New People in Russian History (Ivan Turgenev’s Virgin Soil)

This paper discusses a controversial statement of some Russian critics about the “failure” of Turgenev’s Virgin Soil and its interpretation in Russian intellectual and political history. These views are revised with reference to Turgenev’s philosophical ideas on the Russian Enlightenment project, Russia’s historical development, its national culture and spiritual ideals. The author considers the national tradition of reading Virgin Soil and determines the intellectual context which impeded the understanding of Turgenev’s historical position, concluding that the views on the novel were mostly ideological. The article examines the problem of “new people” in Virgin Soil. According to the author’s opinion, Turgenev, inspired by the philosophical ideas of the Russian Enlightenment, created an original concept of the historical dynamics of Russia. He shows both the social utopianism and real political alternatives in Russian history. The writer gives a critical assessment of the moral philosophy of the “new people”, whose emergence is welcomed by the revolutionary democrat Chernyshevsky. Turgenev reveals the inner contradictions in Russian society and predicts a revolutionary catastrophe in Russia