afternoon

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev's "Tourday" is one of the most poetic and at the same time socially sharp novels of the writer, who impressed the prejudice of great changes in the Russian society at the threshold of the Great Reform era. In the center of the story is the young noble Elena Stakhov, given a pure soul, a dirty heart and an uninterrupted aspiration to active good. In search of the ideal and the high purpose of life, she rejects the care of the talented artist Bersenev and the beginner scientist Shubin. Her chosen man becomes Insarov, a Bulgarian revolutionary, who has spent his whole life struggling for the liberation of his homeland from the Ottoman yoga. The love of Elena to Insarov turns into a willingness to share with him the fatal danger, go against the will of the family and leave his homeland. Turgenev with a surprising sensitivity and psychological subtility re-creates the image of a "new woman" and puts the main question of the era: whether there are heroes in Russia capable of a real civil activity, or the country is still only "previous" of their appearance. Who to read: Lovers of classic novels about high love and self-offering, lovers of thin Russian prose, as well as everyone who is interested in the history of social thought and female images in the literature of the 19th century.