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Fathers and Sons Reading Order
Fathers and Sons (1862) — also translated as Fathers and Children — by Ivan Turgenev is a novel about the generational and ideological conflict between the older generation of liberal Russian gentry and the younger generation of nihilists, embodied in the character of Yevgeny Bazarov: a young man of mixed social origin who calls himself a nihilist, who rejects all aesthetic, romantic, and spiritual values in favor of natural science and material fact, and whose formidable intelligence and harsh self-consistency both attract and alienate everyone he meets. Bazarov and his friend Arkady Kirsanov visit Arkady's father's estate, where Bazarov encounters the remnants of the old idealism (in the figures of Nikolai Kirsanov and his brother Pavel), falls unexpectedly in love with the widow Madame Odintsova, and is defeated by his own emotions. The novel was immediately controversial when published: radicals condemned Bazarov as a caricature; conservatives praised the condemnation of nihilism; Turgenev himself maintained that he had written with sympathy for Bazarov and had intended him as a positive figure. The character of Bazarov is the first great portrait of the Russian radical intelligentsia and one of the most contested fictional characters in Russian literary history.
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Fathers and Sons (1862)
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Fathers and Sons
Ivan Turgenev·1862
Fathers and Sons — Frequently Asked Questions
What is nihilism as Bazarov defines it?
In the novel, Arkady defines nihilism when asked: 'A nihilist is a person who does not bow down to any authority, who does not take any principle on faith, whatever reverence that principle may be enshrined in.' Bazarov's nihilism is specifically directed against the aesthetic, romantic, and spiritual values of the Russian gentry — against Pushkin's poetry, against music and painting as ends in themselves, against the idealism of the 1840s generation that preceded him. He believes in natural science, in material fact, in what can be demonstrated and measured. What the novel shows, and what makes Bazarov a tragic figure, is that his own emotions — particularly his love for Madame Odintsova — exceed the framework his philosophy provides. He cannot reconcile his falling in love with his self-definition as someone who has transcended romantic illusion.
Was Turgenev a nihilist or was he criticizing nihilism?
Turgenev was neither — he was a liberal, a Westernizer, and a friend of the French novelists Flaubert and Zola, and his position in Russian political and literary debate was roughly in the center. He maintained, against criticism from both sides, that he admired Bazarov — that Bazarov was the most gifted character he had created and that he had written him with sympathy. The novel was criticized by radicals (who read it as a condemnation of nihilism) and by conservatives (who read it as a celebration of it), and Turgenev spent years defending himself against both readings. The most honest reading of the novel is probably that Turgenev admired Bazarov's energy and intelligence while also showing, with complete honesty, that Bazarov's philosophical framework was insufficient to contain his own humanity.
Who are the 'fathers' and who are the 'sons' in Fathers and Sons?
The 'fathers' are Nikolai Kirsanov (Arkady's father, a gentle, liberal landowner who loves music and poetry and tries earnestly to understand the younger generation) and his brother Pavel (who had a disappointed passion in his youth and has settled into a fastidious, conservative aristocratism). The 'sons' are Arkady (Nikolai's son, who has come home from university a Bazarov disciple but who gradually returns to his natural place in the gentry tradition) and Bazarov (who is not literally the son of the fathers in the novel but is the representative of the new generation). The novel is fundamentally about the gap between the liberal idealism of the 1840s and the scientific materialism of the 1860s — a gap that Turgenev, writing in the 1860s, represents as both inevitable and tragic.
How does Fathers and Sons end?
Bazarov dies — of typhus contracted while performing an autopsy on a peasant who died of it. His death is presented with total simplicity: he contracts the disease, knows he will die, makes a deathbed speech to Madame Odintsova about his love for her (the emotion his philosophy said could not exist), and dies. The novel ends with the graves of Bazarov's parents visiting his grave, and with a final lyrical passage about how his grave is visited by birds and flowers, and how 'the flowers tell us not only of eternal peace, of that great peace of 'indifferent' nature; they tell us, too, of eternal reconciliation and of life without end.' Bazarov's death has been interpreted as a critique of nihilism (he is defeated by nature, which he claimed to master) and as a celebration of him (his death is genuine and dignified, unlike the 'fathers'' merely comfortable survival).
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