Flappers & Fiction

History remembers Ivan Turgenev as a literary giant, but his mother, Varvara, is remembered for something else entirely: pure, unbridled despotism. Ruling her Spasskoë estate like a feudal lord of the old Asiatic mould, she banished servants for a cloudy glass of water and tried to crush her son’s “paper-scratching” career. Yet, her tyranny inadvertently sparked the fire behind A Sportsman’s Sketches. Here is the chilling true story of a woman who loved power more than her children, and the terrible price her household paid for her whims.