Critic M. A. Antonovich, 1862:

“... And now the desired hour has come; long awaited and eagerly awaited... the novel has finally arrived... well, of course, everyone young and old rushed at him with ardor, like hungry wolves on prey. And the general reading of the novel begins. From the very first pages, to the great amazement of the reader, he is seized by a kind of boredom; but, of course, you are not embarrassed by this and continue to read ... And yet, and further, when the action of the novel unfolds completely before you, your curiosity does not stir, your feeling remains untouched ...<…>

You forget that you have a novel by a talented artist in front of you, and you imagine that you are reading a moral-philosophical treatise, but bad and superficial, which, not satisfying your mind, thereby makes an unpleasant impression on your feelings. This shows that the new work of Mr. Turgenev is extremely unsatisfactory in artistic terms ...<…>

All the author's attention is drawn to the protagonist and other characters, - however, not to their personalities, not to their spiritual movements, feelings and passions, but almost exclusively to their conversations and reasoning. That is why in the novel, with the exception of one old woman, there is not a single living face and living soul ... ”(article“ Asmodeus of our time ”, 1862)

Critic, publicist N. N. Strakhov (1862):

“... Bazarov turns away from nature; Turgenev does not reproach him for this, but only draws nature in all its beauty. Bazarov does not value friendship and renounces romantic love; the author does not defame him for this, but only depicts Arkady's friendship with Bazarov himself and his happy love to Katya. Bazarov denies close ties between parents and children; the author does not reproach him for this, but only unfolds before us a picture of parental love. Bazarov eschews life; the author does not expose him as a villain for this, but only shows us life in all its beauty. Bazarov rejects poetry; Turgenev does not make him a fool for this, but only depicts him with all the luxury and insight of poetry ...<…>

Gogol said of his The Inspector General that it contained one honest face—laughter; so exactly about "Fathers and Sons" it can be said that they have a face that stands above all faces and even above Bazarov - life.<…>

We have seen that, as a poet, Turgenev this time is irreproachable to us. His new work is a truly poetic work and, therefore, bears in itself its full justification ...<…>

In Fathers and Sons, he showed more clearly than in all other cases that poetry, while remaining poetry ... can actively serve society ... ”(article“ I. S. Turgenev, “Fathers and Sons”, 1862)

Critic and publicist V.P. Burenin (1884):

“... It can be said with confidence that since the time of Gogol's Dead Souls, not one of the Russian novels has made such an impression as Fathers and Sons made when they appeared. A deep mind and no less profound observation, an incomparable ability for a bold and correct analysis of life phenomena, for their broad generalization, affected the main idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthis positively historical work.

Turgenev explained with living images of "fathers" and "children" the essence of that vital struggle between the obsolete period of the serf nobility and the new transformative period ...<…>

In his novel, he did not at all take the side of the "fathers", as the then progressive criticism, which was not sympathetic to him, claimed, he did not at all intend to exalt them above the "children" in order to humiliate the latter. In the same way, he did not at all intend to present in the image of a representative of children some kind of model of a “thinking realist”, which the younger generation should have worshiped and imitated, as progressive criticism imagined, sympathetically with his work ...

... In the outstanding representative of the "children", Bazarov, he recognized a certain moral strength, energy of character, which favorably distinguishes this solid type of realist from the thin, spineless and weak-willed type of the previous generation; but recognizing positive sides young type, he could not help but debunk him, could not help pointing out his inconsistency before life, before the people. And he did it...

... As for the significance of this novel in native literature, its rightful place is among such creations as Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin", " Dead Souls"Gogol, "Hero of Our Time" by Lermontov and "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy ... "

(V. P. Burenin, "Turgenev's Literary Activity." St. Petersburg, 1884)

Critic D. I. Pisarev (1864):

“... This novel, obviously, is a question and a challenge addressed to the younger generation by the older part of society. One of the best people of the older generation, Turgenev, an honest writer who wrote and published "Notes of a Hunter" long before the abolition of serfdom, Turgenev, I say, addresses the younger generation and loudly asks him the question: "What kind of people are you? I don't understand you, I can't and can't sympathize with you. Here's what I've noticed. Explain this phenomenon to me." This is the true meaning of the novel. This frank and honest question came at the right time. It was offered together with Turgenev by the entire older half of reading Russia. This challenge to an explanation could not be rejected. It was necessary for literature to answer it ... ”(D, I. Pisarev, article“ Realists ”, 1864)

