Smoke
juil. 2026 · New York Review of Books
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A young Russian man, engaged to be married, encounters his former love in a German spa town and is soon enmeshed in a torturous romantic tangle in this graceful, politically tinged love story by a Russian literary great.
Ivan Turgenev's fifth novel, Smoke, caused a furor when it was published in 1867. Tolstoy claimed that his fellow writer loved only fornication, not his country; the poet Tiutchev that he was polluting "the smoke of the fatherland, sweet and pleasant." The novel's vulnerable hero, Grigori Litvinov, is an intelligent but unremarkable man who is on his way home from agronomical studies in Germany, intending to marry his fiancée Tatiana and run his father's neglected estate. He stops in Baden-Baden to meet Tatiana and runs into his former love, the ruthless and now aristocratic Irina, who is there with her husband. A dormant erotic passion overwhelms Litvinov; he jilts Tatiana and prepares to elope with Irina. Meanwhile, the Russians abroad, whether revolutionaries or reactionaries, from whom Litvinov keeps his distance, emerge as hypocritical bigots. The single man Litvinov admires, Potugin, denounces both right-wing aristocrats and left-wing radicals—indeed all of Russia—as irredeemably backward.
Ivan Turgenev's fifth novel, Smoke, caused a furor when it was published in 1867. Tolstoy claimed that his fellow writer loved only fornication, not his country; the poet Tiutchev that he was polluting "the smoke of the fatherland, sweet and pleasant." The novel's vulnerable hero, Grigori Litvinov, is an intelligent but unremarkable man who is on his way home from agronomical studies in Germany, intending to marry his fiancée Tatiana and run his father's neglected estate. He stops in Baden-Baden to meet Tatiana and runs into his former love, the ruthless and now aristocratic Irina, who is there with her husband. A dormant erotic passion overwhelms Litvinov; he jilts Tatiana and prepares to elope with Irina. Meanwhile, the Russians abroad, whether revolutionaries or reactionaries, from whom Litvinov keeps his distance, emerge as hypocritical bigots. The single man Litvinov admires, Potugin, denounces both right-wing aristocrats and left-wing radicals—indeed all of Russia—as irredeemably backward.
A young Russian man, engaged to be married, encounters his former love in a German spa town and is soon enmeshed in a torturous romantic tangle in this graceful, politically tinged love story by a Russian literary great.
Ivan Turgenev's fifth novel, Smoke, caused a furor when it was published in...
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À propos de l'auteur
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818–1883) was born into a wealthy family of the Russian landed gentry and educated in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Berlin. He made his name as a writer with A Sportsman’s Sketches, an unvarnished picture of Russian country life that is said to have influenced Tsar Alexander II’s decision to liberate the serfs. In later years, Turgenev lived in Europe, returning only rarely to his native country. He was the author of poems, stories, plays, and six novels, the most celebrated of which include Fathers and Children and Virgin Soil (both published by NYRB Classics).
Donald Rayfield is Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary University of London. In addition to books and articles on Russian literature (notably Anton Chekhov: A Life), he is the author of many articles on Georgian writers and of a history of Georgian literature. He was the chief editor of A Comprehensive Georgian-English Dictionary. He has translated several novels, including Hamid Ismailov's The Devils' Dance from the Uzbek, Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls (an NYRB Classic), as well as Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Stories and Sketches of the Criminal World (both published as NYRB Classics).
Donald Rayfield is Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary University of London. In addition to books and articles on Russian literature (notably Anton Chekhov: A Life), he is the author of many articles on Georgian writers and of a history of Georgian literature. He was the chief editor of A Comprehensive Georgian-English Dictionary. He has translated several novels, including Hamid Ismailov's The Devils' Dance from the Uzbek, Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls (an NYRB Classic), as well as Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Stories and Sketches of the Criminal World (both published as NYRB Classics).
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818–1883) was born into a wealthy family of the Russian landed gentry and educated in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Berlin. He made his name as a writer with A Sportsman’s Sketches, an unvarnished picture of Russian country life that is said to have influenced Tsar Alexa...
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