Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

Fathers and Sons

Vladimir Petrovich Voldemar, a 16-year-old, is staying in the country with his family and meets Zinaida Alexandrovna Zasyekina, a beautiful 21-year-old woman, staying with her mother, Princess Zasyekina, in a wing of the manor. This family, as with many of the Russian minor nobility with royal ties of that time, were only afforded a degree of respectability because of their titles; the Zasyekins, in the case of this story, are a very poor family. The young Vladimir falls irretrievably in love with Zinaida, who has a set of several other (socially more eligible) suitors whom he joins in their difficult and often fruitless search for the young lady's favour.

First Love

On one of the hottest days of the summer of 1853, in the shade of a tall lime-tree on the bank of the river Moskva, not far from Kuntsovo, two young men were lying on the grass. One, who looked about twenty-three, tall and swarthy, with a sharp and rather crooked nose, a high forehead, and a restrained smile on his wide mouth, was lying on his back and gazing meditatively into the distance, his small grey eyes half closed. The other was lying on his chest, his curly, fair head propped on his two hands; he, too, was looking away into the distance. He was three years older than his companion, but seemed much younger. His moustache was only just growing, and his chin was covered with a light curly down. There was something childishly pretty, something attractively delicate, in the small features of his fresh round face, in his soft brown eyes, lovely pouting lips, and little white hands. Everything about him was suggestive of the happy light-heartedness of perfect health and youth-the carelessness, conceit, self-indulgence, and charm of youth. He used his eyes, and smiled and leaned his head as boys do who know that people look at them admiringly. He wore a loose white coat, made like a blouse, a blue kerchief wrapped his slender throat, and a battered straw hat had been flung on the grass beside him.His companion seemed elderly in comparison with him; and no one would have supposed, from his angular figure, that he too was happy and enjoying himself. He lay in an awkward attitude; his large head-wide at the crown and narrower at the base-hung awkwardly on his long neck; awkwardness was expressed in the very pose of his hands, of his body, tightly clothed in a short black coat, and of his long legs with their knees raised, like the hind-legs of a grasshopper. For all that, it was impossible not to recognise that he was a man of good education; the whole of his clumsy person bore the stamp of good-breeding; and his face, plain and even a little ridiculous as it was, showed a kindly nature and a thoughtful habit. His name was Andrei Petrovitch Bersenyev; his companion, the fair-haired young man, was called Pavel Yakovlitch Shubin.'Why don't you lie on your face, like me?' began Shubin. 'It's ever so much nicer so; especially when you kick up your heels and clap them together-like this. You have the grass under your nose; when you're sick of staring at the landscape you can watch a fat beetle crawling on a blade of grass, or an ant fussing about. It's really much nicer. But you've taken up a pseudo-classical pose, for all the world like a ballet-dancer, when she reclines upon a rock of paste-board. You should remember you have a perfect right to take a rest now. It's no joking matter to come out third! Take your ease, sir; give up all exertion, and rest your weary limbs!'

On the Eve

Vladimir Petrovich Voldemar, a 16-year-old, is staying in the country with his family and meets Zinaida Alexandrovna Zasyekina, a beautiful 21-year-old woman, staying with her mother, Princess Zasyekina, in a wing of the manor. This family, as with many of the Russian minor nobility with royal ties of that time, were only afforded a degree of respectability because of their titles; the Zasyekins, in the case of this story, are a very poor family. The young Vladimir falls irretrievably in love with Zinaida, who has a set of several other (socially more eligible) suitors whom he joins in their difficult and often fruitless search for the young lady's favour. Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (November 9 [O.S. October 28] 1818 - September 3 [O.S. August 22] 1883) was a major Russian novelist and playwright. His novel Fathers and Sons is regarded as a major work of 19th-century fiction. Source: Wikipedia

Home of the Gentry, also translated as A Nest of the Gentlefolk and A Nest of the Gentry, is a novel by Ivan Turgenev published in the January 1859 issue of Sovremennik.