M. N. Katkov, publicist, publisher and critic (1862):

“...everything in this work testifies to the ripened power of this first-class talent; clarity of ideas, skill in delineating types, simplicity in conception and course of action, restraint and evenness in execution, drama that arises naturally from the most ordinary situations, nothing superfluous, nothing delaying, nothing extraneous. But in addition to these general merits, Mr. Turgenev's novel has the interest that it captures the current moment, captures the escaping phenomenon, typically depicts and imprints forever the fleeting phase of our life ... "(M. N. Katkov," Turgenev's Roman and His Critics " , 1862)

Critic A. Skabichevsky (1868):

“... In the field of fiction, the first protest against new ideas was Mr. Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons. This novel differs from other works of the same kind in that it is predominantly philosophical. He touches little on any social issues of his time. the main objective put the philosophy of the fathers and the philosophy of the children next to each other, and show that the philosophy of the children is contrary to human nature, and therefore cannot be applied in life. The task of the novel, as you see, is very serious... But on the very first pages you see that the author is deprived of any mental preparation for fulfilling the purpose of the novel; he not only has no idea about the system of new positive philosophy, but also has the most superficial, childish concepts about the old idealistic systems ... ”(A. Skabichevsky. “Domestic Notes”, 1868, No. 9)

Yu. G. Zhukovsky, writer and economist (1865):

“... The talent of this writer began to pale in front of the requirements that the critic Dobrolyubov set as a task for the novelist<…>Turgenev was powerless to teach society what literature was supposed to teach this society, according to Dobrolyubov. Mr. Turgenev began to lose his laurels little by little. He felt sorry for these laurels, and, in revenge for criticism, he composed a libel on Dobrolyubov and, depicting him in the face of Bazarov, called him a nihilist ... ”(Yu. G. Zhukovsky, article“ Results ”, Sovremennik magazine, 1865 )

Review in Library for Reading (1862):

"…G. Turgenev condemned the emancipation of women, which was taking place under the leadership of the Sitnikovs and manifested in the ability to fold rolled cigarettes, in the merciless smoking of tobacco, in drinking champagne, in singing gypsy songs, in a drunken state and in the presence of young people hardly known, in careless handling of magazines, in senseless interpretations about Proudhon, about Macaulay, with obvious ignorance and even aversion to any practical reading, which is proved by uncut magazines lying on the tables or constantly cut up on nothing but scandalous feuilletons - these are the accusatory points on which Mr. Turgenev condemned the method of development in our country women's issue ... "(The magazine" Library for Reading ", 1862)

No sooner had Turgenev's novel appeared in the light than an extremely active discussion of it immediately began on the pages of the press and simply in the conversations of readers. A. Ya. Panaeva wrote in her “Memoirs”: “I don’t remember that any literary work made so much noise and stirred up as many conversations as the story "Fathers and Sons." They were read even by people who did not pick up books from school.

The controversy around the novel (Panaeva did not quite accurately identify the genre of the work) immediately acquired a truly fierce character. Turgenev recalled: “About Fathers and Sons, I have compiled a rather curious collection of letters and other documents. Comparing them is not without some interest. While some accuse me of insulting the younger generation, of backwardness, of obscurantism, they inform me that “they burn my photographic cards with laughter of contempt,” others, on the contrary, indignantly reproach me for kowtowing before this very young generation.

Readers and critics have not been able to come to a consensus: what was the position of the author himself, on whose side is he - "fathers" or "children"? They demanded a definite, precise, unambiguous answer from him. And since such an answer did not lie "on the surface", then the writer himself got the most of all, who did not formulate his attitude to the depicted with the desired certainty.

In the end, all disputes came down to Bazarov. "Sovremennik" responded to the novel with an article by M. A. Antonovich "Asmodeus of our time." Turgenev’s recent break with this journal was one of the sources of Antonovich’s conviction that the writer deliberately conceived his new work as anti-democratic, that he intended to strike at the most advanced forces of Russia, that he, defending the interests of the “fathers”, simply slandered the young generation.

