The Hunting Sketches Bk.1: My Neighbour Radilov and Other Stories

ISBN 9781907832079

The first major writing by Turgenev that gained him recognition. The stories in this collection were written based on Turgenev's own observations while hunting at his mother’s estate. This work exposed many injustices of serfdom and led to Turgenev’s house arrest and eventual abolishment of serfdom in Russia. A fine example of realist tradition in Russian literature. Read in English (unabridged).

Turgenev was an enthusiastic hunter; and it was his experiences in the woods of his native province that supplied the material for The Hunting Sketches.  They are written from the point of view of a young nobleman who is surprised to find the qualities of intelligence and morality among the peasants who live on his family's estates. Turgenev wrote many novels on this theme to stress his sentiments against serfdom. In his famous novel, Fathers and Sons, he showed the conflict between the older generation, who respect tradition, and the youth, who are Nihilists, relying heavily on materialism, faith in science, and lack of respect for tradition and authority.  "A nihilist is a man who does not bow to any authorities, who does not take any principle on trust, no matter with what respect that principle is surrounded." 

Track List:

My Neighbour Radilov 
01 Nobleman's Nest 
02 A Man of Mystery

Proprietor Ovsyanikov 
03 The Portrait 
04 The Great Hunt 
05 The New Nobility 
06 My Own Nephew 
07 A French Affair

From The Hunting Sketches: 

"Often the most insignificant things produce more effect on people than the most important" 

"In people who are constantly and intensely preoccupied with one idea, or one emotion, there is something in common, a kind of external resemblance in manner, however different may be their qualities, their abilities, their position in society, and their education" 

"It is always like that; those who can only just keep themselves afloat are the ones to drag others under" 

"The lower your station, the more reserved must be your behaviour, or else you disgrace yourself directly"

About The Author 

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev 1818-1883, a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His short story collection entitled The Hunting Sketches, is a milestone of Russian Realism, and his novel Fathers and Sons is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century fiction. Turgenev studied literature, philosophy and philology at the Universities of Moscow, St Petersburg and Berlin and in 1879 received honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford. Turgenev's artistic purity made him a favourite of like-minded novelists of the next generation, such as Henry James and Joseph Conrad. 

"If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin" 

"I agree with no one's opinion. I have some of my own" 

"Every man's happiness is built on the unhappiness of another"

Ivan Turgenev

Reviews

Even hunt saboteurs will enjoy the story, in this all-too-brief taste of one of Russia's greatest writers, about Lejeune, a French drummer boy retreating from Moscow with Napoleon's not so Grande Armée. Captured by villagers and all but drowned under river ice, he is rescued by a passing nobleman out hunting. On one condition. Lejeune must teach his daughter to play the piano . . . Now read on. 

Sue Arnold, The Guardian (UK) 

"Often, the most insignificant things produce more effect on people than the most important." Turgenev expresses his own view through these words of the young nobleman who meets landowner Radilov while shooting gamebirds on his family estate. The impact of the sketches is in the significance with which Turgenev freights simple detail, such as the fly Radilov observes on his dead wife’s eye. Bollinger’s engaging Russian intonation enhances this richly detailed creation of the daily lives of both landowners and serfs on country estates. 

Rachel Redford, The Observer, UK

When I think of Turgenev, I invariably think of the story about a visit Turgenev made to Tolstoy at Yasnaya Poloyana. While there, Turgenev, feeling frisky and full of life, demonstrated a can-can to the children, causing Tolstoy to comment, “Turgenev, can-can. Sad.” The two great writers often found themselves at odds but Tolstoy commented in all sincerity that “as for his (Turgenev’s) nature descriptions, these are true pearls, beyond the reach of any other writer!”  

Debra Cross, Canada

'The Hunting Sketches' as this Max Bollinger audio disc titles them is Turgenev's earliest and probably best know and appreciated work. The collection of short stories comes under various titles from different translations. Other options include 'Sketches from a Hunter's Album' or 'Sportsman's Sketches'. Different publications have included different selections from the collection that Turgenev produced in the early 1850's. Here we get just two , 'My neighbour Radilov' divided into two sections and 'Propietor Osyanikov' divided into four sections. The disc has an overall running time of 65 minutes.

Turgenev was born into a wealthy Ukrainian family. Much of his education was in Western Europe. He lived in Berlin and Paris and became a zapadnik or Westernist. Russian culture and politics since the times of Peter the Great have drifted between the influences of those who look West and see Russia as part of greater Europe and those who focus internally and see Russia as a distinct culture and country different in many respects from Europe. In recent times Gorbachev and Yeltsin looked West, Putin prefers to emphasise Russia's uniqueness.

At the time Turgenev was writing his Sketches the beginnings of revolutionary thinking were affecting imperialist Russia. Intellectuals took an interest in the lives of serfs, the peasant workers, owned by their landlords. There was a tendency to romanticise the lives of the serfs. They were seen as honest and simple in their way of life with a respect for nature and for each other. It was thought that the peasant way of life in some way represented the best of Russia with deep roots in Russian culture. It was an antidote to the formalised and mannered way of life at court in the great cities of St Petersburg and Moscow. Turgenev in his writing reflects this nostalgic view of life in the Russian countryside perhaps influenced not just by the intellectual debates of the day but also by the time he spent away from Russia in the West. 

In addition to writing about a rural way of life The Hunting Sketches remain one of the great descriptive pieces in Russian literature of the forests and the countryside. There is no doubt that the woods and forests of Russia's vast land mass are an important part of Russian culture. Even today most city dwellers will own or have access to a country dacha to which they will disappear every weekend in the summer. They will grow their own fruit and vegetables and relax away from the noise and stress of the city. They will see old friends and be visited by family and relations. The nostalgia continues.  

Stephen Shaw, UK

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