The article deals with the key landmarks in Turgenev’s perception, as a reader and critic, of Karamzin’s creation. The notion of the nature of Karamzin’s influence on Turgenev in modern literary studies is systematised and the perspectives of studying the problem of “Turgenev and Karamzin” are identified. The particular attention is given to “Liza’s text”, the fate of “Russian European” and the plot associated with this to the type of the hero, as well as to the elegiac modality in Turgenev’s works.