Virgin Soil

VIRGIN SOIL by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818-1883) is his last and longest novel. In it he finally says everything yet unsaid on the subject of social change, idealism and yet futility of revolutions, serfs and peasants, and the upper classes. The hero, Nezhdanov -- the disillusioned young son of a nobleman -- and the Populist movement are young idealists working to bridge the gap between the co...