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As soon as it was published, the novel caused a real flurry of critical articles. None of the community camps embraced the new creation Turgenev.

The editor of the conservative "Russian Bulletin" M. N. Katkov in the articles "Roman Turgenev and his critics" and "About our nihilism(about Turgenev's novel) ”argued that nihilism is a social disease that must be fought by strengthening the protective conservative principles; and Fathers and Sons is no different from a whole series of anti-nihilistic novels by other writers. He took a peculiar position in assessing Turgenev's novel and the image of its protagonist F. M. Dostoevsky.

According to Dostoevsky, Bazarov is a "theoretician" who is at odds with "life"; he is a victim of his own dry and abstract theory. In other words, this is a hero close to Raskolnikov. However, Dostoevsky avoids specific consideration of Bazarov's theory. He rightly asserts that any abstract, rational theory breaks down on life and brings suffering and torment to a person. According to Soviet critics, Dostoevsky reduced all the problems of the novel to an ethical-psychological complex, overshadowing the social with the universal, instead of revealing the specifics of both.

Liberal criticism, on the other hand, got too carried away social dimension... She could not forgive the writer for ridicule of representatives of the aristocracy, hereditary nobles, his irony in relation to the "moderate noble liberalism" of the 1840s. The unsympathetic, rude "plebeian" Bazarov constantly mocks his ideological opponents and turns out to be morally superior to them.

In contrast to the conservative-liberal camp, democratic magazines disagreed in assessing the problems of Turgenev's novel: Sovremennik and Iskra saw in it a slander against common democrats, whose aspirations are deeply alien and incomprehensible to the author; " Russian word”And“ Delo ”took the opposite position.

The critic of Sovremennik A. Antonovich in an article with expressive title"Asmodeus of our time" (that is, "the devil of our time") noted that Turgenev "despises and hates the main character and his friends with all his heart." Antonovich's article is full of harsh attacks and unsubstantiated accusations against the author of Fathers and Sons. The critic suspected Turgenev of conspiring with the reactionaries, who allegedly "ordered" the writer a deliberately slanderous, accusatory novel, accused him of deviating from realism, pointed out the crude schematic, even caricature of the images of the main characters. However, Antonovich's article is quite consistent with the general tone that was adopted by the Sovremennik staff after a number of leading writers left the editorial office. Scolding Turgenev personally and his works became almost the responsibility of the Nekrasov magazine.

DI. On the contrary, Pisarev, the editor of Russkoye Slovo, saw the truth of life in the novel Fathers and Sons, taking the position of a consistent apologist for Bazarov's image. In his article "Bazarov" he wrote: "Turgenev does not like merciless denial, and yet the personality of the merciless denier turns out to be a strong personality and inspires the reader with respect"; "... No one in the novel can compare with Bazarov either in the strength of the mind or in the strength of character."

Pisarev was one of the first to remove from Bazarov the accusation of caricature, raised against him by Antonovich, explained the positive meaning of the protagonist of Fathers and Children, emphasizing the vital importance and innovation of such a character. As a representative of the generation of "children", he accepted everything in Bazarov: a disdainful attitude towards art, and a simplified view of the spiritual life of a person, and an attempt to comprehend love through the prism of natural scientific views. Negative traits Bazarov, under the pen of the critic, unexpectedly for the readers (and for the author of the novel himself) acquired a positive assessment: outright rudeness towards the inhabitants of Maryino was presented as an independent position, ignorance and shortcomings of upbringing - for a critical view of things, excessive conceit - for manifestations of a strong nature, etc. etc.

For Pisarev, Bazarov is a man of action, natural scientist, materialist, experimenter. He "recognizes only that which can be touched with the hands, seen with the eyes, put on the tongue, in a word, only that which can be witnessed by one of the five senses." Experience became for Bazarov the only source of knowledge. It was in this that Pisarev saw the difference between the new man Bazarov and the "superfluous people" Rudins, Onegins, Pechorins. He wrote: “... the Pechorins have will without knowledge, the Rudins have knowledge without will; the Bazarovs have both knowledge and will, thought and deed merge into one solid whole. " This interpretation of the image of the protagonist was to the taste of the revolutionary-democratic youth, who made their idol a “new man” with his reasonable egoism, contempt for authorities, traditions, and the prevailing world order.

... Turgenev now looks at the present from the height of the past. He does not follow us; he calmly looks after us, describes our gait, tells us how we speed up our steps, how we jump over potholes, how we sometimes stumble on uneven parts of the road.

There is no irritation in the tone of his description; he was just tired of walking; the development of his personal world outlook ended, but the ability to observe the movement of someone else's thought, to understand and reproduce all its curves remained in all its freshness and completeness. Turgenev himself will never be Bazarov, but he pondered this type and understood him so correctly as none of our young realists will understand ...

N.N. Strakhov in his article on "Fathers and Children" continues Pisarev's thought, arguing about the realism and even "typicality" of Bazarov as a hero of his time, a man of the 1860s:

“Bazarov does not arouse disgust in us in the least, and does not seem to us either mal eleve or mauvais ton. Everyone seems to agree with us characters novel. The simplicity of his address and the figures of Bazarov arouse in them not disgust, but rather inspire respect for him. He was cordially received in Anna Sergeevna's drawing-room, where even some poor princess sat in session ... "

Pisarev's judgments about the novel "Fathers and Sons" were shared by Herzen. He wrote about Bazarov's article: “This article confirms my point of view. In its one-sidedness, it is more faithful and more remarkable than its opponents thought about it. Here Herzen notes that Pisarev "recognized himself and his own in Bazarov and added what was lacking in the book," that Bazarov "was more for Pisarev than his own," that the critic "knows his Bazarov's heart to the ground, he confesses for him."

Turgenev's novel stirred up all strata of Russian society. The controversy about nihilism, about the image of the natural scientist, the democrat Bazarov continued for a whole decade on the pages of almost all the magazines of that time. And if in the 19th century there were still opponents of apologetic assessments of this image, then by the 20th century they did not remain at all. Bazarov was raised on the shield as a harbinger of the coming storm, as the banner of everyone who wants to destroy, without giving anything in return ("... it's no longer our business ... First you need to clear the place.")

Back in 1869, Turgenev himself strongly objected to such a vulgar and unfair interpretation of the history of the novel "Fathers and Sons" in his essay "Concerning Fathers and Sons": “I remember that one critic (Turgenev had M. Antonovich in mind) in strong and eloquent expressions addressed directly to me, introduced me along with Mr. young Russian forces ... The picture came out spectacular! "

An attempt by V.A. Arkhipova to revive the point of view, ridiculed and refuted by Turgenev himself, caused a lively discussion, which included the journals "Russian Literature", "Questions of Literature", " New world"," Rise "," Neva "," Literature at school ", as well as" Literary newspaper". The results of the discussion were summed up in the article by G. Friedlander "On the controversy about" Fathers and children "and in the editorial article" Literary criticism and modernity "in" Voprosy literatury ". They note the universal human significance of the novel and its protagonist.

