Literary and historical notes of a young technician. Fathers and sons in Russian criticism Literary critic fathers and sons

Not a single work of I. S. Turgenev caused such contradictory responses as "Fathers and Sons" (1861). It couldn't be otherwise. The writer reflected in the novel the turning point in the public consciousness of Russia, when revolutionary-democratic thought replaced noble liberalism. Two real forces clashed in the evaluation of Fathers and Sons.

Turgenev himself ambivalently perceived the image he created. He wrote to A. Fet: “Did I want to scold Bazarov or exalt him? I don’t know this myself…” Turgenev told A.I. The heterogeneity of the author's feelings was noticed by Turgenev's contemporaries. The editor of the Russky Vestnik magazine, where the novel was published, M. N. Katkov was outraged by the omnipotence of the “new man”. Critic 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." Critical remarks were made by A. I. Herzen, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. D. I. Pisarev, editor of Russkoye Slovo, saw the truth of life in the novel: “Turgenev does not like merciless denial, but meanwhile the personality of a merciless denier comes out as a strong personality and inspires respect in the reader”; "... No one in the novel can compare with Bazarov either in strength of mind or in strength of character."

Turgenev's novel, according to Pisarev, is also remarkable for the fact that it excites the mind, leads to reflection. Pisarev accepted everything in Bazarov: both a dismissive attitude towards art, and a simplified view of a person’s spiritual life, and an attempt to comprehend love through the prism of natural science views. material from the site

In the article by D. I. Pisarev "Bazarov" there are many controversial provisions. But the general interpretation of the work is convincing, and the reader often agrees with the thoughts of the critic. Not everyone who spoke about the novel "Fathers and Sons" could see, compare and evaluate the personality of Bazarov, and this is natural. In our time of restructuring life, this type of personality can be equaled, but we need a slightly different Bazarov ... Another thing is also important for us. Bazarov selflessly spoke out against the routine of spiritual stagnation, dreamed of establishing new social relations. The origins of the condition, the results of this activity of his, were, of course, different. But the idea itself - to remake the world, the human soul, to breathe into it the living energy of daring - cannot but excite today. In such a broad sense, the figure of Bazarov acquires a special sound. It is not difficult to see the external difference between “fathers” and “children”, but it is much more difficult to understand the internal content of the controversy between them. N. A. Dobrolyubov, a critic of the Sovremennik magazine, helps us with this. "... People of the Bazarov warehouse," he believes, "decide to set foot on the road of merciless denial in order to find the pure truth." Comparing the positions of people of the 40s and people of the 60s, N. A. Dobrolyubov said about the first: “They strove for the truth, wished for good, they were captivated by everything beautiful, but principles were above all for them. Principles they called the general philosophical idea, which they recognized as the basis of all their logic and morality. Dobrolyubov called the Sixties "the young active generation of the time": they do not know how to shine and make noise, they do not worship any idols, "their final goal is not slavish loyalty to abstract higher ideas, but bringing the greatest possible benefit to humanity." "Fathers and Sons" is an "artistic document" of the ideological struggle in Russia in the middle of the 19th century. In this respect, the cognitive value of the novel will never dry up. But Turgenev's work cannot be limited to this meaning alone. The writer discovered for all epochs the important process of generational change - the replacement of obsolete forms of consciousness by new ones, showed the difficulty of their germination. It is also striking that I. S. Turgenev so long ago discovered conflicts that are very relevant for today. What are "fathers" and "children", what connects and separates them? The question is not idle. The past provides many necessary guidelines for the present. Imagine how much easier Bazarov's fate would have been if he had not deleted the experience accumulated by mankind from his luggage? Turgenev tells us about the danger of the next generation losing the achievements of human culture, about the tragic consequences of enmity and separation of people.

Barely published, the novel caused a flurry of critical articles. None of the public camps accepted Turgenev's new creation.

According to Dostoevsky, Bazarov is a "theorist" 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 a specific consideration of Bazarov's theory. He correctly asserts that any abstract, rational theory is shattered by life and brings suffering and torment to a person. According to Soviet critics, Dostoevsky reduced the whole problematic of the novel to an ethical-psychological complex, obscuring the social with the universal, instead of revealing the specifics of both.

Liberal criticism, on the other hand, has been too carried away by 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.

In contrast to the conservative-liberal camp, democratic journals differed in their assessment of the problems of Turgenev's novel: Sovremennik and Iskra saw in it a slander on raznochintsev 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 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 sharp attacks and unsubstantiated accusations against the author of Fathers and Sons. The critic suspected Turgenev of colluding with the reactionaries, who allegedly "ordered" the writer a deliberately slanderous, accusatory novel, accused him of departing from realism, pointed to the rough sketchiness, even the caricature of the images of the main characters. However, Antonovich's article is quite consistent with the general tone that was taken by the Sovremennik staff after a number of leading writers left the editorial office. To personally scold Turgenev and his works became almost the duty of the Nekrasov magazine.

DI. Pisarev, the editor of the Russian Word, on the contrary, saw the truth of life in the novel Fathers and Sons, taking the position of a consistent apologist for the image of Bazarov. In the article "Bazarov" he wrote: "Turgenev does not like merciless denial, but meanwhile the personality of a merciless denier comes out as a strong personality and inspires respect in the reader"; "... No one in the novel can compare with Bazarov either in strength of mind or in strength of character."

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

For Pisarev, Bazarov is a man of action, a natural scientist, a materialist, an experimenter. He "recognizes only what can be felt with the hands, seen with the eyes, put on the tongue, in a word, only what 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 a will without knowledge, the Rudins have knowledge without a will; the Bazarovs have both knowledge and will, thought and deed merge into one solid whole. Such an interpretation of the image of the protagonist was to the taste of the revolutionary democratic youth, who made their idol the “new man” with his reasonable egoism, contempt for authorities, traditions, and the established world order.

... Turgenev now looks at the present from the height of the past. He doesn't follow us; he calmly looks after us, describes our gait, tells us how we quicken 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 worldview 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 fullness. Turgenev himself will never be Bazarov, but he thought about this type and understood him as truly as none of our young realists will understand ...

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

“Bazarov does not in the least arouse disgust in us 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 treatment and the figures of Bazarov do not arouse disgust in them, but rather inspire respect for him. He was warmly received in Anna Sergeevna's drawing room, where even some poor princess sat ... "

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

Roman Turgenev stirred up all layers of Russian society. The controversy about nihilism, about the image of the naturalist, 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 there were none left at all. Bazarov was raised to the shield as a harbinger of the coming storm, as the banner of all who wish to destroy, without giving anything in return. (“... it’s none of our business anymore… First we need to clear the place.”)

Against such a vulgar and unfair interpretation of the history of the novel "Fathers and Sons" as early as 1869, Turgenev himself strongly objected in his essay "On the "Fathers and Sons": “I remember that one critic (Turgenev meant M. Antonovich) in strong and eloquent terms, addressed directly to me, presented me together with Mr. Katkov in the form of two conspirators, in the silence of a secluded office plotting their vile cove, their young Russian forces ... The picture came out spectacular!

An attempt by V.A. Arkhipov 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 G. Friedländer's article "On the Disputes about Fathers and Sons" and in the editorial "Literary Studies and Modernity" in Voprosy Literatury. They note the universal significance of the novel and its protagonist.

Of course, there could be no "conspiracy" 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 "collusion" Pisarev and other zealous apologists of Bazarov started a campaign to exalt this quite unambiguous "hero" - it is still unclear ...

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Lesson Objectives:

educational

Educational

During the classes

Turgenev had no pretension and audacity
create a novel
all kinds of directions;
admirer of eternal beauty,
he had a proud goal in the temporal
point to eternity
and wrote a novel not progressive
and not retrograde, but,
so to speak, always.

N. Strakhov

Introductory speech of the teacher

Today we, completing work on Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons", must answer the most important question that always confronts us, the readers, how deeply we penetrated the author's intention, were we able to understand his attitude both to the central character and to beliefs young nihilists.

Consider different points of view on Turgenev's novel.

The appearance of the novel became an event in the cultural life of Russia, and not only because it was a wonderful book by a wonderful writer. Passions boiled around her, by no means literary. Shortly before publication, Turgenev broke off relations with Nekrasov and decisively parted ways with the editors of Sovremennik. Each speech of the writer in the press was perceived by his recent comrades, and now opponents as an attack against the Nekrasov circle. Therefore, fathers and children found many particularly picky readers, for example, in the democratic magazines Sovremennik and Russkoe Slovo.

Speaking about the attacks of criticism on Turgenev about his novel, Dostoevsky wrote: “Well, he got it for Bazarov, the restless and yearning Bazarov (a sign of a great heart), despite all his nihilism.”

Work is carried out in groups, using a case for the lesson. (see Attachment)

1 group works with the case on the article Antonovich M.A. "Asmodeus of our time"

Among the critics was the young Maxim Alekseevich Antonovich, who worked in the editorial office of Sovremennik. This publicist became famous for not writing a single positive review. He was a master of devastating articles. One of the first evidence of this extraordinary talent was a critical analysis of "Fathers and Sons"

The title of the article is taken from Askochensky's novel of the same name, published in 1858. The protagonist of the book - a certain Pustovtsev - a cold and cynical villain, the true Asmodeus - an evil demon from Jewish mythology, seduced Mari, the main character, with his speeches. The fate of the protagonist is tragic: Marie dies, Pustovtsev shot himself and died without repentance. According to Antonovich, Turgenev treats the younger generation with the same ruthlessness as Askochensky.

