![]() ![]() Following its long gestation, the book was written in a few months and first appeared in 1859 in the Moscow magazine The Russian Messenger, where it aroused interest but not universal approval. Turgenev had long meditated On the Eve, wishing to represent a new type of idealistic but self-sacrificing heroine whom he eventually embodied in Elena. Elena takes Insarov's body to the Balkans for burial and then vanishes. On the outbreak of war Insarov tries to return with Elena to Bulgaria, but dies in Venice. Insarov nearly dies from pneumonia and only partly recovers. In secretly marrying Insarov Elena disappoints her mother and enrages her father, who had hoped to marry her to a dull, self-satisfied functionary, Kurnatovski. But when Berzyenev's revolutionary Bulgarian friend, Dmitri Insarov, meets Elena, they fall in love. ![]() ![]() On the eve of the Crimean War, Elena is pursued by a free-spirited sculptor (Pavel Shubin) and a serious-minded student (Andrei Berzyenev). The story revolves around Elena Stakhova, a girl with a hypochondriac mother and an idle father, a retired guards lieutenant with a mistress. It has elements of social comedy but fell foul of radical critics who advocated the need of more overt reform. On the Eve ( Russian: «Накануне», Nakanune) is the third novel by Russian writer Ivan Turgenev. ![]()
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