Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818-1883) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, translator and popularizer of Russian literature in the West. His first major publication, a short story collection entitled A Sportsman's Sketches (1852), was a milestone of Russian realism, and his novel Fathers and Sons (1862) is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century fiction. Turgenev was impressed with German Central-European society, and believed that Russia could best improve itself by imitating the West. He first made his name with A Sportsman's Sketches, also known as Sketches From a Hunter's Album; or, Notes of a Hunter. He wrote several short novels like The Diary of a Superfluous Man, Faust, and The Lull. In them Turgenev expressed the anxieties and hopes of Russians of his generation.