[Literature] Turgenev, Ivan Autograph Letter, signed

Paris: 50, Rue de Douai, Saturday, February 25, (ca. 1882). One sheet, 8 1/8 x 5 1/4 in. (206 x 133 mm). Autograph letter in French, signed by Turgenev, to writer and editor of the Nouvelle Revue, Juliette Adam, accepting an invitation to dinner, in place of a famous Russian general: "I will certainly come to dinner at your place on Wednesday, all the while knowing how much it will be difficult for me to replace the great Skoheleff, who takes after Charles XII and not only because of his face.--I will give you at that time 5000 fr. from Vereschaguine, another type of Charles XII; I will tell you how and why.--In the meantime--a thousand friendly salutations. Iv. Turgenev." Creasing from contemporary folds; a few very small holes along left side. Lot includes COA from the French Ministere charge de la Culture, ca. 2002.

A year before his death, Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev (1818-83) accepts a dinner invitation from Juliette Adam (1836-1936). Sometimes known as "La Grande Francais," Adam was one of the most well-connected and politically influential Parisians of her day. Along with her second husband, the journalist and politician, Edmond Adam, she was a dominant figure in France's republican political scene, and was an energetic participant in the establishment of France's Third Republic. In 1864 she established one of the most popular political and literary salons on the Boulevard Poissonière in Paris, and in 1879 she founded La Nouvelle Revue, a highly influential literary magazine that hosted writers such a Guy de Maupassant, Turgenev (a frequent collaborator upon the publication's establishment until his death), Gustave Flaubert, Pierre Loti, George Sand, and others. Following France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, Adam became an outspoken supporter of increased Franco-Russian relations, and through the pages of her monthly Revue, she sought to bring her political ideas to a wider audience.

The "great" Skobelev ("Skoheleff") to whom Turgenev refers, and whose place he was taking at this dinner, was the Russian General Mikhail Skobelev (1843-1882), a military hero of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. Earlier in 1882 Juliette invited Skobolev to Paris to give speeches in support of Franco-Russian rapprochement. Due to the General's inflammatory remarks during these speeches in January-February 1882, where he called for Pan-Slavic unification against German aggression, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who had just completed a treaty with Germany, ordered his immediate return in late February-early March, 1882. He died of a heart ailment later that June.

The 5,000 francs Turgenev is bringing to Adam is from artist Vasily Vereshchagin (1842-1904), a Russian painter remembered for his gruesomely realistic war scenes. Turgenev often celebrated Vereshchagin's work, and the 5,000 francs is likely money from a painting the artist had sold, and that he hoped to donate to survivors of the Ringtheater fire in Vienna that had occurred the previous winter, on December 8.

Provenance

Les Autographes, Thierry Bodin, Paris, 2002

From the private collection of Asher D. Atchick, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania