The death of nihilism
Title: Fathers and Sons
Author: Ivan Turgenev
Read by Roger Melin (9 hr 15 min)
Ivan Turgenev's masterpiece explores the inevitable friction between generations and the shifting political landscape of mid-nineteenth-century Russia.
The story begins in 1859 when Arkady Kirsanov returns to his father's modest estate after graduating from university.
He is accompanied by his mentor, Bazarov, a self-proclaimed nihilist who rejects all established authority, traditions, and emotional sentiments in favor of scientific materialism and cold logic.
Arkady's father, Nikolai, and his uncle, Pavel, represent the older liberal generation of the 1840s.
While Nikolai tries to bridge the gap through love and patience, Pavel is deeply offended by Bazarov's arrogance and his dismissal of art, nobility, and social order.
The tension between Bazarov's radicalism and Pavel's traditionalism forms the intellectual heart of the novel.
The narrative shifts as the young men visit a provincial town and meet Anna Odintsova, a wealthy and independent widow.
Both men are drawn to her, but the experience shatters Bazarov’s cynical worldview.
He finds himself falling in love, an emotion he previously mocked as a physiological weakness.
His inability to reconcile his nihilistic philosophy with his genuine feelings leads to frustration and a sense of alienation.
Eventually, Bazarov returns to his own parents' home. His father and mother adore him with a suffocating, traditional devotion that he finds difficult to bear despite his underlying affection for them.
While assisting his father with medical work, Bazarov accidentally cuts himself during an autopsy of a typhus victim.
He contracts the disease and dies, facing his end with a mixture of stoicism and a final, softened realization of the beauty of the world he had spent his life deconstructing.
Arkady, meanwhile, moves away from nihilism to find happiness in marriage and estate management, suggesting a reconciliation with tradition.
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