Turgenev, Ivan

The Russian author and nobleman Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev grew up on an estate in Oryol, central Russia. His father was a cavalry officer and a notorious womaniser. His mother, Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova was a wealthy heiress, but she had suffered a difficult childhood, and the marriage was unhappy. Ivan was a lonely child who feared his strict mother who beat him on a regular basis. His father died when he was sixteen years old, which left him and his brother Nicolai on their own with their mother.