Addressing the writer directly, Antonovich exclaimed: “... 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 didn’t understand “children” either, and instead of denunciation, you came up with slander.”

In a polemical fervor, Antonovich argued that Turgenev's novel was weak even in a purely artistic sense. Apparently, Antonovich could not (and did not want to) give an objective assessment of Turgenev's novel. The question arises: did the critic's sharply negative opinion express only his own point of view, or was it a reflection of the position of the entire magazine? Apparently, Antonovich's speech was of a programmatic nature.

Almost simultaneously with Antonovich's article, an article by D. I. Pisarev "Bazarov" appeared on the pages of another democratic journal, Russkoye Slovo. Unlike the critic of Sovremennik, Pisarev saw in Bazarov a reflection of the most essential features of democratic youth. “Turgenev’s novel,” Pisarev argued, “besides its artistic beauty, is also remarkable for the fact that it stirs the mind, leads to reflection ... Precisely because it is completely imbued with the most complete, most touching sincerity. Everything that is written in Turgenev's last novel is felt to the last line; this feeling breaks through in spite of the will and consciousness of the author himself and warms the objective story.

Even if the writer does not feel much sympathy for his hero, Pisarev was not embarrassed at all. Much more important is that the moods and ideas of Bazarov turned out to be surprisingly close and consonant with the young critic. Praising strength, independence, energy in Turgenev's hero, Pisarev accepted everything in Bazarov, who fell in love with him - both a dismissive attitude towards art (Pisarev himself thought so), and simplified views on the spiritual life of a person, and an attempt to comprehend love through the prism of natural scientific views.

Pisarev turned out to be a more penetrating critic than Antonovich. At all costs, he managed to more fairly assess the objective significance of Turgenev's novel, to understand that in the novel "Fathers and Sons" the writer paid the hero "full tribute of his respect."

And yet, both Antonovich and Pisarev approached the assessment of "Fathers and Sons" one-sidedly, although in different ways: one sought to cross out any meaning of the novel, the other was admired by Bazarov to such an extent that he even made him a kind of standard when evaluating other literary phenomena.

The disadvantage of these articles was, in particular, that they did not attempt to comprehend the inner tragedy of Turgenev's hero, the growing dissatisfaction with himself, discord with himself. In a letter to Dostoevsky, Turgenev wrote with bewilderment: “... No one seems to suspect that I tried to present a tragic face in him - and everyone is interpreting: why is he so bad? Or why is he so good?

Perhaps the most calm and objective attitude to Turgenev's novel was NN Strakhov. He wrote: “Bazarov turns away from nature; Turgenev does not reproach him for this, but only draws nature in all its beauty. Bazarov does not value friendship and renounces parental love; the author does not defame him for this, but only depicts Arkady's friendship for Bazarov himself and his happy love for Katya ... Bazarov ... is defeated not by persons and not by the accidents of life, but by the very idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthis life.

For a long time, primary attention was paid to the socio-political problems of the work, the sharp clash between the raznochinets and the world of the nobility, etc. Times have changed, readers have changed. New problems have arisen before humanity. And we begin to perceive Turgenev's novel already from the height of our historical experience, which we got at a very high price. We are more concerned not so much with the reflection in the work of a specific historical situation, but with the posing in it of the most important universal questions, the eternity and relevance of which over time are felt especially sharply.

The novel "Fathers and Sons" very quickly became known abroad. As early as 1863 it appeared in a French translation with a preface by Prosper Mérimée. Soon the novel was published in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Poland, North America. Already in the middle of the XX century. outstanding German writer Thomas Mann said: "If I were exiled to a desert island and could take only six books with me, then Turgenev's Fathers and Sons would certainly be among them."

No sooner had Turgenev's novel appeared in the light than an extremely active discussion of it immediately began on the pages of the press and simply in the conversations of readers. A. Ya. Panaeva wrote in her “Memoirs”: “I don’t remember that any literary work made so much noise and aroused so many conversations as the story“ Fathers and Sons ”. They were read even by people who did not pick up books from school.

