Ivan Turgenev’s novella “First Love”: On the borders of idyll

The paper is dedicated to analysing Ivan Turgenev’s novella “First Love” (1860), which has not undergone detailed philological scrutiny before. The research aims to identify the border phenomena of the idyllic discourse and its specificity. The scientific novelty of the paper lies in examining the boundaries of the idyllic through the analysis of characters, chronotopes, and the motif system in the novella. The research findings revealed that in Turgenev’s work, all types of idyll – rural, familial, and romantic – are seemingly present, but they are only represented at the level of genre-specific features (beautiful nature, youthful age, first love). The novella represents a recollection, reflection, a turn to the “golden age” of the hero’s youth, his first infatuation, thus demonstrating elegiac traits. Through the lens of idyllic images, motifs, and details of the chronotope, their quasi-significance is seen. Semantic signs (the garden, linden trees, alleys) serve as substitutes for unrequited love. Details of “locus amoenus” are merely symbols linking the author’s work to the idyllic tradition, but in reality, they deviate from reader expectations and demonstrate the opposite of an idyllic world perception.