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Ivan Turgenev was born in Oryol, Russia, on November 9, 1818. The son of landowners, he moved with his family to Moscow at the age of nine. In 1834, he entered the University of Saint Petersburg, where he studied Philosophy. At the age of 19, he published his first collection of poems. He moved to Germany and enrolled at the University of Berlin, where he joined French literary circles and became friends with Gustave Flaubert and Émile Zola. In 1841, he returned to Russia and took up a position in the Ministry of Administration. In 1856, he published his first novel, “Rudin,” which deals with the incompatibility between liberal Western ideas and rigid Russian society. In 1862, he published his work, “Fathers and Sons,” which caused great controversy at the time. In the work, the student Bazarov despises all authority, is antisocial, and calls himself a “nihilist.” Turgenev was accused of being responsible for criminal acts committed by radicals influenced by his work. The controversy caused by the work led Ivan Turgenev to move to Germany. He was in London and settled in Bougival, near Paris, where he died on September 3, 1883.