Turgenev - Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

Russian novelist. Born on November 9th in Oryol, central Russia, he grew up in his mother's estate, the village of Spasskoye Lutvinovo. His mother was from an old aristocratic family. His father was a soldier, later a cavalry colonel. His mother grew up as a miserable orphan, but she unexpectedly became the heir to a huge inheritance (she was 30 years old at the time), and suitors came flooding in, all after her fortune. Among them, she chose a handsome man six years younger than her. He was a very unfaithful man, and the family was constantly in turmoil. The family discord and his mother's tyrannical behavior towards her serfs left a dark shadow in the sensitive boy's heart. The landlord's mansion in the village of Spasskoye Lutvinovo, which burned down in 1839, had 40 rooms, employed more than 40 servants, and owned 5,000 serfs. He was said to be one of the wealthiest landowners in the region.

Following the custom of the time, he was initially educated at home. In 1827, his family moved to Moscow. After receiving basic preparatory education at a private school, he entered the Faculty of Letters at Moscow University in 1833. In the autumn of 1834, he transferred to the Department of Linguistics at the Faculty of Philosophy at St. Petersburg University. It was the heyday of Romanticism, and young people read Schiller and discussed beauty, goodness, and truth. After graduating from St. Petersburg University, he went to study in Germany in May 1838. He lectured at the University of Berlin. He returned to Japan temporarily in 1839, but stayed in Italy from February to May 1840. From May to December, he studied Hegelian philosophy, linguistics, and history at the University of Berlin. In this place, he became close friends with Stankevich, Granovsky, and Bakunin. Bakunin in particular is said to have been the model for Luzin in later years. He returned to Russia in 1841 after completing his studies. The following year, he passed the exam for a doctorate in philosophy. That same year, he gave birth to a daughter, Polina, with the daughter of a serf. From July to November, he traveled to Germany. In December he moved to St. Petersburg. In 1943 he published the long poem "Parashya", which was highly praised by the critic Belinsky. In November he met Madame Biardot, a famous Spanish singer who was touring St. Petersburg as a member of an Italian opera company. His encounter with her greatly influenced his personal fate. It is said that he remained unmarried throughout his life because of his love for her.

In January 1847, before leaving for Berlin, he contributed a rural sketch, "Holy and Kalinich," to the magazine "Contemporaries." This work, which realistically depicted the life of Russian peasants under serfdom, was so well received that he wrote a series of similar stories, which he compiled into a book, "The Hunter's Diary" (1847-1852). In 1848, he witnessed the February Revolution in Paris. Encouraged by the success of "The Hunter's Diary," he published his first full-length novel, "Luzhin," in 1856. The success of this work, which deals with a "superfluous person," allowed him to grow from a short story writer to a full-length novel writer, and he established a firm position in the literary world. In the following year, 1857, he faced a crisis in his private and inner life. One of the reasons for this was his poor relationship with Madame Biardot. However, in 1858, he wrote a novella, "Asha" (translated as "One-sided Love"), and escaped the crisis. He then entered a period of maturity, completing in 1859 the full-length novel The Nobleman's Nest, which follows Luzhin and depicts a type of "superfluous person." He then produced a succession of masterpieces, including the full-length novel The Evening (1860), which depicts a revolutionary young couple on the eve of the emancipation of the serfs, the short story First Love (1860), the full-length novel Fathers and Sons (1862), which depicts the ideological conflict between the old and new generations with a "nihilist" as the protagonist, and the full-length novel Smoke (1867), which satirizes both the reactionary nobles and the radicals after the emancipation of the serfs.

However, his last full-length novel, Virgin Soil (1877), which covered the Narodnik movement and described its failure, was not well received by the public and was heavily criticized by the progressive camp, which led him to give up writing full-length novels thereafter. The reason for this failure is said to be that he was unable to accurately grasp the real situation in Russia due to his many years of living abroad (although, like Lunacharsky, some consider this work to be the author's greatest work). After 1878, he focused on writing Poems in Prose (1882), and his creative abilities began to decline. He died of spinal cancer, which he had been suffering from for some time, on September 3, 1883 at Madame Biardot's villa near Paris. In accordance with his will, he was buried in the Ballkovo Cemetery in St. Petersburg.

