“It is difficult for a modern writer, especially a Russian one, to be dead” – Weekend

Ivan Turgenev died on September 3, 1883 in France. He lived most of his life in Europe, but he wrote about Russian life, and almost every one of his works became a bestseller and an event in Russian literature. We re-read Turgenev’s letters and articles and found out how he managed to remain relevant.

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1
about Rudin:

What kind of man is Bakunin, you ask? I presented a fairly faithful portrait of him in Rudin: now it is Rudin, not killed at the barricade. Between us: it’s a ruin. It will still potter around little by little and try to raise the Slavs – but nothing will come of it. His shawl: a heavy burden is the life of an outdated and exhausted agitator.

Letter to Maria Markovich, September 16, 1862

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2
About “Fathers and Sons”:

I am not surprised, however, that Bazarov remained a mystery to many; I myself can’t quite imagine how I wrote it. There was <...> some kind of fate, something stronger than the author himself, something independent of him. I know one thing: there was no preconceived thought, no tendency in me then; I wrote naively, as if marveling at what came out of me.

Letter to Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, January 3, 1876

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3
About “Fathers and Sons”:

Neither Odintsov should be ironic, nor the peasant should stand above Bazarov, even though he himself is empty and barren … Maybe my view of Russia is more misanthropic than you think: he is, in my eyes, truly a hero of our time. A good hero and a good time, you will say… But it is so.

Letter to Mikhail Katkov, October 30, 1861

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4
About “Fathers and Sons”:

If only he hadn’t overwhelmed the “man with the fragrant mustache” and others! This is the triumph of democracy over the aristocracy. Hand on heart, I do not feel guilty before Bazarov and could not give him unnecessary sweetness. If they don’t love him as he is, with all his ugliness, then it’s my fault <...>. It would be no big deal to imagine him as an ideal; but to make him a wolf and still justify him was difficult.

Letter to Alexander Herzen, April 10, 1862

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5
About “Fathers and Sons”:

My whole story is directed against the nobility as an advanced class. Look into the faces of Nikolai Petrovich, Pavel Petrovich, Arkady. Weakness and lethargy or limitation. Aesthetic feeling compelled me to take precisely good representatives of the nobility in order to prove my theme all the more correctly: if cream is bad, what about milk?

Letter to Konstantin Sluchevsky, April 14, 1862

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6
about the “Noble Nest”:

I am a native, incorrigible Westerner and I did not hide it at all and I do not hide it; however, in spite of this, with special pleasure he brought out in the face of Panshin … all the comic and vulgar aspects of Westernism; I forced the Slavophile Lavretsky to “smash him on every point.” Why did I do this – I, who consider the Slavophile teaching false and fruitless? Because in this case – in this way, according to my concepts, life has developed, and above all I wanted to be sincere and truthful.

“About” Fathers and Sons “”, 1869

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7
about the “Noble Nest”:

I am now busy with another, great story, the main character of which is a girl, a religious being; I was brought to this face by observations of Russian life; I do not hide the difficulties of my task, but I can’t turn it away from me.

Letter to Elizabeth Lambert, December 22, 1857

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8
about Novi:

As for the content, I can assure you of one thing: the plow in my epigraph * does not mean revolution – but enlightenment; and the very thought of the novel is the most well-intentioned – although it may seem to stupid censorship that I am indulging the youth; but our censorship is no longer stupid.

Letter to Mikhail Stasyulevich, 1876

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9
about Novi:

I made up my mind <...> get closer to the truth; take young people, for the most part good and honest, and show that, despite their honesty, their very business is so false and lifeless, which cannot but lead them to a complete fiasco. How far I have succeeded is not for me to judge. In any case, young people cannot say that the enemy took up their image; on the contrary, they should feel the sympathy that lives in me – if not for their goals, then for their personalities. And only in this way can a novel written for them and about them benefit them.

Letter to Mikhail Stasyulevich, December 22, 1876

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10
about Novi:

You made me very happy with what you said about Solomin. So, I got to the point. Someday I will show you the official list of this Solomin The main epithet that characterizes Solomin is the word sober at the top in large letters.

Letter to Mikhail Stasyulevich, November 24, 1876

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eleven
About “Hunter’s Notes”:

I can really assure you that sometimes it seems to me that this book was not written by me, I am so far from it. The tenseness and tightness that so often comes across in it can be partly excused by the fact that when I wrote it, I was abroad and—surrounded by non-Russian elements and non-Russian life—involuntarily drew a pencil twice over each stroke.

Letter to Ivan Aksakov, December 28, 1852

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12
About “Hunter’s Notes”:

And I do not think that my Westernism has deprived me of any sympathy for Russian life, any understanding of its peculiarities and needs. “Notes of a Hunter”, these at one time new, later far ahead of the etudes, were written by me abroad. <...>Of course, I would not have written “Notes of a Hunter” if I had remained in Russia.

“Instead of entry”, 1869

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13
about the Inn:

I don’t know whether I’m mistaken or not… but I believe that in the Inn I go more directly and more simply towards the goal — I don’t flirt and don’t be clever — but I try to articulate what I consider to be deed. God grant that any author understands and expresses life – where can he be wiser on it or correct it.

Letter to Ivan Aksakov, December 28, 1852

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14
about “Spring Waters”:

My story <...> hardly like: it is a spatially narrated love story with no social, political, or contemporary overtones. If I’m wrong, so much the better.

Letter to Yakov Polonsky, December 6, 1871

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15
Real talent never serves outside ends and finds satisfaction in itself; The life around him gives him content – he is its concentrated reflection; but he is just as little able to write a panegyric as a libel … After all, this is below him. Only those who know nothing better can submit to a given topic or carry out a program.

Preface to the collection of novels in the 1880 edition

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16
I spend sleepless nights leaning over my desk! I again had the illusion that one could say not exactly different from what had already been said before (this is of no concern to me) – but in a different way.

Letter to Gustave Flaubert, June 23, 1876

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17
A pleasure writer like I.A. Goncharov, I still will not. I’d rather be a boring writer.

Letter to Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, January 3, 1876

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18
The objective writer takes on a great burden: his muscles must be strong. I used to work like this – and then not always; now I’m lazy – and outdated.

Letter to Vladimir Kign, July 16, 1876

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19
That’s why I <...> until now I have not begun to fulfill my novel, all the elements of which have long wandered in me – that I do not feel in myself either that lordship, or that strength, without which you cannot say a single lasting word.

Letter to Konstantin Aksakov, October 16, 1852

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20
It is difficult for a modern writer, especially a Russian one, to be calm – neither from the outside nor from the inside he breathes peace …

Letter to Konstantin Aksakov, October 16, 1852

Compiled by Uliana Volokhova

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