Mumu(1852)

A deaf-mute janitor named Gerasim faithfully serves his mistress landowner, but that's not enough for her. She marries off the girl Gerasim likes to another man and, later, orders him to get rid of his only joy – a dog named ‘Mumu’…

It’s based on a true story that took place in the home of Varvara Turgeneva, the writer's mother. Gerasim was based on the real life deaf-mute peasant Andrei, nicknamed ‘The Mute’.

Critics saw the story as a "harsh condemnation of serfdom". The writer himself called serfdom his enemy, with which he "swore never to reconcile and to fight to the end". 

Translated by Constance Garnett, Publisher Heinemann, 1897