts and Crimea became independent from Turkey.

8 October 8 marks 105 years from the death of Alexander Plescheyev (1825-1893), a lyricist of Alexei Nekrasov's school.

9 One-hundred-eighty-five years ago, poet and philosopher Nikolai Stankevich (1813-1840) was born. In 1831 he founded a literary and philosophical circle in Moscow that included the likes of Belinsky, Aksakov and Granovsky. The members of this circle later were the leading figures in the legendary debate of Westerners vs. Slavophiles.

10 Russian scientist, geographer, geologist, writer and academician Vladimir Obruchev (1863-1956) was born on this day 135 years ago. He left a vast legacy: nearly 1,000 scientific works and many books of science-fiction. In their youth, Russian lovers of literature all read his passionate science-fiction novels Plutoniya and Sannikov's Land, both included in the famous Russian series of readings for youth.

19 This would have been the 80th birthday of Alexander Galich (1918-1977). A maverick  poet, playright and bard, he was considered in some ways the precursor to Vladimir Vysotsky, Bulat Okudzhava and many other Russian bards, even though he had his own, inimitable personal style.

26 This day marks the centennial of MKhAT, Moscow's famous Art Theater named for writer and playwright Anton Chekhov (The theater was named after Gorky from 1932 to 1989.) and founded by Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko. In the year of its founding, the theater staged Chekhov's now famous play The Seagull -- today, the form of a seagull is integrated into the theater's logo. Russia's centennial celebration for MKhAT actually began earlier this year, with different theater festivals in Moscow and throughout Russia.

29 This is the 160th birthday of the famous Russian architect Matvey Kazakov (1738-1812), one of the founders of Russian classic architecture. His famous monuments shaped the look of Moscow in the 18th century and still play an important role in modern image. Buildings of Kazakov's design include the Senate building in the Kremlin, the old Moscow University, Peter's Place, and numerous Moscow hospitals, churches and public buildings.

November

8 Forty-five years ago, Russia's first recipient of the Nobel Prize, the writer Ivan Bunin, died in Paris. A handsome man from an impoverished aristocratic family, Bunin was known not just for his verses and prose, but also for his numerous love conquests, which may be one reason his short, lyrical love stories, such as Rusya or Mitya's Love rank among the masterpieces of world literature on love. Bunin hated bolshevism and the October revolution, calling any violent attempt to restructure the society "bloody insanity" and "complete craziness." In 1920, he left for Constantinople. In March 1921, he ended up in Paris. He recounted the revolutionary period in his tragic diary Cursed Days (Okayanniye Dni), which was, of course, banned from publication in the USSR and printed only after the advent of perestroika (it has just been published for the first time in English by Ivan Dee, ph. ???-???-????). Between 1927 and 1933 he worked on his novel The Life of Arsenev (Zhizn Areseneva, published in English as The Well of Days), an "invented autobiography." This masterpiece the writer Fyodor Stepun justly called "a symphonic picture of Russia."

10 Russian aerospace workers will surely mark this, the 110th annviersary of aircraft designer Andrei Tupolev (1888-1972). The Tupolev design bureau is still one of the best in todays' Russia, despite the current difficulties of the defense and aerospace sectors.

16 On this day 325 years ago Alexander Menshikov (1673-1729), eminent  Russian state and military personality was born. Menshikov rose from a simple pirozhki (pie) vendor to become one of the closest associates of Peter the Great. He fell in disgrace after Peter the Great's death and ended his days in exile in Berezovo (see Vasily Surikov's painting of this in Russian Life Dec/Jan 1998).

16 Also on this day 65 years ago, the US established diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia through the Roosevelt-Litvinov Agreements, signed by then President Franklin Roosevelt and Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov. In addition to establishing full diplomatic relations between the two countries, the agreements pledged the USSR to pay some $75 mn in new interest for Soviet purchases in the US, to stop Comintern propaganda and subversion in the US and to grant freedom of worship to Americans resident in the USSR. The Soviet government reneged on all its promises under the agreement, sowing much distrust prior to WWII.