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Lecture 7
Reading Fathers and Sons (p:178-204)
•Turgenev as a writer
• Introduction
•Character and type in F&S
•Bazarov
•The historical context in F&S
•The representation of women in F&S
•F&S and the woman question.
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Lecture 7
Reading Fathers and Sons (p:178-204)
•Realist novels flourished mainly outside Britain, in
France and Russia in particular.
•Balzac, Flaubert, Stendhal from France and
Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Turgenev from Russia
•Turgenev is ‘the novelists’ novelist’.
•Although translated texts partially lose something of the
original, but with realist works, the loss is minimal.
•Realism: new intellectual movement of the time.
•Turgenev calls for our sympathy towards the
exploited serfs and peasants: realistic vision of life.
•Fathers and Sons refers to the growing divide
between the two generations.
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Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883
Turgenev wrote six novels and many short stories, often providing
sophisticated portraits of psychological and social “types”.
Turgenev’s novel Fathers and Sons (1862) is a positive portrayal of the new
generation of intelligenty from beyond the gentry – the so-called
raznochintsy. They are portrayed in the novel as inspired by “scientific”
ideas and Utilitarian thought, rejecting the Romantic values of the preceding
generation.
Turgenev himself was generally reluctant to express political views directly
(especially after an early encounter with imperial displeasure), but very
sensitive to the intellectual environment of his day.
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Historical introduction
In the 1840s and early 1850s during the rule of
Tsar Nicholas I, the political climate in Russia
was stifling for many writers. This is evident in
the despair and subsequent death of Gogol, and
the oppression, persecution and arrests of
artists, scientists and writers, including
Dostoevsky. During this time, thousands of
Russian intellectuals emigrated to Europe.
Among them were Turgenev
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Lecture 7
Reading Fathers and Sons (p:178-204)
Bazarov –
A nihilist, a student of science, and is training to be
a doctor. As a nihilist he is a counselor to Arkady,
and a challenger to the liberal ideas of the Kirsanov
brothers and the usual Russian Orthodox feelings
of his own parents.
Arkady Kirsanov –
A recent graduate of St Petersburg University and friend
of Bazarov. He is also a nihilist, although his conviction
seems to stem from his admiration of Bazarov rather
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than his own conviction.
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Lecture 7
Reading Fathers and Sons (p:178-204)
Nikolai Kirsanov –
A landlord, a liberal democrat, and Arkady’s father. At
the start of the work he is ashamed to acknowledge his
non-aristocratic lover Fenichka, but with the example of
ideals in practice presented by the nihilists, and finally
with the approval of his brother, he marries her.
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Pavel Kirsanov –
Nikolai’s brother and a bourgeois with aristocratic
pretensions, who prides himself on his refinement but
like his brother is reform minded. Although he is
reluctantly tolerant of the nihilism, he cannot help hating
Bazarov.
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Lecture 7
Reading Fathers and Sons (p:178-204)
Vasily Bazarov –
Bazarov’s father, a retired army surgeon, and a small countryside
land/serf holder. Educated and enlightened, he nonetheless feels,
like many of the characters, that rural isolation has left him out of
touch with modern ideas. He thus retains a loyalty to traditionalist
ways, manifested particularly in devotion to God and his son.
Arina Bazarova –
Bazarov’s mother. A very traditional woman of the 15th c. Moscovy
style aristocracy: a pious follower of Orthodox Christianity, woven
with folk tales and falsehoods. She loves her son deeply, but is also
terrified of him and his rejection of all beliefs.
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Lecture 7
Reading Fathers and Sons (p:178-204)
Anna Odintsova –
A wealthy widow who entertains the nihilist friends at her
estate. She falls in love with Bazarov, but is unable to admit her
love, because of her fear for the emotional chaos it could bring.
Her reciprocated love with Bazarov is a challenge to his nihilist
ideal of rejection of all established order.
Katya Lokteva –
A character similar to Arkady and the younger sister of Anna.
She lives comfortably with her sister but lacks confidence,
finding it hard to escape Anna Sergeevna's shadow. This
shyness makes her and Arkady’s love slow to realize itself.
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Lecture 7
Reading Fathers and Sons (p:178-204)
Fenichka –
• Nikolai’s servant, with whom he has fallen in love
and fathered a child out of wedlock. The implied
obstacles to their marriage are difference in class,
and perhaps Nikolai's previous marriage - the
burden of 'traditionalist' values.
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Lecture 7
Reading Fathers and Sons (p:178-204)
•Realist novels flourished mainly outside Britain, in
France and Russia in particular.
•Balzac, Flaubert, Stendhal from France and
Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Turgenev from Russia
•Turgenev is ‘the novelists’ novelist’.
•Although translated texts partially lose something of the
original, but with realist works, the loss is minimal.
•Realism: new intellectual movement of the time.
•Turgenev calls for our sympathy towards the
exploited serfs and peasants: realistic vision of life.
•Fathers and Sons refers to the growing divide
between the two generations.
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Lecture 7
Turgenev as a writer (p: 180-4))
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•When English novelists criticized their social and
political system, it was rather taken for the sake of
social development and political reform. However,
when Russian novelists criticized the social and
political conventions, it was considered as a
reactionary, revolutionary attitude.
