10 h 53 minAudiobook13 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if you long to change your country, but doubt your own place in the cause?
In the Russia of the late 1860s, Alexei Nezhdanov carries revolutionary hopes into the comfortable Sipyagin household. A sensitive student and secret poet, he believes in change but questions his fitness for it. There he meets Marianna Sinetskaya, a poor relation who wants more than shelter and comfort: she wants a life that matters.
In Virgin Soil, Ivan Turgenev brings love and politics into the same uneasy rooms. Marianna longs to serve a cause, while the practical mill manager Solomin trusts steady work over sudden uprisings. Around them, radicals argue and the gentry guard their comfortable lives. The question is not only how to change Russia, but how to turn belief into action.
What you’ll discover
- A poet divided Follow Nezhdanov as revolutionary conviction meets private doubt and the demands of real life.
- A life that matters Meet Marianna, whose hunger for purpose reaches beyond the comfort of the Sipyagin household.
- Another road to change Consider Solomin's quiet faith in practical work beside the radicals' urgent hopes for revolution.
- Love among competing ideals Find tenderness, loyalty and longing among people who cannot agree on the way forward.
- A country in motion Move through drawing rooms, factory yards and village taverns with Turgenev's clear, ironic eye.
Who will love it
For readers who love Russian fiction, stories of ideals tested by real life, and novels about politics seen through love and friendship.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Two friends in a Petersburg garret
- A revolutionary in a gentleman's house
- Marianna wants a life that matters
- Markelov, Mashurina and the cause
- Solomin offers a slower road
- Love, escape and a different home
- Going to the people
- Ideals against the weight of life
- How Turgenev tells it
Who’s who
- Alexei NezhdanovA sensitive student and hidden poet, the unacknowledged son of a nobleman, who believes in the revolution yet doubts his own fitness for it.
- Marianna SinetskayaA poor young relation in the Sipyagin house, restless and serious, who longs to leave comfort behind and live for a real cause.
- SolominThe calm manager of a cotton mill, practical and unshowy, who trusts slow, steady work more than sudden uprisings.
- PaklinNezhdanov's lame and witty friend, loyal and clear-eyed, who teases and protects him from the sidelines.
- MarkelovA stern landowner and committed radical, honest and stubborn, who loves Marianna in silence and acts more from will than skill.
- Boris SipyaginA smooth official with liberal phrases and strong ambition, who wants to rise in the world and keep things as they are.
- Valentina MikhailovnaSipyagin's elegant, bored wife, who enjoys collecting clever young men and takes a dangerous interest in her new tutor.
- MashurinaA plain, disciplined woman of the revolutionary circle, entirely given to the cause and quietly devoted to Nezhdanov.
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- Audiobook
- 10 h 53 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 13 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Virgin Soil
by Ivan Turgenev · 1877
Nezhdanov sets out to rouse Russia's peasants while love and doubt test his revolutionary ideals.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Virgin Soil is the last novel of Ivan Turgenev, the Russian writer who spent most of his later life in Paris and Germany. He finished it in 1877, when young Russians were leaving their cities and universities to preach revolution among the peasants.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Two friends in a Petersburg garret
The novel opens in Saint Petersburg, in the late 1860s. Alexei Nezhdanov is a student in his early twenties who lives in a bare, cramped room with a view of rooftops. He is the illegitimate son of a nobleman, raised in his father's family without ever being fully part of it. That mixed birth has left him proud, touchy and unsure where he belongs.
Nezhdanov believes in the revolutionary cause, and he has joined a circle of young people who plan to rouse the Russian peasants against the old order. But he is also a poet, though he hides his verses and is ashamed of them. He feels that a poet should not be a conspirator, and a conspirator should not be a poet. This quarrel inside him runs through the whole book.
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What is Virgin Soil about?
It follows young Russian idealists in the late 1860s who want to rouse the peasants against the old order. The story centres on the poet Nezhdanov, his love for Marianna, and the clash between hasty revolution and slow practical reform.
What does the title Virgin Soil mean?
It refers to land never ploughed before. In the book it stands for the Russian people and for society itself, which cannot be changed by a shallow plough but needs deep and patient work.
When was Virgin Soil written and is it a true story?
Turgenev published it in 1877, his last novel. The characters are invented, but the story is based on the real movement of young radicals who went to the villages to spread revolutionary ideas.
The author
Ivan Turgenev
1818–1883 · Russian novelist
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short-story writer and playwright. He was born in Oryol in 1818 and died near Paris in 1883. He lived in Russia, Germany and France. His books include A Nobleman’s Nest (1859), Fathers and Sons (1862) and Virgin Soil (1877).
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