Asmodeus of our time summary of the article. Bazarov in "real criticism"

M.A. Antonovich “Asmodeus of our time”

I look sadly at our generation...

There is nothing complicated in the concept of the novel. Its action is also very simple and takes place in 1859. The main character, a representative of the younger generation, is Evgeny Vasilyevich Bazarov, a physician, a smart, diligent young man who knows his business, self-confident to the point of insolence, but stupid, loving strong drinks, imbued with the wildest concepts and unreasonable to the point that everyone fools him, even simple men. He has no heart at all. He is insensitive as a stone, cold as ice and fierce as a tiger. He has a friend, Arkady Nikolaevich Kirsanov, a candidate at St. Petersburg University, a sensitive, kind-hearted young man with an innocent soul. Unfortunately, he submitted to the influence of his friend Bazarov, who is trying in every possible way to dull the sensitivity of his heart, kill with his ridicule the noble movements of his soul and instill in him a contemptuous coldness towards everything. As soon as he discovers some sublime impulse, his friend will immediately besiege him with his contemptuous irony. Bazarov has a father and a mother. Father, Vasily Ivanovich, an old doctor, lives with his wife on his small estate; good old people love their Enyushenka to infinity. Kirsanov also has a father, a significant landowner living in the village; his wife died, and he lives with Fenichka, a sweet creature, the daughter of his housekeeper. His brother lives in his house, which means Kirsanov’s uncle, Pavel Petrovich, a single man, in his youth a metropolitan lion, and in his old age - a village fop, endlessly immersed in worries about dandyism, but an invincible dialectician, at every step striking Bazarov and his nephew

Let's take a closer look at the trends and try to find out the hidden qualities of fathers and children. So, what are the fathers like, the old generation? Fathers in the novel are presented in the best possible way. We are not talking about those fathers and that old generation, which is represented by the inflated Princess Khaya, who could not tolerate youth and sulked at the “new rabid ones,” Bazarov and Arkady. Kirsanov's father, Nikolai Petrovich, is an exemplary person in all respects. He himself, despite his general origins, was brought up at the university and had a candidate's degree and gave his son a higher education. Having lived almost to old age, he never ceased to take care of supplementing his own education. He used all his strength to keep up with the times. He wanted to get closer to the younger generation, to become imbued with their interests, so that together, together, hand in hand, to move towards a common goal. But the younger generation rudely pushed him away. He wanted to get along with his son in order to begin his rapprochement with the younger generation with him, but Bazarov prevented this. He tried to humiliate the father in the eyes of his son and thereby broke off any moral connection between them. “We,” the father said to his son, “will live a glorious life with you, Arkasha. We now need to get close to each other, get to know each other well, don’t we?” But no matter what they talk about among themselves, Arkady always begins to sharply contradict his father, who attributes this - and quite rightly - to the influence of Bazarov. But the son still loves his father and does not lose hope of someday getting closer to him. “My father,” he says to Bazarov, “is a golden man.” “It’s an amazing thing,” he replies, “these old romantics! They will develop a nervous system in themselves to the point of irritation, well, the balance will be disturbed.” Filial love began to speak in Arkady, he stood up for his father, saying that his friend did not know him enough yet. But Bazarov killed the last remnant of filial love in him with the following contemptuous review: “Your father is a kind fellow, but he is a retired man, his song is sung. He reads Pushkin. Explain to him that this is no good. After all, he is not a boy: it’s time to give up this nonsense. Give him something sensible, even Buchner’s Stoff und Kraft5 for the first time.” The son completely agreed with his friend’s words and felt regret and contempt for his father. His father accidentally overheard this conversation, which struck him to the very heart, offended him to the core, and killed all energy in him, all desire to get closer to the younger generation. “Well,” he said after this, “maybe Bazarov is right; but one thing hurts me: I hoped to get along closely and friendly with Arkady, but it turns out that I was left behind, he went ahead, and we can’t understand each other.” Can. It seems that I am doing everything to keep up with the times: I organized peasants, started a farm, so that throughout the entire province they call me red. I read, I study, I generally try to keep up with modern needs, but they say that my song is finished. Yes, I’m beginning to think so myself." These are the harmful effects produced by the arrogance and intolerance of the younger generation. One boy’s trick struck the giant; he doubted his abilities and saw the futility of his efforts to keep up with the times. Thus, the younger generation, through their own fault, lost assistance and support from a person who could be a very useful figure, because he was gifted with many wonderful qualities that young people lack. Young people are cold, selfish, do not have poetry in themselves and therefore hate it everywhere, do not have the highest moral convictions. how this man had a poetic soul and, despite the fact that he knew how to set up a farm, retained his poetic fervor until his old age, and most importantly, was imbued with the firmest moral convictions.

