Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Impressions of Russian Literature - V
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has been proofread at least once.
(diff)
(history)
Denna sida har korrekturlästs minst en gång.
(skillnad)
(historik)
this. Dostoyevski tried to make him ridiculous in the
figure of Karmásinof in “The Possessed.” He did not,
indeed, lack confidence in the future of his fatherland;
he admired its language and certain parts of its
literature so much that he inferred therefrom what abilities
the people must possess who had produced such results.
But he did not share in the enthusiasm of his more
simple and ignorant countrymen for the Russian people as
such. He did not find their past history great.
Turgenief somewhere describes his dejection when at
one of the great world’s exhibitions he got an exact
perception of how insignificant Russia’s contribution
was to industrial inventions, and he added bitterly,
“We have invented nothing but the knout.” His
career as an author shows that the history of the more
recent development of his country was far from inspiring
him with confidence.
Iván Turgenief lost his father early (1834), Col. Sergeï
Nikolayevitch (of that Turgenief family which had
already given two distinguished men to Russia), and
suffered from the imperious and cold-hearted rule of
his mother. But he was brought up in country quiet,
on the family estate Spasskoye, and at an early age felt
the most vital love for nature as well as the most
passionate hatred to serfdom, whose unhappy results were
constantly before him.
He studied first at the University of Moscow and
then at that of St. Petersburg, travelled in 1838 to
Germany and like Katkóf and Bakunin listened to
lectures on philosophy and history at the University of
Berlin (by Michelet, Werder, Ranke, and others). After
several years’ residence in foreign lands he returned
home as a supporter of Western European liberal
thought, was given a position in the department of
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
