Nov’ [Virgin Soil] was published in 1877, and was Turgenev’s last novel. In this work, he returns to political themes, which he had eschewed for some ten years, ever since the publication of Dym [Smoke, 1867]. Virgin Soil depicts the “Going to the People” movement of the 1870s in Russia; accordingly, Turgenev uses a purely Russian locale, after setting his two main previous works (Dym and Veshnie Vody [Spring Torrents, 1872]) in Germany. However, despite this Russian setting, Virgin Soil feels somewhat detached from the Russia it is meant to represent, especially …
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Citation: Ambrose, Kathryn. "Nov'". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 September 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=11254, accessed 23 November 2024.]