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.