Home of the Gentry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
|
| Penguin classics cover of Home of the Gentry | |
| Author | Ivan Turgenev |
|---|---|
| Original title (if not in English) | Дворянское гнездо in Russian, /dvorʲanskɔjɛ gnʲɛzdo/ |
| Translator | Richard Freeborn |
| Country | Russia |
| Language | Russian |
| Genre(s) | Political, Romance |
| Publisher | Sovremennik (The Contemporary) |
| Released | 1859 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardback and Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
| Preceded by | Rudin |
| Followed by | On the Eve |
Home of the Gentry (Russian: Дворянское гнездо, IPA: [dvorʲanskɔjɛ gnʲɛzdo]) is a novel published by Ivan Turgenev in 1859. It was enthusiastically received by the Russian society and remained his least controversial and most widely-read novel until the end of the 19th century. It was turned into a movie by Andron Konchalovsky in 1969.
The novel's protagonist is Lavretsky, a nobleman who shares many traits with Turgenev. His father had him brought up as an Anglophile and in a way that left him generally unprepared for adult life. He marries Varvara, who cheats on him while the two are in Paris; having severed all communication with her, Lavretsky returned to his family nest. There, he feels that his education and manners alienate him from common Russian people. He falls in love with Liza, a young and innocent girl who shares religious and Slavophile feelings that were on the upsurge in Russia on the eve of the Crimean War. Liza also falls in love with Lavretsky, and soon the news of Varvara's death appear in foreign magazines. Lavretsky and Liza anticipate their future happiness, but it turns out Varvara fabricated the rumours of her death; she returns to Lavretsky, and thus his and Liza's happiness is ruined. Liza retires to a monastery, where she becomes a nun. Lavretsky, in the end, makes arrangements with Varvara as to the mode of their future life; she gets a large sum of money with the condition that she doesn't bother him, while Lavretsky himsrlf decides that his destiny is to "plough the land" and, as we are told by the narrator, does that very well, making his people happier.
The novel is often interpreted as reflecting Turgenev's disillusionment with and valediction to his own generation which he thought was rootless and alien to the Russian society. In his future novels, he would describe a generation that followed. The novel is famous for its soft, evocative atmosphere. Music plays a large part in the inner workings of the novel, as the characters are highlighted by the music they like or dislike.
 |
This article about a 19th century novel is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