The characteristics of his works include melancholy lyricism, skillful depiction of nature, the creation of a typical Russian society from the 1840s to 1870s and the immortalization of it, the creation of an attractive ideal woman, and the humanism that is one with lyricism. He was also a master of romance novels. While all of his long works are social and philosophical novels, he also has excellent romance novels. For example, the vividness of the fatal love of the protagonist in "Smoke." The love in the novella "Spring Waters" (1872) that sweeps past an innocent young man like a spring gust is unforgettable. Furthermore, in his short story "Song of Triumphant Love" (1879), written in his later years, the obsession with unrequited love is depicted in a legendary and eerie way. Turgenev once tried his hand at playwriting. "A Month in the Village" (1855) is his most famous work. His literary works include Hamlet and Don Quixote (1859).

Turgenev's ideological stance was that of the so-called "Western European." As he regularly lived abroad in real life, he was a rare international person for a Russian. He was on friendly terms with French writers such as Zola, Flaubert, Mérimée, Daudet, the Goncourt brothers, and Maupassant, and was also friends with George Sand. He is also credited with introducing Russian literature to the West. His works were introduced to Japan early on in the 1880s through a translation by Futabatei Shimei, and had a major impact on the development of modern Japanese literature. This is especially true of nature literature (such as Kunikida Doppo's "Musashino").

[Akira Sasaki]

"The Aristocrat's Nest" translated by Sasaki Akira (Kodansha Bunko)" ▽ "Virgin Soil" translated by Yuasa Yoshiko (Iwanami Bunko)" ▽ "Prose Poems" translated by Kanzai Kiyoshi and Ikeda Kentaro (Iwanami Bunko)" ▽ "Hamlet, Don Quixote, and Two Other Stories" translated by Kono Yoichi and Shibata Jisaburo (Iwanami Bunko)" ▽ "One-sided Love" (included in Futabatei Shimei Complete Works 1, 1964, Iwanami Shoten)" ▽ "The Life of Turgenev by Sato Kiyorō (1977, Chikuma Shobo)"

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

ロシアの小説家。11月9日、ロシア中部のオリョール市に生まれ、母の領地スパスコエ・ルトビーノボ村で育った。母は貴族の旧家の出。父は軍人で、のちに騎兵大佐。母は惨めな孤児の娘時代を送ったが、思いがけず莫大(ばくだい)な遺産の相続人となり（当時30歳）、財産目当ての求婚者が押しかける。そのなかから選ばれたのが六つ年下の美男。たいへんな浮気者で、家庭内に風波が絶えなかった。そうした家庭の不和と、母の農奴に対する暴君ぶりは、感じやすい少年の心に暗い陰りを残した。1839年の火事で焼けたスパスコエ・リトビーノボ村の地主屋敷は、部屋数が40もあり、使っている下男下女は40人を超え、所有する農奴は5000人を数えた。その地方屈指の豊かな地主であったという。

　当時の慣習に従って、初め家庭で教育を受けた。1827年一家はモスクワへ転居。私塾で基礎的な準備教育を受けたのち、33年モスクワ大学文学部に入学。34年秋、ペテルブルグ大学哲学部言語学科に転入学。ロマン主義全盛時代で、青年たちはシラーを読み、美や善や真理について語り合った。ペテルブルグ大学を卒業して38年5月ドイツに留学。ベルリン大学で聴講。39年一時帰国するが、40年2～5月イタリアに滞在。5～12月ベルリン大学でヘーゲル哲学、言語学、歴史学を学ぶ。この地で彼はスタンケービチ、グラノーフスキー、バクーニンらと親しくなる。とくにバクーニンは後年『ルージン』のモデルになったとされる。41年留学を終えて帰国。翌42年哲学博士の試験に合格。この年、農奴の娘との間に、女児ポリーナをもうける。7～11月ドイツ旅行。12月ペテルブルグに移り住む。43年、長詩『パラーシャ』刊行、批評家ベリンスキーの激賞を受けた。11月、イタリア歌劇団の一員としてペテルブルグへ巡業にきていたスペイン系の有名な歌手、ビアルドー夫人を知る。彼女との出会いはその後の個人的運命を大きく左右した。生涯を結婚しないで通したのも彼女への愛のためといわれる。