Bazarov's father and mother are even better, even kinder than Arkady's parent. The father, in the same way, does not want to lag behind the times, and the mother lives only with love for her son and the desire to please him. Their common, tender affection for Enyushenka is depicted by Mr. Turgenev very excitingly and vividly; these are the best pages in the entire novel. But the more disgusting it seems to us is the contempt with which Enyushenka pays for their love, and the irony with which he treats their tender caresses.

This is what fathers are like! They, in contrast to children, are imbued with love and poetry, they are moral people, modestly and quietly doing good deeds. They never want to lag behind the century.

So, the high advantages of the old generation over the young are undeniable. But they will be even more certain when we look at the qualities of “children” in more detail. What are “children” like? Of those “children” who appear in the novel, only one Bazarov seems to be an independent and intelligent person. It is not clear from the novel what influences Bazarov’s character was formed under. It is also unknown where he borrowed his beliefs from and what conditions were favorable to the development of his way of thinking. If Mr. Turgenev had thought about these questions, he would certainly have changed his concepts about fathers and children. The writer did not say anything about the part that the study of natural sciences, which constituted his specialty, could take in the development of the hero. He says that the hero took a certain direction in his way of thinking as a result of a sensation. What this means is impossible to understand, but so as not to offend the author’s philosophical insight, we see in this feeling only poetic acuity. Be that as it may, Bazarov’s thoughts are independent, they belong to him, to his own mental activity. He is a teacher, the other “children” of the novel, stupid and empty, listen to him and only meaninglessly repeat his words. Besides Arkady, there is, for example, Sitnikov. He considers himself a student of Bazarov and owes his rebirth to him: “Would you believe it,” he said, “that when Evgeniy Vasilyevich said in front of me that he should not recognize authorities, I felt such delight... as if I had seen the light! So, I finally thought "I found a man!" Sitnikov told the teacher about Mrs. Kukshina, an example of modern daughters. Bazarov then only agreed to go to her when the student assured him that she would have a lot of champagne.

Bravo, young generation! Excellent for progress. And what is the comparison with smart, kind and morally sedate “fathers”? Even his best representative turns out to be a most vulgar gentleman. But still, he is better than others, he speaks with consciousness and expresses his own judgments, not borrowed from anyone, as it turns out from the novel. We will now deal with this best specimen of the younger generation. As stated above, he seems to be a cold person, incapable of love, or even the most ordinary affection. He cannot even love a woman with the poetic love that is so attractive in the old generation. If, according to the demands of animal feeling, he falls in love with a woman, then he will love only her body. He even hates the soul in a woman. He says “that she doesn’t even need to understand a serious conversation and that only freaks think freely between women.”

You, Mr. Turgenev, ridicule aspirations that would deserve encouragement and approval from every right-thinking person - we do not mean here the desire for champagne. There are already many thorns and obstacles on the way for young women who want to study more seriously. Their already evil-tongued sisters prick their eyes with “blue stockings.” And without you, we have many stupid and dirty gentlemen who, like you, reproach them for their disheveled state and lack of crinolines, mock their unclean collars and their nails, which do not have that crystal transparency to which your dear Pavel brought his nails Petrovich. This would be enough, but you are still straining your wit to come up with new offensive nicknames for them and want to use Mrs. Kukshina. Or do you really think that emancipated women only care about champagne, cigarettes and students, or about several one-time husbands, as your fellow artist Mr. Bezrylov imagines? This is even worse because it casts an unfavorable shadow on your philosophical acumen. But something else - ridicule - is also good, because it makes you doubt your sympathy for everything reasonable and fair. We, personally, are in favor of the first assumption.

