A Journey to Polesie

“A Journey to Polissya” embodies Turgenев’s years of reflection on Man and Nature. “A Journey to Polissya” is the first work by the writer, in many ways anticipating the philosophical generalizations later found in such novellas as “Enough,” in novels “Fathers and Sons” and “On the Eve,” and in “Poems in Prose.” The story reads especially clearly when compared with Turgenев’s article “Hamlet and Don Quixote” (begun in the autumn of the same year, 1856, when “A Journey to Polissya” was already being written): it can serve as a kind of authorial commentary on almost everything in the mature Turgenев’s work, including this novella. To create the images of Polissya peasants, Turgenев applies universal human criteria: the traits of Hamlet and Don Quixote (in Turgenев’s interpretation) are strangely intertwined in Egor and Efrem—something like antipodes.