Of course, there could be no "collusion" between the liberal Turgenev and the guards. In the novel "Fathers and Sons" the writer expressed what he thought. It so happened that at that moment his point of view partly coincided with the position of the conservative camp. So you can't please everyone! But by what "conspiracy" Pisarev and other zealous apologists of Bazarov launched a campaign to exalt this completely unambiguous "hero" - it is still unclear ...

The processes taking place in the literary environment in the 1850s.

I. S. Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons". Criticism of the novel.

In the first half of the 1950s, a process of consolidation of the progressive intelligentsia took place. The best people united in the main issue of serfdom for the revolution. At this time, Turgenev worked a lot in the magazine "Contemporary". It is believed that under the influence of V.G.Belinsky, Turgenev made the transition from poetry to prose, from romanticism to realism. After Belinsky's death, N.A.Nekrasov became the editor of the magazine. He also attracts Turgenev to cooperation, who, in turn, attracts L. N. Tolstoy and A. N. Ostrovsky. In the second half of the 1950s, a process of differentiation and stratification took place in progressively thinking circles. Commoners appeared - people who did not belong to any of the estates established at that time: neither to the nobility, nor to the merchant, nor to the bourgeoisie, nor to the guild craftsmen, nor to the peasantry, and also did not have a personal nobility or clergy. Turgenev did not attach much importance to the origin of the person with whom he communicated. Nekrasov attracted to Sovremennik first N. G. Chernyshevsky, then N. A. Dobrolyubov. As Russia begins to take shape revolutionary situation, Turgenev comes to the conviction that it is necessary to abolish serfdom in a bloodless way. Nekrasov was in favor of the revolution. So the paths of Nekrasov and Turgenev began to diverge. Chernyshevsky at this time published a dissertation on aesthetically art to reality, which infuriated Turgenev. The dissertation sinned with the features of vulgar materialism:

Chernyshevsky put forward in it the idea that art is only an imitation of life, only a weak copy of reality. Chernyshevsky underestimated the role of art. Turgenev did not tolerate vulgar materialism and called Chernyshevsky's work "carrion." He considered such an understanding of art disgusting, vulgar and stupid, which he repeatedly expressed in his letters to L. Tolstoy, N. Nekrasov, A. Druzhinin and D. Grigorovich.

In one of his letters to Nekrasov in 1855, Turgenev wrote about such an attitude towards art as follows: “This badly hidden hostility to art is everywhere filthy - and even more so here. Take away this enthusiasm from us - after that even run out of the light ”.

But Nekrasov, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov advocated the maximum rapprochement between art and life, they believed that art should have an exclusively didactic character. Turgenev fell out with Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, as he believed that they did not treat literature as the artistic world, which exists in parallel with ours, but as an auxiliary weapon in the struggle. Turgenev was not a supporter of "pure" art (the theory of "art for art"), but he still could not agree with the fact that Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov are considering work of fiction only as a critical article, not seeing anything more in it. Because of this, Dobrolyubov believed that Turgenev was not a comrade to the revolutionary-democratic wing of Sovremennik and that at the decisive moment Turgenev would retreat. In 1860, Dobrolyubov published in Sovremennik a critical analysis of Turgenev's novel “On the Eve” - the article “When Will the Present Day Come?”. Turgenev completely disagreed with the key points in this publication and even asked Nekrasov not to publish it on the pages of the magazine. But the article was still published. After that, Turgenev finally breaks with Sovremennik.

That's why your new romance Turgenev published “Fathers and Children” in the conservative magazine “Russian Bulletin”, which opposed Sovremennik. The editor of the Russkiy Vestnik, MN Katkov, wanted to shoot Turgenev's hands at the revolutionary-democratic wing of Sovremennik, so he eagerly agreed to publish Fathers and Sons in the Russkiy Vestnik. To make the blow more palpable, Katkov publishes a novel with amendments that reduce the image of Bazarov.

At the end of 1862, the novel was published as a separate book dedicated to the memory of Belinsky.

The novel was considered quite polemical by Turgenev's contemporaries. Until the end of the 60s of the 19th century, there were heated disputes around it. The novel touched too much to the quick, too much related to life itself, and the author's position was quite polemical. Turgenev was very upset by this situation, he had to explain himself about his work. In 1869, he published an article “Concerning Fathers and Sons,” where he writes: “I noticed a coldness that reached the point of indignation in many people close to me and sympathetic; I received congratulations, almost kisses, from people in the opposing camp, from enemies. It embarrassed me. upset; but my conscience did not reproach me: I knew very well that I was honest, and not only without prejudice, but even sympathetic to the type I had brought out. " Turgenev believed that "the whole reason for the misunderstandings" was that "the Bazarov type did not manage to go through the gradual phases through which literary types usually pass," such as Onegin and Pechorin. The author says that “this confused many [.] The reader is always embarrassed, he is easily overcome by bewilderment, even annoyance, if the author treats the character portrayed as a living being, that is, he sees and exposes his bad and good sides, and most importantly if he does not show obvious sympathy or antipathy for his own offspring. "

In the end, almost everyone was dissatisfied with the novel. The Sovremennik saw in him a lampoon against the progressive society, but the conservative wing remained dissatisfied, since it seemed to them that Turgenev had not completely debunked the image of Bazarov. One of the few who liked the image of the main character and the novel as a whole was DI Pisarev, who in his article "Bazarov" (1862) spoke very well of the novel: "Turgenev is one of the best people the past generation; to determine how he looks at us and why he looks at us in this way and not otherwise is to find the cause of the discord that is seen everywhere in our private family life; that discord, from which young lives often perish and from which the old men and women constantly groan and groan and do not have time to process the concepts and actions of their sons and daughters on their stock. " In the main character, Pisarev saw a deep personality with powerful force and potential. About such people, he wrote: “They are aware of their dissimilarity with the masses and boldly move away from it by their actions, habits, and the whole way of life. Whether society will follow them - they do not care about this. They are full of themselves, their inner life. "

Which is usually associated with the work "Rudin", published in 1855, - a novel in which Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev returned to the structure of this first creation of his.

As in him, in Fathers and Children, all the plot threads converged to one center, which was formed by the figure of Bazarov, a common democrat. She alarmed all critics and readers. Various critics have written a lot about the novel "Fathers and Sons", as the work aroused genuine interest and controversy. We will present the main positions in relation to this novel to you in this article.

Significance in understanding the work

Bazarov became not only the plot center of the work, but also a problematic one. The assessment of all other aspects of Turgenev's novel largely depended on the understanding of his fate and personality: the author's position, the system of characters, various artistic techniques used in Fathers and Sons. The critics considered this novel by chapters and saw in it a new turn in the work of Ivan Sergeevich, although their understanding of the stage meaning of this work was completely different.

Why was Turgenev scolded?

The ambivalent attitude of the author himself towards his hero led to the reproaches and reproaches of his contemporaries. Turgenev was severely scolded from all sides. Critics of Fathers and Sons were mostly negative. Many readers could not understand the idea of the author. From the memoirs of Annenkov, as well as of Ivan Sergeevich himself, we learn that M.N. Katkov was indignant after reading the manuscript "Fathers and Sons" chapter by chapter. He was outraged that the main character the work reigns supreme and does not meet with any effective resistance anywhere. Readers and critics of the opposite camp also severely reprimanded Ivan Sergeevich for the internal dispute that he waged with Bazarov in his novel Fathers and Sons. Its content seemed to them not entirely democratic.

