Rebel, G. (2018). Turgenev in Russian culture. Moscow, St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoriya. (In Russ.)

Abstract

G. Rebel’s book contains a series of essays on Turgenev’s life and work. The first part focuses on the problem of the ideological novel in the oeuvre of Turgenev and Dostoevsky. The second part examines personal relationships between Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and L. Tolstoy, as well as Turgenev’s influence on Chekhov. The author proposes a hypothesis about personal (financial) circumstances behind Turgenev’s dispute with Dostoevsky over the novel Smoke [Dym], as well as the parody of Turgenev in The Possessed [Besy]. Yet Turgenev and Dostoevsky are both attracted to the ideological novel, a genre each of them worked to develop. The book offers a detailed description of the roles Turgenev, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky played in the 1880 Pushkin celebration. Even though the emphasis on Turgenev as the key and central character of the study is justified, his single figure sometimes overshadows the literary and cultural context of the period, as presented in the book.