2 group works with a case according to the article D. I. Pisarev "Fathers and Sons", a novel by I. S. Turgenev.

Introductory speech by the teacher before the performance of the students.

Simultaneously with Antonovich, Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev responded to Turgenev's new book in the Russian Word magazine. The leading critic of the Russian Word rarely admired anything. He was a true nihilist - the overthrower of shrines and foundations. He was just one of those young (only 22 years old) people who in the early 60s renounced the cultural traditions of their fathers and preached useful, practical activity. He considered it indecent to talk about poetry, music in a world where many people are experiencing the pangs of hunger! In 1868 he absurdly died: he drowned while swimming, never having had time to become an adult, like Dobrolyubov or Bazarov.

Group 3 works with a case made up of excerpts from Turgenev's letters to Sluchevsky, Herzen.

The youth of the mid-19th century were in a position much like yours today. The older generation tirelessly engaged in self-disclosure. Newspapers and magazines were full of articles that Russia was in crisis and needed reforms. The Crimean War was lost, the army was put to shame, the landlord economy fell into decay, education and legal proceedings needed to be updated. Is it any wonder that the younger generation has lost confidence in the experience of their fathers?

Conversation on:

Are there any winners in the novel? Fathers or children?

What is a marketplace?

Does it exist today?

From what Turgenev warns the individual and society?

Does Russia need the Bazarovs?

On the board are the words, when do you think they were written?

(Only we are the face of our time!
The horn of time blows us in verbal art!
The past is tight. The Academy and Pushkin are more incomprehensible than hieroglyphs!
Throw Pushkin, Dostevsky, Tolstoy and so on. and so on. from the steamer of modern times!
Whoever does not forget his first love will not know his last!

This is 1912 part of the manifesto “Slap in the face of public taste”, so the ideas that Bazarov expressed found their continuation?

Summing up the lesson:

“Fathers and Sons” is a book about the great laws of being that do not depend on man. We see little ones in her. Uselessly fussing people against the backdrop of eternal, regal-calm nature. Turgenev does not seem to prove anything, he convinces us that going against nature is madness and any such rebellion leads to trouble. A person should not rebel against those laws that are not determined by him, but dictated ... by God, by nature? They are immutable. This is the law of love for life and love for people, first of all for your loved ones, the law of striving for happiness and the law of enjoying beauty ... In Turgenev’s novel, what is natural wins: “Prodigal” Arkady returns to his parental home, families are created, based on love, and the rebellious, cruel, prickly Bazarov, even after his death, is still remembered and selflessly loved by aging parents.

An expressive reading of the final passage from the novel.

Homework: Preparing to write a novel.

Literature for the lesson:

I.S. Turgenev. Selected writings. Moscow. Fiction. 1987
Basovskaya E.N. “Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century. Moscow. "Olympus". 1998.
Antonovich M.A. "Asmodeus of our time" http://az.lib.ru/a/antonowich_m_a/text_0030.shtml
D. I. Pisarev Bazarov. "Fathers and Sons", novel by I. S. Turgenev http://az.lib.ru/p/pisarew_d/text_0220.shtml

MOU "Gymnasium No. 42"

The novel "Fathers and Sons" in reviews of critics

Completed: student 10 "b" class

Koshevoy Evgeniy

Checked:

teacher of Russian language and literature

Proskurina Olga Stepanovna

Barnaul 2008

Introduction

Abstract topic: “The novel “Fathers and Children” in the reviews of critics (D.I. Pisarev, M.A. Antonovich, N.N. Strakhov)”

The purpose of the work: to display the image of Bazarov in the novel with the help of articles by critics.

With the release of the novel by I.S. Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons" begins a lively discussion of it in the press, which immediately acquired a sharp polemical character. Almost all Russian newspapers and magazines responded to the appearance of the novel. The work gave rise to disagreements, both between ideological opponents and among like-minded people, for example, in the democratic magazines Sovremennik and Russkoe Slovo. The dispute, in essence, was about the type of a new revolutionary figure in Russian history.

Sovremennik responded to the novel with an article by M.A. Antonovich "Asmodeus of our time". The circumstances connected with the departure of Turgenev from Sovremennik predisposed to the fact that the novel was assessed negatively by the critic. Antonovich saw in it a panegyric to the “fathers” and a slander on the younger generation.

In the journal "Russian Word" in 1862, an article by D.I. Pisarev "Bazarov". The critic notes a certain bias of the author in relation to Bazarov, says that in a number of cases Turgenev “does not favor his hero”, that he experiences “an involuntary antipathy to this line of thought.

In 1862, in the fourth book of the Vremya magazine published by F.M. and M.M. Dostoevsky, an interesting article by N.N. Strakhov, which is called “I.S. Turgenev. "Fathers and Sons". Strakhov is convinced that the novel is a remarkable achievement of Turgenev the artist. The critic considers the image of Bazarov to be extremely typical.

At the end of the decade, Turgenev himself joins the controversy around the novel. In the article “Regarding “Fathers and Sons,” he tells the story of his idea, the stages of the publication of the novel, and makes his judgments about the objectivity of reproducing reality: “... Accurately and strongly reproducing the truth, the reality of life, is the highest happiness for a writer, even if this truth does not coincide with his own sympathies.”

The works considered in the essay are not the only responses of the Russian public to Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons. Almost every Russian writer and critic expressed in one form or another his attitude to the problems raised in the novel.

DI. Pisarev "Bazarov"

People who stand above the general level in terms of their mental powers are most often affected by the disease of the century. Bazarov is obsessed with this disease. He is distinguished by a remarkable mind and, as a result, makes a strong impression on people who encounter him. "A real person," he says, "is one about whom there is nothing to think about, but whom one must obey or hate." It is Bazarov himself who fits the definition of this person. He immediately captures the attention of others; Some he intimidates and repels, others he subjugates by his direct strength, simplicity and integrity of his concepts. "When I meet a man who would not give in to me," he said with emphasis, "then I will change my mind about myself." From this statement of Bazarov, we understand that he has never met a person equal to himself.

He looks down on people and rarely hides his semi-contemptuous attitude towards people who hate him and those who obey him. He doesn't love anyone.

He does this because he considers it superfluous to embarrass his person in any way, for the same impulse that Americans put their feet on the backs of their chairs and spit tobacco juice on the parquet floors of luxurious hotels. Bazarov does not need anyone, and therefore spares no one. Like Diogenes, he is ready to live almost in a barrel and for this he gives himself the right to speak harsh truths to people's eyes, because he likes it. In Bazarov's cynicism, two sides can be distinguished - internal and external: the cynicism of thoughts and feelings, and the cynicism of manners and expressions. An ironic attitude to feeling of any kind. The crude expression of this irony, the unreasonable and aimless harshness in the address, belong to outward cynicism. The first depends on the mindset and on the general outlook; the second is determined by the properties of the society in which the subject in question lived. Bazarov is not only an empiricist - he is, moreover, an uncouth bursh who knows no other life than the homeless, working life of a poor student. Among Bazarov's admirers, there will probably be people who will admire his rude manners, traces of the bursat life, will imitate these manners, which are his drawback. Among the haters of Bazarov there are people who will pay special attention to these features of his personality and put them in reproach to the general type. Both will err and reveal only a deep misunderstanding of the present matter.

Arkady Nikolaevich is a young man, not stupid, but devoid of mental orientation and constantly in need of someone's intellectual support. Compared to Bazarov, he seems to be a completely unfledged chick, despite the fact that he is about twenty-three years old and that he completed his course at the university. Arkady denies authority with pleasure, reverent for his teacher. But he does it from someone else's voice, not noticing the internal contradiction in his behavior. He is too weak to stand on his own in the atmosphere in which Bazarov breathes so freely. Arkady belongs to the category of people who are always guarded and never notice guardianship over themselves. Bazarov treats him patronizingly and almost always mockingly. Arkady often argues with him, but usually achieves nothing. He does not love his friend, but somehow involuntarily submits to the influence of a strong personality, and, moreover, imagines that he deeply sympathizes with Bazarov's worldview. We can say that Arkady's relationship with Bazarov is made to order. He met him somewhere in a student circle, became interested in his worldview, submitted to his strength and imagined that he deeply respects him and loves him from the bottom of his heart.

Arkady's father, Nikolai Petrovich, is a man in his early forties; in terms of personality, he is very similar to his son. As a soft and sensitive person, Nikolai Petrovich does not rush to rationalism and calms down on such a worldview that gives food to his imagination.

Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov, can be called Pechorin of small size; he fooled around in his lifetime, and, finally, he got tired of everything; he failed to settle down, and this was not in his character; having reached the point where regrets are like hopes and hopes are like regrets, the former lion retired to his brother in the village, surrounded himself with elegant comfort and turned his life into a calm vegetative existence. An outstanding recollection from the former noisy and brilliant life of Pavel Petrovich was a strong feeling for one high society woman, which brought him much pleasure and, as almost always happens, much suffering. When Pavel Petrovich's relationship with this woman broke off, his life was completely empty. As a man with a flexible mind and a strong will, Pavel Petrovich differs sharply from his brother and from his nephew. He is not influenced by others. He himself subjugates the surrounding personalities and hates those people in whom he meets resistance. He has no convictions, but there are habits that he cherishes very much. He talks about the rights and duties of the aristocracy and proves in disputes the need principles. He is accustomed to the ideas that society holds on to and stands up for these ideas as for his own comfort. He hates to have anyone refute these concepts, although, in fact, he does not have any heartfelt affection for them. He argues with Bazarov much more energetically than his brother. At heart, Pavel Petrovich is the same skeptic and empiricist as Bazarov himself. In life, he has always acted and is doing as he pleases, but he does not know how to admit this to himself and therefore supports in words such doctrines, which his actions constantly contradict. Uncle and nephew should have exchanged beliefs between themselves, because the former mistakenly ascribes to himself a belief in principles, the second just as mistakenly imagines himself a bold rationalist. Pavel Petrovich begins to feel the strongest antipathy for Bazarov from the first meeting. Bazarov's plebeian manners outrage the retired dandy. His self-confidence and unceremoniousness irritate Pavel Petrovich. He sees that Bazarov will not give in to him, and this arouses in him a feeling of annoyance, which he seizes on as entertainment amid deep village boredom. Hating Bazarov himself, Pavel Petrovich is indignant at all his opinions, finds fault with him, forcibly challenges him to an argument and argues with that zealous enthusiasm that idle and bored people usually show.