We will not protect the young male generation. It really is as it is depicted in the novel. So we agree that the old generation is not at all embellished, but is presented as it really is with all its venerable qualities. We just don’t understand why Mr. Turgenev gives preference to the old generation. The younger generation of his novel is in no way inferior to the old. Their qualities are different, but the same in degree and dignity; as are the fathers, so are the children. Fathers = children - traces of nobility. We will not defend the younger generation and attack the old, but will only try to prove the correctness of this formula of equality.

Young people are pushing away the old generation. This is very bad, harmful to the cause and does not bring honor to the youth. But why doesn’t the older generation, more prudent and experienced, take measures against this repulsion and why doesn’t it try to attract young people to itself? Nikolai Petrovich is a respectable, intelligent man, he wanted to get close to the younger generation, but when he heard the boy call him retired, he became angry, began to mourn his backwardness and immediately realized the futility of his efforts to keep up with the times. What kind of weakness is this? If he was aware of his justice, if he understood the aspirations of young people and sympathized with them, then it would be easy for him to win his son over to his side. Did Bazarov interfere? But as a father connected with his son by love, he could easily overcome Bazarov’s influence on him if he had the desire and skill to do so. And in alliance with Pavel Petrovich, an invincible dialectician, he could convert even Bazarov himself. After all, it is difficult to teach and retrain old people, but youth is very receptive and mobile, and one cannot think that Bazarov would refuse the truth if it were shown and proven to him! Mr. Turgenev and Pavel Petrovich exhausted all their wit in arguing with Bazarov and did not skimp on harsh and insulting expressions. However, Bazarov did not lose his temper, did not become embarrassed, and remained unconvinced in his opinions, despite all the objections of his opponents. It must be because the objections were bad. So, “fathers” and “children” are equally right and wrong in their mutual repulsion. “Children” push away their fathers, but these fathers passively move away from them and do not know how to attract them to themselves. Complete equality!

Nikolai Petrovich did not want to marry Fenechka due to the influence of traces of nobility, because she was no match for him and, most importantly, because he was afraid of his brother, Pavel Petrovich, who had even more traces of nobility and who, however, also had designs on Fenechka. Finally, Pavel Petrovich decided to destroy the traces of nobility in himself and himself demanded that his brother marry. "Marry Fenechka... She loves you! She is the mother of your son." “Are you saying this, Pavel? - you, whom I considered an opponent of such marriages! But don’t you know that it was only out of respect for you that I did not fulfill what you so rightly called my duty.” “It’s in vain that you respected me in this case,” answered Pavel, “I’m beginning to think that Bazarov was right when he reproached me for aristocratism. No, we’ve had enough of breaking down and thinking about the world, it’s time for us to put aside all vanity,” then there are traces of lordship. Thus, the “fathers” finally realized their shortcoming and put it aside, thereby destroying the only difference that existed between them and their children. So, our formula is modified as follows: “fathers” are traces of the nobility = “children” are traces of the nobility. Subtracting equal quantities from equal ones, we get: “fathers” = “children,” which is what we needed to prove.

With this we will finish with the personalities of the novel, with fathers and sons, and turn to the philosophical side. Those views and trends that are depicted in it and which do not belong only to the younger generation, but are shared by the majority and express the general modern direction and movement. As you can see, by all appearances, Turgenev took to depict the then period of mental life and literature, and these are the features he discovered in it. From different places in the novel we will collect them together. Before, you see, there were Hegelists, but now nihilists have appeared. Nihilism is a philosophical term that has different meanings. The writer defines it as follows: “A nihilist is one who recognizes nothing, who respects nothing, who treats everything from a critical point of view, who does not bow to any authorities, who does not accept a single principle on faith, no matter how respectful.” nor was this principle surrounded. Before, without principles taken on faith, they could not take a step. Now they do not recognize any principles: they do not recognize art, they do not believe in science, and they even say that science does not exist at all. Now they deny everything, but build. they don’t want to. They say: “It’s none of our business, we need to clear the place first.”

