The Story Archive

Virgin Soil

Ivan Turgenev · 1877 CE · Novel · Russian · Victorian

A poor, cultivated tutor with a weakness for verse is drawn into the movement to go to the people, taking a post with a pompous official whose ward wants the cause far more steadily than he does. The peasants they mean to raise cannot follow a word of the pamphlets, while the practical neighbour on the next estate quietly does more good by building a factory. Turgenev's last novel, written in France about the populist agitation of the 1870s and received by young radicals as an insult.

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Attributes

Genre
PoliticalPsychological
Theme
Individual vs SocietyClass & InequalityFaith & DoubtDuty & HonorIdentity & Self
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Rebel / OutlawEverymanHeroine
Plot structure
Tragic ReversalBildungsroman
Symbol / motif
The HarvestThe Estate
Conflict
vs Societyvs Self
Mode / tone
RealistElegiacIronic
Culture / tradition
Russian

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