Siberian Federal University

Issue

Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences. 2014 7 (5)

Authors

Vasilyev, Vladimir K.

Contact information

Vasilyev, Vladimir K.:Siberian Federal University 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041, Russia; E-mail:

Keywords

Turgenev; “Turgenev’s girl”; typology of literary characters; history of Russian literature; women’s emancipation; abnormal psychology

Abstract

In the first half of the 19th century, in the context of crisis of Christian beliefs an intensive formation of revolutionary intelligentsia began in Russia. Ivan Turgenev, one of the most penetrating writerspsychoanalysts, was the first who showed the nature of “new people” and predicted their historical mission of a revolutionary rebuilding of the country. The writer portrayed them in types of “Turgenev’s girl” and “Turgenev’s character”. In the strict sense of the term, “Turgenev’s girl” is a flapper, who rejects a traditional idea about the role of a woman in society. (The beginning of this understanding was shown in the story “Conversation” (1844-1854)). She is looking for a hero, a man who will show her the highest truth of existence and she is ready to sacrifice her life. She considers the ideas of social revolution to be this kind of the highest truth. In his works of fiction (“Rudin” (1855) and “Virgin Soil” (1876)) Turgenev showed that the way which characters choose will lead them and Russia to a “sophisticated suicide”. The character types, which were discovered by Turgenev, were analyzed as evocation of abnormal psychology. The classic couple of characters, which were anticipated by Turgenev, are Nadezhda Krupskaya and Ulyanov-Lenin. Meanwhile both in school curricula and in Russian literary studies the type of “Turgenev’s girl” is very vague, not clearly defined and still presented as romantic. The aim of this article is to show the “Turgenev’s girl” type out of this kind of mythology. The results of it – the scientific description of the above mentioned psychological types – can be used in teaching the history of Russian and world literature, psychoanalysis, philosophy and cultural studies

Pages

757-764

Paper at repository of SibFU

https://elib.sfu-kras.ru/handle/2311/10359

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).