Here is a collection of modern views put into the mouth of Bazarov. What are they? Caricature, exaggeration and nothing more. The author directs the arrows of his talent against something into the essence of which he has not penetrated. He heard various voices, saw new opinions, observed lively debates, but could not get to their inner meaning, and therefore in his novel he touched only on the tops, only on the words that were spoken around him. The concepts associated with these words remained a mystery to him. All his attention is focused on fascinatingly drawing the image of Fenechka and Katya, describing Nikolai Petrovich’s dreams in the garden, depicting “searching, vague, sad anxiety and causeless tears.” The matter would have turned out well if he had limited himself to this. He should not artistically analyze the modern way of thinking and characterize trends. He either does not understand them at all, or he understands them in his own, artistic way, superficially and incorrectly, and from the personification of them he composes a novel. Such art really deserves, if not denial, then censure. We have the right to demand that the artist understand what he depicts, that in his images, in addition to artistry, there is truth, and what he is not able to understand should not be accepted for that. Mr. Turgenev is perplexed how one can understand nature, study it and at the same time admire it and enjoy it poetically, and therefore says that the modern young generation, passionately devoted to the study of nature, denies the poetry of nature and cannot admire it. Nikolai Petrovich loved nature because he looked at it unconsciously, “indulging in the sad and joyful play of lonely thoughts,” and felt only anxiety. Bazarov could not admire nature, because vague thoughts did not play in him, but thought worked, trying to understand nature; he walked through the swamps not with “searching anxiety,” but with the goal of collecting frogs, beetles, ciliates, so that he could then cut them and examine them under a microscope, and this killed all poetry in him. But meanwhile, the highest and most reasonable enjoyment of nature is possible only with its understanding, when it is looked at not with unaccountable thoughts, but with clear thoughts. The “children”, taught by the “fathers” themselves and the authorities, were convinced of this. There were people who understood the meaning of its phenomena, knew the movement of waves and vegetation, read the star book and were great poets10. But true poetry also requires that the poet depict nature correctly, not fantastically, but as it is, a poetic personification of nature - an article of a special kind. "Pictures of nature" can be the most accurate, most scientific description of nature and can produce a poetic effect. The picture can be artistic, although it is drawn so accurately that a botanist can study on it the location and shape of leaves in plants, the direction of their veins and the types of flowers. The same rule applies to works of art depicting phenomena of human life. You can write a novel, imagine in it the “children” looking like frogs and the “fathers” looking like aspens. Confuse modern trends, reinterpret other people's thoughts, take a little from different views and make a porridge and vinaigrette out of it all called “nihilism.” Imagine this mess of faces, so that each face represents a vinaigrette of the most opposite, incongruous and unnatural actions and thoughts; and at the same time effectively describe a duel, a sweet picture of love dates and a touching picture of death. Anyone can admire this novel, finding artistry in it. But this artistry disappears, denies itself at the first touch of thought, which reveals a lack of truth in it.

In calm times, when the movement occurs slowly, development proceeds gradually on the basis of old principles, the disagreements of the old generation with the new relate to unimportant things, the contradictions between “fathers” and “children” cannot be too sharp, therefore the struggle itself between them has a calm character and does not go beyond known limited limits. But in lively times, when development takes a bold and significant step forward or turns sharply to the side, when the old principles turn out to be untenable and in their place completely different conditions and demands of life arise - then this struggle takes on significant volumes and is sometimes expressed in the most tragic way. The new teaching appears in the form of an unconditional negation of everything old. It declares an irreconcilable struggle against old views and traditions, moral rules, habits and way of life. The difference between the old and the new is so sharp that, at least at first, agreement and reconciliation between them is impossible. At such times, family ties seem to weaken, brother rebels against brother, son against father. If the father remains with the old, and the son turns to the new, or vice versa, discord between them is inevitable. A son cannot hesitate between his love for his father and his conviction. The new teaching with visible cruelty demands from him that he leave his father, mother, brothers and sisters and be true to himself, his convictions, his calling and the rules of the new teaching, and follow these rules unswervingly.

