Abstract:
The essay reviews the book The Europeans by British historian Orlando Figes. Working on a wide range of primary sources, Figes narrates the love triangle between Russian novelista Ivan Turgeniev, French-Spanish opera singer Pauline Viardot-Garcia and his husband, French art manager Louir Viardot. Figes uses the lives of these three people (all of them belonging to the world of arts) during 19th Century Europe to show the landscape of economic and cultural transformations which were ocurring in Europe. To Figes, the Turgeniev/García/Viardot triangle could be taken as a synthesis of common european identity in 19th Century.
Keywords:
Europe; Arts; 19th Century; European cultural identity