On whose side do the sympathies of the artist lie? Who does he sympathize with? This question can be answered as follows: Turgenev does not fully sympathize with any of his characters. Not a single weak or funny feature escapes his analysis. We see how Bazarov lies in his denial, how Arkady enjoys his development, how Nikolai Petrovich becomes shy, like a fifteen-year-old youth, and how Pavel Petrovich shows off and gets angry, why does Bazarov not admire him, the only person whom he respects in his very hatred .

Bazarov lies - this, unfortunately, is fair. He denies things he does not know or understand. Poetry, in his opinion, is nonsense. Reading Pushkin is a waste of time; making music is funny; enjoying nature is ridiculous. He is a man worn out by working life.

Bazarov's passion for science is natural. It is explained: firstly, by the one-sidedness of development, and secondly, by the general character of the era in which they had to live. Eugene thoroughly knows the natural and medical sciences. With their assistance, he knocked out all sorts of prejudices from his head, then he remained an extremely uneducated person. He had heard something about poetry, something about art, but he did not bother to think, and slurred his sentence over objects unfamiliar to him.

Bazarov has no friend, because he has not yet met a person "who would not give in to him." He does not feel the need for any other person. When a thought occurs to him, he simply expresses himself, not paying attention to the reaction of the listeners. Most often he does not even feel the need to speak out: he thinks to himself and occasionally drops a cursory remark, which is usually taken up with respectful greed by chicks like Arkady. Bazarov's personality closes in on itself, because outside of it and around it there are almost no elements related to it. This isolation of Bazarov has a hard effect on those people who want tenderness and sociability from him, but there is nothing artificial and deliberate in this isolation. The people surrounding Bazarov are mentally insignificant and cannot stir him up in any way, which is why he is silent, or speaks fragmentary aphorisms, or breaks off an argument he has begun, feeling its ridiculous futility. Bazarov does not put on airs in front of others, does not consider himself a man of genius, he is simply forced to look down on his acquaintances, because these acquaintances are knee-deep. What should he do? After all, he shouldn’t sit on the floor in order to catch up with them in height? He involuntarily remains in solitude, and this solitude is not difficult for him because he is busy with the vigorous work of his own thought. The process of this work remains in the shadows. I doubt that Turgenev would be able to give us a description of this process. To portray him, one must be Bazarov himself, but this did not happen with Turgenev. In the writer, we see only the results that Bazarov came to, the external side of the phenomenon, i.e. we hear what Bazarov says, and find out how he acts in life, how he treats different people. We do not find a psychological analysis of Bazarov's thoughts. We can only guess what he thought and how he formulated his convictions to himself. Without initiating the reader into the secrets of Bazarov's mental life, Turgenev can arouse bewilderment in that part of the public that is not accustomed to supplementing with the labor of its own thought what is not agreed upon or not completed in the writer's work. An inattentive reader may think that Bazarov has no inner content, and that all his nihilism consists of a weave of bold phrases snatched from the air and not worked out by independent thinking. Turgenev himself does not understand his hero in the same way, and only therefore does not follow the gradual development and maturation of his ideas. Bazarov's thoughts are expressed in his actions. They shine through, and it is not difficult to see them, if only one reads carefully, grouping the facts and being aware of their causes.

Depicting Bazarov's attitude towards the elderly, Turgenev does not at all turn into an accuser, deliberately choosing gloomy colors. He remains as before a sincere artist and depicts the phenomenon as it is, without sweetening or brightening it up as he pleases. Turgenev himself, perhaps by his nature, approaches compassionate people. He is sometimes carried away by sympathy for the naive, almost unconscious sadness of the old mother and for the restrained, bashful feeling of the old father. He is carried away to such an extent that he is almost ready to reproach and blame Bazarov. But in this hobby one cannot look for anything deliberate and calculated. Only the loving nature of Turgenev himself is reflected in him, and it is difficult to find anything reprehensible in this property of his character. Turgenev is not to blame for pitying the poor old people and even sympathizing with their irreparable grief. There is no reason for a writer to hide his sympathies for the sake of this or that psychological or social theory. These sympathies do not force him to distort his soul and disfigure reality, therefore, they do not harm either the dignity of the novel or the personal character of the artist.

Arkady, in the words of Bazarov, fell into the jackdaws and directly from under the influence of his friend came under the soft power of his young wife. But be that as it may, Arkady made a nest for himself, found his happiness, and Bazarov remained a homeless, unwarmed wanderer. This is not a random circumstance. If you, gentlemen, understand Bazarov's character in any way, then you will be forced to agree that it is very difficult to attach such a person and that he cannot, without changing, become a virtuous family man. Bazarov can only love a very smart woman. Having fallen in love with a woman, he will not subordinate his love to any conditions. He will not restrain himself, and in the same way he will not artificially warm up his feeling when it has cooled down after complete satisfaction. He takes the location of a woman when it is given to him completely voluntarily and unconditionally. But we usually have smart women, cautious and prudent. Their dependent position makes them afraid of public opinion and not give free rein to their desires. They are afraid of the unknown future, and therefore a rare smart woman will decide to throw herself on the neck of her beloved man without first binding him with a strong promise in the face of society and the church. Dealing with Bazarov, this smart woman will realize very soon that no promise will bind the unbridled will of this wayward man and that he cannot be obliged to be a good husband and gentle father of the family. She will understand that Bazarov will either not make any promise at all, or, having made it in a moment of complete enthusiasm, will break it when this enthusiasm dissipates. In a word, she will understand that Bazarov's feeling is free and will remain free, despite any oaths and contracts. Arkady is much more likely to please a young girl, despite the fact that Bazarov is incomparably smarter and more wonderful than his young comrade. A woman capable of appreciating Bazarov will not give herself up to him without preconditions, because such a woman knows life and, by calculation, protects her reputation. A woman capable of being carried away by feelings, as a being naive and thinking little, will not understand Bazarov and will not love him. In a word, for Bazarov there are no women who can evoke a serious feeling in him and, for their part, warmly respond to this feeling. If Bazarov had dealt with Asya, or with Natalya (in Rudin), or with Vera (in Faust), then he would, of course, not back down at the decisive moment. But the fact is that women like Asya, Natalya and Vera are fond of soft-spoken phrases, and in front of strong people like Bazarov they feel only timidity, close to antipathy. Such women need to be caressed, but Bazarov does not know how to caress anyone. But at the present time a woman cannot give herself up to immediate pleasure, because behind this pleasure the formidable question is always put forward: what then? Love without guarantees and conditions is not common, and Bazarov does not understand love with guarantees and conditions. Love is love, he thinks, bargaining is bargaining, "and mixing these two crafts," in his opinion, is inconvenient and unpleasant.

Consider now three circumstances in Turgenev's novel: 1) Bazarov's attitude towards the common people; 2) courtship of Bazarov for Fenechka; 3) Bazarov's duel with Pavel Petrovich.

In Bazarov's relationship to the common people, first of all, one should notice the absence of any sweetness. The people like it, and therefore the servants love Bazarov, the children love him, despite the fact that he does not give them money or gingerbread. Mentioning in one place that ordinary people love Bazarov, Turgenev says that the peasants look at him like a pea jester. These two testimonies do not contradict each other. Bazarov behaves simply with the peasants: he does not show any nobility, nor a cloying desire to imitate their dialect and teach them to reason, and therefore the peasants, speaking with him, are not shy and are not embarrassed. But, on the other hand, Bazarov, both in terms of address, and in language, and in terms of concepts, is completely at odds both with them and with those landowners whom the peasants are accustomed to seeing and listening to. They look at him as a strange, exceptional phenomenon, neither this nor that, and will look in this way at gentlemen like Bazarov until they are divorced more and until they have time to get accustomed to. The peasants have a heart for Bazarov, because they see in him a simple and intelligent person, but at the same time this person is a stranger to them, because he does not know their way of life, their needs, their hopes and fears, their concepts, beliefs and prejudice.

After his failed romance with Odintsova, Bazarov again comes to the village to the Kirsanovs and begins to flirt with Fenechka, Nikolai Petrovich's mistress. He likes Fenechka as a plump, young woman. She likes him as a kind, simple and cheerful person. One fine July morning, he manages to imprint a full-fledged kiss on her fresh lips. She resists weakly, so that he manages to "renew and prolong his kiss". At this point, his love affair ends. He apparently had no luck at all that summer, so that not a single intrigue was brought to a happy ending, although they all began with the most favorable omens.

Following this, Bazarov leaves the village of the Kirsanovs, and Turgenev admonishes him with the following words: "It never occurred to him that he had violated all the rights of hospitality in this house."