The controversy around the novel (Panaeva did not quite accurately identify the genre of the work) immediately acquired a truly fierce character. Turgenev recalled: “About Fathers and Sons, I have compiled a rather curious collection of letters and other documents. Comparing them is not without some interest. While some accuse me of insulting the younger generation, of backwardness, of obscurantism, they inform me that “they burn my photographic cards with laughter of contempt,” others, on the contrary, indignantly reproach me for kowtowing before this very young - knee.

Readers and critics have not been able to come to a consensus: what was the position of the author himself, on whose side is he - "fathers" or "children"? They demanded a definite, precise, unambiguous answer from him. And since such an answer did not lie "on the surface", it was the writer himself who suffered most of all, who did not formulate his attitude to the depicted with the desired certainty.

In the end, all disputes came down to Bazarov. "Sovremennik" responded to the novel with an article by M. A. Antonovich "Asmodeus of our time." Turgenev’s recent break with this journal was one of the sources of Antonovich’s conviction that the writer deliberately conceived his new work as anti-democratic, that he intended to strike at the most advanced forces of Russia, that he, defending the interests of the “fathers” , simply slandered the younger generation.

Addressing the writer directly, Antonovich exclaimed: “... 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 out with slander.

In a polemical fervor, Antonovich argued that Turgenev's novel was weak even in a purely artistic sense. Apparently, Antonovich could not (and did not want to) give an objective assessment of Turgenev's novel. The question arises: did the critic's sharply negative opinion express only his own point of view, or was it a reflection of the position of the entire journal? Apparently, Antonovich's speech was of a programmatic nature.

Almost simultaneously with Antonovich's article, an article by D. I. Pisarev "Baza-rov" appeared on the pages of another democratic journal, Russkoe Slovo. Unlike the critic of Sovremennik, Pisarev saw in Bazarov a reflection of the most essential features of democratic youth. “Turgenev’s novel,” Pisarev argued, “besides its artistic beauty, is also remarkable for the fact that it stirs the mind, leads to reflection ... Precisely because it is completely imbued with the most complete, most touching sincerity. Everything that is written in Turgenev's last novel is felt to the last line; this feeling breaks past the will and consciousness of the author himself and warms the objective story.

Even if the writer does not feel special sympathy for his hero, Pisarev was not embarrassed at all. Much more important is that the moods and ideas of Bazarov turned out to be surprisingly close and consonant with the young critic. Praising strength, independence, energy in Turgenev's hero, Pisarev accepted everything in Bazarov, who fell in love with him - both a dismissive attitude towards art (Pisarev himself thought so), and simplified views on the spiritual life of a person, and an attempt to comprehend love through the prism of natural sciences. views.

Pisarev turned out to be a more penetrating critic than Antonovich. At all costs, he managed to more fairly assess the objective meaning of Turgenev's novel, to understand that in the novel "Fathers and Sons" the writer paid the hero "full tribute of his respect."

And yet, both Antonovich and Pisarev approached the assessment of "Fathers and Sons" one-sidedly, although in different ways: one sought to cross out any meaning of the novel, the other was admired by Bazarov to such an extent that he even made him a kind of standard when evaluating other literary phenomena.

The disadvantage of these articles was, in particular, that they did not attempt to comprehend the inner tragedy of Turgenev's hero, the growing dissatisfaction with himself, discord with himself. In a letter to Dostoevsky, Turgenev wrote with bewilderment: “... No one seems to suspect that I tried to present a tragic face in him - and everyone is interpreting: why is he so bad? Or why is he so good? material from the site

Perhaps the most calm and objective attitude to Turgenev's novel was N. N. Strakhov. He wrote: “Bazarov turns away from nature; Turgenev does not blame him for this, but only draws nature in all its beauty. Bazarov does not value friendship and renounces parental love; the author does not defame him for this, but only depicts Arkady's friendship for Bazarov himself and his happy love for Katya ... Bazarov ... is defeated not by persons and not by the accidents of life, but by the very idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthis life.

For a long time, primary attention was paid to the socio-political problems of the work, the sharp clash between the raznochinets and the world of the nobility, etc. Times have changed, readers have changed. New problems have arisen before humanity. And we begin to perceive Turgenev's novel already from the height of our historical experience, which we got at a very high price. We are more concerned not so much with the reflection in the work of a specific historical situation, but with the posing in it of the most important universal questions, the eternity and relevance of which are felt especially sharply over time.

