About
Notable for his 1862 novel Fathers and Sons and for his 1852 short story collection A Sportsman's Sketches, Turgenev was a key figure in late 19th-century Russia's literary realism movement.
Before Fame
He was educated at the University of Moscow, the University of Saint Petersburg, and the University of Berlin.
Trivia
During the early 1840s, he was a civil servant with the Russian Ministry of Interior.
Family Life
Born into a troubled upper-class family, Turgenev and his brother Nicolas were the sons of military man Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev and the wealthy, physically abusive Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova. Through his relationship with a serf bound to his family's land, he fathered an illegitimate child named Paulinette.
Associated With
Turgenev and 19th-century playwright and fiction writer Anton Chekhov both penned important works of Russian Realism.
