Fathers And Sons

Pavel is Nikolai’s handsome and socially adept older brother, who served in the military like their father. In his youth, Pavel fell in love with a mysterious princess with an erratic temperament, and pursued her all over Europe. Her death brought him into the “troubled, twilight phase of life where regrets resemble hopes” (26). He has spent the rest of his life cultivating the image of a tragic Romantic hero while living idly on the family estate.

Pavel’s aristocratic and Anglophile values clash completely with Bazarov’s loud rejection of all traditions, institutions, and authority figures. At the same time, Pavel’s aristocratic nature is disturbed by Bazarov’s “free and easy manner” (21) with the household’s peasants and servants.

Pavel is secretly in love with Fenechka, his brother’s mistress, an infatuation that finally pushes his conflict with Bazarov to its breaking point. When Pavel discovers Bazarov kissing Fenechka, he challenges the younger man to a duel. The duel is a ridiculous embarrassment that both men attempt to cover up, but it does resolve the tension between them. In the aftermath, Pavel interrogates Fenechka about her feelings for his brother and exhorts Nikolai to marry, apologizing for preventing the union.

Pavel’s fundamental nature is to embody some kind of social type. After the duel, he gives up the tortured Romantic pose and goes to Europe where he takes on the fashionable figure of a Slavophile—a devotee of traditional Russian values—while never really engaging with Russian literature or culture.

Nikolai’s son Arkady is a young university graduate. When the novel opens, he hero-worships Bazarov for his radical nihilistic views, defending their shared philosophy from Pavel’s criticisms. In private, however, he often criticizes his friend and defends his father and uncle. Arkady’s is especially offended when Bazarov mocks Nikolai’s love of music and nature because Arkady too values these things, unlike Bazarov.

Arkady undergoes a coming of age arc in the novel, primarily occasioned by his experiences with love and desire. After becoming infatuation with Anna at a ball, Arkady persuades himself he is in love with her. However, he is much better suited to Anna’s younger sister Katya, with whom he quickly forms a stable, mutually pleasing friendship. Katya also loves music and nature, as Arkady does, though he “dared not admit it” (73).

As Arkady comes into his own, gradually realizing that he is in love with Katya, his relationship with Bazarov cools. This comes to a head when Arkady accuses Bazarov of “despotism” for scolding him for his observations of a falling leaf, and the two nearly come to blows (104). Arkady leaves Bazarov both literally and figuratively, discarding the self-sabotage of Bazarov’s nihilistic philosophy in favor of the happy marriage and domestic life Bazarov scorns. At the end of the novel, Arkady is the successful heir to his father’s estate, resolving the generational conflict that Bazarov stirs up by turning away from radicalism.

The central figure of the novel is Bazarov, the son of a country doctor who befriends Arkady at university. He fits into superfluous man archetype prevalent in mid-19th century Russian fiction—a talented, intelligent man who cannot find an outlet for contributing positively to society. Bazarov is a self-proclaimed nihilist, meaning he follows a philosophy that wants to discard all existing social structures, traditional hierarchies, and existing institutions. For Bazarov, adhering to nihilism means being brusque, disregarding social convention, and praising science while disparaging the arts. Bazarov is devoted to scientific experiments like frog dissection, and claims to have thought deeply about Russia’s social ills.

The novel makes sure to punctuate that in practice, Bazarov is a hypocrite who delights in discomfiting others with his outlandish beliefs without actually offering something useful or being able to follow through on them. Though he rejects existing authority and structures, he is deeply conscious of class and status. He ostentatiously pretends to treat peasants as equals though he has no idea that they mock him behind his back, he lashes out at the more aristocratic Kirsanov family while a long-term guest of their generosity, and he rants about the uselessness of aesthetic pleasure while sponging free food and champagne from the hapless Kukshina. Bazarov instigates a generational divide between Arkady and the older Nikolai and Pavel, while Bazarov’s own parents devote every ounce of their being to him. Most damning of all is Bazarov’s misogyny, which involves inappropriately sexual appraisal of every woman he comes across (he agrees to meet Anna because of her “pair of shoulders” [60], he calls radical women “ugly monsters” [61]), forcing himself on the defenseless Fenechka (he endangers her social position and coldly dismisses his culpability, saying, “she’ll survive somehow” [129]).

The turning point in Bazarov’s life comes when he falls in love with Anna, who might find him attractive, but is unwilling to wreck her life to be with him. She is right to be wary: Bazarov experience love as “powerful and painful” rather than joyous, and Anna is frequently frightened and uneasy in his presence. After Anna rejects him, Bazarov curdles further. Unable to be happy for anyone else, Bazarov mocks Arkady as unworthy once Arkady has announced his engagement to Katya. Embittered by his romantic frustration, Bazarov with “malicious feeling” tries to goad Anna into confessing love for Arkady (144).

