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The Novels and Stories of Iván Turgénieff (14); The Brigadier, and Other Stories
The Novels and Stories of Ivn Turgnieff The Brigadier and Other Stories - 14 Author:Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev Volume: 14 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1904 Original Publisher: Charles Scribner? Sons Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Book... more »s.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: PREFACE In the interval of ten years which elapsed between " Smoke " and " Virgin Soil," the critics, generally speaking, bore themselves coldly toward Turgenieff's productions, and the public did the same. Sometimes his sketches of various lengths were condemned, and he was accused of having deteriorated; sometimes they were praised, but without any special enthusiasm, and more as a matter of habit, more on account of the former services of the favourite author. In the criticism of that period there may be detected an attempt at diligent and thoughtful elucidation of the general inward meaning of the studies which the author published year by year. A successful attempt of this sort was made by the noted philosopher N. N. Strakhoff, in a fine and profound article published in The Dawn (1871). In a very original and penetrating manner this critic defines the hidden import in the majority of Turgenieff's studies which followed " Smoke." " In these studies," says Mr. Stra- khoff " there is everywhere audible a sensitive, irritated dissatisfaction with our national character, scepticism as to the elegance of its manifestation. From the time when the young generation ceased to uphold Turgenieff, and he ceased to set before us representatives of our progress, those heroes of our society, he, quite obviously, generalized his problem, and began, on the whole, to depict how powerful passions make their appearance in Russian life, what incidents, more or less romantic, and more or less strange, occur therein. Images of Western art seem to hover perpetually ...« less