Book contents
- Frontmatter
- INTRODUCTION
- Contents
- PART ONE
- 1 An Emperor's Funeral, 1855
- 2 Lieutenant Tolstoy in the Crimea
- 3 The Tsar Visits Moscow
- 4 A Professor and a Banquet
- 5 Tolstoy in the Capital
- 6 The Tsar, the Serfs and the Coronation
- 7 Dostoevsky in Exile
- 8 Michael Bakunin
- 9 The Muravievs and Perovskys, Siberia and China
- 10 Two Noblemen: Tolstoy and Turgenev
- 11 Herzen and The Bell in London
- 12 Tolstoy and Bakunin visit Herzen
- 13 Turgenev and Dostoevsky visit Herzen
- PART TWO
- PART THREE THREE AND EPILOGUE
- Epilogue
- Who's Who?
- Chronology
- Endnotes
- A Note on Principal Sources
- Bibliography of Print Materials
- Index
13 - Turgenev and Dostoevsky visit Herzen
from PART ONE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- INTRODUCTION
- Contents
- PART ONE
- 1 An Emperor's Funeral, 1855
- 2 Lieutenant Tolstoy in the Crimea
- 3 The Tsar Visits Moscow
- 4 A Professor and a Banquet
- 5 Tolstoy in the Capital
- 6 The Tsar, the Serfs and the Coronation
- 7 Dostoevsky in Exile
- 8 Michael Bakunin
- 9 The Muravievs and Perovskys, Siberia and China
- 10 Two Noblemen: Tolstoy and Turgenev
- 11 Herzen and The Bell in London
- 12 Tolstoy and Bakunin visit Herzen
- 13 Turgenev and Dostoevsky visit Herzen
- PART TWO
- PART THREE THREE AND EPILOGUE
- Epilogue
- Who's Who?
- Chronology
- Endnotes
- A Note on Principal Sources
- Bibliography of Print Materials
- Index
Summary
In May of 1862, Turgenev arrived in London for a short visit. In the previous six years he had visited England and Herzen almost yearly. Unlike Tolstoy and Bakunin, the liberal Turgenev admired the British political system and appreciated its spirit of compromise and tolerance; and he had encouraged the political moderation that his good friend Herzen attempted to display prior to the emancipation.
But moderation, political or otherwise, was not a virtue that came easily to Russian intellectuals. In the face of provocations by some of his more abrasive countrymen, even Turgenev found it difficult to practice. Upset over criticism of his work by Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky, he had finally broken off relations with their chief editor, Nekrasov. In May of 1861, he had also quarreled so seriously with Tolstoy that the argument almost resulted in a duel.While at the poet Fet's estate one morning, Tolstoy criticized Turgenev for the way he was bringing up his daughter and, according to Turgenev, suggested that he would act differently if his daughter were legitimate. Turgenev later recalled threatening to slap Tolstoy's face if he continued insulting him. They soon parted, and a comedy of errors and delayed and misplaced correspondence followed. In these letters, Tolstoy was the first to insist on a duel. Turgenev was the more apologetic, but at one point he also stated he would demand satisfaction. Instead, they stopped seeing each other.
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- Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2002