Seeing that Bazarov had kissed Fenechka, Pavel Petrovich, who had long harbored hatred for the nihilist and, moreover, was not indifferent to Fenechka, who for some reason reminded him of his former beloved woman, challenged our hero to a duel. Bazarov shoots with him, wounds him in the leg, then bandages his wound himself and leaves the next day, seeing that after this story it is inconvenient for him to stay in the Kirsanovs' house. A duel, according to Bazarov, is absurd. The question is, did Bazarov do well in accepting the challenge of Pavel Petrovich? This question boils down to a more general question: "Is it generally permissible in life to deviate from one's theoretical convictions?" Concerning the concept of persuasion, different opinions prevail, which can be reduced to two main shades. Idealists and fanatics scream about beliefs without analyzing this concept, and therefore they absolutely do not want and are unable to understand that a person is always more expensive than brain inference, by virtue of a simple mathematical axiom that tells us that the whole is always greater than the part. Idealists and fanatics will thus say that it is always shameful and criminal to deviate from theoretical convictions in life. This will not prevent many idealists and fanatics, on occasion, from cowardly and stepping back, and then reproach themselves for practical inconsistency and indulge in remorse. There are other people who do not hide from themselves the fact that they sometimes have to do absurdities, and even do not want to turn their lives into a logical calculation. Bazarov belongs to the number of such people. He says to himself: “I know that a duel is absurd, but at the moment I see that it is decidedly inconvenient for me to refuse it. walking sticks of Pavel Petrovich.

At the end of the novel, Bazarov dies from a small cut made during the dissection of a corpse. This event does not follow from previous events, but it is necessary for the artist to complete the character of his hero. People like Bazarov are not defined by one episode snatched from their lives. Such an episode gives us only a vague idea that colossal powers lurk in these people. What will these forces be? Only the biography of these people can answer this question, and, as you know, it is written after the death of the figure. From the Bazarovs, under certain circumstances, great historical figures are developed. These are not workers. Delving into careful investigations of special questions of science, these people never lose sight of the world that contains their laboratory and themselves, with all their science, tools and apparatus. Bazarov will never become a fanatic of science, he will never raise it to an idol: constantly maintaining a skeptical attitude towards science itself, he will not allow it to acquire independent significance. He will engage in medicine partly as a pastime, partly as a bread and useful craft. If another occupation presents itself, more interesting, he will leave medicine, just as Benjamin Franklin10 left the printing press.

If the desired changes take place in the consciousness and in the life of society, then people like Bazarov will be ready, because constant labor of thought will not allow them to become lazy, rusty, and constantly awake skepticism will not allow them to become fanatics of a specialty or sluggish followers of a one-sided doctrine. Unable to show us how Bazarov lives and acts, Turgenev showed us how he dies. This is enough for the first time to form an idea of Bazarov's forces, whose full development could only be indicated by life, struggle, actions and results. In Bazarov there is strength, independence, energy that phrase-mongers and imitators do not have. But if someone wanted not to notice and not feel the presence of this force in him, if someone wanted to question it, then the only fact that solemnly and categorically refutes this absurd doubt would be the death of Bazarov. His influence on the people around him proves nothing. After all, Rudin also had an influence on people like Arkady, Nikolai Petrovich, Vasily Ivanovich. But to look into the eyes of death not to weaken and not to be afraid is a matter of a strong character. To die the way Bazarov died is the same as doing a great feat. Because Bazarov died firmly and calmly, no one felt any relief or benefit, but such a person who knows how to die calmly and firmly will not retreat in the face of an obstacle and will not be afraid in the face of danger.

Starting to construct the character of Kirsanov, Turgenev wanted to present him as great and instead made him ridiculous. Creating Bazarov, Turgenev wanted to smash him to dust and instead paid him full tribute of fair respect. He wanted to say: our young generation is on the wrong road, and he said: in our young generation, all our hope. Turgenev is not a dialectician, not a sophist, he is first of all an artist, a man unconsciously, involuntarily sincere. His images live their own lives. He loves them, he is carried away by them, he becomes attached to them during the process of creation, and it becomes impossible for him to push them around at his whim and turn the picture of life into an allegory with a moral purpose and with a virtuous denouement. The honest, pure nature of the artist takes its toll, breaks down theoretical barriers, triumphs over the delusions of the mind and redeems everything with its instincts - both the inaccuracy of the main idea, and the one-sidedness of development, and the obsolescence of concepts. Looking at his Bazarov, Turgenev, as a person and as an artist, grows in his novel, grows before our eyes and grows to a correct understanding, to a fair assessment of the created type.

M.A. Antonovich "Asmodeus of our time"

Sadly, I look at our generation ...

There is nothing fancy about the concept of the novel. Its action is also very simple and takes place in 1859. The main protagonist, a representative of the younger generation, is Yevgeny Vasilyevich Bazarov, a physician, a smart, diligent young man who knows his business, self-confident to the point of insolence, but stupid, loving strong drinks, imbued with the wildest concepts and unreasonable to the point that everyone fools him, even simple men. He has no heart at all. He is insensitive as a stone, cold as ice and fierce as a tiger. He has a friend, Arkady Nikolaevich Kirsanov, a candidate of St. Petersburg University, a sensitive, kind-hearted young man with an innocent soul. Unfortunately, he submitted to the influence of his friend Bazarov, who is trying in every possible way to dull the sensitivity of his heart, kill with his ridicule the noble movements of his soul and instill in him contemptuous coldness towards everything. As soon as he discovers some sublime impulse, his friend will immediately besiege him with his contemptuous irony. Bazarov has a father and a mother. Father, Vasily Ivanovich, an old physician, lives with his wife in his small estate; good old men love their Enyushenka to infinity. Kirsanov also has a father, a significant landowner who lives in the countryside; his wife is dead, and he lives with Fenechka, a sweet creature, the daughter of his housekeeper. His brother lives in his house, therefore, Kirsanov's uncle, Pavel Petrovich, a bachelor, in his youth a metropolitan lion, and in old age - a village veil, endlessly immersed in worries about smartness, but an invincible dialectician, at every step striking Bazarov and his own. nephew.

Let's take a closer look at the trends, try to find out the innermost qualities of fathers and children. So what are the fathers, the old generation? Fathers in the novel are presented in the best possible way. We are not talking about those fathers and about that old generation, which is represented by the puffed-up Princess Kh ... aya, who could not stand youth and pouted at the "new frenzied ones", Bazarov and Arkady. Kirsanov's father, Nikolai Petrovich, is an exemplary person in all respects. He himself, despite his general origin, was brought up at the university and had a candidate's degree and gave his son a higher education. Having lived almost to old age, he did not cease to take care of supplementing his own education. He used all his strength to keep up with the times. He wanted to get closer to the younger generation, imbued with its interests, so that together with him, together, hand in hand, go towards a common goal. But the younger generation rudely pushed him away. He wanted to get along with his son in order to start his rapprochement with the younger generation from him, but Bazarov prevented this. He tried to humiliate his father in the eyes of his son and thus broke off all moral ties between them. “We,” the father said to his son, “will live happily with you, Arkasha. We need to get close to each other now, get to know each other well, don’t we?” But no matter what they talk about among themselves, Arkady always begins to sharply contradict his father, who attributes this - and quite rightly - to the influence of Bazarov. But the son still loves his father and does not lose hope someday get closer to him. "My father," he says to Bazarov, "is a golden man." "It's amazing," he replies, "these old romantics! They will develop their nervous system to the point of irritation, well, the balance is broken." In Arcadia, filial love spoke, he stands up for his father, says that his friend does not yet know him enough. But Bazarov killed the last remnant of filial love in him with the following contemptuous review: “Your father is a kind fellow, but he is a retired man, his song is sung. He reads Pushkin. nonsense. Give him something sensible, at least Büchner's Stoff und Kraft5 for the first time." The son fully agreed with the words of his friend and felt pity and contempt for his father. Father accidentally overheard this conversation, which struck him to the very heart, offended him to the depths of his soul, killed all his energy, all desire for rapprochement with the younger generation. “Well,” he said after that, “maybe Bazarov is right; but one thing hurts me: I hoped to get close and friendly with Arkady, but it turns out that I was left behind, he went ahead, and we can’t understand each other Can. It seems that I am doing everything to keep up with the times: I arranged for the peasants, started a farm, so that they call me red in the whole province. I read, study, in general I try to become up to date with modern needs, and they say that my song is sung. Yes, I myself am beginning to think so. "These are the harmful actions that the arrogance and intolerance of the younger generation produces. One trick of the boy struck down the giant, he doubted his strength and saw the futility of his efforts to keep up with the century. Thus, the younger generation, through their own fault, lost assistance and support from a person who could be a very useful figure, because he was gifted with many wonderful qualities that young people lack.Youth is cold, selfish, does not have poetry in itself and therefore hates it everywhere, does not have the highest moral convictions.Then how this man had a poetic soul and, despite the fact that he knew how to set up a farm, retained his poetic fervor until his advanced years, and most importantly, was imbued with the strongest moral convictions.

Bazarov's father and mother are even better, even kinder than Arkady's parent. The father also does not want to lag behind the century, and the mother lives only with love for her son and the desire to please him. Their common, tender affection for Enyushenka is depicted by Mr. Turgenev in a very captivating and lively manner; here are the best pages in the whole novel. But the contempt with which Enyushenka pays for their love, and the irony with which he regards their gentle caresses, seems all the more disgusting to us.

That's what fathers are! They, in contrast to children, are imbued with love and poetry, they are moral people, modestly and secretly doing good deeds. They don't want to be behind the times.

