Turgenev's conflict with Katkov and the ban on a memorial meeting after the writer's death

A Few Words on Haters.

Turgenev had many enemies even in his lifetime, Katkov of the Russian Messenger among them. Their quarrel began when Ivan Sergeyevich stopped publishing in his journal. The matter was this: the editor had thought it permissible to correct Fathers and Sons at his own discretion, even to the point of striking whole pages out of the text.

I do not know what other reaction Katkov could have expected, but having waged open war on Turgenev, he for some reason extended a glass to him at the gala dinner marking the unveiling of the Pushkin monument. Turgenev did not raise his glass in reply, but merely inclined his head and turned away, and when Katkov extended his glass a second time (!!??), Turgenev was obliged to make a more eloquent gesture: he covered his own glass with his hand. And he might well have punched him in the face, and, being a man of immense daring, would have left an indelible impression on the countenance of his enemy.

But Ivan Sergeyevich was above public brawls and scuffles, unlike Katkov, who answered the writer at the most opportune moment imaginable, straight after his death, printing in place of an obituary a letter from a certain émigré, Lavrov, who related how Turgenev had for three years funded a revolutionary journal in London at 500 francs a time.

Katkov, however, was not the writer's only posthumous adversary. Together with the Russian Messenger, the Moscow Gazette and The Citizen also staged a boycott.

What astonished the public was that one of the principal literary societies of Russia, the Society of Lovers of Russian Letters at Moscow University, passed over Turgenev's death in silence. Here, though, matters were not so clear-cut: the society had intended to hold a public meeting in memory of its distinguished contemporary, and a newspaper announcement had even appeared. Lev Tolstoy himself was to speak at the meeting, and that proved fatal to the memorial occasion. Once again human squeamishness and faintheartedness played their part. Feoktistov, head of the Main Directorate for Press Affairs, promptly informed the Minister of Education, Count Dmitry Andreyevich Tolstoy, who gave the nod to the Governor-General of Moscow, and the meeting was efficiently disposed of. And all because Feoktistov considered Lev Nikolayevich a madman, capable of anything.

Times go by, but mores, on the whole, do not change.