On the Eve

Ivan Turgenev · 1818–1883 · Russia

Originally Nakanune (Russian)

Why it matters

A Russian gentry heroine passes over her cultivated, dithering countrymen to marry a Bulgarian revolutionary bound for his homeland's liberation. Turgenev's most hopeful heroine asks the question the Golden Age keeps returning to: whether Russia's best people act, or only mean to.

At a glance

A clear, linear courtship plot that carries its political questions lightly.