So, the high advantages of the old generation over the young are undoubted. But they will be even more certain when we consider in more detail the qualities of the "children." What are "children"? Of those "children" who are bred in the novel, only one Bazarov seems to be an independent and intelligent person. Under what influences the character of Bazarov was formed, it is not clear from the novel. It is also unknown where he borrowed his beliefs from and what conditions favored the development of his way of thinking. If Mr. Turgenev had thought about these questions, he would certainly have changed his ideas about fathers and children. The writer did not say anything about the part that the study of the natural sciences, which constituted his specialty, could take in the development of the hero. He says that the hero took a certain direction in his way of thinking as a result of sensation. What this means is impossible to understand, but in order not to offend the philosophical insight of the author, we see in this sensation only poetic wit. Be that as it may, Bazarov's thoughts are independent, they belong to him, to his own activity of the mind. He is a teacher, other "children" of the novel, stupid and empty, listen to him and only repeat his words senselessly. In addition to Arkady, such, for example, is Sitnikov. He considers himself a student of Bazarov and owes his rebirth to him: “Would you believe it,” he said, “that when Evgeny Vasilyevich said in my presence that he should not recognize authorities, I felt such delight ... as if I had seen the light! Here, I thought, finally I have found a man! Sitnikov told the teacher about Mrs. Kukshina, a model of modern daughters. Bazarov then only agreed to go to her when the student assured him that she would have a lot of champagne.

Bravo, young generation! Works great for progress. And what is the comparison with smart, kind and moral-powerful "fathers"? Even the best representative of it turns out to be the most vulgar gentleman. But still, he is better than others, he speaks with consciousness and expresses his own opinions, not borrowed from anyone, as it turns out from the novel. We will now deal with this best specimen of the younger generation. As said above, he appears to be a cold person, incapable of love, or even of the most ordinary affection. He cannot even love a woman with the poetic love that is so attractive in the old generation. If, at the request of an animal feeling, he loves a woman, then he will love only her body. He even hates the soul in a woman. He says, "that she does not need to understand a serious conversation at all and that only freaks think freely between women."

You, Mr. Turgenev, ridicule strivings that would deserve encouragement and approval from any well-meaning person - we do not mean here the striving for champagne. And without that, many thorns and obstacles are met on the way by young women who want to study more seriously. And without that, their evil-speaking sisters prick their eyes with "blue stockings." And without you, we have many stupid and dirty gentlemen who, like you, reproach them for their disheveledness and lack of crinolines, scoff at their unclean collars and their nails, which do not have that crystal transparency to which your dear Pavel has brought his nails Petrovich. That would be enough, but you are still straining your wit to invent new insulting nicknames for them and want to use Mrs. Kukshina. Or do you really think that emancipated women only care about champagne, cigarettes, and students, or about several one-time husbands, as your fellow artist, Mr. Bezrylov, imagines? This is even worse, because it casts an unfavorable shadow on your philosophical acumen. But the other thing - ridicule - is also good, because it makes you doubt your sympathy for everything reasonable and fair. We, personally, are in favor of the first assumption.

We will not protect the young male generation. It really is and is, as depicted in the novel. So we agree exactly that the old generation is not at all embellished, but is presented as it really is, with all its respectable qualities. We just don't understand why Mr. Turgenev gives preference to the old generation. The younger generation of his novel is in no way inferior to the old. Their qualities are different, but the same in degree and dignity; as fathers are, so are children. Fathers = children - traces of nobility. We will not defend the younger generation and attack the old, but only try to prove the correctness of this formula of equality.

The youth are pushing away the old generation. This is very bad, harmful to the cause and does not honor the youth. But why does the older generation, more prudent and experienced, not take measures against this repulsion, and why does it not try to win over the youth? Nikolai Petrovich was a respectable, intelligent man who wanted to get closer to the younger generation, but when he heard the boy call him retired, he frowned, began to lament his backwardness, and immediately realized the futility of his efforts to keep up with the times. What kind of weakness is this? If he realized his justice, if he understood the aspirations of the youth and sympathized with them, then it would be easy for him to win over his son to his side. Bazarov interfered? But as a father connected with his son by love, he could easily defeat the influence of Bazarov on him if he had the desire and skill to do so. And in alliance with Pavel Petrovich, the invincible dialectician, he could even convert Bazarov himself. After all, it is only difficult to teach and retrain old people, and youth is very receptive and mobile, and one cannot think that Bazarov would renounce the truth if it were shown and proved to him! Mr. Turgenev and Pavel Petrovich exhausted all their wit in disputes with Bazarov and did not skimp on harsh and insulting expressions. However, Bazarov did not lose his eye, was not embarrassed, and remained with his opinions, despite all the objections of his opponents. It must be because the objections were bad. So, "fathers" and "children" are equally right and wrong in mutual repulsion. "Children" repel their fathers, but these passively move away from them and do not know how to attract them to themselves. Equality is complete!

Nikolai Petrovich did not want to marry Fenechka due to the influence of the traces of the nobility, because she was not equal to him and, most importantly, because he was afraid of his brother, Pavel Petrovich, who had even more traces of the nobility and who, however, also had views of Fenechka. Finally, Pavel Petrovich decided to destroy the traces of nobility in himself and demanded that his brother marry. "Marry Fenechka... She loves you! She is the mother of your son." "You say that, Pavel? - you, whom I considered an opponent of such marriages! But don't you know that it was only out of respect for you that I did not fulfill what you so rightly called my duty." “In vain did you respect me in this case,” answered Pavel, “I am beginning to think that Bazarov was right when he reproached me for being aristocratic. there are traces of nobility. Thus, the "fathers" finally realized their shortcoming and put it aside, thereby destroying the only difference that existed between them and the children. So, our formula is modified as follows: "fathers" - traces of nobility = "children" - traces of nobility. Subtracting from equal values equal, we get: "fathers" = "children", which was required to be proved.

With this we will finish with the personalities of the novel, with fathers and children, and turn to the philosophical side. To those views and trends that are depicted in it and which do not belong to the younger generation only, but are shared by the majority and express the general modern trend and movement. Apparently, Turgenev took for the image the period of mental life and literature of that time, and these are the features he discovered in it. From different places in the novel, we will collect them together. Before, you see, there were Hegelists, but now there are Nihilists. Nihilism is a philosophical term with different meanings. The writer defines it as follows: "The nihilist is the one who recognizes nothing, who respects nothing, who treats everything from a critical point of view, who does not bow to any authorities, who does not accept a single principle on faith, no matter how respected "Formerly, without principles taken for granted, one could not take a step. Now they do not recognize any principles: they do not recognize art, they do not believe in science, and they even say that science does not exist at all. Now everyone denies, but to build they don't want to, they say: "It's none of our business, first we need to clear the place."

Here is a collection of modern views put into the mouth of Bazarov. What are they? Caricature, exaggeration and nothing more. The author directs the arrows of his talent against what he has not penetrated into the essence of. He heard various voices, saw new opinions, observed lively disputes, but could not get to their inner meaning, and therefore in his novel he touched only the tops, only the words that were spoken around him. The concepts associated with these words remained a mystery to him. All his attention is focused on captivatingly drawing the image of Fenechka and Katya, describing Nikolai Petrovich's dreams in the garden, depicting "searching, indefinite, sad anxiety and causeless tears." It would not have turned out badly if he had only limited himself to this. Artistically analyze the modern way of thinking and characterize the direction he should not. He either does not understand them at all, or he understands them in his own way, artistically, superficially and incorrectly, and from their personification he composes a novel. Such art really deserves, if not denial, then censure. We have the right to demand that the artist understand what he depicts, that in his images, besides artistry, there is truth, and what he is not able to understand should not be taken for that. Mr. Turgenev is perplexed how one can understand nature, study it and at the same time admire it and enjoy it poetically, and therefore says that the modern young generation, passionately devoted to the study of nature, denies the poetry of nature, cannot admire it. Nikolai Petrovich loved nature, because he looked at it unconsciously, "indulging in the sad and joyful game of lonely thoughts," and felt only anxiety. Bazarov, on the other hand, could not admire nature, because indefinite thoughts did not play in him, but a thought worked, trying to understand nature; he walked through the swamps not with "seeking anxiety", but with the aim of collecting frogs, beetles, ciliates, in order to cut them up later and examine them under a microscope, and this killed all poetry in him. But meanwhile, the highest and most reasonable enjoyment of nature is possible only when it is understood, when one looks at it not with unaccountable thoughts, but with clear thoughts. The "children" were convinced of this, taught by the "fathers" and authorities themselves. There were people who understood the meaning of its phenomena, knew the movement of waves and vegetation, read the book of stars and were great poets. But for true poetry, it is also required that the poet depict nature correctly, not fantastically, but as it is, the poetic personification of nature is an article of a special kind. "Pictures of nature" may be the most accurate, most learned description of nature, and may produce a poetic effect. The picture may be artistic, although it is drawn so faithfully that a botanist can study on it the arrangement and shape of leaves in plants, the direction of their veins, and the types of flowers. The same rule applies to works of art depicting the phenomena of human life. You can compose a novel, imagine in it "children" like frogs and "fathers" like aspens. Confuse modern trends, reinterpret other people's thoughts, take a little from different views and make all this porridge and vinaigrette called "nihilism". Imagine this porridge in faces, so that each face is a vinaigrette of the most opposite, incongruous and unnatural actions and thoughts; and at the same time effectively describe a duel, a sweet picture of love dates and a touching picture of death. Anyone can admire this novel, finding artistry in it. But this artistry disappears, negates itself at the first touch of thought, which reveals a lack of truth in it.

