Among the famous Russian writers, the bright star shines with the talent of Ivan Turgenev, one of the most prominent writers in the history of Russian literature. His work is permeated with love for his country and for the common people, which is a reflection of his life position, which is not too typical of his time.
In childhood, the future writer often got cuffs from his mother, women with a very complex character and a stern disposition. Turgenev had a very large head. When, after the writer’s death, his brain was weighed, it turned out that he weighs about 2 kg, which is much more than that of an average person. Turgenev’s slightly pretentious appearance was given by his manner of dressing. Bright ties, golden buttons – it all looked quite unusual by the standards of the fashion of those times. Because of his soft nature, the future writer in school teased peers. In his youth, Turgenev was in love with Princess Shakhovskaya, who, however, preferred his father’s future writer.
Turgenev had a high and thin voice that did not correspond to his heroic physique, which he was very embarrassed about. Once Turgenev provoked Leo Tolstoy to a duel with pistols. Fortunately, the duel did not take place. Turgenev considered his best friend the famous poet Nekrasov. In his youth, Turgenev, living in Germany, squandered parental money carelessly, and his mother decided to teach him a lesson. She sent him a parcel loaded with bricks, and the unsuspecting son paid for her delivery on the last money that remained with him, after which he suffered a cruel disappointment. Afanasy Fet described in his memoirs that Turgenev was laughing like an abnormal one – loudly, clutching his stomach, falling on all fours and rolling on the floor. Turgenev was a terrible perfectionist – he changed his clothes twice a day, constantly wiped himself with a sponge dipped in cologne, and before bedtime he always put all the things in the apartment in their places.
Throughout his life, Turgenev actively advocated the abolition of serfdom. Because of the conflict with the ruling dynasty, Turgenev was exiled under house arrest to his estate, where he lived for a long time, remaining under police surveillance. The conflict arose because of the views of the writer, which he never considered necessary to hide. Turgenev, being in a good mood, liked to sing, but due to his lack of a musical ear, his habit did not meet with approval from those around him. Of all the games, the writer preferred chess, and he was a very strong player. One of Turgenev’s close friends was the famous literary critic Belinsky. Already in childhood, Turgenev mastered German, French and English. Turgenev met his death in France, in a town called Bougival.
