POSITIVELY GOOD READS
Fathers
and Sons (1862)
by Ivan Turgenev
Russia
in the 1860s was undergoing political and social reform, notably the
emancipation of the serfs in 1861. Tension was growing between the 1830s
liberals and the younger “nihilists,” who both sought Western-style
change but had different philosophies. Into that backdrop emerged what
some critics call Russian literature’s first modern novel, Turgenev’s Fathers
and Sons. In the younger generation is Bazarov, a nihilist who
wants to tear down the old order but doesn’t offer a vision of what
would follow. He contrasts with the father and the uncle of his friend
Arkady, who believe themselves open-minded but are disconcerted by
Bazarov’s rejection of romantic love, the arts, and nature.
So
even-handed was Turgenev to his characters that a controversy raged
after Fathers and Sons was published: how was Bazarov to be
taken? Critics on the right thought Turgenev portrayed Bararov too
sympathetically; those on the left thought Bazarov was too extreme to
help their cause.
In
his own life Turgenev, who was born into a wealthy family, was in favor
of social reform but not political radicalism. In Fathers and Sons
Turgenev has Bazarov being distressed about falling in love, which
violates his nihilist principles. Arkady gradually moves away from
nihilism and synthesizes the two alternatives of reason and tradition,
political reform and preservation of his predecessors' values.
Home
My reviews
My friends' reviews