In calm times, when movement is slow, development proceeds gradually on the basis of old principles, disagreements between the old generation and the new concern unimportant things, contradictions between "fathers" and "children" cannot be too sharp, therefore the very struggle between them has a calm character. and does not go beyond known limited limits. But in busy times, when development makes a bold and significant step forward or turns sharply to the side, when the old principles prove untenable and completely different conditions and requirements of life arise in their place, then this struggle takes on significant volumes and sometimes expresses itself in the most tragic way. The new teaching appears in the form of an unconditional negation of everything old. It declares an uncompromising struggle against old views and traditions, moral rules, habits and way of life. The difference between the old and the new is so sharp that, at least at first, agreement and reconciliation between them is impossible. At such times, family ties seem to weaken, brother rebels against brother, son against father. If the father remains with the old, and the son turns to the new, or vice versa, discord is inevitable between them. A son cannot waver between his love for his father and his conviction. The new teaching, with visible cruelty, requires him to leave his father, mother, brothers and sisters and be true to himself, his convictions, his vocation and the rules of the new teaching, and follow these rules steadily.

Excuse me, Mr. Turgenev, you did not know how to define your task. Instead of depicting the relationship between "fathers" and "children", you wrote a panegyric for "fathers" and a denunciation of "children", and you did not understand "children" either, and instead of denunciation, you came up with slander. You wanted to present the spreaders of sound concepts among the younger generation as corrupters of youth, sowers of discord and evil, who hate goodness - in a word, asmodeans.

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

When criticism of a work appears, everyone expects some lesson or teaching from it. Such a requirement was revealed as clearly as possible with the appearance of Turgenev's new novel. He was suddenly approached with feverish and urgent questions: whom does he praise, whom does he condemn, who is his role model, who is the object of contempt and indignation? What kind of novel is this - progressive or retrograde?

And countless rumors have been raised on this topic. It came down to the smallest detail, to the most subtle details. Bazarov drinks champagne! Bazarov plays cards! Bazarov dresses casually! What does this mean, they ask in bewilderment. Should it or shouldn't it? Each decided in his own way, but each considered it necessary to derive a moral and sign it under a mysterious fable. The solutions, however, came out completely different. Some have found that "Fathers and Sons" is a satire on the younger generation, that all the author's sympathies are on the side of the fathers. Others say that the fathers are ridiculed and disgraced in the novel, while the younger generation, on the contrary, is exalted. Some find that Bazarov himself is to blame for his unhappy relationship with the people he met. Others argue that, on the contrary, these people are to blame for the fact that it is so difficult for Bazarov to live in the world.

Thus, if all these contradictory opinions are brought together, then one must come to the conclusion that there is either no moralizing in the fable, or that moralizing is not so easy to find, that it is not at all where one is looking for it. Despite the fact that the novel is read with greed and arouses such interest, which, one can safely say, has not yet been aroused by any of Turgenev's works. Here is a curious phenomenon that deserves full attention. The novel appeared at the wrong time. It does not seem to meet the needs of society. It does not give it what it seeks. And yet he makes a strong impression. G. Turgenev, in any case, can be satisfied. His mysterious goal is fully achieved. But we must be aware of the meaning of his work.

If Turgenev's novel throws readers into bewilderment, then this happens for a very simple reason: it brings to consciousness that which was not yet conscious, and reveals that which has not yet been noticed. The protagonist of the novel is Bazarov. He is now the bone of contention. Bazarov is a new face, whose sharp features we saw for the first time. It is clear that we are thinking about it. If the author were to bring us again the landlords of the old time or other persons who have long been familiar to us, then, of course, he would not give us any reason to be amazed, and everyone would marvel only at the fidelity and mastery of his portrayal. But in the present case, the matter is different. Even questions are constantly heard: where do the Bazarovs exist? Who saw the Bazarovs? Which one of us is Bazarov? Finally, are there really people like Bazarov?

Of course, the best proof of Bazarov's reality is the novel itself. Bazarov in him is so true to himself, so generously supplied with flesh and blood, that there is no way to call him an invented person. But he is not a walking type, familiar to everyone and only captured by the artist and exposed by him “to the eyes of the people. Bazarov, in any case, is a person created, and not reproduced, foreseen, but only exposed. which excited the artist's work. Turgenev, as has long been known, is a writer who diligently follows the movement of Russian thought and Russian life. Not only in "Fathers and Sons", but in all his previous works, he constantly grasped and depicted the relationship between fathers and children.The last thought, the last wave of life - that's what attracted his attention most of all.He is an example of a writer gifted with perfect mobility and at the same time with deep sensitivity, deep love for contemporary life.

He is the same in his new novel. If we do not know the full Bazarovs in reality, then, however, we all meet many Bazarov traits, everyone knows people who, on the one hand, then on the other, resemble Bazarov. Everyone heard the same thoughts one by one, fragmentarily, incoherently, incoherently. Turgenev embodied the unformed opinions in Bazarov.

From this comes both the profound amusement of the novel and the bewilderment it produces. The Bazarovs by half, the Bazarovs by one quarter, the Bazarovs by one hundredth, do not recognize themselves in the novel. But this is their grief, not Turgenev's grief. It is much better to be a complete Bazarov than to be his ugly and incomplete likeness. Opponents of Bazarovism rejoice, thinking that Turgenev deliberately distorted the matter, that he wrote a caricature of the younger generation: they do not notice how much greatness the depth of his life puts on Bazarov, his completeness, his inexorable and consistent originality, which they take for disgrace.

False accusations! Turgenev remained true to his artistic gift: he does not invent, but creates, does not distort, but only illuminates his figures.

Let's get closer to the point. The circle of thoughts, of which Bazarov is a representative, has been more or less clearly expressed in our literature. Their main spokesmen were two journals: Sovremennik, which had been carrying out these aspirations for several years, and Russkoye Slovo, which had recently announced them with particular sharpness. It is hard to doubt that from here, from these purely theoretical and abstract manifestations of a certain way of thinking, Turgenev took the mentality embodied by him in Bazarov. Turgenev took a certain view of things, which had claims to dominance, to primacy in our mental movement. He consistently and harmoniously developed this view to its extreme conclusions and - since the artist's business is not thought, but life - he embodied it in living forms. He gave flesh and blood to what obviously already existed in the form of thought and belief. He gave an outward manifestation to that which already existed as an inward foundation.

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Writing a novel with a progressive or retrograde direction is still not difficult. Turgenev, on the other hand, had the pretensions and audacity to create a novel that had all sorts of directions; an admirer of eternal truth, eternal beauty, he had the proud goal of pointing the temporal to the eternal, and wrote a novel that was neither progressive nor retrograde, but, so to speak, eternal.

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

1965 edition

Roman I.S. Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons" is unequivocally 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. The novel reflects all the social and political contradictions contemporary to the author; both topical and eternal problems of relationships between the generations of "fathers" and "children" are vividly presented.

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 doubt. Nevertheless, with the light hand of radical critics, Turgenev's contemporaries erected a largely grotesque, sketchy image of the nihilist Bazarov on the hero's pedestal, making him a real idol of the generation of the 1860-80s.

The unreasonably enthusiastic attitude towards Bazarov, which developed among the democratic intelligentsia of the 19th century, gradually migrated to 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 heroes-schemes firmly established itself in the school curriculum. For many years, teachers of literature, referring to the authoritative opinions of Pisarev, Herzen, Strakhov, tried to explain to schoolchildren why the “new man” Yevgeny Bazarov, dissecting 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 assignments in literature for 2013: the examinee is still required to determine the “social and psychological types” of the heroes of the novel, explain their behavior by the “struggle of the ideologies of the nobility and the raznochintsy intelligentsia”, etc., etc. .

For a century and a half now, we have blindly trusted the subjective opinion of critics of the post-reform era, who sincerely believed in Bazarov as their future and rejected the thinker Turgenev as a false prophet, idealizing the obsolete past. How long will we, the people of the 21st century, humiliate the greatest humanist writer, the Russian classic I.S. Turgenev by clarifying his "class" position? Pretend that we believe in the long ago traversed in practice, irrevocably erroneous "Bazarov" path? ..

It has long been recognized that the modern reader may be interested in Turgenev's novel not so much by clarifying the author's position in relation to the main characters of the work, but by 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 mankind. Ultimately, this is a novel about each of us. After all, we are all someone's fathers and someone's children ... It simply does not happen differently.

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 office of the Sovremennik magazine and the rupture of many years of friendly relations with N.A. Nekrasov. Nekrasov, faced with a decisive choice, made a bet on the 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, L. Tolstoy, A. Druzhinin, I. Goncharov and other writers who stood on moderately liberal positions left Sovremennik.

The topic of the split in Sovremennik has been deeply studied by numerous literary scholars. Starting from the second half of the 19th century, it was customary to put purely political motives at the forefront of this conflict: a divergence in the views of democrats-raznochintsy and liberal landowners. The “class” version of the schism suited Soviet literary criticism quite well, and for almost a century and a half it continues to be presented as the only one confirmed by the recollections 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 journal, paid attention to the implicit, deeply hidden personal conflict of the participants in those bygone 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." An unknown provincial raznochinets Dobrolyubov came to St. Petersburg with an ambitious intention to make a journalistic career at all costs. Yes, he worked hard, lived in poverty, starved, undermined his health, but the all-powerful Nekrasov noticed him, accepted the novice critic to the editors of Sovremennik, settled him in Kraevsky's house, practically in his apartment. Accidentally 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 accommodation in St. Petersburg, always stopped and lived for a long time in the apartment of Nekrasov and Panaev during his visits to the capital. In the 1850s, he held the position of the leading novelist of Sovremennik and sincerely believed that the editor of the journal listened to his opinion and cherished it.

