Among the writers who followed Grigorovitch in his studies of peasant life, was Ivan Sergyeevitch Turgeneff (1818-1883), who may be said not only to have produced the most artistic pictures of that sphere ever written by a Russian, but to have summed up in his longer novels devoted to the higher classes, in a manner not to be surpassed, and in a language and style as polished and brilliant as a collection of precious stones--a whole obscure period of changes and unrest. He was descended from an ancient noble family, and his father served in a cuirassier regiment. On the family estate in the government of Orel[22] (where, later in life, he laid the scene of his famous "Notes of a Sportsman"), he was well provided with teachers of various nationalities--Russian excepted. One of his mother's serfs, a man passionately fond of reading, and a great admirer of Kheraskoff, was the first to initiate the boy into Russian literature, with "The Rossiad." In 1834 Turgeneff entered the Moscow University, but soon went to St. Petersburg, and there completed his course in the philological department. Before he graduated, however, he had begun to write, and even to publish his literary efforts. After spending two years in Berlin, to finish his studies, he returned to Moscow, in 1841, and there made acquaintance with the Slavyanophils--the Aksakoffs, Khomyakoff (a military man, chiefly known by his theological writings), and others, the leaders of the new cult. But Turgeneff, thoroughly imbued with western ideas, did not embrace it. He entered the government service, although there was no necessity for his so doing, but soon left it to devote himself entirely to literature, Byelinsky having written an enthusiastic article about a poem which Turgeneff had published under another name. But poetry was not Turgeneff's strong point, any more than was the drama, though he wrote a number of plays later on, some of which have much merit, and are still acted occasionally. He found his true path in 1846, when the success of his first sketch from peasant life, "Khor and Kalinitch," encouraged him to follow it up with more of the same sort; the result being the famous collection "The Notes (or Diary) of a Sportsman." These, together with numerous other short stories, written between 1844-1850, won for him great and permanent literary fame.