Ivan Turgenev was born into a wealthy Russian family and Grew up in the Orel Province, which is about 100 miles south of Moscow. Turgenev is the son of Sergei Nikolayevich Turgenev a colonel in the Imperial Russian carry. Sergei Nikolayevich Turgenev’s father died when Turgenev was six so he was predominately raised by his mother. “His mother was possessed of a tyrannical nature and led her peasants and also her immediate family.” Turgenev was greatly affected by the way his mother treated the serfs. At one pint he attempted to intervene but his mother cut his allowance causing him to grow up in “misery.” In his youth he also began to write. He wrote poems “mostly imitative of Mikhail Lermontov” In 1847 Turgenev published his first short story, the first of his series of a sportsman’s Sketches, after which his life turned to writing.
After 1841 Ivan Turgenev worked in the Ministry of the Interior in St. Petersburg. Here he met Dostoevsky and Bielinski. After his time at the Ministry of the Interior Turgenev turned his focus to writing.
In 1847, Turgenev left Russia for Paris with Pauline Virardot. He lived with her there for three years, until 1850 when he returned to Russian. In Russia, Turgenev wrote a obituary for Gogol, one of his only works Dostoevsky liked, that got him arrested and imprisoned for a short period of time. By the end of the Crimean War Turgenev was ready to return to western Europe. He moved to Baden –Baden Germany to once again be with Virardot. Later he moved to Bougival, near Paris where he eventually died.