David H. Stam

“ Fathers and Sons should be required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the psychology of the Russian post-revolutionary generation. Bazarov is the forerunner of all the men of action in Soviet literature, in much the same way that Elena, Marianna, and Natalia are typical representatives of Russia’s modern women. It is not difficult to discover that Turgenev’s characters, despite their old fashioned garb, are more fundamentally national than many exotic figures of post-Turgenev fiction who were branded by sensation-craving readers as “true Russians.” ”

“ They were believers or searchers for truth and seekers after God, and he was an agnostic and a skeptic. He belonged much more to the old world of Western decadent culture than to the rising lands of the revolutionary East. And this is why, to quote Mr Kazin again, Turgenev’s “civilized and European art seems no longer in the foreground of Russian literature but behind it.” His unhappy noblemen and his delicately portrayed girls appeared elusive, sentimental, and pallid next to Dostoevsky’s holy sinners and Tolstoy’s robust, full blooded men and women. ”

“ For another thing, Turgenev, with his method of understatement (which Chekhov followed) , is closer to modern literary trends than other realists of his own age. One can easily foresee that his tales—and they are probably the best and most enduring part of his work—will attract the attention and admiration of readers and writers for a long time, because they form a counterpart to the era of exaggerated psychologism which is rapidly approaching its decline. Nobody today will accuse Turgenev of “lack of psychological depth” or of over-simplicity. ”

“ When Tolstoy and Dostoevsky became known and widely read at the end of the nineteenth century and in the first decades of the twentieth century, they not only overshadowed Turgenev but were opposed to him as genuine interpreters of the Russian national scene. Compared to those two giants who shattered the world by the depth and frenzy of their moral and religious search, Turgenev lost in stature. Some critics advanced the theory that he was but an isolated phenomenon in Russian letters ”

“ The Karamzine-Turgenev-Chekhov trend of elegance, restraint, and linguistic refinement was opposed by the truly national tradition of pre-Petrine Russia with its down-to-earth realism, Greek-Orthodox and pagan roots, and popular vernacular. From that point of view Turgenev again was declared “unfit for our times, not representative as a Russian writer,” edulcorated and conventional as an artist. ”

“ Flaubert and Galsworthy, Conrad and Maupassant paid high tribute to Turgenev and ranked him with Fielding, Thackeray, and Balzac.
Turgenev was the first Russian writer to conquer large audiences outside his native land. He actually introduced Russian literature to Europe and America which, through him, discovered and admired the originality of Russian genius. The impact of his own work, moreover, was enhanced by his personal influence. For almost three decades Turgenev, who spent more time abroad than at home, was recognized as the ambassador of Russian letters in Europe. ”

“ But historians of literature and students of Turgenev suddenly discovered more profound reasons for his hundred-year hold over the general public. Charles Morgan, in an essay in his Reflections in a Mirror (1944) , observed that Turgenev was criticised for his calm and his outward lack of dynamism, but then appropriately quoted Tolstoy’s letter to Strakhov (Dostoevsky’s biographer and disciple) after Turgenev’s death: “The longer I live,” wrote Tolstoy, “the more I like horses that are not restive. You say that you are reconciled to Turgenev. ”

“ Turgenev himself formulated his ideal in a letter in which he said that the artist should not be simply satisfied to catch life in all its manifestations; he ought to understand them, to comprehend the laws according to which they evolve—even though those laws are not always visible.
While Turgenev’s national authenticity has been fully reestablished in the last decade and his universality and perfection often stressed by Western and Russian writers, a revision has also taken place with regard to his “objectivity.” ”

“ One of the few Russians who did not try to preach and to win over the reader to some credo or idea, Turgenev became suspect even as a chronicler of his society. Russian critics had always interpreted Turgenev’s novels as illustrations of the evolutionary process within the native educated classes between 1850 and 1880. Rudin (1855) represented the idealist of the forties, Lavretzky (1858) was typical of the fifties, On the Eve (1860) conveyed the atmosphere of expectation before the era of great reforms, and Bazarov in Fathers and Sons (1861) personified the new generation of nihilists. ”