The novel "Fathers and Sons" very quickly became known abroad. As early as 1863 it appeared in a French translation with a preface by Prosper Mérimée. Soon the novel was published in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Poland, North America. Already in the middle of the XX century. the outstanding German writer Thomas Mann said: “If I were exiled to a desert island and could take only six books with me, then Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons would certainly be among them.”

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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. Everything is reflected in the novel. modern author social and political contradictions; vividly represented as topical-coming, and eternal problems relationships between generations of "fathers" and "children".

In our opinion, the position of I.S. Turgenev in relation to the two opposing camps presented in the novel looks quite unambiguous. The author's attitude to the main character Bazarov also leaves no doubt. However, with light hand radical critics, Turgenev's contemporaries erected a largely grotesque, schematic image of the nihilist Bazarov on the pedestal of a hero, 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 has firmly established itself in school curriculum. For many years, teachers of literature, referring to the authoritative opinions of Pisarev, Herzen, Strakhov, tried to explain to schoolchildren what " new person» 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 XIX centuries, it was customary to put purely political motives at the forefront of this conflict: a divergence in the views of democrats-raznochintsev 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 left the thought of giving new thing in a Nekrasov magazine. The first mention of the novel is contained in a letter to Countess Lambert (summer 1860). Later, Turgenev himself dates the beginning of work on the novel 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. artistic element does not have and does not recognize ... 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 happened to observe in real life, merged into collective image"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, there are constant requests to report the news. public life Russia seething on the eve 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, man was gifted - young ... It is a pity 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 entire range of the novel's problems 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 stance.

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. Negative Traits 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 strong nature 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.”)

In the late 1950s, in the wake of Khrushchev's "thaw", a discussion unexpectedly unfolded, caused by V. A. Arkhipov's article "K creative history 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!

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

Democratic raznochinskaya youth ("children") 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, distant descendants, for whom the political struggle in post-reform Russia has long acquired the status of one of the pages national history or one of her cruel lessons, we should not forget that J.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 artistic expression 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 distinguishes fiction Turgenev from the topical "creations" of Mr. Chernyshevsky, Nekrasov, etc.

Unlike writer-journalists who crave 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 fashionable 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 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 take 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 he 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 orderliness and tranquility 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. Classic literature therefore it is called classical because it does not need later corrections 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.

A handsome young scoundrel Bazarov (A. Ustyugov), created in contrast with " goodie”film of 1958, 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 vast majority of our contemporaries (judging by the reviews on Internet forums and critical articles in the press) such a director's approach suited him perfectly: glamorous, not quite banal, and besides, it is perfectly adapted for the mass consumer of the 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 ownership of the 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 you follow the path nineteenth century and start to find out again author's position With regard to the social conflict between the generations of “fathers” and “children” of the 1860s, 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 public conflict the old noble aristocracy with the young revolutionary-democratic intelligentsia. This is a conflict between two historical eras who accidentally touched 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...