　1847年1月、ベルリンへ出発するに際して、農村スケッチ『ホーリとカリーヌィチ』を『現代人』誌に寄せた。農奴制下のロシア農民の生活を写実的に描いたこの作品が、すこぶる好評であったので、次々と同種のものを書き継ぎ、一書にまとめたものが『猟人日記』（1847～52）である。48年にはパリで二月革命の目撃者となった。『猟人日記』の成功に力を得て、56年、最初の長編小説『ルージン』を発表。「余計者」を扱ったこの作品の成功によって、彼は短編作家から長編作家へと成長し、文壇に確固とした地位を占めるに至った。翌57年、私的・内面的生活のうえで危機にみまわれる。ビアルドー夫人との仲がうまくいかなかったのも原因の一つであった。しかし58年に中編小説『アーシャ』（邦訳『片恋』）を書き上げ、危機を脱する。以後は円熟期に入り、59年には『ルージン』に続く「余計者」のタイプを描いた長編『貴族の巣』を完成、さらに農奴解放前夜の革命的青年男女を描く長編『その前夜』（1860）、短編『初恋』（1860）、「ニヒリスト」を主人公に新旧両世代の思想的対立を描いた長編『父と子』（1862）、農奴解放後の反動貴族と急進主義者の双方を風刺した長編『けむり』（1867）などの代表作を次々と世に問う。

　だが、ナロードニキ運動に取材し、その挫折(ざせつ)を描いた最後の長編『処女地』（1877）は世評の支持を得られず、進歩的陣営から激しく非難され、ために以後、長編小説の執筆を断念するに至った。長年の外国生活のため、ロシアの実情を正確に把握できなかったのが失敗の原因とされている（もっともルナチャルスキーのように、この作品を作者の最大傑作とみる向きもある）。1878年以降は『散文詩』（1882）の執筆をおもな仕事とし、創作力は衰えていく。83年9月3日、かねてからの脊髄癌(せきずいがん)のためパリ近郊のビアルドー夫人の別荘で没。遺言によりペテルブルグのボールコボ墓地に埋葬された。

　作品の特徴としては、幽愁の気を漂わせたリリシズム、自然描写の巧みさ、1840～70年代ロシア社会の典型をつくりあげ、それに不滅の生命を吹き込んだこと、なかでも魅力的な理想の女性像を創造したこと、あるいはリリシズムと一体をなすヒューマニズムなどをあげることができよう。彼はまた恋愛小説の名手であった。長編のすべてが社会・思想小説である反面、優れた恋愛小説でもある。たとえば『けむり』の主人公の宿命的な恋の鮮烈さ。中編『春の水』（1872）の、うぶな青年を春先の突風のようになぎ倒して通り過ぎる恋も忘れがたい。さらに晩年の短編『勝ち誇れる恋の歌』（1879）では、かなわぬ恋の執念が伝奇的に描かれていて不気味である。ツルゲーネフは一時期、劇作を試みた。『村のひと月』（1855）はその代表作である。また文学論に『ハムレットとドン・キホーテ』（1859）などがある。

　ツルゲーネフの思想的立場はいわゆる「西欧派」である。実生活のうえでも外国暮らしを常としたため、ロシア人には珍しい国際人であった。ゾラ、フロベール、メリメ、ドーデ、ゴンクール兄弟、モーパッサンなどのフランスの文人たちと親交があり、ジョルジュ・サンドとも友人関係にあった。またロシア文学を西欧に紹介した功績も大きい。日本へは二葉亭四迷(しめい)の訳で明治20年代にいち早く紹介され、近代日本文学の発達に大きな影響を与えた。とくに自然文学（国木田独歩の『武蔵野(むさしの)』など）についてそのことがいえる。

［佐々木彰］

『佐々木彰訳『貴族の巣』（講談社文庫）』▽『湯浅芳子訳『処女地』（岩波文庫）』▽『神西清・池田健太郎訳『散文詩』（岩波文庫）』▽『河野与一・柴田治三郎訳『ハムレットとドン　キホーテ他二篇』（岩波文庫）』▽『『片恋』（『二葉亭四迷全集1』所収・1964・岩波書店）』▽『佐藤清郎著『ツルゲーネフの生涯』（1977・筑摩書房）』

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