If Henry James was the grand master of the Americans Abroad novel, Turgenev probably deserves the first prize in the pre-1917 Russians Abroad nomination. Other Russian majors used that setting, Gogol in Nights on the Villa, Dostoevsky in The Gambler, Leskov in A Passionate Patriot. But there are at least three major works by Turgenev which focus on Russians living or traveling in Central Europe.
First, Asya, a novella published in 1857. Second, Smoke, the 1867 novel I read last year thanks to Erik McDonald. Unfortunately, it got overshadowed by other Russian masterpieces of the 1860s. Third, The Torrents of Spring (1872). Turgenev called it a povest’, that is, a tale or novella, but it is commonly referred to as a novel in English translations. It’s a love story of sorts, narrated by an aging man who had, thirty years earlier, fled the girl he loved for a more mature woman and the more down-to-earth pleasures of her companionship. A sad tale of betrayal and self-betrayal; thankfully, Turgenev was averse to moralizing.
Post-1917, Russians Abroad became a common literary theme for obvious reasons. Take Nabokov’s pre-WWII Russian prose for example.
One thing I remember from Turgenev is that those Russians abroad would throw drinking parties and smash up their hotel rooms. A bit like an early Led Zeppelin.
This kind of thing wouldn’t happen in a contemporary British Victorian novel, although it might well have done in the Regency era that preceded it, Jane Austen notwithstanding. For instance, Pierce Egan’s upper-class hooligans Tom and Jerry liked to round off an evening on the town by smashing the windows of respectable citizens.
Can’t recall where that Turgenev bit comes from but by his time, merchants had taken over from nobles as notorious revelers and havoc-wreakers. Not for long, though.