On the Eve is the third novel written by the famous Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, best known for his novel Fathers and Sons. It is a story, set in 1853, of love during the Crimean War and at a time of social upheaval. The heroine, Elena, is a charming, serious and courageous young woman. She is concerned about justice, but this finds no outlet in her middle class world, until she is introduced Insarov, a man below her social status, but whose idealism matches her own. He becomes Elena's husband and changes her life.