difficult childhood
The writer’s mother, Varvara Petrovna Turgeneva (née Lutovinova), was born on December 30, 1787. Her father died just before Varvara’s birth, and her mother entrusted her to aunts for upbringing. When Varvara was eight, her mother remarried and took her along.
What followed was a harsh eight-year period. Varvara’s stepfather subjected her to physical abuse and humiliations. At sixteen, he began to show sexual interest, and Varvara decided to live with her uncle, Ivan Lutovinov.
“He met his nephew without much joy, but nonetheless assumed responsibility and let him be,” writes Yuri Lebedev in a biographical work from the Life of Remarkable People series. Iv an Ivanovich proved to be a cold, distant man who never offered warmth or affection. Three more years slipped by in solitude for Varvara Petrovna, with only occasional clashes with a demented elder who coveted her wealth.
Records show that her uncle exercised both instruction and control, even confining Varvara at times.
Heritage
In 1813, Lutovinov died after choking on a peach seed, and Varvara inherited his substantial fortune.
“She was twenty-six when fate finally softened and she unexpectedly became the sole mistress of a vast estate: five thousand serf souls owned by the Oryol estates, plus villages in Kaluga, Tula, Tambov and Kursk. The capital consisted of 600 thousand rubles, along with sixty pounds of silverware,” Lebedev notes in Spassky.
Wealth brought Varvara freedom and power. She swiftly took charge of property, overseeing crops, flax planting, and logging operations. A staff of cabinetmakers worked on walnut furniture, while Varvara managed a water mill, an oil mill, and a groats crusher to produce buckwheat, pearl barley, and oatmeal.
Despite wealth, early marriage prospects remained scarce. Suitors were deterred by Varvara’s stern appearance and formidable temperament.
“He was ugly, small, a bit stooped, with a long wide nose and coarse skin, as if carved by smallpox. His eyes were black and harsh,” contemporaries recalled. They also noted her “masculine” pastimes, such as shooting and billiards.
Marriage with Sergei Turgenev
According to accounts, Varvara’s marriage to Sergei Turgenev was a calculated match. He was an officer ten years her junior and began courting her while helping procure horses for the army. The wedding took place on January 14, 1816.
“My father, still young and handsome, married her for reasoned advantage: a decade between them,” Turgenev later wrote in the story First Love. Varvara’s life with him was marked by worry and jealousy.
Initially, the couple resided in Orel, where their sons Nikolai and Ivan were born in 1816 and 1818, respectively. They later moved to the Spasskoe-Lutovinovo estate. Reports indicate infidelity on both sides, and in 1833 Varvara bore a daughter fathered by the family doctor Andrei Bers. The child would be named Varvara Zhitova years later, after the writer’s mother living on in memory.
power over subordinates
Among Varvara’s many servants, the most difficult was the courtyard. Servants faced frequent lashes or long separations from their families and distant errands. Varvara tended to schedule every detail of life, and violations were met with harsh penalties. It was said that she often declared, “I want — I shall do; I want — let it be.”
Seemingly capricious directives could appear senseless to others, yet they were treated as absolute. One day she read that cholera spread through the air and ordered a plan so she could observe every object around her without inhaling the infected air. When traveling between estates, her entourage included a doctor, a laundress, a maid, and kitchen carriages, all in tow.
Turgenev’s relationship with his mother
In her memoirs, Varvara Zhitova described her mother as someone who exhumed unhappy memories and aimed to inflict the same pain on others. This temperament, many believed, shaped Ivan Turgenev’s early grief and sensitivity. He recalled spending nights at his mother’s sickbed during illness in 1837–1838, and how the landlord’s presence offered a rare moment of relief.
“With him, everything felt stable and alive. Their occasional visits felt like a blessing. The mother, however, could spin guilt and cultivate a soft heart toward her son’s happiness; she seemed to notice his delighted expressions and respond with kindness,” Zhitova wrote.
Yet those moments were fragile. The relationship soured again over time as the mother’s ambitions clashed with the son’s literary interests and civil service path. The landowner kept a tight grip on his children’s inheritance and was reluctant to cede any part of it. Zhitova recalled a moment when he exclaimed, “We have always been your respectful sons, but you don’t trust or believe in anyone. You claim the right to torment us.”
Many years later, the author admitted a lack of bright memories from childhood. “I feared my mother like fire. I was punished for every minor misstep—a constant reminder to learn, even when it hurt. A day without a fishing line was rare; when I asked why, she answered plainly, ‘You’d better know the answer.’”
The image of Barbara in the works of her son
After her death, Turgenev began weaving his mother’s image into his fiction. In a tale about a ruler who governs with an iron hand, the landowner speaks through a stern, autocratic voice, demanding constant reports from the garden. The maternal figure also inspired the elder woman in Punin and Baburin, and she becomes a prototype in the famous Mumu, where a landowner drives the plot. The house favored giving attention only to those who complied with her mood, and anger could replace warmth quickly.
According to Zhitova, the model for Gerasim was a deaf-mute servant named Andrey, who served loyally and wore fine shirts. Unlike Gerasim, Andrei did not abandon his mistress and remained by her side to the end of his days.
Attributions to Varvara Petrovna shape the emotional core of Turgenev’s later works, giving readers a vivid portrait of a woman whose life left a lasting imprint on literature and a son who chronicled that influence with unflinching honesty. [citation]