Rudin was written by Turgenev in the immediate aftermath of the Crimean War, when it became obvious to many educated Russians that reform was needed. The main debate of Turgenev's own generation was that of Slavophiles versus Westernizers. Rudin depicts a typical man of this generation (known as 'the men of forties'), intellectual but ineffective. This interpretation of the superfluous man as someone who possesses great intellectual ability and potential, but is unable to realize them stems from Turgenev's own view of human nature, expressed in his 1860 speech 'Hamlet and Don Quixote', where...

Torrents of Spring, also known as Spring Torrents, is a novel written by Ivan Turgenev during 1870 and 1871 when he was in his fifties. The story centers around a young Russian landowner named Dimitry Sanin who falls deliriously in love for the first time while visiting the German city of Frankfurt. It is widely held as one Turgenev's greatest novels as well as being highly autobiographical in nature.

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.

First Love was published in March 1860 in the Reader's Library. Like many of Turgenev's works, this one is highly autobiographical. Indeed, the author claimed it was the most autobiographical of all his works. Here Turgenev is retelling an incident from his own life, his infatuation with a young neighbor in the country, Catherine Shakovskoy (the Zinaida of the novella), an infatuation that lasted until his discovery that Catherine was in fact his own father's mistress.

Torrents of Spring, also known as Spring Torrents, is a novel written by Ivan Turgenev during 1870 and 1871 when he was in his fifties. The story centers around a young Russian landowner named Dimitry Sanin who falls deliriously in love for the first time while visiting the German city of Frankfurt. It is widely held as one Turgenev's greatest novels as well as being highly autobiographical in nature.

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. The story revolves around Elena, a girl with a hypochondriac mother and an idle father, a retired guards lieutenant with a mistress.

The story of Gerasim, a deaf and mute serf whose life of poverty is brought into sharp relief by his connection with Mumu, a dog he rescued, brought greater national attention to the cruelties of serfdom, and received praise for its brutal portrayal of this institution in Russian society. Originally published in 1854, Mumu was written by Turgenev while he was in custody for writing an obituary for fellow writer Nikolai Gogol. From a good family, Turgenev was well-read, and had spent extensive time in the West (he was fluent in German, French, and English). His primary concern, and the main...

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 was the first of Turgenev's novels, but already in this work the topic of the superfluous man and his inability to act (which became a major theme of Turgenev's literary work) was explored.

Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) stands as one of Russia's most influential authors. Along with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, he helped shape the Russian novel and consequently the Russian identity. Born into wealth, Turgenev had a compelling vision of nobility and the perils of serfdom. His profound novels and short stories made him internationally revered. In this collection of short stories, Turgenev characterizes the -superfluous man--an archetype which becomes central to the rest of his work and Russian literature at large.

The story opens with the narrator wandering the streets of St. Petersburg. He contemplates how he has always been a ridiculous person, and also, how recently, he has come to the realization that nothing much matters to him any more. It is this revelation that leads him to the idea of suicide. The narrator of the story reveals that he had bought a revolver months previous with the intent of shooting himself in the head.