ON THE. Nekrasov, despite all his business activity and good luck as a benefactor from literature, retained the sybarite habits of the Russian master. He slept almost until dinner, often fell into causeless depression. Usually in the first half of the day, the publisher of Sovremennik received visitors right in his bedroom, and he solved all the important issues related to the publication of the magazine while lying in bed. Dobrolyubov, as the nearest "neighbor", soon turned out to be the most regular visitor to Nekrasov's bedroom, surviving Turgenev, Chernyshevsky from there and almost putting A.Ya. herself out the door. Panaev. The selection of materials for the next issue, the size of the authors' fees, the magazine's responses to political events in the country - all this Nekrasov often discussed with Dobrolyubov face to face. An unofficial editorial alliance emerged, in which Nekrasov, of course, set the tone, and Dobrolyubov, as a talented performer, embodied his ideas, presenting them to the reader in the form of bold, fascinating journalistic 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 publication of Sovremennik. Since the end of 1858, the departments of criticism, bibliography, and modern notes have been combined into one - "Modern Review", in which the journalistic principle turned out to be the leading one, and the selection and grouping of materials were carried out by Dobrolyubov almost single-handedly.

For his part, I.S. Turgenev repeatedly tried to establish contact with the young employees of Sovremennik Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, but met only cold aloofness, complete misunderstanding 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 on the policy of publishing the magazine. Although this is how their opposition is presented in the literary memoirs of A.Ya. Panaeva. With her light hand, domestic literary critics considered the main reason for the split in the editorial board of Sovremennik to be Dobrolyubov's article on Turgenev's novel "On the Eve". The article was titled "When Will the Real 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 last novel.

Meanwhile, the Soviet researcher A.B. Muratov in his article “Dobrolyubov and I.S. Turgenev with the Sovremennik magazine, based on the materials of Turgenev's correspondence for 1860, thoroughly proves the fallacy of this widespread version. Dobrolyubov's article about "On the Eve" was published in the March issue of Sovremennik. Turgenev accepted her without any resentment, continuing his cooperation with the magazine, as well as personal meetings and correspondence with Nekrasov until the autumn of 1860. In addition, Ivan Sergeevich promised Nekrasov for publication the “great story” conceived and begun by him already 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 the decision to give Fathers and Sons to M.N. Katkova. In the mentioned article (reviews of the book by N. Hawthorne "Collection of miracles, stories borrowed from mythology"), Dobrolyubov openly called Turgenev's novel "Rudin" a "custom" novel written to please the tastes of wealthy readers. Muratov believes that Turgenev was humanly offended not even by the bilious attacks of Dobrolyubov, whom he unambiguously ranked among the generation of "unreasonable children", but by the fact that behind the opinion of the author of the article that was insulting to him was the opinion of Nekrasov, a representative of the generation of "fathers", his personal friend . Thus, the center of the conflict in the editorial office was not at all a political conflict, and not a conflict between the older and younger generations of “fathers” and “children”. It was a deeply personal conflict, because until the end of his life Turgenev did not forgive Nekrasov for the betrayal of their common ideals, the ideals of the generation of "fathers" in favor of "reasonable egoism" and the lack of spirituality of the new generation of the 1860s.

Nekrasov's position in this conflict turned out to be even more difficult. As best he could, he tried to soften Dobrolyubov's "claws" that constantly clung to Turgenev's pride, but Turgenev was dear to him as an old friend, and Dobrolyubov was needed as an employee on whom the next issue of the magazine depended. And the businessman Nekrasov, sacrificing his personal sympathies, chose the 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 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” 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, helped Turgenev to find a topic for a deeply philosophical, timeless, necessary work for society.

History of the creation of the novel

The idea of "Fathers and Sons" arose 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, since in the summer correspondence of 1860 Turgenev had not yet abandoned the idea of giving a new thing to the 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 to 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 story, by whose grace it stopped - and, it seems, forever - the favorable disposition towards me of the Russian young generation ... "

It was here, on the Isle of Wight, that the “Formal list of characters in the new story” was compiled, where, under the heading “Eugene 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 speak with the people, although in his heart he despises them. He does not have and does not recognize an artistic element ... He knows quite a lot - he is energetic, he can be liked by his swagger. In essence, the most fruitless 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 a prototype here, as we see, is indicated first. Behind him is 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 the judgments of this man.

Nikolai Sergeevich Preobrazhensky - a friend of Dobrolyubov at the Pedagogical Institute with an original appearance - short stature, long nose and hair standing on end, despite all the efforts of the comb. He was a young man with heightened conceit, with arrogance and freedom of opinion, which aroused admiration even from Dobrolyubov. He called Preobrazhensky "a guy of not timid ten."

In a word, all the "barren 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.

In Bazarov's remarks (especially in his disputes with Pavel Petrovich) the thoughts expressed by Dobrolyubov in his critical articles of 1857-60 are repeated almost verbatim. 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 with all my might. The plan for my new story is ready to the smallest detail - and I'm eager to get down to it. Something will come out - I don’t know, but Botkin, who is here ... highly approves of the idea that is the basis. I would like to finish this thing by the spring, by April, and bring it to Russia myself.

During the winter, the first chapters were written, but the work progressed more slowly than expected. In the letters of this time, requests are constantly heard to report on the news of the social life of Russia, which is seething on the eve of the greatest event in its history - the abolition of serfdom. To get the opportunity to directly get acquainted with the problems of modern 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-Lutovinovo. In a letter to the same P. V. Annenkov, he announces the end of the novel: “My work is finally finished. On July 20 I wrote the blessed last word.

In the autumn, upon his return to Paris, I. S. Turgenev read 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 main character. Friends pointed to the author's excessive enthusiasm for the "rehabilitation" of Bazarov at the end of the work, the approximation of his image to the "Russian Hamlet".

When the work on the novel was completed, the writer had deep doubts about the expediency of its publication: the historical moment turned out to be too inopportune. 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, “the man was gifted - young ... Sorry for the lost, wasted strength!” To Turgenev's ill-wishers, the publication of a new novel might seem like a desire to "dance on the bones" of a deceased enemy. By the way, this is exactly how it was rated in the editors of Sovremennik. In addition, a revolutionary situation was brewing in the country. Prototypes of the Bazarovs took to the streets. The democrat poet M. L. Mikhailov was arrested for distributing leaflets to the youth. Petersburg University students 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, did not see anything provocative in Fathers and Sons. Having received corrections from Paris, he insistently demanded "sold goods" for a new issue. Thus, "Fathers and Sons" was published in the midst of government persecution of the younger generation, in the February book of the "Russian Messenger" for 1862.

Criticism about the novel "Fathers and Sons"

Barely published, the novel caused a flurry of critical articles. None of the public camps accepted Turgenev's new creation.

The editor of the conservative Russkiy Vestnik, M. N. Katkov, in the articles “Turgenev’s Roman and His Critics” and “On Our Nihilism (Regarding Turgenev’s Novel),” argued that nihilism is a social disease that must be combated by strengthening protective conservative principles; and "Fathers and Sons" is no different from a whole series of anti-nihilistic novels by other writers. F. M. Dostoevsky took a peculiar position in assessing Turgenev's novel and the image of its protagonist. According to Dostoevsky, Bazarov is a "theorist" 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 a specific consideration of Bazarov's theory. He correctly asserts that any abstract, rational theory is shattered by life and brings suffering and torment to a person. According to Soviet critics, Dostoevsky reduced the whole problematic of the novel to an ethical-psychological complex, obscuring the social with the universal, instead of revealing the specifics of both.

Turgenev now looks at the present from the height of the past. He doesn't follow us; he calmly looks after us, describes our gait, tells us how we quicken 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 Sons," continues Pisarev's thought, arguing about the realism and even "typicalness" of Bazarov as a hero of his time, a man of the 1860s:

In the late 1950s, in the wake of Khrushchev's "thaw", a discussion unexpectedly unfolded, caused by the article by V. A. Arkhipov "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 the Russky Vestnik (“the conspiracy was evident”) and the same Katkov’s deal with Turgenev’s adviser P.V. , a deal was made between the liberal and the reactionary). Against such a vulgar and unfair interpretation of the history of the novel "Fathers and Sons" as early as 1869, Turgenev himself strongly objected in his essay "On the "Fathers and Sons": “I remember that one critic (Turgenev meant M. Antonovich) in strong and eloquent terms, addressed directly to me, presented me together with Mr. Katkov in the form of two conspirators, in the silence of a secluded office plotting their vile cove, their young Russian forces ... The picture came out spectacular!

Of course, there could be no "conspiracy" 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 started a campaign to exalt this quite unambiguous "hero" - it is still unclear ...

The image of Bazarov in the perception of contemporaries

Contemporaries 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 imagined what the type of behavior and dubious truths professed by the "new people" would ultimately lead to.

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

Democratic raznochinskaya youth ("children") were impressed by previously inaccessible emancipation, rationalism, practicality of Bazarov, his self-confidence. Such qualities as external asceticism, uncompromisingness, the priority of the useful over the beautiful, the lack of reverence 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 such a Bazarov-style caricature that they were reflected in the worldview of Bazarov's ideological followers - future theorists and terrorist practitioners of Narodnaya Volya, Maximalist Social Revolutionaries and even Bolsheviks.

