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Drawn from his first-hand observation of the countryside and its ways of life, Turgenev's anecdotes, portraits and lyrical impressions depict the peasants and the tyranny of serfdom with such immediacy that when the first of these Sketches appeared in book form in 1852 they were read as inflammatory polemic and led to his arrest and confinement at his estate of Spasskoye. The Sketches have since come to occupy a special place in Russian literature. While their value as social documents is unsurpassed, they are interesting above all as beautiful stories, the early masterpieces of the writer who went on to produce First Love and First Sons.
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