Рассматриваются творчество русского писателя И.С. Тургенева как источник по истории экономической и общественной мысли России второй половины XIX в. и его отношение к процессу зарождения отечественной буржуазии. Делается попытка выявить причины негативного отношения писателя к новым явлениям социально-экономической жизни страны и той роли, которую играли в ней предприниматели. Автор приходит к выводу, что в произведениях Тургенева наблюдается все возрастающий интерес к предпринимательству купцов, которые были заинтересованы, прежде всего, в собственном обогащении и не стремились занять в стране лидирующие позиции, как это было на Западе.

The aim of the article is to study the origin and development of Russian business in the second half of the 19th century. The main sources are pieces of art of the great Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, his correspondence with Russian public figures, writers and critics. Many aspects of the economic and cultural development of the country were described in these written works. Turgenev was an active opposer of serfdom in Russia and did a lot for its abolition. The main charges against this system were the famous "Notes of a Hunter", which shows the negative side of serfdom and ways to overcome it. One of the progressive ways of the country's development was the emergence of the first entrepreneurs from people's, especially peasants', environment; they combined the desire for freedom and commercial calculation. Such a national entrepreneur became the peasant, nicknamed Hor', who had stood out of the community and got settled far in the forest. His family and he did not work for the landlord, but paid him large cash rents. As a result, his family with two younger unmarried sons and his eight sons' families prospered and lived happily in a farmstead consisted of several pine log cabins. All his children took part in father's business: they were involved in small and average business, and run their strong economy. They paid the landlord's dues of a hundred rubles, and saved a small start-up capital, which they were ready to invest on occasion. From these families came many large Russian merchant dynasties. They were mainly involved in the manufacture of linen and later cotton fabrics. First they did their business in their log huts, then in manufactories, and then in factories that employed several hundred or even thousands of workers. There formed the dynasties of the Guchkovs, the Krestovnikovs, the Mamon-tovs, the Morozovs, the Prokhorovs, the Ryabushinskys, the Tretyakovs, the Botkins and other well-known names in the country's history. Ivan Turgenev correctly noted the sprouts of the new relations in the Russian reality of the second half of the 19th century. The article concludes that both Russian business and commerce in the pre-reform period are highlighted as rudimentary and primitive, although the prospects for their development was evident and could give positive results. 30 years later, some progress in commerce was marked in the novel Virgin Soil. Although the main idea of Turgenev's last novel was the rebuking of revolutionary populism, in fact, the results of the bourgeois development and the heroes of the new economic relations also did not cause Turgenev's positive emotions. It was in this novel that the word "bourgeois" was used with different meanings, but mostly negative. However, there were energetic and enterprising people among factory managers and workers who the domestic economy could rely on.