Mumu: Stories and Tales DP

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818-1883) is a classic of Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century, the author of numerous significant works ("Rudin", "A Month in the Country", "On the Eve", "Fathers and Sons", "Asya", "First Love", "Spring Waters", "A Month in the Country").
The Turgenev family came from an ancient lineage of Tula nobles and was wealthy. The childhood of the future writer 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, beloved by his mother, was almost the main one in the house. This did not prevent him from falling in love with Russian literature; he began to write at the age of 15, and by the age of 19 he had already composed about a hundred poems and poems. Turgenev received his education in private boarding schools for the nobility and then at the philosophy department of St. Petersburg University. In his work, the writer responded 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 describing the life of the people, fighting for the abolition of serfdom, assessing the changing role of women in society, and finally, being the first to depict the modest rural landscapes with such sincere love and lyricism.
In 1852, while under arrest due to the publication of an obituary on Gogol's death, Turgenev wrote the now-classic story "Mumu". To the character of the capricious cruel lady, 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 evident that censorship took a long time to allow the story to be published. Interestingly, it is based on real events: the prototype of Gerasim was Andrey the Mute, a janitor at the Moscow house of the Turgenevs, who indeed drowned his dog Mumu, doing so at the order of the writer's mother.