Turgenev’s final novel, Virgin Soil traces the destinies of several middle-class revolutionaries who seek to “go to the people” by working on the land and instilling democratic ideas in the countryside’s locals. They include the daydreaming impoverished young tutor Nezhdanov—employed by the liberal councilman Sipyagin and his vain and beautiful wife Valentina—the naive young radical Maryanna and the progressive factory manager Solomin. Their liaisons, intrigues, and conspiracies, set against the backdrop of Tsarist Russia, form the matter of Turgenev’s most ambitious and elaborate work, which cemented the author’s place in the West as Russia’s foremost novelist while at the same time proving controversial at home—culminating in the arrest of 52 real-life revolutionaries barely a month after it was published.