Turgenev, Ivan Sergeivich

Turgenev, Ivan Sergeivich (1818–83), Russian novelist and dramatist, who in 1843, while studying at Berlin University, published his first play, a romantic swashbuckling drama set in Spain. His second play, a satirical comedy in the style of Gogol entitled Penniless; or, Scenes from the Life of a Young Nobleman, was published in 1846. He later wrote several short plays, in the style of Musset's Comédies et proverbes, among them Where It's Thin, It Breaks; The Bachelor (1849), written for Shchepkin; and The Boarder (1850). In 1850 Turgenev wrote his dramatic masterpiece, A Month in the Country (originally entitled The Student): it was published in 1869, but not staged until 1872. It is important as the first psychological drama in the Russian theatre, and Turgenev proved himself the fore-runner of Chekhov in shifting the dramatic action from external to internal conflict. Battles with the censorship, imprisonment, and exile then led Turgenev to give up the theatre, and A Month in the Country is his only play to be known outside Russia. It was first seen in London in 1926 and New York in 1930, and has been revived several times in both cities. Brian Friel's adaptation of Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons was staged at the National Theatre in 1987.