Sorry, 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 the “fathers” and a denunciation of the “children,” and you did not understand the “children,” and instead of denunciation you came up with slander. You wanted to portray the spreaders of sound concepts among the younger generation as corrupters of youth, sowers of discord and evil, haters of good - in a word, Asmodeus.

Antonovich saw in the novel a panegyric to the “fathers” and slander against the younger generation. In addition, it was argued that the novel is very weak artistically, that Turgenev, who aimed to discredit Bazarov, resorted to caricature, depicting the main character as a monster “with a tiny head and a giant mouth, with a small face and a very 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 Bazarov’s denial of art

Antonovich stated that this is a complete lie, that the younger generation denies only “pure art,” among whose representatives, however, he included Pushkin and Turgenev himself. According to Antonovich, from the very first pages, to the greatest amazement of the reader, a certain kind of boredom takes possession of him; but, of course, you are not embarrassed by this and continue to read, hoping that it will be better, that the author will enter into his role, that talent will take its toll and involuntarily captivate your attention. Meanwhile, further on, when the action of the novel unfolds completely before you, your curiosity does not stir, your feeling remains intact; reading makes some kind of unsatisfactory impression on you, which is reflected not in your feelings, but, most surprisingly, in your mind. You are enveloped in some kind of deadening cold; you do not live with the characters in the novel, do not become imbued with their lives, but begin to coldly reason with them, or, more precisely, follow their reasoning. You forget that before you lies a novel by a talented artist, and imagine that you are reading a moral and philosophical treatise, but a bad and superficial one, which, not satisfying the mind, thereby makes an unpleasant impression on your feelings. This shows that Turgenev's new work is extremely unsatisfactory artistically. Turgenev treats his heroes, who are not his favorites, completely differently. He harbors some kind of personal hatred and hostility towards them, as if they had personally done him some kind of offense and dirty trick, and he tries to take revenge on them at every step, like a person personally offended; With inner pleasure, he finds weaknesses and shortcomings in them, which he speaks about with poorly 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 childishly rejoices when he manages to prick his unloved hero with something, make jokes at him, present him in a funny or vulgar and vile way; Every mistake, every rash step of the hero pleasantly tickles his pride, evokes a smile of self-satisfaction, revealing a proud, but petty and inhumane consciousness of his own superiority. This vindictiveness reaches the point of ridiculousness, has the appearance of schoolboy pinching, revealing itself in small things and trifles. From various places in Turgenev's novel it is clear that his main character is not a stupid person, - on the contrary, he is very capable and gifted, inquisitive, diligently studying and knowing a lot; and yet 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 person, but some kind of terrible creature, just a devil, or, to put it more poetically, an asmodeus. He systematically hates and persecutes everything, from his parents to frogs, which he slaughters with merciless cruelty. Never did any feeling creep into his cold heart; not a trace of any hobby or passion is visible in him; He releases the very hatred calculatedly, grain by grain. And note, this hero is a young man, a youth! He appears to be some kind of poisonous creature that poisons everything he touches; he has a friend, but he despises him too and has not the slightest affection for him; He has followers, but he also hates them. The novel is nothing more than a merciless and also destructive criticism of the younger generation.

Which is usually associated with the work "Rudin", published in 1855, a novel in which Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev returned to the structure of this first of his creations.

As in him, in “Fathers and Sons” all the plot threads converged to one center, which was formed by the figure of Bazarov, a commoner democrat. She alarmed all critics and readers. Various critics have written a lot about the novel “Fathers and Sons”, since the work aroused genuine interest and controversy. We will present to you the main positions regarding this novel in this article.

Significance in understanding the work

Bazarov became not only the plot center of the work, but also a problematic one. The assessment of all other aspects of Turgenev’s novel largely depended on the understanding of his fate and personality: the author’s position, the system of characters, the various artistic techniques used in the work “Fathers and Sons.” Critics examined this novel chapter by chapter and saw in it a new turn in the work of Ivan Sergeevich, although their understanding of the milestone meaning of this work was completely different.

