{"product_id":"2940012122346","title":"FATHERS AND CHILDREN","description":"BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIvan Sergyevitch Turgenev came of an old stock of the Russian nobility.\u003cbr\u003eHe was born in Orel, in the province of Orel, which lies more than a\u003cbr\u003ehundred miles south of Moscow, on October 28, 1818. His education was\u003cbr\u003ebegun by tutors at home in the great family mansion in the town of\u003cbr\u003eSpask, and he studied later at the universities of Moscow, St.\u003cbr\u003ePetersburg, and Berlin. The influence of the last, and of the\u003cbr\u003ecompatriots with whom he associated there, was very great; and when he\u003cbr\u003ereturned to Moscow in 1841, he was ambitious to teach Hegel to the\u003cbr\u003estudents there. Before this could be arranged, however, he entered the\u003cbr\u003eMinistry of the Interior at St. Petersburg. While there his interests\u003cbr\u003eturned more and more toward literature. He wrote verses and comedies,\u003cbr\u003eread George Sand, and made the acquaintance of Dostoevsky and the\u003cbr\u003ecritic Bielinski. His mother, a tyrannical woman with an ungovernable\u003cbr\u003etemper, was eager that he should make a brilliant official career; so,\u003cbr\u003ewhen he resigned from the Ministry in 1845, she showed her disapproval\u003cbr\u003eby cutting down his allowance and thus forcing him to support himself\u003cbr\u003eby the profession he had chosen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTurgenev was an enthusiastic hunter; and it was his experiences in the\u003cbr\u003ewoods of his native province that supplied the material for \"A\u003cbr\u003eSportsman's Sketches,\" the book that first brought him reputation. The\u003cbr\u003efirst of these papers appeared in 1847, and in the same year he left\u003cbr\u003eRussia in the train of Pauline Viardot, a singer and actress, to whom\u003cbr\u003ehe had been devoted for three or four years and with whom he maintained\u003cbr\u003erelations for the rest of his life. For a year or two he lived chiefly\u003cbr\u003ein Paris or at a country house at Courtavenel in Brie, which belonged\u003cbr\u003eto Madame Viardot; but in 1850 he returned to Russia. His experiences\u003cbr\u003ewere not such as to induce him to repatriate himself permanently. He\u003cbr\u003efound Dostoevsky banished to Siberia and Bielinski dead; and himself\u003cbr\u003eunder suspicion by the government on account of the popularity of \"A\u003cbr\u003eSportsman's Sketches.\" For praising Gogol, who had just died, he was\u003cbr\u003earrested and imprisoned for a short time, and for the next two years\u003cbr\u003ekept under police surveillance. Meantime he continued to write, and by\u003cbr\u003ethe time that the close of the Crimean War made it possible for him\u003cbr\u003eagain to go to western Europe, he was recognized as standing at the\u003cbr\u003ehead of living Russian authors. His mother was now dead, the estates\u003cbr\u003ewere settled, and with an income of about $5,000 a year he became a\u003cbr\u003ewanderer. He had, or imagined he had, very bad health, and the eminent\u003cbr\u003especialists he consulted sent him from one resort to another, to Rome,\u003cbr\u003ethe Isle of Wight, Soden, and the like. When Madame Viardot left the\u003cbr\u003estage in 1864 and took up her residence at Baden-Baden, he followed her\u003cbr\u003eand built there a small house for himself. They returned to France\u003cbr\u003eafter the Franco-Prussian War, and bought a villa at Bougival, near\u003cbr\u003eParis, and this was his home for the rest of his life. Here, on\u003cbr\u003eSeptember 3, 1883, he died after a long delirium due to his suffering\u003cbr\u003efrom cancer of the spinal cord. His body was taken to St. Petersburg\u003cbr\u003eand was buried with national honors.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe two works by Turgenev contained in the present volume are\u003cbr\u003echaracteristic in their concern with social and political questions,\u003cbr\u003eand in the prominence in both of them of heroes who fail in action.\u003cbr\u003eTurgenev preaches no doctrine in his novels, has no remedy for the\u003cbr\u003euniverse; but he sees clearly certain weaknesses of the Russian\u003cbr\u003echaracter and exposes these with absolute candor yet without\u003cbr\u003eunkindness. Much as he lived abroad, his books are intensely Russian;\u003cbr\u003eyet of the great Russian novelists he alone rivals the masters of\u003cbr\u003ewestern Europe in the matter of form. In economy of means,\u003cbr\u003econdensation, felicity of language, and excellence of structure he\u003cbr\u003esurpasses all his countrymen; and \"Fathers and Children\" and \"A House\u003cbr\u003eof Gentlefolk\" represent his great and delicate art at its best.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47078671417584,"sku":"2940012122346","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012122346_p0.jpg?v=1763552781","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012122346","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}