Ivan Turgenev

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev ( toor-GHEN-yef, -⁠GAYN-; Russian: Иван Сергеевич Тургенев, IPA: [ɪˈvan sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ tʊrˈɡʲenʲɪf]; 9 November [O.S. 28 October] 1818 – 3 September [O.S. 22 August] 1883) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, translator and popularizer of Russian literature in the West. His first major publication, a short story collection titled A Sportsman's Sketches (1852), was a milestone of Russian realism. His novel Fathers and Sons (1862) is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century fiction. Life Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was born in Oryol, Russia, to noble Russian parents Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev (1793–1834), a colonel in the Russian cavalry who took part in the Patriotic War of 1812, and Varvara Petrovna Turgeneva (née Lutovinova; 1787–1850). His father belonged to an old, but impoverished Turgenev family of Tula aristocracy that traces its history to the 15th century when a Tatar mirza Lev Turgen (Ivan Turgenev after his baptism) left the Golden Horde to serve Vasily II of Moscow. Ivan's mother came from a wealthy noble Lutovinov house of the Oryol Governorate.