What is Ivan Turgenev?
{{unreferenced|date=July 2011}} {{Infobox Writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox Writer/doc]] --> | name = Ivan Turgenev | image = Turgenev_Oxford.JPG | caption = Ivan Turgenev in 1879 | birth_date = {{birth date|1818|11|09|mf=y}} | birth_place = Oryol, Russian Empire | death_date = {{death date and age|1883|9|3|1818|11|09|mf=y}} | death_place = Bougival, [[Paris]] | occupation = Novelist and Playwright | genre = Realism | notableworks = ''Fathers and Sons'' | website = }} '''Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev''' (9 November 1818 - 3 September 1883) was a [[Russia]]n writer, most famous for his [[novel]] ''Fathers and Sons''. == Life == Turgenev was born into a rich land-owning family in Oryol, Russia, on 9 November 1818. His father died when Turgenev was sixteen. He and his brother Nicholas were brought up by their mother. She did not treat them well. Turgenev went to the University of Moscow for one year and then moved to the University of [[Saint Petersburg]], where he studied Classics and Russian Literature. In 1838 he went to the University of Berlin to study [[philosophy]] and [[history]]. Turgenev liked [[Germany]] and thought [[Russia]] should change their social system to be more like Germany’s. The 1840s and 1850s were hard times for writers and artists in Russia. The political system did not allow them to express themselves as they wanted to. Many intelligent Russians left the country and went to [[England]], [[France]] and Germany. In 1852 Turgenev himself was put in prison for a month for praising [[Nikolai Gogol]] – a famous Russian writer who had been criticised by the ruling powers in the country. In 1854, Turgenev moved to [[Western Europe]] and started writing his novel ''Rudin'', which complained about the Russia of the 1840s and 1850s. The political system in Russia changed in 1855 when [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]] took over power from his father Nicholas I. Writers and artists had more freedom from this time. In 1860 one of Turgenev’s most famous novels, ''First L