Recommendations

Books Like Fathers and Sons

Best books to read after Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

If you loved Turgenev's portrait of nihilism and generational conflict, these picks explore the Russian intelligentsia, political idealism, and the superfluous man across the nineteenth century.

  1. 1

    Rudin

    by Ivan Turgenev

    Turgenev's first novel and the template for Bazarov — the eloquent idealist who cannot act.

    Buy
  2. 2

    Home of the Gentry

    by Ivan Turgenev

    Turgenev at his most lyrical — Lavretsky's return to Russia and the life that passed him by.

    Buy
  3. 3

    Oblomov

    by Ivan Goncharov

    The superfluous man taken to his logical extreme — a man who cannot leave his sofa.

    Buy
  4. 4

    Dead Souls

    by Nikolai Gogol

    Gogol's satirical masterpiece of provincial Russia — the absurdity of a society built on serfdom.

    Buy
  5. 5

    Notes from Underground

    by Fyodor Dostoevsky

    Dostoevsky's answer to Turgenev's nihilism — the underground man who refuses all rational schemes.

    Buy
  6. 6

    What Is to Be Done?

    by Nikolai Chernyshevsky

    The radical novel Bazarov's generation actually believed in — and that Dostoevsky wrote Notes from Underground to refute.

    Buy
  7. 7

    Virgin Soil

    by Ivan Turgenev

    Turgenev's final major novel — the Populist generation going to the people, and failing.

    Buy
  8. 8

    On the Eve

    by Ivan Turgenev

    Elena choosing a Bulgarian revolutionary over passive Russian men — the bridge between Rudin and Fathers and Sons.

    Buy

More Reading Recommendations

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