The most notable among many other interpretations are the article by M.A. Antonovich, published in Sovremennik (Asmodeus of Our Time), as well as a number of articles that appeared in the journal Russkoe Slovo (democratic), written by D.I. Pisareva: "The Thinking Proletariat", "Realists", "Bazarov". on the novel "Fathers and Sons" presented two opposing views.

Pisarev's opinion about the main character

Unlike Antonovich, who assessed Bazarov sharply negatively, Pisarev saw in him a real "hero of the time." This critic compared this image with the "new people" depicted in N.G. Chernyshevsky.

The topic "fathers and children" (intergenerational relationship) came to the fore in his articles. The contradictory opinions expressed by representatives of the democratic direction were perceived as "a split in the nihilists" - a fact of internal polemics that existed in the democratic movement.

Antonovich about Bazarov

It is not by chance that both readers and critics of Fathers and Sons were worried about two questions: about the author's position and about the prototypes of the images of this novel. It is they that make up the two poles along which any work is interpreted and perceived. According to Antonovich, Turgenev was malicious. In the interpretation of Bazarov, presented by this critic, this image is not at all written off "from nature" a person, but an "evil spirit", "asmodeus", which was released by a writer angry with the new generation.

Antonovich's article is written in a feuilleton manner. This critic, instead of presenting an objective analysis of the work, created a caricature of the main character, substituting Sitnikov, Bazarov's "student", in the place of his teacher. Bazarov, according to Antonovich, is not at all an artistic generalization, not a mirror that reflects. The critic believed that the author of the novel had created a biting feuilleton, which should be objected in the same manner. Antonovich's goal - to "quarrel" with the younger generation of Turgenev - was achieved.

What could the democrats not forgive Turgenev?

Antonovich, in the subtext of his unfair and rude article, reproached the author for having obtained a figure that is too "recognizable", since Dobrolyubov is considered one of its prototypes. The Sovremennik journalists, moreover, could not forgive the author for breaking up with this magazine. The novel "Fathers and Sons" was published in the Russian Bulletin, a conservative publication, which was for them a sign of Ivan Sergeevich's final break with democracy.

Bazarov in "real criticism"

Pisarev expressed a different point of view regarding the main character of the work. He considered him not as a caricature of certain persons, but as a representative of the new socio-ideological type that was taking shape at that time. This critic was least of all interested in the attitude of the author himself to his hero, as well as the various features of the artistic embodiment of this image. Pisarev interpreted Bazarov in the spirit of so-called real criticism. He pointed out that the author was biased in his portrayal, but the type itself was highly appreciated by Pisarev - as a "hero of the time." The article titled "Bazarov" said that the main character depicted in the novel, presented as a "tragic face", is new type which the literature lacked. In further interpretations of this critic, Bazarov broke away more and more from the novel itself. For example, in the articles "The Thinking Proletariat" and "Realists", the name "Bazarov" was given to the type of the epoch, the commoner-kulturtrager, whose world outlook was close to Pisarev himself.

Accusations of bias

Turgenev's objective, calm tone in the portrayal of the protagonist was contradicted by accusations of tendentiousness. "Fathers and Sons" is a kind of Turgenev's "duel" with nihilists and nihilism, but the author complied with all the requirements of the "code of honor": he treated the enemy with respect, "killing" him in a fair fight. Bazarov as a symbol of dangerous delusions, according to Ivan Sergeevich, is a worthy opponent. The mockery and caricature of the image, which some critics accused the author of, were not used by him, because they could give a completely opposite result, namely, an underestimation of the destructive power of nihilism. The nihilists strove to put their false leaders in the place of the "eternal" ones. Turgenev, recalling his work on the image of Yevgeny Bazarov, wrote to M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in 1876 about the novel "Fathers and Sons", the history of the creation of which interested many, that he is not surprised why this hero remained a mystery for the majority of readers, because the author himself cannot quite imagine how he wrote it. Turgenev said that he knew only one thing: there was no tendency in him then, no prejudice of thought.

The position of Turgenev himself

Critics of the novel "Fathers and Sons" responded mostly one-sided, gave harsh assessments. Meanwhile, Turgenev, as in his previous novels, avoids comments, does not draw conclusions, deliberately conceals inner world his hero in order not to put pressure on readers. The conflict in Fathers and Sons is by no means on the surface. So straightforwardly interpreted by the critic Antonovich and completely ignored by Pisarev, it manifests itself in the composition of the plot, in the nature of the conflicts. It is in them that the concept of Bazarov's fate is realized, presented by the author of the work "Fathers and Sons", the images of which still cause controversy among various researchers.

Evgeny is unshakable in disputes with Pavel Petrovich, but after a difficult "test of love" he is internally broken. The author emphasizes the "cruelty", the thoughtfulness of the beliefs of this hero, as well as the interconnection of all the components that make up his worldview. Bazarov is a maximalist, in whose opinion any conviction has a value if it is not in conflict with others. As soon as this character lost one "link" in the "chain" of worldview, all the others were reassessed and questioned. In the final, this is the "new" Bazarov, who is "Hamlet" among the nihilists.

Writing a novel with a progressive or retrograde direction is still not difficult. Turgenev, on the other hand, had the ambition and audacity to create a novel with all sorts of directions; an admirer of eternal truth, eternal beauty, he had a proud goal in the temporal to point to the eternal and wrote a novel not progressive and not retrograde, but, so to speak, everlasting.

N.N.Strakhov “I.S.Turgenev. "Fathers and Sons"

Edition 1965

Roman I.S. Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons" is unambiguously recognized by critics as a landmark work both in the work of the great Russian writer and in the general context of the era of the 60s of the XIX century. All contemporary socio-political contradictions are reflected in the novel; vividly presented as topical, and eternal problems relationships between generations of "fathers" and "children".

In our opinion, the position of I.S. Turgenev in relation to the two opposing camps presented in the novel looks quite unambiguous. The author's attitude to the main character Bazarov also leaves no doubts. Nevertheless, with the light hand of radical critics, Turgenev's contemporaries erected a largely grotesque, schematic image of the nihilist Bazarov on the hero's pedestal, making him a real idol of the 1860-80s generation.

The unreasonably enthusiastic attitude towards Bazarov, which developed among the democratic intelligentsia of the 19th century, smoothly migrated into Soviet literary criticism. Of all the variety of works of the great novelist I.S. Turgenev, for some reason, only the novel "Fathers and Sons" with its heroic schemes was firmly established in school curriculum... For many years, literature teachers, referring to the authoritative opinions of Pisarev, Herzen, Strakhov, tried to explain to schoolchildren how “ new person»Evgeny Bazarov, who dissects frogs, is better than the beautiful-hearted romantic Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov, who plays the cello. Contrary to all common sense, these explanations about the "class" superiority of democrats over aristocrats, the primitive division into "ours" and "not ours" continue to this day. One has only to look at the collection of USE tasks in literature for 2013: the examiner is still required to determine the "socio-psychological types" of the heroes of the novel, to explain their behavior by the "struggle between the ideologies of the nobility and the various intelligentsia", etc., etc. ...

