Asya

Asya (, Asya) is a novella by Ivan Turgenev, first published in 1858 in the first issue of the Sovremennik magazine (volume LXVII). Background Turgenev worked on the story from July to November 1857. The idea came from a scene he saw in the German town of Sinzig - an elderly woman looking out of a window on the first floor, and the head of a young girl in the window above. Turgenev tried to imagine the fate of these people and came up with the idea for "Asya". The protagonists of the story were also influenced by figures in Turgenev's own life. It is speculated by many Russian biographers that Asya's prototypes were probably three illegitimate girls from the author's household, his step-sister Asya, his half-sister Varvara Zhitova, and his own daughter Polina. His mother raised Asya or Anna, the illegitimate daughter of Nikolai Nikolaevich Turgenev (the author's uncle and guardian), and Varvara Nikolaevna Zhitova, Turgenev's mother's own illegitimate daughter. Finally, while working on the story, Turgenev's own illegitimate daughter, Pelageia Polina Turgeneva, also suffered from unrequited first love. Polina’s similarity with the heroine of the novella is also reflected in the class difference of her both parents, and Polina’s conflicts with the children of Pauline Viardot (in whose family Polina was raised when Turgenev was living with her).