“ Alfred Kazin stated not long ago that Turgenev “seemed of all the great Russians the least characteristic”; the American critic understands perfectly why Henry James “found it so easy in 1878 to include an appreciation of Turgenev in French Poets and Novelists.” The familiar thesis is that Europeans and Americans of the last century loved Turgenev for his moderation, his conformity to the rules of Victorian art, and his lack of irritating and disturbing Russian national traits. ”

“ Actually, the subject matter of Turgenev’s novels and tales is far from idyllic: his love stories inevitably terminate in doom and14 frustration, and none of his novels has a happy ending, death striking most of his heroes. Throughout his works Turgenev displays an acute sense of the tragic in life and a constant preoccupation with man’s condition on earth. ”

“ Apparently readers both in Russia and the Western countries as well as throughout Asia (particularly13 in China and Japan) showed more stability than the critics: they did not seem to find Turgenev so dated as to drop him. Turgenev emerged as one of the most popular authors in the Soviet Union, particularly in the decade following the war with Hitler. Between 1948 and 1958 the USSR press turned out an average of three to four million copies of his works yearly, and in America and Europe there was a definite revival of interest. ”

“ He will remain a beloved writer for years to come—as long as elegiac grief combined with his exaltation of love and beauty and his vision of art as an orderly arrangement of emotional values can still quicken the feelings and the esthetic sense of men and women throughout the world. ”

“ Yet the same George Moore who spoke of Turgenev’s “unfailing artistry” in the eighties, later reproached him as having “a thinness, an irritating reserve,” and repeated the quip of a British journalist who remarked that the Russian was “a very big man playing a very small instrument.” The same George Moore echoed the discontent of the younger generation with Turgenev’s lack of psychological depth: “he has often seemed to us to have left much unsaid, to have, as it were, only drawn the skin from his subject. Magnificently well is the task performed ”

“ His art, they argued, was strangely devoid of any serious moral intent, he never affirmed anything in any area of human endeavour, he never defended any doctrine and never fought on the side of any group. ”

“ A contented man, A rule of life, The end of the world, Masha, The fool, An eastern legend, Two stanzas, The sparrow, The skulls, The workman and the man with white18 hands, The rose, To the memory of U. P. Vrevsky, The last meeting, A visit, Necessitas-vis-libertas! Alms, The insect, Cabbage-soul, The realm of azure, Two rich men, The old man, The reporter, The two brothers, The egoist, The banquet of the supreme being, The sphinx, The nymphs, Friend and enemy, Christ, The stone, The doves, To-morrow! To-morrow! Nature, Hang him! ”

“ Miss Townsend translated several Russian novels for the Everyman series, including Virgin soil (see item 113) .
The best known works of Ivan Turgenev, including Fathers and sons, Smoke, and five short stories. New York, Literary classics 193-? 375 p 7
Includes A desperate character, A strange story, Punin and Baburin, Old portraits, The brigadier.
The best known works of Ivan Turgenev; including Fathers and sons; Smoke; and nine short stories. New York, Book League of America 1941. 502 p (Blue Ribbon books) 8
This collection adds four stories to those published in item 7. ”

“ Smoke
Virgin soil
This collection is cited in The American Catalogue 1884–1890, but the compilers have been unable to locate the set. The scant publishing evidence available leads us to deduce that Ward, Lock obtained the rights for these volumes from Holt and issued them both separately and in this collection, printing from the same plates. ”