For a century and a half, we have blindly trusted the subjective opinion of critics of the post-reform era, who sincerely believed in Bazarov as in their future and rejected the thinker Turgenev as a false prophet idealizing an obsolete past. How long will we, people of the XXI century, humiliate the greatest humanist writer, Russian classic I.S. Turgenev by clarifying his "class" position? To pretend that we believe in the irrevocably erroneous “Bazarov's” path that has long been passed in practice? ..

It should be recognized for a long time that the modern reader may be interested in Turgenev's novel not so much in clarifying the author's position in relation to the main characters of the work, as in the general humanitarian, eternal problems raised in it.

Fathers and Sons is a novel about delusions and insights, about the search for eternal meaning, about the closest relationship and, at the same time, a tragic divergence between the past, present and future of humanity. Ultimately, this is a novel about each of us. After all, we are all someone’s fathers and someone’s children ... It simply doesn’t exist in another way.

Background to the creation of the novel

The novel "Fathers and Sons" was written by I.S. Turgenev shortly after his departure from the editorial board of the Sovremennik magazine and the break of many years of friendly relations with N.A. Nekrasov. Nekrasov, faced with a decisive choice, made a bet on young radicals - Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky. Thus, the editor significantly raised the commercial rating of his socio-political publication, but lost a number of leading authors. Following Turgenev, "Contemporary" left L. Tolstoy, A. Druzhinin, I. Goncharov and other writers who held moderately liberal positions.

The topic of the split in Sovremennik has been deeply studied by numerous literary researchers. Starting from the second half of the XIX For centuries, it was customary to put purely political motives at the forefront of this conflict: the divergence in the views of common democrats and liberal landlords. The "class" version of the split was quite suitable for Soviet literary criticism, and for almost a century and a half it continues to be presented as the only one, confirmed by the memoirs of eyewitnesses and other documentary sources. Only a few researchers, relying on the creative and epistolary heritage of Turgenev, Nekrasov, Dobrolyubov, Chernyshevsky, as well as other persons close to the publication of the magazine, paid attention to the implicit, deeply hidden personal conflict of the participants in those long-past events.

In the memoirs of N.G. Chernyshevsky, there are direct indications of N. Dobrolyubov's hostile attitude towards Turgenev, whom the young critic contemptuously called "a literary aristocrat." The unknown provincial commoner Dobrolyubov arrived in St. Petersburg with the ambitious intention to make himself a journalistic career at all costs. Yes, he worked a lot, lived in poverty, starved, undermined his health, but the omnipotent Nekrasov noticed him, accepted the novice critic in the editorial office of Sovremennik, and settled him in Kraevsky's house, practically in his apartment. By chance or not, Dobrolyubov seemed to repeat the fate of the young Nekrasov, once warmed and treated kindly by the Panaevs.

With I.S. Turgenev Nekrasov was connected by many years of personal friendship and close business cooperation. Turgenev, who did not have his own home in St. Petersburg, always stayed and lived for a long time in the apartment of the Nekrasov and Panaevs during his visits to the capital. In the 1850s, he occupied the place of the leading novelist of Sovremennik and sincerely believed that the editor of the magazine listens to his opinion and values it.

ON. Nekrasov, in spite of all his business activity and good fortune as a businessless person from literature, retained the sybaritic habits of a Russian master. He slept almost until lunchtime, often fell into unreasonable depression. Usually in the morning the publisher of "Sovremennik" received visitors right in his bedroom, and that's all important questions on the publication of the magazine decided lying in bed. Dobrolyubov, as the closest "neighbor", soon turned out to be the most regular visitor to Nekrasov's bedroom, having survived Turgenev and Chernyshevsky from there and almost kicked A.Ya. Panaev. The selection of materials for the next issue, the amount of royalties to the authors, the magazine's responses to political events in the country - all this Nekrasov often discussed with Dobrolyubov face to face. An unofficial editorial alliance was formed, in which the tone was set, of course, by Nekrasov, and Dobrolyubov, as a talented performer, embodied his ideas, presenting them to the reader in the form of bold, fascinating publicistic articles and critical essays.

The members of the editorial board could not fail to notice the growing influence of Dobrolyubov on all aspects of the Sovremennik publication. Since the end of 1858, the departments of criticism, bibliography, and modern notes have been combined into one - "Modern Review", in which the journalistic beginning was the leading one, and the selection and grouping of materials were made by Dobrolyubov almost individually.

For his part, I.S. Turgenev more than once tried to establish contact with the young collaborators of Sovremennik Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, but he only met cold alienation, complete incomprehension and even arrogant contempt of working journalists for the “literary aristocrat”. And the main conflict was not at all that Dobrolyubov and Turgenev did not share a place in Nekrasov's bedroom, trying to influence the editor in matters of the magazine's publishing policy. Although this is how their opposition is presented in the literary memoirs of A.Ya. Panaeva. With her light hand, Russian literary critics considered Dobrolyubov's article about Turgenev's novel “On the Eve” as the main reason for the split of the Sovremennik editorial board. The article was titled "When Will the Present Day Come?" and contained rather bold political forecasts, with which I.S. Turgenev, as the author of the novel, strongly disagreed. According to Panaeva, Turgenev sharply objected to the publication of this article, delivering an ultimatum to Nekrasov: "Choose, either me, or Dobrolyubov." Nekrasov chose the latter. N.G. adheres to a similar version in his memoirs. Chernyshevsky, noting that Turgenev was extremely offended by Dobrolyubov's criticism of his latest novel.

Meanwhile, the Soviet researcher A.B. Muratov in his article “Dobrolyubov and I.S. Turgenev with the Sovremennik magazine, relying on the materials of Turgenev's correspondence in 1860, thoroughly proves the fallacy of this widespread version. Dobrolyubov's article about "On the Eve" was published in the March book of Sovremennik. Turgenev accepted her without any offense, continuing his collaboration with the magazine, as well as personal meetings and correspondence with Nekrasov until the fall of 1860. In addition, Ivan Sergeevich promised Nekrasov for publication the "big story" he had already conceived and begun then (the novel "Fathers and Sons"). Only at the end of September, after reading a completely different article by Dobrolyubov in the June issue of Sovremennik, Turgenev wrote to P. Annenkov and I. Panaev about his refusal to participate in the journal and his decision to send Fathers and Children to the Russian Bulletin by M.N. Katkov. In the aforementioned article (reviews of N. Hawthorne's book "A collection of miracles, stories borrowed from mythology") Dobrolyubov openly called Turgenev's novel "Rudin" a "custom-made" novel written to please the tastes of wealthy readers. Muratov believes that Turgenev was humanely offended not even by the vicious attacks of Dobrolyubov, whom he unambiguously ranked among the generation of "unreasonable children," but by the fact that the opinion of the author of the article that was offensive to him was the opinion of Nekrasov, a representative of the generation of "fathers", his personal friend ... Thus, at the center of the conflict in the editorial office was not a political conflict, and not a conflict between the older and younger generations of "fathers" and "children." It was a deeply personal conflict, for Turgenev until the end of his life did not forgive Nekrasov for betrayal of their common ideals, the ideals of the generation of "fathers" for the sake of "reasonable egoism" and lack of spirituality of the new generation of the 1860s.