ROMAN I. S. TURGENEV
“FATHERS AND CHILDREN” IN RUSSIAN CRITICISM

"Fathers and Sons" caused a whole storm in the world literary criticism. After the release of the novel, a huge number of critical responses and articles that were completely opposite in their charge appeared, which indirectly testified to the innocence and innocence of the Russian reading public. Criticism was directed towards work of art as a journalistic article, a political pamphlet, not wanting to reconstruct the author's point of view. With the release of the novel, a lively discussion of it in the press begins, 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 M.A. Antonovich’s article “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 addition, it was argued that the novel was very weak artistically, that Turgenev, who set out to discredit Bazarov, resorted to caricature, depicting the protagonist as a monster "with a tiny head and a giant mouth, with a small face and a big nose." Antonovich is trying to defend women's emancipation and the aesthetic principles of the younger generation from Turgenev's attacks, trying to prove that "Kukshina is not as empty and limited as Pavel Petrovich." Regarding the denial of art by Bazarov
Antonovich declared that this was a pure lie, that the younger generation denies only "pure art", among whose representatives, however, he ranked Pushkin and Turgenev himself. According to Antonovich, from the very first pages, to the reader's greatest amazement, he is overcome by a kind of boredom; but, of course, you are not embarrassed by this and continue to read, hoping that it will be better further, that the author will enter into his role, that talent will take its toll and involuntarily captivate your attention. And meanwhile, and further, when the action of the novel unfolds completely before you, your curiosity does not stir, your feeling remains untouched; reading makes some unsatisfactory impression on you, which is reflected not in the feeling, but, most surprisingly, in the mind. You are covered with some kind of deadly cold; you don't live with the characters in the novel, you don't get imbued with their life, but you begin to talk coldly with them, or, more precisely, follow their reasoning. You forget that you have a novel by a talented artist in front of you, and you imagine that you are reading a moral-philosophical treatise, but bad and superficial, which, not satisfying your mind, thereby makes an unpleasant impression on your feelings. This shows that Turgenev's new work is extremely unsatisfactory artistically. Turgenev treats his heroes, not his favorites, in a completely different way. He harbors some kind of personal hatred and hostility towards them, as if they personally did him some kind of insult and dirty trick, and he tries to take revenge on them at every step, like a person personally offended; he with inner pleasure looks for weaknesses and shortcomings in them, about which he speaks with ill-concealed gloating and only in order to humiliate the hero in the eyes of readers: "look, they say, what scoundrels my enemies and opponents are." He rejoices as a child when he manages to prick an unloved hero with something, to joke about him, to present him in a funny or vulgar and vile form; every mistake, every thoughtless step of the hero pleasantly tickles his vanity, causes a smile of self-satisfaction, revealing a proud, but petty and inhumane consciousness of his own superiority. This vindictiveness reaches the ridiculous, has the appearance of school tweaks, showing up in trifles and trifles. The protagonist of the novel speaks with pride and arrogance of his skill in the card game; and Turgenev makes him constantly lose. Then Turgenev tries to present the protagonist as a glutton who only thinks about how to eat and drink, and this is again done not with good nature and comedy, but with the same vindictiveness and desire to humiliate the hero; From various places in Turgenev's novel it can be seen that main character his man is not stupid, - on the contrary, very capable and gifted, inquisitive, diligently studying and knowing a lot; meanwhile, in disputes, he is completely lost, expresses nonsense and preaches absurdities that are unforgivable to the most limited mind. There is nothing to say about the moral character and moral qualities of the hero; this is not a man, but some terrible creature, just a devil, or, more poetically, asmodeus. He systematically hates and persecutes everything from his kind parents, whom he cannot stand, to frogs, which he cuts with merciless cruelty. Never had a feeling crept into his cold heart; there is not a trace of any infatuation or passion in him; he releases the very hatred calculated, by grains. And mind you, this hero is a young man, a young man! He appears as some kind of poisonous creature that poisons everything he touches; he has a friend, but he despises him too and has not the slightest disposition towards him; he has followers, but he also hates them. The novel is nothing but a merciless and also destructive criticism of the younger generation. In all contemporary issues, mental movements, gossip and ideals that occupy the younger generation, Turgenev does not find any meaning and makes it clear that they lead only to debauchery, emptiness, prosaic vulgarity and cynicism.
What conclusion can be drawn from this novel; who will be right and wrong, who is worse, and who is better - "fathers" or "children"? Turgenev's novel has the same one-sided meaning. Excuse me, 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 rebuke for "children"; and you didn’t understand the “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. This attempt is not the first and is repeated quite often.
The same attempt was made, a few years ago, in a novel which was "a phenomenon overlooked by our criticism" because it belonged to an author who at that time was unknown and did not have the loud fame that he now enjoys. This novel is Asmodeus of Our Time, Op.
Askochensky, who was published in 1858. Last novel Turgenev vividly reminded us of this "Asmodeus" with his general thought, his tendencies, his personalities, and especially his main character.

