Turgenev's final novel, Virgin Soil traces the destinies of several middle-class
revolutionaries who seek to "go to the people" by working on the land and insti
lling democratic ideas in the countryside's locals. They include the daydreaming
impoverished young tutor Nezhdanov - employed by the liberal councillor Sipyagi
n and his vain and beautiful wife Valentina - the naive young radical Maryanna a
nd the progressive factory manager Solomin. Their liaisons, intrigues and conspi
racies, set against the backdrop of Tsarist Russia, form the matter of Turgenev'
s most ambitious and elaborate work, which cemented the author's place in the We
st as Russia's foremost novelist while at the same time proving controversial at
home - culminating in the arrest of fifty-two real-life revolutionaries barely
a month after it was published.
