Notes of a Hunter.

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818-1883) is a classic of Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century, the author of many significant works ("Rudin," "A Nest of Gentlefolk," "On the Eve," "Fathers and Sons," "Asya," "First Love," "Spring Waters," "Month in the Village"). The Turgenev family was of ancient lineage from the Tula nobility and was wealthy. The future writer's childhood was spent in the estate of the village of Spasskoye-Lutovinovo in the Mtsensk district. Little Ivan was taught by governesses, and the French language, favored by his mother, was one of the primary languages spoken at home. This did not prevent him from falling in love with Russian literature; he began writing at the age of 15, and by 19 he had already composed about a hundred poems and poems. Turgenev received his education in private boarding schools for nobles, and later at the Faculty of Philosophy of St. Petersburg University. In his works, the writer reacted to all the events of his time: he was the first to embody the contradictory image of the personality of the "new man" - the nihilist, realistically described the life of the people, assessed the changing role of women in society, and finally, he was the first to portray modest rural landscapes with such love. Even during his lifetime, Turgenev became the most read Russian writer in Germany, was popular in France and England, and introduced the contemporary Russian prose to the Western reader, promoting it abroad. The collection that made him famous, "Notes of a Hunter," consists of 25 stories and grew out of one - "The Ferret and Kalinych," published in the magazine "Sovremennik." The editor added a subtitle "From the Notes of a Hunter" (Turgenev was a famous hunter in Russia) to attract readers' attention, and this suggested to Turgenev the idea of creating a cycle, the underlying meaning of which was the struggle against the enemy, hated since childhood. "This enemy had a well-known name ... serfdom." Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin believed that "Notes of a Hunter" laid the foundation for "an entire literature, focused on the people and their needs." The series of sketches provided such a harsh and expressive picture of peasant life that after the book's release, the censorship official who allowed it to be published was dismissed.