Narrative
First Love
Первая любовь
Ivan Turgenev · 1860
Opening lines
Мне было тогда шестнадцать лет.
I was sixteen at the time.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from ru.wikisource.org
Synopsis
A man of about forty tells the story of his first love. At sixteen, he spends the summer with his parents in a country house near Moscow. In the neighbouring lodge settles a ruined princess with her daughter, Zinaida, twenty-one, around whom a court of admirers revolves. He falls in love with her, joins the court, serves as a plaything for her whims, and gradually comes to understand that her heart belongs to another, whom he tries to recognise among her suitors.
Context
The story was written in Saint Petersburg at the beginning of 1860 and appeared in March of the same year in the journal Biblioteka dlia tchtenia. The author held it to be the most autobiographical of his texts: in it he takes up a summer of his youth and his love for a neighbour, Princess Catherine Chakhovskaïa, the model for Zinaida. Critics were divided, some reproaching it for turning away from the great social questions of the moment, others its very subject; Flaubert, for his part, was enthusiastic about the heroine.
Who it is for
A short narrative, told in the first person by the mature man the adolescent has become; several French translations are in print.
Prizes and reception
Regarded by many specialists as the most successful of its author's short stories, and one of the most popular.