[Haruchunja] 'Love Is Stronger Than Death' <3> - Chamse

Editor's NoteIvan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a writer born into a noble family, the son of a landowner, yet he portrayed the lives of poor and miserable Russian serfs very realistically and profoundly. After his mother passed away, he emancipated thousands of serfs he inherited, which made him a person of interest in Russian aristocratic society. Later, his novel A Hunter's Sketches gained literary attention by lyrically depicting the vast Russian wilderness and the diverse human figures living within it through the voice of a noble hunter. It also highlighted that serfs were humans with rich emotions, thoughts, and wisdom for life, living toward a better future, thereby raising awareness across Europe about the serious issue of Russian serfs at the time. Turgenev, who enjoyed hunting frequently, reflected his experiences throughout his works, and animals such as nature, plants, dogs, and birds appear often in the prose poems he wrote in his later years. The Sparrow is a work that sings of the sacred love of a mother bird who sacrificed herself to save her chicks. After witnessing this, it is said that Turgenev himself stopped hunting. Word count: 880 characters.

Returning from hunting, I walked along the tree-lined path of the garden. At that moment, a dog ran up to me.

Suddenly, the dog slowed its pace and began to stealthily approach as if sniffing the scent of a wild bird.

Following the trees, I turned my eyes and saw a small sparrow chick. I spotted a sparrow with a yellow beak area and downy feathers on its head. The wind blew fiercely, shaking the birch trees lining the path. At that moment, the sparrow fell from its nest. The sparrow chick, just trying to fly, sat motionless with its wings spread weakly.

As the dog slowly approached, suddenly a mother sparrow with a black chest flew like a stone right in front of the dog’s nose from a nearby tree. Then, fluffing all her feathers and crying desperately with a pitiful sound, she charged at the dog, which was baring its teeth and opening its mouth, two or three times.

The mother bird rushed to save her chick, sacrificing herself to protect it... Yet that tiny body trembled with fear, and the mother sparrow’s fragile voice became hoarse and rough. In the end, the mother sparrow fainted. She sacrificed her own body!

How huge a monster must the dog have seemed to the sparrow! Yet the sparrow could not just sit safely on a high branch... A force stronger than the sparrow’s will made it fly down.

My dog, Trezor, stopped and slowly began to back away... It seemed the dog acknowledged that force.

I hurriedly called the confused dog and left the place with a respectful and reverent heart.

Yes! This is no laughing matter. I felt reverence for this heroic little bird, for its impulse of love and its charge.

Thinking about it, love is stronger than death, stronger than the fear of death. Life is sustained and driven only by love.

- Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Love is Stronger than Death, translated by Jo Joo-kwan, Minumsa, 10,000 KRW