Mumu: Stories and Tales

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev 1818-1883 - a classic of Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century, author of many significant works such as Rudin, A Nest of the Gentry, On the Eve, Fathers and Sons, A Month in... the Village. Turgenev's family came from an ancient line of Tula nobility and was wealthy. The future writer's childhood was spent in the estate of the village of Spasskoye-Lutovinovo in the Mtsensky district. Young Ivan was taught by governesses and the French language, beloved by his mother, was almost essential in the house. This did not prevent him from falling in love with Russian literature; he began writing at the age of 15, and by the age of 19, he had already composed about a hundred poems and narratives. Turgenev received his education in private boarding schools for the nobility, and then at the philosophical faculty of St. Petersburg University. In his works, the writer responded to all events of his time: he was the first to embody the contradictory image of the personality of the new man - the nihilist, realistically depicted the life of the people, fighting for the abolition of serfdom, assessed the changing role of women in society, and finally, was the first to portray modest rural landscapes with such sincere love and lyricism. In 1852, while under arrest for publishing an obituary for Gogol, Turgenev wrote the now-classic story Mumu. To the capricious cruel lady's character, he opposed a true hero, who, however, cannot speak and is not free in his feelings. The symbolism of the hero, the embodiment of the unfree peasant, was so obvious that censorship long delayed the story’s publication. Interestingly, it is based on real events: the prototype of Gerasim - Andrei the Mute, a janitor at Turgenev’s Moscow house, indeed drowned his dog Mumu, doing so at the writer’s mother’s order, but did not go off to the village, instead remaining in service. Turgenev's tales are significantly less known; many of them were made up on the spot for the three children of Turgenev's friend, Yakov Polonsky, who was visiting with his family in Spasskoye; while the essay The Fire at Sea, written in France, describes a real disaster that happened to 19-year-old Turgenev during a journey on a steamboat.