Nekrasov's position in this conflict turned out to be even more complicated. As best he could, he tried to soften the Dobrolyubov "claws" constantly clinging to Turgenev's pride, but Turgenev was dear to him as an old friend, and Dobrolyubov was needed as an employee on whom the release of the next issue of the magazine depended. And businessman Nekrasov, sacrificing personal sympathies, chose a business. Having broken with the old editorial board, as with an irrevocable past, he led his Sovremennik along a revolutionary-radical path, which at that time seemed very promising.

Communication with young radicals - employees of Nekrasov's Sovremennik - was not in vain for the writer Turgenev. All the critics of the novel saw in Bazarov precisely the portrait of Dobrolyubov, and the most narrow-minded of them considered the novel "Fathers and Sons" as a pamphlet against the recently deceased journalist. But that would be too simple and unworthy of the pen of a great master. Dobrolyubov, without suspecting it himself, helped Turgenev find a theme for a deeply philosophical, timeless work necessary for society.

The history of the creation of the novel

The idea of "Fathers and Sons" came from I.S. Turgenev in the summer of 1860, immediately after his visit to St. Petersburg and the incident with Dobrolyubov's article about the novel "On the Eve". Obviously, this happened even before his final break with Sovremennik, because in the summer correspondence of 1860, Turgenev still did not give up the idea of giving a new thing to a Nekrasov magazine. The first mention of the novel is contained in a letter to Countess Lambert (summer 1860). Later, Turgenev himself dates the beginning of work on the novel in August 1860: “I was taking sea baths in Ventnor, a small town on the Isle of Wight — it was in the month of August 1860 — when the first thought of Fathers and Sons occurred to me, that tale, by whose grace it ended — and it seems , forever - the favorable disposition of the Russian young generation towards me ... "

It was here, on the Isle of Wight, that the "Formulary List of the Characters of the New Story" was compiled, where under the heading "Evgeny Bazarov" Turgenev sketched a preliminary portrait of the protagonist: "Nihilist. Self-confident, speaks abruptly and a little, hardworking. (A mixture of Dobrolyubov, Pavlov and Preobrazhensky.) Lives small; He does not want to be a doctor, he is waiting for a chance. - He knows how to talk to the people, although in his heart he despises him. Artistic element does not have and does not recognize ... Knows quite a lot - energetic, can like his looseness. In essence, the most sterile subject is the antipode of Rudin - for without any enthusiasm and faith ... An independent soul and a proud man of the first hand. "

Dobrolyubov, as we see, is indicated first as a prototype here. He is followed by Ivan Vasilyevich Pavlov, a doctor and writer, an acquaintance of Turgenev, an atheist and materialist. Turgenev was friendly to him, although he was often embarrassed by the directness and harshness of this man's judgments.

Nikolai Sergeevich Preobrazhensky - Dobrolyubov's friend in teacher training institute with an original appearance - small stature, long nose and hair standing on end despite the comb's best efforts. He was a young man with heightened self-esteem, with an arrogance and freedom of judgment, which even Dobrolyubov admired. He called Preobrazhensky "not a timid guy."

In a word, all the “sterile subjects” whom I.S. Turgenev had a chance to observe in real life, merged into the collective image of the "new man" Bazarov. And at the beginning of the novel, this hero, whatever one may say, really resembles an unpleasant caricature.

Bazarov's remarks (especially in his disputes with Pavel Petrovich) repeat almost word for word the thoughts set forth by Dobrolyubov in his critical articles of 1857-60. The words of German materialists, dear to Dobrolyubov, for example, G. Vogt, whose works Turgenev studied intensively while working on the novel, were also put into the mouth of this character.

Turgenev continued to write Fathers and Sons in Paris. In September 1860 he informs P.V. Annenkov: “I intend to work hard. The plan for my new story is ready to the smallest detail - and I am eager to get started. Something will come out - I do not know, but Botkin, who is here ... highly approves of the idea that is put in the foundation. I would like to finish this piece by the spring, by April, and bring it to Russia myself. "

During the winter, the first chapters were written, but work proceeded more slowly than anticipated. In the letters of this time, requests are constantly heard to report on the news of public life in Russia, seething on the eve greatest event in its history - the abolition of serfdom. To get the opportunity to get directly acquainted with the problems of contemporary Russian reality, I. S. Turgenev comes to Russia. The novel, begun before the reform of 1861, the writer ends after it in his beloved Spassky-Lutovinov. In a letter to the same P.V. Annenkov, he informs about the end of the novel: “My work is over at last. On July 20, I wrote the blessed last word. "

In the autumn, upon his return to Paris, I.S.Turgenev reads his novel to V.P. Botkin and K.K.Sluchevsky, whose opinion he greatly valued. Agreeing and arguing with their judgments, the writer, in his own words, "plows" the text, makes numerous changes and amendments to it. Basically, the amendments concerned the image of the protagonist. Friends pointed to the author's excessive enthusiasm for the "rehabilitation" of Bazarov at the end of the work, the approach of his image to the "Russian Hamlet".

When the work on the novel was completed, the writer had deep doubts about the appropriateness of its publication: the historical moment turned out to be too inappropriate. Dobrolyubov died in November 1861. Turgenev sincerely regretted his death: “I regretted the death of Dobrolyubov, although I did not share his views,” Turgenev wrote to his friends, - man he was gifted - young ... Sorry for the lost, wasted power! " To Turgenev's ill-wishers, the publication of a new novel might seem like a desire to "dance on the bones" of a deceased foe. By the way, this is exactly how it was assessed by the Sovremennik editorial staff. In addition, a revolutionary situation was brewing in the country. The prototypes of the Bazarovs took to the streets. The poet-democrat M. L. Mikhailov was arrested for distributing proclamations to youth. Students of St. Petersburg University rebelled against the new charter: two hundred people were arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

For all these reasons, Turgenev wanted to postpone the publication of the novel, but the very conservative publisher Katkov, on the contrary, saw nothing provocative in Fathers and Children. After receiving corrections from Paris, he insistently demanded "sold out" for a new issue. Thus, Fathers and Sons was published in the midst of government persecution of the younger generation, in the February 1862 issue of the Russian Bulletin.

Criticism about the novel "Fathers and Sons"

As soon as it was published, the novel caused a real flurry of critical articles. None of the public camps accepted Turgenev's new creation.

The editor of the conservative "Russian Bulletin" MN Katkov in the articles "Roman Turgenev and His Critics" and "On Our Nihilism (Regarding Turgenev's Novel)" argued that nihilism is a social disease that must be fought by strengthening the protective conservative principles; and Fathers and Sons is no different from a whole series of anti-nihilistic novels by other writers. FM Dostoevsky took a peculiar position in assessing Turgenev's novel and the image of its protagonist. According to Dostoevsky, Bazarov is a "theoretician" who is at odds with "life"; he is a victim of his own dry and abstract theory. In other words, this is a hero close to Raskolnikov. However, Dostoevsky avoids specific consideration of Bazarov's theory. He rightly asserts that any abstract, rational theory breaks down on life and brings suffering and torment to a person. According to Soviet critics, Dostoevsky reduced all the problems of the novel to an ethical-psychological complex, overshadowing the social with the universal, instead of revealing the specifics of both.