•Bazarov, like Turgenev is referred to as the first
‘bolshevik’ for his rejection of the old order.
•Any realist writer, regardless of his culture, gives an
account of things as they are around him balancing the
individuality of characters against their social identity.
Agency (your own identity) vs structure (society, family,
culture).
Lecture 7
Turgenev as a writer (p: 180-4))
•F&S is steeped in its historical context, fictitious or
real characters? A.D. Nuttall argues
•“we should think of texts not as directly
transcribing reality, but as offering ‘hypothetical
cases’ (let us assume…), or versions of, reality that
seem probable by comparison with reality”.
•Rigid stratification of 19th C Russian society.
•Land owners and serfs (human property)
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Lecture 7
Turgenev as a writer (p: 180-4))
•Dramatic force of F&S:
•1- Limited number of characters → maximum
narrative and sense of individuality.
•2- Setting hardly changes. It is mainly a provincial
country house. It heightens intellectual and
emotional ambiguity.
•3- Extensive dialogue → Critical interplay of
characters.
•3 person narrator
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Lecture 7
Character and type in F&S (p:184-8)
•Depiction of a rapidly changing physiognomy of the
intellectual Russian with gender and age group in the
agenda.
•Major distinction in intellectual community is
Westernizers
Liberal and nihilists who
Prefer Western solutions to
Russian problems
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Slavophiles
Conservatives who believe in
Russian traditional spirituality
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Character and type in F&S (p:184-8)
• Pavel. Kirsanov and Bazarov are opposed (age,
interests, ideologies), yet they both are highly principled,
both have a powerful sense of the self. (p:185) as per
the Hamletic (person’s own ego) and the Quixotic
principles (acquired principles) (p:184 RN)
• F&S has a minimal plot, but the characters have
conflicting ideas, clashing temperaments.
• Harmonic combination of showing and telling
narrative techniques.
• The shift from plot to character was first initiated by
Ivan Turgenev, then Dostoevsky followed suit with
Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment . In F&S, Bazarov
nd half of 19th
is
a
vivid
example
of
literary
realism
in
the
2
15
C Russia.
Lecture 7
Character and type in F&S (p:184-8)
• Quote I. Turgenev p:187 RN
• Room for imagination is small. He needed factual
aspects to stand upon.
• Bazarov is self-proclaimed as a nihilist. A rejection of
values and a belief in scientific materialism.
• The nihilist Bazarov is ambiguous and contradictory at
times. He represents the local and the universal, the type
and archetype.
• In Bazarov, the author succeeded in creating a
character typical culturally with European and
Russian standards: The local and the universal
intermingle in the creation of his character.
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Lecture 7
Character and type in F&S (p:184-8)
• Bazarov is a two-faced model of Russia’s history:
Modern western enlightenment and medieval Asiatic
savagery.
• Turgenev’s treatment of women. Odintsova is portrayed
as an independent, brilliant woman, the epitome of la
femme fatale who psychologically tortures her lover.
•
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Lecture 7
The historical context of F&S (p:188-192)
• The event of the emancipation of the serfs (1860’s)
• Alexander II : semi-feudal system = moral corruption
• The change is minimal. Peasants and gentry
remained the ‘children of the ‘Tsar’.
• Turgenev believes ‘it is the literary man’s highest joy
to reproduce the truth, the reality of life accurately
and powerfully, even if that truth confronts with his
own sympathies’.
• Alexander II’s social reforms were modest in western
terms, but were dramatic in Russian concept. They
were all portrayed in F&S
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Lecture 7
The historical context of F&S (p:188-192)
• Russian literature in 1860’s (19th C novel) was a
chronicle and criticism of the situation prior to the
emancipation of the serfs. It acted as a revolutionary
incentive, paving the way for the Bolshevik
revolution of 1917.
• The peasants were not ready for revolutions. Quote
(p:191). It was not till the development of an
industrial proletariat which provided a vital
ingredient for political upheaval.
• The important role of realist fiction: It highlighted the
limits of science through the display of our
erroneous and irrational nature. (eg: The nihilist
Bazarov’s fate in love) p:192 RN.
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Lecture 7
The representation of women in F&S
(p:193-196)
• Russian literature and mainly the realist novel is
male-authored. However, women were depicted in a
complex and remarkable manner as in Turgenev’s
F&S.
• They are either the virgin, child-like, innocent (Katya)
or la femme fatale (Odintsova) and wicked witch.
(P:194-5RN).
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Lecture 7
F&S and the woman question (p:196-204)
• Catherine the Great’s reign (1762-96) contributed to the
emancipation of women in the fields of education, law and
family.
• 1830’s and 40’s Russian intellectual males supported women
cause, but the process was slow.
• 1850’s & 60’s: Radical feminist views: emancipation of the serfs
coincided with the emancipation of women (both were
considered the other).
• Women were on and off entitled to attend university lectures in
1860’s. Male radicals played havoc with females’ chastity while
trying to ‘rescue’ them from their impoverished families due to
the disowning of gentries’ lands. They were urged to move to
Moscow, Zurich, Paris to get a sound education (new western
ideas).
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