Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818-1883)
Literary and personal news. 1855
Autograph letter signed (‘Iv. Turgenev’) to August Viedert, Saint Petersburg, 5 March 1855

In Russian. 2½ pages, 225 x 129mm, on a bifolium. Provenance: Serge Lifar (1905-1986), stamp to upper left of p.1 – Sotheby’s, 10 June 2009, lot 107 (part).

Literary and personal news. Turgenev has delayed writing because he wanted to give positive news of the delayed departure for Berlin of the poet Nikolay Nekrasov: 'He will not go abroad now – I do not know if you will still be in Berlin in the autumn, but he tells me to tell you that he still hopes to see you ... I went to Moscow and spent about a month there – and had a lot of fun – but by the end of my stay I fell ill with the flu, and caught a cold on the way back, on the train'. He promises to send some books that Viedert has asked for, and thanks him for some reviews he had sent, as well as his translation of Gogol's The Inspector General: 'you have not written any news about the appearance of part 2' [of Viedert's translation of A Sportsman's Sketches]. He also asks for news of Viedert's intended return to Russia, although he does not believe it is the best time 'with the current great commotion'; and concludes by asking him to send a portrait, and reporting that he will return from Saint Petersburg to the country in a month.

Published in New Zealand Slavonic Journal, 1991, 28-29. The second part of Viedert's translation of A Sportsman's Sketches never in fact appeared. The 'great commotion' Turgenev refers to was the political changes after the accession of Alexander II on 2 March.

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