Thwarted romantic ambitions, scientific ineptitude (as evidenced by the easily avoidable and curable accident that leads to his infection), and the fact that the only disciple he manages to keep is the buffoonish Sitnikov explain Bazarov’s early death. He refuses to give in to fear or religion once it becomes clear he is dying, and he ultimately declares that his love for Anna does not matter as it cannot reshape his fate. Bazarov remains a solitary figure, a man apart. Like the Byronic hero, he is deeply flawed and sometimes a source of anxiety and fear for those around him. He is treated as emblematic of his generation, and subsequent decades would bear out Turgenev’s conviction that this generational shift would have lasting consequences for the Russian intelligentsia.

Anna is a beautiful and somewhat notorious noblewoman whose unconventional life means “all sorts of unbelievable stories circulated about her” (62). The daughter of a gambler who died in disgrace, she married a wealthy landowner who left her all of his money when he died. Anna likes a very orderly life in a contained environment she can fully control: She is introverted, intellectual, and somewhat apart from those around her. Though she and Bazarov at first seem well suited, he inspires equal parts passion and fear in her with his emotional dishonesty and inability to be happily in love. While part of her wished to fall in love again, for her life to be filled by some great passion, she ultimately decides that “serenity is still better than anything else on earth” and rejects Bazarov (84). She is briefly flattered by Bazarov’s suggestion that Arkady remains infatuated with her, but quickly accepts Katya and Arkady’s marriage and “calmed down,” finding that it “mellowed her” to see them happy (147).

Anna visits Bazarov before he dies, when her “involuntary shudder” at his weakened state and the possibility of illness reveals that she no longer has any feelings for him (158). She marries an accomplished lawyer she does not love, ultimately choosing order over the chaos of love.

Katya is Anna’s gentle younger sister, who “always retreated under her sister’s sharp gaze” (73). Like Arkady, Katya loves music and nature, and she finds comfort and the chance to be herself in Arkady’s company. She honestly tells Arkady that she likes how different he is from Bazarov, calling Bazarov a “predator” who brings out a similar aspect of Anna’s nature (135)—an astute observation that pleases Arkady even though he is slightly miffed at not being seen as a powerful hunter himself. Able to come into his own once out of Bazarov’s influence, Arkady realizes that he loves Katya. After they marry, he is able to “submit to her” and her authority, replacing Bazarov with a guiding influence that has his wellbeing in mind (147).

Fenechka, the young and beautiful daughter of Nikolai’s late housekeeper, is Nikolai’s mistress, with whom he has had a baby, Mitya, but whom he is reluctant to marry because of their difference in class and status. Fenechka is thus in a very precarious position—she is no longer a servant, but has no legal status in the Kirsanov family.

Both Pavel and Bazarov take advantage of this vulnerability. Pavel haunts Fenechka’s steps, creeping her out and terrifying her with his over-familiar intrusions. Bazarov cultivates a closeness with Fenechka by first befriending little Mitya until Fenechka becomes so at ease that she summons Bazarov for medical advice with the baby. Then, Bazarov demands payment—in the form of a kiss that he forces on the poor woman despite her repeatedly saying no.

Still, Fenechka does her best to defend herself when attacked. She reproaches Bazarov for kissing her, and remonstrates with Pavel that she loves only Nikolai. The return of domestic harmony secures Fenechka’s position, as she marries Nikolai and establishes a warm relationship with Katya.

Another young university graduate, the foolish Sitnikov calls himself Bazarov’s “disciple” (51). In an effort to entertain Bazarov, Sitnikov introduces him to Kukshina, a woman who funds would-be intellectuals. Sitnikov comes from a wealthy family, but since their money comes through business rather than inheritance, he is ashamed that he is not an aristocrat—something that the ostensibly equality-minded Bazarov mocks him for. Sitnikov is the novel’s comic relief: He makes himself absurd each times he appears, and ends up the butt of Arkady and Bazarov’s jokes. At the novel’s end, he is publishing radical journals with almost no audience, still evoking Bazarov’s name.

A vicious satire of an intellectual woman trying to run a salon, Kukshina prattles on about feminism while financially sponsoring Sitnikov and feasting Bazarov and Arkady (55-6). At the local ball, she makes herself into an “edifying spectacle” (61)—she dances until morning, eager for young men’s attention. At the novel’s end, she has found her element in lazy German students.

Bazarov’s father Vassily is a simple country doctor, who dotes on his son in a grotesque parody of the way Nikolai loves Arkady. Arkady returns the affection, while Bazarov is aggressively rude to his parents, who bend over backward to accommodate Bazarov’s whims—Vassily even forbids Bazarov’s mother from expressing any emotions to placate his son. Vassily is awkwardly class-conscious and frequently makes classical allusions. Vassily is devastated about his son’s impending death, insisting that he will get better and becoming hysterical.