The Journey to the Underworld in Turgenev's ‘Bežin Lug’ 1

In this much-anthologized story from the Zapiski okhotnika, Turgenev's sympathetic depiction of the peasantry is supported by a subtly-orchestrated symbolic structure. Allusions to the supernatural accentuate and then subvert the hunter-narrator's sense of the Russian people as an exotic other. This reading is supported by an analysis of a hitherto-unexplored link between ‘Bezhin lug’ and one of Gogol's stories from the Vechera na khutore bliz Dikan'ki. There has been much written about the positive influence of Gogol' on the author of the Zapiski okhotnika; but Turgenev's references to ‘Sorochinskaia iarmarka’ make it clear that he is taking his mentor as a negative example. His use of the supernatural to accentuate the peasants' humanity contrasts with its application by Gogol' for precisely the opposite aim.