Why was Turgenev scolded?

The author's ambivalent attitude towards his hero led to the censure and reproaches of his contemporaries. Turgenev was severely scolded from all sides. Critics responded mostly negatively to the novel Fathers and Sons. Many readers could not understand the author's thoughts. From the memoirs of Annenkov, as well as Ivan Sergeevich himself, we learn that M.N. Katkov became indignant after reading the manuscript “Fathers and Sons” chapter by chapter. He was outraged by the fact that the main character of the work reigns supreme and does not meet any meaningful resistance anywhere. Readers and critics of the opposite camp also harshly condemned Ivan Sergeevich for the internal dispute that he waged with Bazarov in his novel “Fathers and Sons.” Its content seemed to them not entirely democratic.

The most notable among many other interpretations are the article by M.A. Antonovich, published in Sovremennik (“Asmodeus of our time”), as well as a number of articles that appeared in the journal “Russian Word” (democratic), written by D.I. Pisareva: “The Thinking Proletariat”, “Realists”, “Bazarov”. about the novel "Fathers and Sons" presented two opposing opinions.

Pisarev's opinion about the main character

Unlike Antonovich, who assessed Bazarov sharply negatively, Pisarev saw in him a real “hero of the time.” This critic compared this image with the “new people” depicted in N.G. Chernyshevsky.

The theme of “fathers and sons” (the relationship between generations) came to the fore in his articles. The contradictory opinions expressed by representatives of the democratic movement were perceived as a “split among the nihilists” - a fact of internal controversy that existed in the democratic movement.

Antonovich about Bazarov

It was no coincidence that both readers and critics of Fathers and Sons were concerned about two questions: about the author’s position and about the prototypes of the images of this novel. They are the two poles along which any work is interpreted and perceived. According to Antonovich, Turgenev was malicious. In the interpretation of Bazarov presented by this critic, this image is not a face copied “from life” at all, but an “evil spirit”, “Asmodeus”, which was released by a writer embittered towards the new generation.

Antonovich's article is written in a feuilleton style. This critic, instead of presenting an objective analysis of the work, created a caricature of the main character, substituting Sitnikov, Bazarov’s “student,” in the place of his teacher. Bazarov, according to Antonovich, is not at all an artistic generalization, not a mirror in which is reflected. The critic believed that the author of the novel had created a biting feuilleton, which should be objected to in the same manner. Antonovich's goal - to "create a quarrel" with Turgenev's younger generation - was achieved.

What could the democrats not forgive Turgenev?

Antonovich, in the subtext of his unfair and rude article, reproached the author for creating a figure that is too “recognizable,” since Dobrolyubov is considered one of its prototypes. Journalists from Sovremennik, moreover, could not forgive the author for breaking with this magazine. The novel "Fathers and Sons" was published in "Russian Messenger", a conservative publication, which for them was a sign of Ivan Sergeevich's final break with democracy.

Bazarov in "real criticism"

Pisarev expressed a different point of view regarding the main character of the work. He viewed him not as a caricature of certain individuals, but as a representative of a new socio-ideological type that was emerging at that time. This critic was least interested in the attitude of the author himself towards his hero, as well as various features of the artistic embodiment of this image. Pisarev interpreted Bazarov in the spirit of so-called real criticism. He pointed out that the author was biased in his portrayal, but the type himself was highly rated by Pisarev - as a “hero of the time.” The article entitled “Bazarov” said that the main character depicted in the novel, presented as a “tragic face,” is a new type that literature lacked. In further interpretations of this critic, Bazarov became increasingly detached from the novel itself. For example, in the articles “The Thinking Proletariat” and “Realists” the name “Bazarov” was used to name a type of the era, a commoner-kulturtrager, whose worldview was close to Pisarev himself.