Liberal criticism, on the other hand, has gotten too carried away with the social aspect. She could not forgive the writer for ridicule of representatives of the aristocracy, hereditary nobles, his irony in relation to the "moderate noble liberalism" of the 1840s. The unsympathetic, rude "plebeian" Bazarov constantly mocks his ideological opponents and turns out to be morally superior to them.

The critic of Sovremennik A. Antonovich in an article with the expressive title "Asmodeus of our time" (that is, "the devil of our time") noted that Turgenev "despises and hates the main character and his friends with all his heart." Antonovich's article is full of harsh attacks and unsubstantiated accusations against the author of Fathers and Sons. The critic suspected Turgenev of conspiring with the reactionaries, who allegedly "ordered" the writer a deliberately slanderous, accusatory novel, accused him of deviating from realism, pointed out the crude schematic, even caricature of the images of the main characters. However, Antonovich's article is quite consistent with the general tone that was adopted by the Sovremennik staff after a number of leading writers left the editorial office. Scolding Turgenev personally and his works became almost the responsibility of the Nekrasov magazine.

Pisarev was one of the first to remove from Bazarov the accusation of caricature, raised against him by Antonovich, explained the positive meaning of the protagonist of Fathers and Children, emphasizing the vital importance and innovation of such a character. As a representative of the generation of "children", he accepted everything in Bazarov: a disdainful attitude towards art, and a simplified view of the spiritual life of a person, and an attempt to comprehend love through the prism of natural scientific views. The negative features of Bazarov under the pen of the critic, unexpectedly for the readers (and for the author of the novel himself), acquired a positive assessment: outright rudeness towards the inhabitants of Maryin was presented as an independent position, ignorance and shortcomings of upbringing - for a critical view of things, excessive conceit - for manifestations of a strong nature and etc.

Turgenev now looks at the present from the height of the past. He does not follow us; he calmly looks after us, describes our gait, tells us how we speed up our steps, how we jump over potholes, how we sometimes stumble on uneven parts of the road.

N.N. Strakhov in his article on "Fathers and Children" continues Pisarev's thought, arguing about the realism and even "typicality" of Bazarov as a hero of his time, a man of the 1860s:

“Bazarov does not arouse disgust in us in the least, and does not seem to us either mal eleve or mauvais ton. All the characters in the novel seem to agree with us. The simplicity of his address and the figures of Bazarov arouse in them not disgust, but rather inspire respect for him. He was cordially received in Anna Sergeevna's drawing-room, where even some poor princess sat in session ... "

In the late 1950s, on the wave of Khrushchev's "thaw", a discussion suddenly unfolded, caused by VA Arkhipov's article "On the creative history of the novel by I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons". In this article, the author tried to develop the previously criticized point of view of M. Antonovich. V.A. Arkhipov wrote that the novel appeared as a result of Turgenev's conspiracy with Katkov, the editor of Russkiy Vestnik (“the conspiracy was evident”) and the deal of the same Katkov with Turgenev's advisor P.V. Annenkov (“In Katkov's office in Leontievsky Lane, as expected , a deal between a liberal and a reactionary took place ”). Back in 1869, Turgenev himself strongly objected to such a vulgar and unfair interpretation of the history of the novel "Fathers and Sons" in his essay "Concerning Fathers and Sons": “I remember that one critic (Turgenev had M. Antonovich in mind) in strong and eloquent expressions addressed directly to me, introduced me along with Mr. young Russian forces ... The picture came out spectacular! "

An attempt by V.A. Arkhipova to revive the point of view, ridiculed and refuted by Turgenev himself, caused a lively discussion, which included the journals Russian Literature, Voprosy Literatura, Novy Mir, Podyom, Neva, Literature at School, as well as Literaturnaya Gazeta. The results of the discussion were summed up in the article by G. Friedlander "On the controversy about" Fathers and children "and in the editorial article" Literary criticism and modernity "in" Voprosy literatury ". They note the universal human significance of the novel and its protagonist.

The image of Bazarov in the perception of contemporaries

To the contemporaries of I.S. Turgenev (both "fathers" and "children") found it difficult to talk about the image of Bazarov for the simple reason that they did not know how to relate to him. In the 60s of the XIX century, no one could have guessed what the type of behavior and dubious truths professed by the "new people" would ultimately lead to.

but Russian society already fell ill with an incurable disease of self-destruction, expressed, in particular, in sympathy for the "hero" created by Turgenev.

Democratic raznochinskaya youth ("children") was impressed by the previously inaccessible emancipation, rationalism, practicality of Bazarov, his confidence in own forces... Such qualities as external asceticism, uncompromising, priority of the useful over the beautiful, lack of admiration for authorities and old truths, "reasonable egoism", the ability to manipulate others were perceived by young people of that time as an example to follow. Paradoxically, it was in this Bazar-style caricature that they found their reflection in the worldview of Bazarov's ideological followers - future theoreticians and terrorist-practitioners of Narodnaya Volya, Socialist-Revolutionaries-maximalists and even Bolsheviks.

The older generation ("fathers"), feeling their failure and often helplessness in the new conditions post-reform Russia, was also frantically looking for a way out of this situation. Some (guardians and reactionaries) turned to the past in their search, others (moderate liberals), disillusioned with the present, decided to stake on the as yet unknown but promising future. This is exactly what N.A. tried to do. Nekrasov, providing the pages of his magazine for the revolutionary and provocative works of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, bursting into poetic pamphlets and feuilletons on the topic of the day.

The novel "Fathers and Sons", to some extent, also became an attempt by the liberal Turgenev to keep up with new trends, to fit into the era of rationalism that he did not understand, to grasp and reflect the spirit of a difficult time that was frightening in its lack of spirituality.

But to us, distant descendants, for whom the political struggle in post-reform Russia has long acquired the status of one of the pages national history or one of her cruel lessons, it should not be forgotten that I.S. Turgenev was never a topical publicist, nor a writer of everyday life engaged in society. The novel "Fathers and Sons" is not a feuilleton, not a parable, not an artistic embodiment by the author of fashionable ideas and development trends of contemporary society.

I.S. Turgenev is a unique name even in the golden galaxy of classics of Russian prose, a writer whose impeccable literary skill is correlated with an equally impeccable knowledge and understanding of the human soul. The problems of his works are sometimes much wider and more diverse than it might seem to another hapless critic in the era of great reforms. The ability to creatively rethink the current events, to look at them through the prism of philosophical, moral and ethical, and simple, everyday problems, which are “eternal” for all mankind, favorably distinguishes Turgenev's fiction from the topical “creations” of Messrs. Chernyshevsky, Nekrasov, etc.

Unlike author-journalists, thirsting for immediate commercial success and quick fame, the "literary aristocrat" Turgenev had the happy opportunity not to flirt with the reading public, not to be led by fashion editors and publishers, but to write as he saw fit. Turgenev speaks honestly about his Bazarov: "And if he is called a nihilist, then one must read: a revolutionary." But does Russia need such"Revolutionaries"? Everyone, having read the novel "Fathers and Sons", must decide for himself.