Home of the Gentry Annotated

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Home of the Gentry

Home of the Gentry ILLUSTRATED

First Love (Russian: Первая любовь, Pervaya ljubov) is a novella by Ivan Turgenev, first published in 1860. It is one of his most popular pieces of short fiction. It tells the love story between a 21-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy.

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The Novels of Ivan Turgenev

Fathers and Children

First Love is an example of a frame story. The story starts with the protagonist, Vladimir Petrovich, at a party. The three guests, all men "not old but no longer young", are taking turns recounting the stories of their first loves. When Vladimir's turn comes to tell his story, he suggests he write down the story in a notebook because it is a rather long, unusual tale and he is not adept at extemporaneous narration. The other men agree and a few weeks later the story within the story continues with Vladimir reading from his notebook as he recounts the memory of his first love.

Rudin is the first novel by Ivan Turgenev, a famous Russian writer best known for his short stories and the novel Fathers and Sons. Turgenev started to work on it in 1855, and it was first published in the literary magazine "Sovremennik" in 1856; several changes were made by Turgenev in subsequent editions. It is perhaps the least known of Turgenev's novels.

Rudin Annotated

Rubens Figueiredo

No início da década de 1860, dois eventos transformaram a sociedade russa - o fim da servidão e a fundação do movimento 'Terra e Liberdade', organização secreta que lutava contra as autoridades e instituições oficiais. A abordagem desse contexto fez com que 'Pais e filhos' despertasse uma das maiores polêmicas da história da literatura russa. O termo 'niilista' se popularizou e Ivan Turguêniev (1818-1883) foi acusado de ser responsável por atos criminosos cometidos por radicais influenciados por sua obra. Na trama, o jovem Arkádi Nikolaitch, acompanhado de seu amigo e mentor Bazárov, volta à propriedade de sua família após formar-se na universidade. Bazárov é um personagem singular - despreza qualquer autoridade, é anti-social e se autoproclama um 'niilista'. Suas convicções contrastam com os modos aristocráticos da família de Arkádi, provocando um conflito entre gerações.

Pais e filhos

Give me your hand, gentle reader, and come along with me. It is glorious weather; there is a tender blue in the May sky; the smooth young leaves of the willows glisten as though they had been polished; the wide even road is all covered with that delicate grass with the little reddish stalk that the sheep are so fond of nibbling; to right and to left, over the long sloping hillsides, the green rye is softly waving; the shadows of small clouds glide in thin long streaks over it.

A Sportsman's Sketches, Vol 2 of 2

On the Eve is the third novel by famous Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, best known for his short stories and the novel Fathers and Sons. Turgenev embellishes this love story with observations on middle class life and interposes some art and philosophy. In his essay "When Will the Real Day Come?", Nikolay Dobrolyubov analyzed On the Eve through a political lens that Turgenev disagreed with, offending the author.

