Fathers and Sons

IVAN TURGENEV Fathers and Sons Among the great critics and great artists of every period, Ivan Sergeyvitch Turgenev occupies a supreme position. He was born at Oriel in the Government of the same name, on November 9, 1818, and died on September 3, 1883. His father was a colonel in a cavalry regiment, and an ancestor was a James Turgenev who was one of Peter the Great's jesters. Educated at Moscow, St Petersburg, and Berlin, Ivan Turgenev began life in a government office, but after a year retired into private life. His early attempts at literature consisted chiefly of poems and sketches, none of which attracted any degree of attention; and it was not until about 1847, upon the appearance of "A Sportsman's Sketches"--a series of stories depicting with startling realism the condition of the Russian peasant, that his name became known. About 1860 Ivan Turgenev, in common with many of the Russian writers of the period, found himself being carried away towards the study of social reform.