1818-1883
Russian writer Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was born into a wealthy land owning family in Oryol (then Orel) on this day in 1818. Turgenev was home educated, along with two of his brothers, by their mother, a strict but highly educated woman. By the time he was a young man, he was fluent in at least 3 western languages. Ivan later studied at the University of Moscow for a year before transferring to the University of Saint Petersburg focusing mostly on Classic and Russian Literature. He later studied philosophy and history at the University of Berlin and got his masters from the University of Saint Petersburg in the early 1840's. Tergenev was much enamored of German society and believed that many of the ills of his native Russian social structure could be improved by following certain German social norms and the philosophies of the enlightenment in general--this as a conflict in narrative would show up in his fiction. Tergenev as a writer started early. His earliest writing as an adult showed that he was a natural talent. He wrote across styles, eventually publishing short stories, plays and novels (with many of his plays produced during his lifetime). Turgenev's works were popular despite that his subject matter was frequently controversial from the point of view of the Russian Empire; though his style was always gentle and did not ever so much as slightly inspire, never mind, stir feelings of revolution, despite his themes of humanism. His descriptions of nature and natural settings also lent itself to music and at least one Russian opera. He was also a well respected translator of western fiction, with his translation of Cerventes still seen as an important work, Tergenev's work was used early in narrative film, but was confined to the continent of Europe. The first film produced from his work came out of France in 1910; a production of Pathè Fréres: Le Lieutenant Yergounoff sported an all Russian cast from that country and was based on the short story "The Story of Lieutenant Ergunov"--though the film contained intertitles in French. Three years laster, Italy produced it's first film based on one of his stories: Petroff, the Vassal (A Russian Romance) driected by Ubaldo Maria Del Colle. According to IMDb, only three more films of his work were made in 1910's, all of them in 1915, and all of them from Russia. The first of these, Dvoryanskoe gnezdo (Dionysus' Anger) was directed by Vladimir Gardin, a director known for his stage work in acting. The other two films--Pesn torzhestvuyushchey lyubvi (Song of Triumphant Love) and Posle smerti (After Death)--were directed (and adapted) by the now legendary early Russian filmmaker Yevgeny (Evgeni) Bauer (After Death has been restored and released on disc). But Russian sources cite an additional four films in the 1910s, one each from 1916, 1917, 1918 and 1919--all of them Russian in origin. The film from 1918, Inn, directed by Cheslav Sabinsky (and listed sans writer as Postoyaly dvor on the IMDb), survives in part in archives in Russia. In 1920, Italian actor/director Vasco Salvini directed himself in Fumo; and in 1921 prolific German actor/director Rudolf Biebrach made Die Schuld des Grafen Weronski. Just four more films were made from his work during the silent era from France, Italy, Germany and Japan of all places. The last of these, the entry from Japan, was directed by the important Nihonjin writer/filmmaker Daisuke Itô: Kemuri. The film was released in 1925. It took twelve years for another film to be made from his work--the first in the sound era--it came out of the Soviet Union and was directed by none other than Sergei Eisenstein! Bezhin lug was 1937 a short and is basically lost (a very incomplete recreation has been attempted--with mixed results), it ran a little over 30 minutes and was considered a masterpiece, despite that it remade Turgenev over into Soviet propaganda. It would not be until the 1940's that a feature-length full sound film was produced from his work; Primer amor, made from his semi-autobiographical novel First Love, was out of Spain and released on the 23rd of January in 1942. While the first made for television film of his work came pretty early in television history out of the UK; A Month in the Country was made for the BBC in 1947 and aired on 8 June. Adaptations for theatrical release have never been a "big thing" in the United States, but adaptations for the small screen have been quite popular, and it was in the U.S. that his work was used for a television photo play. In fact the series Studio One in Hollywood aired two episodes featuring adaptations of his work, the first coming in 1949 with Smoke (airing on the 15th of June). These were the first in a long list of television adaptations--both in stand alone films/mini-series and episodes of dramatic shows. The most recent film produced from his work (as of this writing) is Two Women, based on a play, directed by the late Russian filmmaker Vera Glagoleva, starring Sylvie Testud, Aleksandr Baluev and Ralph Fiennes. It's premiere date was in August of 2014 in Russia. Turgenev endured several years of bad health from various ailments that left in him pain (some type of arthritic condition possibly). In 1883 he had a cancerous tumor removed and it was hoped that his condition would not further decline, but the cancer had reached his spinal column and proved both excruciatingly painful and fatal. He suffered a spinal abscess on the 3rd of September 1883 claiming his life at the age of 64. He died in France in the countryside outside of Paris, but he was later buried in his native Russia at Saint Petersburg's famed very large non-Orthodox cemetery Volkovo (Volkovskoe).
[Source: Wikimedia Commons]
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