At the beginning of the novel, Bazarov bears little resemblance to a living character. A nihilist who does not take anything for granted, denies everything that cannot be touched, he zealously defends his disembodied, completely immaterial idol, whose name is “nothing,” that is, Emptiness.

Having no positive program, Bazarov sets as his main task only destruction ( "We need to break others!" ; “First, we need to clear the place,” and so on.). But why? What does he want to create in this void? "It's not our business anymore," Bazarov answers the quite natural question of Nikolai Petrovich.

The future has clearly shown that the ideological followers of the Russian nihilists, revolutionaries-janitors of the 20th century, were not at all interested in the question of who, how and what would create in the empty space cleared by them. It was on these "rakes" that the first Provisional Government came in February 1917, then the ardent Bolsheviks also attacked them more than once, clearing the way for a bloody totalitarian regime ...

Genius artists, as seers, sometimes discover the truths, reliably hidden behind the veils of future mistakes, disappointments, and ignorance. Perhaps unconsciously, but already then, in the 60s of the 19th century, Turgenev foresaw the hopelessness, even disastrousness of the path of purely materialistic, spiritless progress, leading to the destruction of the very foundations of human existence.

Destroyers like Turgenev's Bazarov are sincerely deceiving themselves and deceiving others. As bright, attractive personalities, they can become ideological leaders, leaders, they can lead people, manipulate them, but ... if a blind person leads a blind person, then sooner or later both will fall into the pit. Known truth.

Only life itself can clearly prove to such people the inconsistency of the chosen path.

Bazarov and Odintsova: a test of love

In order to deprive the image of Bazarov of its caricatured sketchiness, to give it vivid, realistic features, the author of Fathers and Sons deliberately subjects his hero to the traditional test of love.

Love for Anna Sergeevna Odintsova, as a manifestation of the true component of human life, "breaks" Bazarov's theory. After all, the truth of life is stronger than any artificially created "systems".

It turned out that "superman" Bazarov, like all people, is not free over his feelings. Disgusted with aristocrats in general, he falls in love not with a peasant woman, but with a proud, worldly lady who knows her worth, an aristocrat to the core. “Plebei”, who imagines himself to be the master of his own destiny, turns out to be beyond his powers to subjugate such a woman. A fierce struggle begins, but the struggle is not with the object of one's passion, but with oneself, with one's own nature. Bazarov's thesis "Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and a person is a worker in it" scatters to smithereens. Like any mortal, Bazarov is subject to jealousy, passion, is able to "lose his head" from love, to experience the whole gamut of feelings previously denied by him, to reach a completely different level of awareness of himself as a person. Evgeny Bazarov is capable of love, and this "metaphysics" previously denied by a convinced materialist almost drives him crazy.

However, the “humanization” of the hero does not lead to his spiritual rebirth. Lyubov Bazarova is selfish. He perfectly understands all the falsity of the rumors spread about Odintsova by provincial gossips, but he does not bother to understand and accept her real one. It is no coincidence that Turgenev turns to Anna Sergeevna's past in such detail. Odintsova is even more inexperienced in love than Bazarov himself. He fell in love for the first time, she never loved. A young, beautiful, very lonely woman was disappointed in a love relationship, without even recognizing them. She willingly replaces the concept of happiness with the concepts of comfort, order, peace of mind, because she is afraid of love, as any person is afraid of something unfamiliar and unknown. During the entire time of their acquaintance, Odintsov did not bring Bazarov closer and did not repulse him. Like any woman who is ready to love, she is waiting for the first step from a potential lover, but Bazarov's unbridled, almost bestial passion frightened Anna Sergeevna even more, forcing her to seek salvation in the orderliness and tranquility of her former life. Bazarov has neither experience nor worldly wisdom to act differently. He “has to do the job,” and not delve into the intricacies of someone else's soul.

Adaptation of the novel

Oddly enough, but the most philosophical, completely non-cinematographic novel by I.S. Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons" was screened five times in our country: in 1915, 1958, 1974 (TV show), 1983, 2008.

Almost all the directors of these productions followed the same thankless path. They tried to convey in all details the eventual and ideological components of the novel, forgetting about its main, philosophical implication. In the film by A. Bergunker and N. Rashevskaya (1958), the main emphasis is naturally placed on social and class contradictions. Against the background of the caricatured types of the provincial nobles Kirsanovs and Odintsova, Bazarov looks like a completely positive, "sleek" democrat hero, a harbinger of a great socialist future. In addition to Bazarov, in the 1958 film there is not a single character attractive to the viewer. Even the "Turgenev girl" Katya Lokteva is presented as a round (in the literal sense of the word) fool who says clever things.

The four-part version of V. Nikiforov (1983), despite the beautiful constellation of actors (V. Bogin, V. Konkin, B. Khimichev, V. Samoilov, N. Danilova), when it appeared, disappointed the viewer with an overt textbook expression, expressed primarily in literal following the text of Turgenev's novel. Reproaches of "being drawn out", "dry", "non-cinematographic" continue to pour down on its creators from the lips of the present viewer, who cannot imagine a movie without Hollywood "action" and humor "below the belt." Meanwhile, it is precisely in following Turgenev's text that, in our opinion, is the main advantage of the 1983 film adaptation. Classical literature is called classical because it does not need later proofreading or original interpretations. Everything is important in Fathers and Sons. It is impossible to throw out or add anything from it without prejudice to understanding the meaning of this work. Deliberately abandoning the selectivity of the texts and unjustified "gag", the filmmakers managed to fully convey the Turgenev mood, make the viewer involved in the events and heroes, reveal almost all facets, all "layers" of the difficult, highly artistic creation of the Russian classic.

But in the acclaimed serial version by A. Smirnova (2008), unfortunately, the Turgenev mood has completely disappeared. Despite the shooting on location in Spassky-Lutovinovo, a good selection of actors for the main roles, "Fathers and Sons" by Smirnova and "Fathers and Sons" by I.S. Turgenev are two different works.

A cute young scoundrel Bazarov (A. Ustyugov), created in contrast to the "good character" of the 1958 film, enters into an intellectual duel with the charming old man Pavel Petrovich (A. Smirnov). However, it is impossible to understand the essence of this conflict in Smirnova's film, with all the will. The mediocrely cut text of Turgenev's dialogues is more reminiscent of the lack of true drama, the languid arguments of today's children with today's fathers. The 19th century is indicated only by the absence of modern youth jargon in the speech of the characters, and the French slipping from time to time, and not English words... And if in the 1958 film one can see a clear bias of the author's sympathies towards "children", then in the 2008 film the opposite situation is clearly traced. A wonderful duet of Bazarov's parents (Yursky - Tenyakova), touching in his offense Nikolai Petrovich (A. Vasiliev), not even suitable in age for the role of the elder Kirsanov A. Smirnov "outplay" Bazarov in terms of acting and thus leave the viewer in no doubt in their rightness.

