I. A. Turgenev: “It is impossible to believe that such a language would not be given to the great people!”

November 9, 2013 marks the 195th birthday anniversary of a writer Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883). He is one of the major authors who have made the most significant contribution to the development of Russian literature in the second half of the 19th century. A collection of the Presidential Library contains a lot of evidence of the fact. The thematic Year of Russian language, declared by the first national electronic library of Russia, we would especially like to note Turgenev’s virtuosity in writing. He transmits to his readers the admiration of the mother tongue in his every work, but there is also a poem in prose specially dedicated to it - a hymn to his native language "Russian language." "It it was not for you, how would not one fall into despair at the sight of all the things that occur at home? But it is impossible to believe that such a language was not given to the great people!" says Ivan Turgenev.

"While the work of Turgenev progressed brilliantly, his private life was unhappy," writes A. V. Smirnov in his "I. S. Turgenev" (Vladimir, 1908) which is part of digital collections of the Presidential Library. The biographer notes: "In terms of finances, he lived practically in poverty; his discord with his mother tortured him."

In 1843 an event occurred which left an indelible mark on the fate of Turgenev. He met with an outstanding singer, a highly cultured, intelligent and attractive Pauline Viardot. Turgenev could not marry the beloved woman: she had children and a husband. The language of love for the two of them was their work and mutual delight in it.

In the electronic version of the "Herald of Europe" (Moscow, v. 4, "Literary review") held by the Presidential Library, we read: "Suddenly, one of the Thursdays, E. Ardov wrote in 1879 in his memoirs about Turgenev, Ms. Viardot gave in to the requests, and her choice fell on the scene of lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking, from Verdi’s opera. Saint-Saens sat down to play the piano. …No nuance of woman's soul flustered by a terrible crime has not gone without a trace, and when, lowering her voice to a lower pianissimo, which revealed complaints, fear and anguish, the singer sang her famous phrase "No scents of Arabia would erase the smell of blood from these small hands...," a shiver of delight ran through all the listeners. At the same time there was no theatrical gesture; no excessiveness”.

The Presidential Library collections, which currently number about 300, 000 units, contain unique literary sources, giving us even more reason to be proud of our own language. In particular, since it is one of the major clamps of the Russian statehood.