In the journal "Russian Word" in 1862, an article by D. I. Pisarev appears
"Bazarov". The critic notes some 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."
But the general conclusion about the novel does not boil down to this^. D. I. Pisarev finds in the image of Bazarov an artistic synthesis of the most significant aspects of the worldview of raznochintsy democracy, depicted truthfully, despite Turgenev's original intention. The critic openly sympathizes with Bazarov, his strong, honest and stern character. He believed that Turgenev understood this new human type for Russia "as truly as none of our young realists would understand." a strictly critical look ... at the present moment turns out to be more fruitful than unfounded admiration or servile adoration. The tragedy of Bazarov, according to Pisarev, is that there are actually no favorable conditions for the present case, and therefore, “not being able to show us how Bazarov lives and acts, I.S.
Turgenev showed us how he dies.
In his article, D. I. Pisarev confirms the social sensitivity of the artist and the aesthetic significance of the novel: “ New romance Turgenev gives us everything that we used to enjoy in his works. The artistic finish is irreproachably good... And these phenomena are very close to us, so close that our entire young generation, with their aspirations and ideas, can recognize themselves in actors this novel." Even before the start of the direct controversy, D.
I. Pisarev actually foresees Antonovich's position. About the scenes
Sitnikov and Kukshina, he remarks: “Many of the literary opponents
"Russian Messenger" will attack Turgenev with bitterness for these scenes.
However, D. I. Pisarev is convinced that a real nihilist, a democrat-raznochinets, just like Bazarov, must deny art, not understand Pushkin, be sure that Raphael is “not worth a penny”. But it is important for us that
Bazarov, who is dying in the novel, “resurrects” on the last page of Pisarev’s article: “What to do? Live while you live, eat dry bread when there is no roast beef, be with women when you cannot love a woman, and generally not dream of orange trees and palm trees, when there are snowdrifts and cold tundras under your feet. Perhaps we can consider Pisarev's article the most striking interpretation of the novel in the 60s.

In 1862, in the fourth book of the Vremya magazine published by F. M. and M.
M. Dostoevsky, out interesting article N. N. Strakhova, 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. "Bazarov is a type, an ideal, a phenomenon elevated to the pearl of creation." Some features of Bazarov's character are explained more precisely by Strakhov than by Pisarev, for example, the denial of art. What Pisarev considered an accidental misunderstanding, explained by the individual development of the hero
(“He bluntly denies things that he does not know or does not understand ...”), Strakhov perceived Strakhov as an essential trait of the nihilist’s character: “... Art always has the character of reconciliation, while Bazarov does not at all want to reconcile with life. Art is idealism, contemplation, renunciation of life and worship of ideals; Bazarov is a realist, not a contemplator, but a doer ... ”However, if D.I. Pisarev Bazarov is a hero whose word and deed merge into one, then Strakhov’s nihilist is still a hero
“words”, albeit with a thirst for activity, brought to an extreme degree.
Strakhov captured the timeless meaning of the novel, managing to rise above the ideological disputes of his time. “Writing a novel with a progressive and retrograde direction is not a difficult thing to do. 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, everlasting,” the critic wrote.

The liberal critic P. V. Annenkov also responded to Turgenev's novel.
In his article “Bazarov and Oblomov” he tries to prove that, despite the outward difference between Bazarov and Oblomov, “the grain is the same in both natures”.

In 1862, an article by an unknown author was published in the Vek magazine.
"Nihilist Bazarov". It is devoted primarily to the analysis of the personality of the protagonist: “Bazarov is a nihilist. To that environment in which it is put, it concerns unconditionally negatively. Friendship does not exist for him: he endures his friend as the strong endures the weak. Kinship for him is a habit of his parents towards him. He understands love as a materialist. The people look with disdain for the adult on the little guys. There is no field of activity left for Bazarov.” As for nihilism, an unknown critic claims that Bazarov's denial has no basis, "there is no reason for him."

In the work of A. I. Herzen “Once again Bazarov”, the main object of controversy is not Turgenev’s hero, but Bazarov, created in the articles of D. I.
Pisarev. “Whether Pisarev correctly understood Turgenev’s Bazarov, I don’t care about that. The important thing is that he recognized himself and his people in Bazarov and added what was missing in the book, ”wrote the critic. Moreover, Herzen compares
Bazarov with the Decembrists and comes to the conclusion that “the Decembrists are our great fathers, the Bazarovs are our prodigal children.” Nihilism is called “logic without structures, science without dogma, submission to experience” in the article.

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, speaks with his judgments about the objectivity of reproducing reality: “... Accurately and strongly reproduce the truth, the reality of life - there is the highest happiness for a writer, even if this truth does not coincide with his own sympathies.”

The works considered in the abstract 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. But isn't this a real recognition of the relevance and significance of the work?

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