Fathers and Sons

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883) in his novel “Fathers and Children” (1862) shows the formation of public forces in Russia on the eve of the reform of 1861, a split into two camps: Liberals-Divyns and Democrats-Raznoschintsy. The writer was the first in Russian literature to discover the type of “nihilist” - the negative of all and the whole Evgeny Bazarov. After the release of the novel, this concept firmly entered the cultural everyday life and became a designation of a whole social phenomenon. The main character of the novel, a novist student, Evgeny Bazarov, denies all values ​​and traditions accepted in society, puts himself in opposition to all people. And only love for Anna Odintsova makes the hero come to his principles and look at life in a new way. Turgenev himself was very passionate about his hero. In one of the letters of A. Fetu, he wrote: “If the reader does not love Bazarov with all his rudeness, heartlessness, ruthless alien and sharpness... - I am to blame and did not reach my goal.”