Published in 1867, Smoke contributed to Turgenev’s ongoing argument with the Slavophiles and was to trigger his heated political quarrel with Dostoyevsky about the deplorable state of Mother Russia. Part love story, part political commentary, the novel tells of Litvinov, a quiet, ordinary young man, who travels to study European technology and scientific farming.
About the author
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818-1883) was born to the landed aristocracy. As an adult he spent most of his time in Baden-Baden, Germany and Paris, France. A contemporary and rival of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, his works include A Sportsman’s Sketches, A Month in the Country, First Love, Diary of a Superfluous Man, Torrents of Spring, Fathers and Sons and other landmarks of nineteenth-century Russian realism.