Description

Turgenev (1818-83) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, translator and popularizer of Russian literature in the West. His first major publication, a short story collection entitled A Sportsman's Sketches (1852) was a milestone of Russian realism, and his novel Fathers and Children (1862) - sometimes translated as Fathers and Sons - is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century fiction. The novel was Turgenev's response to the growing cultural schism that he saw between liberals of the 1830s/40s and the growing nihilist movement. Whilst both the nihilists (the "children") and the 1830s liberals (the "fathers") sought Western-based change in Russia, the differing modes of thought of the two generations are contrasted with those of the Slavophiles who believed that Russia's path ahead lay in its tradtional spirituality.