Anyone who is not too lazy to reread Turgenev's text thoughtfully will understand that such an interpretation of Fathers and Sons has nothing to do with the novel itself. The work of Turgenev is therefore considered “eternal”, “everlasting” (as defined by N. Strakhov), because there are no “pluses” or “minuses” in it, no harsh condemnation or complete justification of the heroes. The novel makes us think and choose, and the filmmakers of 2008 just shot a remake of the 1958 production, sticking minus and plus signs to the faces of other characters.

It is also sad that the absolute majority of our contemporaries (judging by the reviews on Internet forums and critical articles in the press) suited such a director's approach: glamorous, not quite trivial, and, moreover, perfectly adapted for the mass consumer of the Hollywood movement. What else is needed?

"He is predatory, and we are tame,"- noticed Katya, thus marking a deep abyss between the main character and other characters of the novel. To overcome the "interspecific difference", to make Bazarov an ordinary "doubting intellectual" - a district doctor, teacher or zemstvo leader would have been too Chekhovian. Such a move was not included in the intentions of the author of the novel. Turgenev only sowed doubt in his soul, and life itself dealt with Bazarov.

The author emphasizes the impossibility of rebirth, the spiritual static nature of Bazarov by the absurd accident of his death. For a miracle to happen, the hero needed mutual love. But Anna Sergeevna could not love him.

N.N. Strakhov wrote about Bazarov:

“He dies, but until the last moment he remains alien to this life, with which he so strangely faced, which alarmed him with such trifles, forced him to do such stupid things and, finally, ruined him due to such an insignificant reason.

Bazarov dies a perfect hero, and his death makes an amazing impression. Until the very end, until the last flash of consciousness, he does not betray himself with a single word, not a single sign of cowardice. He is broken, but not defeated ... "

Unlike the critic Strakhov and others like him, I.S. Turgenev, already in 1861, was quite obvious the nonviability and historical doom of the "new people" who were worshiped by the progressive public of that time.

The cult of destruction in the name of destruction alone is alien to the living principle, the manifestation of the fact that later L.N. Tolstoy in his novel "War and Peace" designated the term "swarm life". Andrei Bolkonsky, like Bazarov, is incapable of rebirth. Both authors kill their heroes, because they deny them ownership of the true, real life... Moreover, Turgenev's Bazarov until the end "Does not cheat on himself" and, unlike Bolkonsky, at the moment of his by no means heroic, absurd death does not evoke pity. I sincerely feel sorry for his unfortunate parents to tears, because they are alive. Bazarov is a "dead man" to a much greater extent than a living "dead man" Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov. He is still able to cling to life (for fidelity to his memories, for love for Fenechka). Bazarov is dead-born by definition. Even love cannot save him.

"Neither fathers nor children"

"Neither fathers, nor children, - said one witty lady to me after reading my book, - this is the real title of your story - and you yourself are a nihilist."
I.S.Turgenev "About" Fathers and Sons "

If we follow the path of the 19th century critics and again begin to clarify the author's position on the social conflict between the generations of “fathers” and “children” of the 1860s, then only one thing can be said with certainty: neither fathers nor children.

Today one cannot but agree with the same Pisarev and Strakhov - the difference between generations is never so great and tragic as at the turning points in history. The 1860s for Russia were just such a moment when "The great chain broke, it broke - it scattered one end over the master, the other over the peasant! .."

Large-scale government reforms carried out "from above" and the associated liberalization of society were delayed by more than half a century. The "children" of the 60s, who expected too much from the inevitable future changes, found themselves too cramped in the narrow caftan of moderate liberalism of their "fathers" who had not yet had time to grow old. They wanted real freedom, Pugachev's freemen, so that everything that was old and hated was burnt into flames, completely burned down. A generation of revolutionary arsonists was born, mindlessly denying all the previous experience accumulated by humanity.

Thus, the conflict between fathers and children in Turgenev's novel is by no means a family conflict. The Kirsanov-Bazarov conflict also goes far beyond the social conflict between the old noble aristocracy and the young revolutionary-democratic intelligentsia. This is a conflict between two historical eras that accidentally came into contact with each other in the house of the Kirsanov landowners. Pavel Petrovich and Nikolai Petrovich symbolize the irrevocably gone past, with which everything is clear, Bazarov is a still undecided, wandering like dough in a tub, a mysterious present. What will come out of this test - only the future will show. But neither Bazarov nor his ideological opponents have a future.

Turgenev is equally ironic about “children” and “fathers”. He portrays some in the form of self-confident, selfish false prophets, others endows with the features of offended righteous, or even calls them "dead". Both the boorish "plebeian" Bazarov, with his "progressive" views, and the refined aristocrat Pavel Petrovich, packed in the armor of moderate liberalism of the 1840s, are equally ridiculous. In their ideological clash, one can trace not so much a clash of convictions as a clash of tragic delusions both generations. By and large, they have nothing to argue about and nothing to oppose to each other, because there is much more that unites them than that separates them.

Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich are extremely schematic characters. They are both alien to real life, but living people are active around them: Arkady and Katya, Nikolai Petrovich and Fenechka, touching, loving old people - Bazarov's parents. None of them is capable of creating something fundamentally new, but no one is capable of thoughtless destruction either.

That is why they all remain to live, and Bazarov dies, thereby interrupting all the author's assumptions on the topic of his further development.

However, Turgenev still takes the liberty of lifting the veil over the future generation of "fathers". After the duel with Bazarov, Pavel Petrovich calls on his brother to marry the commoner Fenichka, to whom, contrary to all his rules, he is far from indifferent. This is a manifestation of the loyalty of the generation of "fathers" to the already almost accomplished future. And although the duel between Kirsanov and Bazarov is presented by the author as a very comical episode, it can be called one of the most powerful, even key scenes in the novel. Turgenev deliberately reduces the social, ideological, age conflict to a purely everyday insult to the individual and pushes the heroes in a duel not for convictions, but for honor.

The innocent scene in the pavilion could have seemed (and indeed seemed) to Pavel Petrovich insulting to the honor of his brother. In addition, jealousy speaks in him: Fenichka is not indifferent to the old aristocrat. He takes a cane, like a knight spear, and goes to challenge the offender to a duel. Bazarov understands that refusal will entail a direct threat to his personal honor. He accepts the challenge. The eternal concept of "honor" is higher than his far-fetched convictions, higher than the assumed posture of a nihilist-denier.

For the sake of unshakable moral truths, Bazarov plays by the rules of the "old people", thereby proving the continuity of both generations at the human level, the prospect of their productive dialogue.

The possibility of such a dialogue, apart from the social and ideological contradictions of the era, is the main component of human life. Ultimately, only eternal, not subject to temporary changes, real values and eternal truths are the basis for the continuity of generations of "fathers" and "children".

According to Turgenev, the “fathers”, even if they were wrong, tried to understand the younger generation, showing their readiness for future dialogue. The "children" only have to go through this difficult path. The author wants to believe that the path of Arkady Kirsanov, who went through disappointment in the former ideals, who found his love and true destiny, is more correct than the path of Bazarov. But Turgenev, as a wise thinker, avoids dictating his personal opinion to his contemporaries and descendants. He leaves the reader at a crossroads: everyone must choose for himself ...