Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, Russia

Spasskoye-Lutovinovo

Description of Spasskoye-Lutovinovo

Spasskoe-Lutovinovo is the estate of the mother of I. S. Turgenev (famous Russian author), now the State Memorial and Natural Museum-Reserve in the Mtsensk District of the Oryol Region. The village of Spasskoye was so named because of the Church of the Transfiguration of Our Savior ("Spasitel: in Russian). At the end of the 16th century, Ivan the Terrible granted him to Ivan Lutovinov.

An important role in the history of the estate was played by Ivan Ivanovich Lutovinov (1753–1813). The career of a graduate of the Page Corps did not work out, he served for a short time in the Novgorod Infantry Regiment, rose to the rank of a major major and settled on his estate. In 1778, the Mtsensk nobles elected him a district judge. He was also the leader of the nobility of Mtsensk and Chernsk counties. He owned estates in the Tula, Tambov and Kaluga provinces and 5,000 serfs. He decided to create an estate: its center was a two-story wooden brick-enclosed house (with a library, a theater and choirs for musicians), flower gardens were laid out in front of it, a stone gallery, a kitchen, a bathhouse, a barnyard, a poultry yard, a blacksmith shop, a wooden outhouse and a mill, a number of other outbuildings, a hospital, an outhouse for the police, a laboratory. The manor house, which also included a park and a pond, was surrounded by a moat. The manor was built from the turn of the century to 1809. Lutovinov had connections with Novikov and Radishchev. He lent money to many, including his grandfather Leo Tolstoy. In 1813 he died and was buried in the chapel above the patrimonial crypt.

Next to this chapel is a grave with a stele, where Nikolai Etienne Venée Defrén is burries. He came to Russia in 1769 and died in 1793. The epitaph states that he was a teacher, but it is known that there were no children living in the area at the time. Who he is and how he got here is still unknown.

 

After the death of Ivan Lutovinov, according to the court decision, the Spasskoye-Lutovinovo estate passed into the hands of his niece Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova. Her father, Peter Ivanovich, died two months before her birth. At the age of two she moved from Spassky-Lutovinov to the landowner of Kromsky district Somov, whom her mother then married. Stepfather constantly insulted, beat and humiliated Barbara. At 16, she fled to Spasskoye-Lutovinovo to her uncle Ivan Lutovinov.

In 1816, the wedding of Varvara and officer Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev, a participant in the Patriotic War of 1812, a nobleman, took place in Spassky. In May 1839 there was a big fire in the estate. However, the new construction was not started, and extensions were made to the surviving part of the house. Theater, a large hall, guest rooms, etc. have not been restored. Park also neglected.

In 1850, Varvara Petrovna died, Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883), who gave his brother Nicholas all the most profitable estates and a house in Moscow, went to the family nest, where he spent his childhood (until 1828) and where he regularly went on holidays and relaxation. From 1852, under the personal order of Nicholas I, Turgenev was in Spassky in exile under the supervision of the police. He let the yard go. Turgenev was separated from Pauline Viardot. He failed to make friends with his neighbors, periodically Mikhail Shchepkin, Ivan Aksakov, Athanasius Fet visited him. Here he writes the story “Inn” and the novel “Two Generations” (unpublished). At the end of 1853, the writer was "declared freedom with permission to leave the capital." However, in the autumn of next year, Turgenev returned to Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, wrote here the essay "About Nightingales" and meets Nikolai Nekrasov. In 1855 the novel “Rudin” is written here in seven weeks. In 1856, Spasskoye-Lutovinovo was visited by Leo Tolstoy.

from the letter of Y.P. Polonsky
"When you will be in Spassky, visit my house, the garden, my young oak, my homeland, which I probably will never see again."
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

At the same time, Turgenev began work on Faust. Then Ivan Sergeevich went to Europe for a while. On his return, he wrote in Spassky the works: “The Noble Nest”, “On the Eve”, “Fathers and Sons”. Then Turgenev again for the most part spends time abroad. Coming here, he opens a school for peasant children and a poorhouse for elderly peasants. He last visited here in 1881. In 1883 he died in France, in the city of Bougival.

The heirs removed furniture from Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, and in 1906 the house burned down. In October 1918, the property of the writer became a national treasure. September 12, 1921 in accordance with the decree "On the protection of gardens and parks," Spassky was declared a state reserve. In 1937, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR released funds for the restoration of the estate. During the Great Patriotic War, the territory of Spasskoye-Lutovinovo was in the zone of occupation and was mined. In 1976, on the basis of the project of artist Luka Nikitich Perepelitsa, the restored main house was opened with the furniture reproduced at the time of 1881.

In 1980, medical events were carried out around the famous oak planted by Turgenev himself.