A few years ago, in Vladivostok, my friend Irina told me about the “Turgenev’s Girls” whom she felt very close.
Originally, Turgenevskaya dievushkas are the heroines of Ivan Turgenev’s novels. In his books, he managed to create a very vivid image of young women of “deep Russia”, living in family estates. They are intelligent, not necessarily beautiful in the usual significance of the word, – but still very attractive -, not very sociable, rebellious. Being in love with the main character of the novel, they are ready to follow him, despite the contradictions, the negative opinion of their parents and those around them.
Today, this stereotype has changed; we speak of a Turgenev girl to designate a romantic, idealistic, tender, old-fashioned, sentimental, touching, poetic and fine person, who does not know how – or does not want – to fully adapt to contemporary living.
With Irina, we had drawn up a list of the qualities for a Turgenev’s girl today:
delicate, modest, refined, romantic, simple, feminine – without excessive make-up – neither vulgar, nor provocative or sexy; dressed in a retro style, she is interested in literature and classical music, plays a musical instrument, knows how to dance the waltz, blushes when she hears obscenities; she has well-established and solid moral principles, comes from any social class, is devoted, knows foreign languages (French or Italian, most often), lives in her dreams…
So, I started photographing these Turgenev girls in the countryside of what I would call “deep Russia”, between Bryansk, Smolensk, Orel (the region where Turgenev came from), Tambov and even going further to the north of Ukraine, in eastern Belarus and in Moscow.
I also wanted to integrate “scenes” linked to provincial life, landscapes imbued with slowness, mysticism, so that I could form a series of short stories where time plays with us. This project allows me also to distance myself from our time and a world in which I find it increasingly difficult to live in.
It’s a simple, sweet, enchanting universe, with a scent of eternity that I try to capture, to reinvent in this new series.