“ A nobleman’s nest. 307 p (Memoirs of a sportsman has same contents as item 4, vols 1 and 2.)
v. 2. Virgin soil. 273, 228 p; [A reckless character, and other stories, including The dream, Father Alexyei’s story, Old portraits, The song of triumphant love, Clara Militch, and Poems in prose] 385 p (Poems in prose has same contents as item 4, vol 16.)
v. 3. Spring freshets, and other stories. 372 p; Smoke. 310 p
Part 1 includes Knock, knock, knock; and The watch.
v. 4. Rudin. A King Lear of the steppes. 377 p; Phantoms, Yakoff Pasynkoff, Faust, An excursion to the forest belt, Asya. ”

“ Prince D. S. Mirsky [Dmitrii Petrovich Svyatopolk-Mirski] . A history of Russian literature from the beginning to 1900. New York, Vintage Books 1958. 193–208 et passim 571
Ralph E. Matlaw. “A New Letter of Turgenev,” Harvard Library bulletin xii No 2 (Spring 1958) 268–270 572
Karol Maichel. “The collected works of Russian classical authors,” American Slavic and East European review xvii No 2 (Apr 1958) 223–225 573
Sergei Bertensson. “Turgenev and Savina,” American Slavic and East European review xvii 42 (Dec 1958) 530–533 574
Abraham Yarmolinsky. Turgenev: the man, his art and his age. ”

“ Mou-Mou 185 [Mumu] Mumu 3–5, 17, 20, 21, 24, 74, 75, 186–189, 367 (Moomoo 19, 184; Mou-Mou 185) The museum 299 [Muzeĭ] Muzeĭ (The museum 299) My adversary 89, 91 [Sopernik] My dog 231 [Sobaka] My mates sent me! 18 [Nashi poslali] My neighbour Radilov 3, 4, 65, 95, 102 [Moĭ sosed Radilov] My opponent 88 [Sopernik] My trees 91 [Moi derev ́ya] My yeshche povoyuyem (Let’s keep a good heart 88; We are still at war 89; We shall still fight on 4; We’ll still go on fighting 90; We will still fight on 91; We will struggle 231) N. N. 88–90 (To N. N. 91) * Na Al ́banskikh gorakh chto za d ́yavol takoĭ? ”

“ Three famous plays: A month in the country; A provincial lady; A poor gentleman. Tr Constance Garnett with intro by David Garnett. London, Duckworth; New York, Scribner 1951. 235 p illus 25
—— New York, Hill Wang 1959. 235 p (Mermaid dramabook)
Three plays. Tr Constance Garnett. London, Cassell 1934. 323 p 26
Contents: A month in the country. A provincial lady. A poor gentleman.
Three short novels. Tr Constance Garnett. With appreciation of Turgenev by Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Prosper Merimee. New York, Lear 1948. ”

“ In Russian poems ed Charles F. Coxwell. London, Daniel 1929. p 165 232
“Sketches and reminiscences,” Tr C. Turner. Macmillan’s magazine xliv No 262 (Aug 1881) 306–320 233
Reprinted in Appleton’s journal xxvi (1881) 305–315; Eclectic magazine Ns xxxiv (1881) 440–452; Living age cl (1881) 692–703.
Smoke [excerpt] In The world’s greatest books ed Alfred Harmsworth and S. S. McClure. [n. p.] McKinley, Stone & Mackenzie 1910. 272–286 234
“The song of love triumphant,” Tr I. Hapgood. In Great Russian short stories ed Stephen Graham. New York, Liveright 1929. 144–169 235 ”

“ Giote Postoyalyĭ dvor (The inn 3–5) Potzeluĭ (The kiss 163, 299) Povesit ́ yevo! (Hang him! 88–91, 231) * Povesti, skazki i rasskazy Kazaka Luganskovo Poyezdka v Al ́bano i Fraskati (A trip to Albano and Frascati 18) 49Poyezdka v Poles ́ye (An excursion to the forest belt 45; A tour in the forest 3) Pozhar na more (A fire at sea 142–145, 564) Prayer 88–91, 212, 231 [Molitva] * Predisloviye k izdaniyu “Povesteĭ i rasskazov” * Predisloviye k izdaniyu sochineniĭ 1874 g. ”