The great emancipator: Ivan Turgenev and his collection of stories A Sportsman’s Sketch. He helped bring freedom to the serf by the devastating method of showing them what their lives were like through fiction…
…Even in those stories where the treatment of the serfs by their masters is the central theme, the subject is never dealt with as a matter of law, but only in the context of the situation and always with wit and irony. This is true of “The Steward,” where the estate owner’s pretentions to Western manners are contrasted with the brutal treatment of theman’s sefs by the overseer. When a serf, in the presence of the visiting hunter, brings the facts tohis owner’s attention, he turns away, not wanting to know the truth. “One must treat them like children,” he says.
—we are now off to Russia to explore Ivan Turgenev’s classic novel Fathers and Sons. We’re a versatile bunch on the Forum!
This text was published in 1862, one year after the emancipation of the serfs, but it is actually set in 1859. At that crucial time of transition, landowners were being encouraged to prepare for reform. The historical context is important, because Turgenev deals with a key turning-point in history and ‘Fathers and Sons’ tends to be categorized as a realist novel. Nevertheless the book also has a timeless significance and universal application, as the author conveys the debate and conflict between the young generation and the old.
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Ivan Turgenev (front row, second from the left), alongside Leo Tolstoy and other Russian writers—click image for source…
The tale that deals with the subject most directly is “The Office,” a story of the estate of one Nicholaevna Losnyakova, obviously his mother Vavara Petrovna. The hunter stumbles wearily into the estate office, which, like the one at Spasskoye, is furnished as a court of law, and is allowed to take a nap behind a screen. From this hiding place he hears all that goes on. Though outwardly everything is orderly, straightforward and just, all is in fact chaos, double-dealing and bribery.
It is unlikely that the prototype for “The Office” ever read it. By the time it was published Vavara Petrovna was barely on speaking terms with her sons. More petulant and irascible than ever, she cut off their allowances, forcing Ivan to live on money borrowed from friends and making Nicholas give up a promising career in the army. Finally, in 1850, after she had ceremoniously presented her sons with deeds to property that proved worthless, Ivan had had enough.
Portrait of shy peasant by Ilya Repin—Serfs in Russia were divided into two groups: agricultural and domestic, or ‘house’ serfs, just as in America slaves could be ‘field slaves’ or ‘house slaves’. House serfs were, generally speaking, more highly skilled than their counterparts, and were more likely to be literate, with some knowledge of French. They lived on the estates of their masters, close to hand, unlike the agricultural serfs, who would live in nearby villages.
For more on the life of serfs in Russia, try Life Under Russian Serfdom: The Memoirs of Savva Dmitrievich Purlevskii, one of few extant serf memoirs—click image for source…
In a heated argument, Ivan condemned his mother for her willful use of power over her children and her serfs and told her that all he and his brother wanted was their father’s small estate, Turgenevo, which was rightfully theirs. He never saw her again. Soon after, she had a stroke; within six months she was dead.
Turgenev was now a rich man, with some 15,000 acres, 7,000 serfs, and an annual income of 25,000 francs. His first act was to free all the house serfs, allotting land to many of them. But he did not free the others, for he felt that liberation for unskilled serfs would not work unless it was part of an national reform. He did, however, allow them to substitute a regular rent for thecustomary three days of work owed to him every week. ( to be continued)…
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