First Love opens with a brief scene in which three apparently prosperous Russian gentlemen of the 1850's propose to amuse themselves by recounting the stories of their first loves. Although they are seen but briefly, these phlegmatic characters can be identified as "superfluous men," Turgenev's phrase for those who exist comfortably without awareness or purpose. Indeed, only Vladimir Petrovich, a middle-aged bachelor, has anything of interest to say on this romantic topic, reluctantly admitting that his first love "was not quite an ordinary one." He cautiously refuses to recount the tale to his companions immediately, insisting upon writing it out first and then reading it to them at a subsequent meeting. The first-person narrative that describes Vladimir Petrovich's experience during the summer of his sixteenth year is framed by Turgenev's introductory scene, thus presenting the story of Vladimir's love for Zinaida as a remembrance of a vanished past and underscoring the tension between the naive youth whom the reader sees in the narrative and the mature man who tells the tale.In the narrative, Vladimir Petrovich is portrayed as a sensitive and somewhat confused sixteen-year-old filled with a "delicious sense of youth and effervescent life." He accompanies his parents to their summer home outside Moscow with the intention of studying for his university entrance examinations. Vladimir is distracted, however, by awakening romantic yearnings: "a half-conscious, shamefaced presentiment of something new, unutterably sweet, feminine...."This presentiment becomes incarnate when Princess Zasyekin, a vulgar and impoverished widow, rents the dilapidated home next to his family's, and Vladimir has the opportunity to meet Zinaida, Princess Zasyekin's beautiful twenty-one-year-old daughter. Almost immediately, Zinaida becomes the focus of Vladimir's romantic obsession. His adolescent desire is encouraged when Zinaida allows him to join in her nightly entertainment of an entourage of older courtiers. Although this odd assortment of suitors, who represent a variety of military, intellectual, and artistic accomplishments, are considerably older than Vladimir, they repeatedly display a humiliatingly adolescent devotion to Zinaida, humoring her whims and playing parlor games in which she toys with their emotions.

First Love "Annotated" Real Story Book

The Torrents of Spring, Etc

Novels

The Torrents of Spring

Isaiah Berlin's translation of the legendary Russian novella of growing up and heartbreak When the down-at-heel Princess Zasyekin moves next door to the country estate of Vladimir Petrovich's parents, he instantly and overwhelmingly falls in love with his new neighbour's daughter, Zinaida. But the capricious young woman already has many admirers and as she plays her suitors against each other, Vladimir's unrequited youthful passion soon turns to torment and despair - although he remains unaware of his true rival for Zinaida's affections. Set in the world of nineteenth-century Russia's fading aristocracy, Turgenev's story depicts a boy's growth of knowledge and mastery over his own heart as he awakens to the complex nature of adult love

Classic Literature

First Love by Ivan Turgenev. First Love is a novella by Ivan Turgenev, first published in 1860. It is one of his most popular pieces of short fiction. First Love is an example of a frame story. The story starts with the protagonist, Vladimir Petrovich, at a party. The three guests, all men -not old but no longer young-, are taking turns recounting the stories of their first loves. When Vladimir's turn comes to tell his story, he suggests he write down the story in a notebook because it is a rather long, unusual tale and he is not adept at extemporaneous narration. The other men agree and a few weeks late the story within the story continues with Vladimir reading from his notebook as he recounts the memory of his first love. Vladimir Petrovich, a sixteen year-old, is staying in the country with his family and there meets his new neighbor, Zinaida Alexandrovna Zasyekina, a beautiful twenty-one year-old woman who is staying with her mother, the Princess Zasyekina. This family, as with many of the Russian minor nobility with royal ties of that time, were only afforded a degree of respectability because of their titles; the Zasyekins, in the case of this story, are a very poor family. The young Vladimir falls in love with Zinaida, who has a set of several other (socially more eligible) suitors whom he joins in their difficult and often fruitless efforts for the young lady's favour. Zinaida, as is revealed throughout the story, is a thoroughly capricious and somewhat playful mistress to these rather love-struck suitors. She fails to reciprocate Vladimir's love, often misleading him, mocking his comparative youth in contrast to her early adulthood. But eventually the true object of her affections and a rather tragic conclusion to the story is revealed. Vladimir discovers that the true object of Zinaida's affection is his own father, Pyotr Vasilyevich. In the tragic and devastatingly succinct closing two chapters, Vladimir secretly observes a final meeting between Pyotr and Zinaida at the window of her house in which his father strikes her arm with a riding crop. Zinaida kisses the welt on her arm and Pyotr bounds into the house. Eight months later, Vladimir's father receives a distressing letter from Moscow and tearfully begs his wife for a favor. Pyotr dies of a stroke several days later, after which his wife sends a considerable sum of money to Moscow. Three or four years later, Vladimir learns of Zinaida's marriage to a Monsieur Dolsky and subsequent death during childbirth.

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

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