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After years abroad and the betrayal of his frivolous wife, Fyodor Lavretsky returns to his country estate in provincial Russia, where he finds a 'nest of…
After years abroad and the betrayal of his frivolous wife, Fyodor Lavretsky returns to his country estate in provincial Russia, where he finds a 'nest of gentlefolk' still living in the old ways, and falls in love with Liza Kalitina, a pure, deeply religious young woman. Her old German music teacher, Lemm, composes music for their love. When news comes that his wife has died, happiness seems possible at last, but the past has not finished with him.
Context and significance
Ivan Turgenev published the novel in 1859, and it was his greatest popular success in Russia. This is W. R. S. Ralston's translation of 1869, published under the title Liza. Read Fathers and Sons and On the Eve.
About the author
Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883) grew up on an estate in central Russia owned by his tyrannical mother, who controlled thousands of serfs. He studied in Berlin, and his Sportsman's Sketches, with their sympathetic portraits of serfs, made him famous; an obituary of Gogol earned him a month in detention and exile to his estate.
He spent much of his life abroad, following the singer Pauline Viardot, whom he loved for forty years, and became a friend of Flaubert and a bridge between Russian and Western literature. His novel Fathers and Sons gave the world the word nihilist.