On the Eve

by Ivan Turgenev

Hardcover, 1950

Status

Available

Publication

London, Cresset Press, 1950.

Description

VIRGIN SOIL by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818-1883) is his last and longest novel. In it he finally says everything yet unsaid on the subject of social change, idealism and yet futility of revolutions, serfs and peasants, and the upper classes. The hero, Nezhdanov -- the disillusioned young son of a nobleman -- and the Populist movement are young idealists working to bridge the gap between the common people and the nobility, and through them Turgenev works out his own troubled thoughts about social reform and tradition, vitality and stagnation. The ideas of gradual reform shown here are eventually to be supplanted by the extremism of the Russian Revolution -- but that is yet to come.

User reviews

LibraryThing member gbill
‘Virgin Soil’ was Turgenev’s last novel and not his best work by any means, but it’s interesting because it presages the Russian Revolution, shows the dynamics of the class groups involved, and satirizes (or holds a mirror up to) the Russian people of the 1870’s. It was condemned when it
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was published, and Turgenev was deemed prophetic after 52 real-life revolutionaries were arrested shortly afterwards.

Probably the biggest source of discomfort to those in power was the depiction of noblemen with outdated ideas, and their clinging to power and silly customs. They’d endured the emancipation of the serfs, but now exploited them in other ways, such as loaning them money and charging exorbitant interests, thereby keeping them under their thumbs. In one telling scene, the noblemen have no real understanding of the factory they own, but in the words of one character, “for getting concessions for railroads, founding banks, begging some tax-exemption for themselves, or anything of the sort, none are a match for the gentry.”

The would-be revolutionaries have the right intentions, but have difficulty truly connecting to the peasants they seek to uplift, and the peasants in turn don’t seem to have the intellectual capacity to understand them. In one scene the peasants simply get one of them drunk, as he (somewhat symbolically) has no taste for their alcohol, and no ability to hold it.

So you have the outmoded masters of Russia almost inevitably doomed, the peasants as an ignorant mass, and those who would seek change a bunch of disorganized intellectuals. It’s not a very sanguine picture, though Turgenev offers a ray of hope in the character of Solomin, who is not only smart at running a factory, but who is also steady and stable in his march towards progress, without undue revolutionary rhetoric.

There is a love story, but it’s somewhat simple and uninspiring. The more interesting character is Valentina Mihalovna, a beauty who takes enjoyment out of conquering men with her feminine charms, without the intention of loving them in return. Turgenev demonstrates his understanding of psychology in this and other characters, and does give us some nice imagery at times:

“They walked together to the house, pensive, blissful; the young grass caressed their feet, the young leaves stirred about them; patches of light and shade flittered swiftly over their garments; and they both smiled at the restless frolic of the light, and the merry bluster of the wind, and the fresh glitter of the leaves, and at their own youth and one another.”

I wish there had been more of that sort of thing, which you see in earlier works by Turgenev.

Just one other quote:
“It is a well-known fact, though by no means easy to understand, that Russians are the greatest liars on the face of the earth, and yet there is nothing they respect like truth – nothing attracts them so much.”
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LibraryThing member DRFP
Turgenev's last novel isn't his best but it's certainly better than the reputation it appears to have.

The book is divided into two parts and I find a marked difference in quality. The first half is somewhat rambling and almost a little directionless as Turgenev artificially forces in encounters he
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need not, just in order to broaden the novel's scope. It's not a bad first half by any means, it's just not great and doesn't feel too much like Turgenev.

The second part of the story is much better - this reads like proper Turgenev. The build up to the climax is excellent and the collapse of so much of what was constructed is especially pitiable. Turgenev's familiar themes resurface with as much force as they ever had in his previous novels.

So, the first part isn't brilliant, but the second half really raises this novel back up to Turgenev's usual, high standards.
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LibraryThing member xine2009
Wonderfully told story of young people trying change and survive Russian society.
LibraryThing member john257hopper
This novel is about the narodniks in 1860s Russia, intellectuals who went into the countryside to attempt to raise the class consciousness of the peasantry and persuade them to rise up against their oppressors, but who met with almost total incomprehension and opposition from a section of a society
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who, at that stage, were conservatively attached to Tsar and Orthodox Church. The central character becomes disillusioned with his failure and commits suicide. The language is easy and the characters quite interesting for the most part, though this still had some rather dull stretches before the dramatic final section. 3/5
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LibraryThing member timjones
I agree with the reviewers who have already said that this is, in footballing parlance, a novel of two halves. I found the first 200 or so pages rather laborious, as the characters are assembled in Turgenev's default country-house setting - a setting masterfully sketched in [Fathers and Sons] and
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[A Month in the Country], but often tedious here, and accompanied by detours to visit characters (such as Fomushka and Fimushka) who appear to belong in a different novel.

But it's worth persevering with Part 1 to get to Part 2, and especially to the last 100 pages, as the "going to the people" movement of young 1860s upper-class intellectuals comes harshly up against reality. The narrative fully comes into focus as it hurries to its conclusion, with neither the radicals nor the established order coming off very well. I wouldn't recommend this as your first Turgenev novel, but Turgenev fans should stick with this one.
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LibraryThing member Dreesie
I was expecting an upper-class-activists-go-to-live-with-the-peasants sort of book.

This is not that at all.

The upper class activists are here. Are they wealthy? Not seemingly, but they also seem to have money. They are not peasants. This book is more of a satire of these sort of people--from
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Petersburg, they want to improve the lives of peasants. And they run around passing out pamphlets and generally being ignored by the peasants they are "helping". Or they are being turned in by those peasants. The peasants can't read, and they are busy working or drinking. There is even a noble landowner doing the same thing--who is arrested.

Who is sympathetic to this cause but actually doing something? The factory manager. He has succeeded in starting a school at the factory, and has had some adults taught to read. He believes in small steps that are doable.

So this books is a satire, but it is also a romance. And not a great romance--not that I am a fan of romance. It is here that this book is sad and depressing--the missed and nearly missed pairi9ngs are depressing.

So--it's a fine book with a touch too much romance. Just not what I was expecting and hoping for. I'd prefer less nobles and more peasants.
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