On The Eve - Ivan Turgenev

Turgenev’s third novel isn’t his most satisfying, the author casting around his cast of characters to find a committed idealist and romantic hero to bring about social reform in his country, but ‘on the eve of reform’ he fails to find them in the Russian gentry of the time. Initially he examines the characters of Shubin, a talented sculptor, and Bersyenev, a scholar and academic, and, in a Turgenev way, he examines their character and commitment to a cause through their courting of Elena Stahov. In this both men are lacking, failing to show anything but surface attraction and devotion, but backing down when a rival for her affections gets in their way.

In On The Eve then, it’s in the form of a Bulgarian revolutionary called Insarov that Turgenev finds the characteristics that he is seeking, but the romantic melodrama that follows isn’t the strongest section of the novel, and it wouldn’t be until the creation of in Bazarov in his subsequent masterpiece Fathers and Sons (or Fathers and Children) that Turgenev successfully finds a Russian man of principles and a man of action. On The Eve however does have some good points – there’s a great deal of humour, particularly coming from the character of Shubin, and some entertaining though evidently ineffectual philosophising from his Russian gentlemen. Primarily however, Turgenev’s depiction of characters, particularly the fatalistic nature of Elena, is superb, with even secondary characters being fully fleshed-out, the author creating a credible dynamic between the differences in their temperament and outlook as well as in their generational and social divisions.