Turgenev, Emmons, Lacey

I have finished reading Turgenev's novels, in recent days the shorter ones such as The Lear of the Steppes and The Priest's Story. The comments I made about his longer novels apply to his shorter one. I am glad to have filled out the Russian canon, but I didn't not find him riveting like Tolstoy, whose naturalism is so acute and whose mastery of language is so obvious. I went on to read, rather idly, Emmon's Russian Landed Gentry. I was interested by the title, which turned out to be too general -- it should have read 'The Abolitionist Movement in the Russian Landed Gentry.' I was interested to read that in the days of serfdom, it was not the land which was mortgaged, but the serfs. Their exploitation is what provided the gentry with income. I also read Robert Lacey's Aristocrats. This was also something of a puff piece about titled people who are no longer necessarily rich -- but the only people in the book are both titled and rich. Hm mm, is there is a bias here?