The older generation (“fathers”), feeling their failure and often helplessness in the new conditions of post-reform Russia, also feverishly sought a way out of the current situation. Some (guardians and reactionaries) turned to the past in their search, others (moderate liberals), disillusioned with the present, decided to bet on an as yet unknown but promising future. This is exactly what N.A. tried to do. Nekrasov, providing the pages of his journal for the revolutionary 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 pace with new trends, to fit into the era of rationalism that he did not understand, to capture and display the spirit of a difficult time that was frightening with its lack of spirituality.

But we, the distant descendants, for whom the political struggle in post-reform Russia has long acquired the status of one of the pages of Russian history or one of its cruel lessons, should not forget that I.S. Turgenev was never a topical publicist, nor an everyday writer engaged by society. The novel "Fathers and Sons" is not a feuilleton, not a parable, not an artistic embodiment by the author of fashionable ideas and trends in the development 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 correlates with an equally impeccable knowledge and understanding of the human soul. The problems of his works are sometimes much broader and more diverse than it might seem to other unlucky critics in the era of great reforms. The ability to creatively rethink current events, to look at them through the prism of "eternal" for all mankind philosophical, moral and ethical, and even simple, everyday problems favorably distinguishes Turgenev's artistic prose from the topical "creations" of the Chernyshevskys, Nekrasovs, etc.

Unlike journalistic authors who yearn 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 it should be read: a revolutionary." But do Russia need such"revolutionaries"? Everyone, after reading 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 felt, he zealously defends his incorporeal, completely intangible idol, whose name is “nothing”, i.e. Emptiness.

Having no positive program, Bazarov sets only destruction as his main task ( “We need to break others!” ; “First you need to clear the place,” etc.). But why? What does he want to create in this void? "None of our business anymore" Bazarov answers the completely logical question of Nikolai Petrovich.

The future has clearly shown that the ideological followers of the Russian nihilists, the revolutionaries-janitors of the 20th century, were not at all interested in the question of who, how and what will create in the devastated space cleared by them. It was precisely this “rake” that the first Provisional Government stepped on in February 1917, then the fiery Bolsheviks repeatedly stepped on them, clearing the way for a bloody totalitarian regime ...

Genius artists, like visionaries, sometimes reveal truths that are securely hidden behind the veil of future mistakes, disappointments, and ignorance. Perhaps unconsciously, Turgenev already then, in the 60s of the XIX century, foresaw the futility, even disastrous path of purely materialistic, unspiritual progress, leading to the destruction of the very foundations of human existence.

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

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

Bazarov and Odintsova: test of love

In order to deprive the image of Bazarov of caricature sketchiness, to give it lively, 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 theories. After all, the truth of life is stronger than any artificially created "systems".

It turned out that the "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 at all, but with a proud, self-aware secular lady, an aristocrat to the marrow of her bones. The “plebeian”, who imagines himself the master of his own destiny, is unable 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 man is a worker in it” crumbles to smithereens. Like any mortal, Bazarov is subject to jealousy, passion, is able to “lose his head” from love, experience the whole gamut of feelings he previously denied, and reach a completely different level of self-awareness as a person. Yevgeny Bazarov is able to 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 does not give himself the trouble to understand and accept her real. It is no coincidence that Turgenev refers 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, even without 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 every person is afraid of something unfamiliar and unknown. Throughout the acquaintance, Odintsova does not bring Bazarov closer and does not repel him. Like any woman who is ready to fall in 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 the experience nor the worldly wisdom to act otherwise. He "needs to do the job", and not delve into the intricacies of someone else's soul.

Film adaptations of the novel

Oddly enough, but the most philosophical, completely non-cinematic novel by I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons" was filmed five times in our country: in 1915, 1958, 1974 (teleplay), 1983, 2008.

Almost all the directors of these productions went down the same thankless path. They tried to convey in detail the eventful and ideological components of the novel, forgetting about its main, philosophical subtext. In the film by A. Bergunker and N. Rashevskaya (1958), the main emphasis is, of course, on social class contradictions. Against the background of the caricature types of the provincial nobles Kirsanov 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 that is attractive to the audience. Even the “Turgenev girl” Katya Lokteva is presented as a round (literally) fool who says smart things.

The four-episode version by V. Nikiforov (1983), despite the excellent constellation of actors (V. Bogin, V. Konkin, B. Khimichev, V. Samoilov, N. Danilova), when it appeared, disappointed the viewer with an undisguised textbook, expressed, first of all, in a literal following the text of Turgenev's novel. Reproaches of "prolongation", "dryness", "non-cinematic" continue to fall on its creators from the lips of the current viewer, who cannot imagine cinema without Hollywood "action" and humor "below the belt". Meanwhile, it is in following the text of Turgenev, in our opinion, that the main advantage of the film adaptation of 1983 lies. 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 discard or add anything from it without compromising the understanding of the meaning of this work. Deliberately abandoning the selectivity of texts and unjustified "gags", the filmmakers managed to fully convey Turgenev's 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 sensational serial version of A. Smirnova (2008), unfortunately, Turgenev's mood has completely disappeared. Despite the location shooting in Spasskoye-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.

The handsome young scoundrel Bazarov (A. Ustyugov), created in contrast with 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 desire. The incompetently truncated text of Turgenev's dialogues is more reminiscent of the sluggish debates of today's children with their fathers, devoid of true drama. The 19th century is indicated only by the absence of modern youth jargon in the speech of the characters, and the French words that slip from time to time, and not English words. And if in the film of 1958 a clear bias of the author's sympathies towards "children" is visible, then in the film of 2008 the opposite situation is clearly seen. A wonderful duet of Bazarov's parents (Yursky - Tenyakova), Nikolai Petrovich (A. Vasilyev), touching in his offense, not even suitable in age for the role of the elder Kirsanov A. Smirnov "outplay" Bazarov in acting terms and thus leave no doubt in the viewer in his own right.

Any person who is not too lazy to thoughtfully re-read Turgenev's text, it will become clear that such an interpretation of "Fathers and Sons" has nothing to do with the novel itself. Therefore, Turgenev's work is considered "eternal", "always" (by N. Strakhov's definition), because it has neither "pluses", nor "minuses", nor harsh condemnation, nor complete justification of the characters. The novel forces us to think and choose, and the 2008 filmmakers simply 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) were quite satisfied with such a director's approach: glamorous, not quite banal, and besides, it is perfectly adapted for the mass consumer of Hollywood "movement". What else is needed?

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

The impossibility of rebirth, the spiritual static nature of Bazarov, the author emphasizes with 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 even to the last moment he remains a stranger to this life, which he encountered so strangely, 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 a tremendous impression. Until the very end, until the last flash of consciousness, he does not change 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 unviability 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, a manifestation of what later L.N. Tolstoy in his novel "War and Peace" designated the term "swarm life". Andrei Bolkonsky, like Bazarov, is not capable of rebirth. Both authors kill their heroes because they deny them participation in true, real life. Moreover, Turgenev's Bazarov to the end "does not change himself" and, unlike Bolkonsky, at the moment of his by no means heroic, ridiculous death does not cause pity. Sincerely, to tears, I feel sorry for his unfortunate parents, because they are alive. Bazarov is a "dead man" to a much greater extent than the 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 stillborn by definition. Not even love can save him.

"Neither fathers nor children"

“Neither fathers nor children,” one witty lady told 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 critics of the 19th century and again begin to clarify the author's position regarding 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 as great and tragic as at turning points in history. The 1860s for Russia were just such a moment when “The great chain broke, it broke - it jumped at one end over the master, the other over the peasant! ..”

Large-scale state reforms carried out "from above" and the liberalization of society associated with them are more than half a century late. The “children” of the 60s, who expected too much from the inevitable coming changes, found themselves too cramped in the narrow caftan of moderate liberalism of their “fathers” who had not yet grown old. They wanted real freedom, Pugachev's freemen, so that everything that was old and hated would burn out on fire, completely burnt out. A generation of revolutionary arsonists was born, mindlessly denying all previous experience accumulated by mankind.

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 of two historical epochs that accidentally came into contact with each other in the house of the landowners Kirsanovs. Pavel Petrovich and Nikolai Petrovich symbolize the irrevocably gone past, with which everything is clear, Bazarov is still undecided, wandering like dough in a tub, the 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 both "children" and "fathers". Some he exposes in the form of self-confidently selfish false prophets, others he endows with the traits of offended righteous people, or even calls them "dead." Both the boorish "plebeian" Bazarov with his "progressive" views, and the refined aristocrat Pavel Petrovich, dressed in armor of moderate liberalism of the 1840s, are equally ridiculous. In their ideological clash, one can trace not so much a clash of beliefs 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 divides them.

Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich are extremely sketchy characters. Both of them are strangers to real life, but living people act 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 alive, and Bazarov dies, thereby interrupting all the author's assumptions on the subject of his further development.

However, Turgenev still takes the liberty of opening the veil over the future generation of "fathers". After a duel with Bazarov, Pavel Petrovich urges his brother to marry the commoner Fenechka, to whom he himself, contrary to all his rules, is far from being indifferent. This shows the loyalty of the generation of "fathers" in relation 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 strongest, even key scenes in the novel. Turgenev deliberately reduces the social, ideological, age-related conflict to a purely everyday insult to the individual and confronts the heroes in a duel not for beliefs, but for honor.

The innocent scene in the arbor might have seemed (and did seem) to Pavel Petrovich as insulting to the honor of his brother. In addition, jealousy speaks in him: Fenechka is not indifferent to the old aristocrat. He takes a cane, like a knight with a 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" turns out to be higher than his far-fetched beliefs, higher than the posture of a nihilist-denier assumed by him.

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

The possibility of such a dialogue, in isolation 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 readiness for a future dialogue. "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 his former ideals, who found his love and true destiny, is more true 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...