W. F. Hegel. In July 1840 Turgenev met Mikhail Bakunin, and for a whole year they lived together, arguing philosophy day and night. In 1841 Turgenev returned to Russia. The following year was an important one. While carrying on a high-flown platonic romance with one of Bakunin's sisters, Tatyana, Turgenev entered into an earthier alliance with Avdotya Ivanov, one of his mother's seamstresses which resulted in the birth of a daughter, known in later life as Paulinette. Turgenev also did all the work for his master of arts degree except the dissertation. For various reasons he abandoned his plans for an academic career and entered the Ministry of Interior Affairs. He left the civil service--to the mutual satisfaction of both parties--after 18 months. His mother was infuriated and cut off his funds, thus forcing him to lead a rather precarious existence, complicated by the fact that everyone thought he was rich.
Turgenev met the critic Vissarion Belinsky, with whom he remained very close until the latter's death. Belinsky was instrumental in turning the young man away from vaporous poetry to a greater realism and a more natural tone. Parasha (1843) showed Turgenev to be an imitative poet in these early years (especially of Aleksandr Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov), and Turgenev later dismissed his verse as having been written before he found his true vocation.
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