Accusations of bias

Turgenev's objective, calm tone in his portrayal of the main character was contradicted by accusations of bias. “Fathers and Sons” is a kind of Turgenev’s “duel” with nihilists and nihilism, but the author complied with all the requirements of the “code of honor”: he treated the enemy with respect, “killing” him in a fair fight. Bazarov, as a symbol of dangerous delusions, according to Ivan Sergeevich, is a worthy opponent. The mockery and caricature of the image, which some critics accused the author of, were not used by him, since they could give a completely opposite result, namely, an underestimation of the power of nihilism, which is destructive. The nihilists sought to place their false idols in the place of the “eternals.” Turgenev, recalling his work on the image of Yevgeny Bazarov, wrote to M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in 1876 about the novel “Fathers and Sons,” the history of whose creation was of interest to many, that it does not surprise him why this hero remained a mystery for the majority of readers, because the author himself cannot fully imagine how he wrote it. Turgenev said that he knew only one thing: there was no tendency in him then, no preconception of thought.

The position of Turgenev himself

Critics responded mostly one-sidedly to the novel "Fathers and Sons" and gave harsh assessments. Meanwhile, Turgenev, as in his previous novels, avoids comments, does not draw conclusions, and deliberately hides the inner world of his hero in order not to put pressure on readers. The conflict in the novel "Fathers and Sons" is by no means on the surface. So straightforwardly interpreted by the critic Antonovich and completely ignored by Pisarev, it is manifested in the composition of the plot, in the nature of the conflicts. It is in them that the concept of Bazarov’s fate is realized, presented by the author of the work “Fathers and Sons,” the images of which still cause controversy among various researchers.

Evgeniy is unshakable in disputes with Pavel Petrovich, but after a difficult “test of love” he is internally broken. The author emphasizes the “cruelty”, thoughtfulness of this hero’s beliefs, as well as the interconnection of all the components that make up his worldview. Bazarov is a maximalist, according to whom any belief has value if it does not conflict with others. As soon as this character lost one “link” in the “chain” of worldview, all the others were re-evaluated and doubted. In the finale, this is already the “new” Bazarov, who is the “Hamlet” among the nihilists.

"Fathers and Sons" caused a storm in the world of literary criticism. After the release of the novel, a huge number of critical responses and articles appeared that were completely opposite in their charge, which indirectly testified to the innocence and innocence of the Russian reading public. Criticism treated the 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 began in the press, which immediately acquired an acute 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 Russian Word. The dispute, in essence, was about the type of new revolutionary figure in Russian history.

Sovremennik responded to the novel with an article M. A. Antonovich “Asmodeus of our time”. The circumstances surrounding Turgenev's departure from Sovremennik predisposed the novel to be assessed negatively by the critic. Antonovich I saw in it a panegyric to the “fathers” and slander against the younger generation. In addition, it was argued that the novel is very weak artistically, that Turgenev, who aimed to discredit Bazarov, resorted to caricature, depicting the main character as a monster “with a tiny head and a giant mouth, with a small face and a very 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 Bazarov’s denial of art Antonovich declared that this was a complete lie, that the younger generation denies only “pure art,” among whose representatives, however, he included Pushkin and Turgenev himself.

According to Antonovich, from the very first pages, to the greatest amazement of the reader, a certain kind of boredom takes possession of him; but, of course, you are not embarrassed by this and continue to read, hoping that it will be better, that the author will enter into his role, that talent will take its toll and involuntarily captivate your attention. Meanwhile, further on, when the action of the novel unfolds completely before you, your curiosity does not stir, your feeling remains intact; reading makes some kind of unsatisfactory impression on you, which is reflected not in your feelings, but, most surprisingly, in your mind. You are enveloped in some kind of deadening cold; you do not live with the characters in the novel, do not become imbued with their lives, but begin to coldly reason with them, or, more precisely, follow their reasoning. You forget that before you lies a novel by a talented artist, and imagine that you are reading a moral and philosophical treatise, but a bad and superficial one, which, not satisfying the mind, thereby makes an unpleasant impression on your feelings.

This shows that Turgenev's new work is extremely unsatisfactory artistically. Turgenev treats his heroes, who are not his favorites, completely differently. He harbors some kind of personal hatred and hostility towards them, as if they had personally done him some kind of offense and dirty trick, and he tries to take revenge on them at every step, like a person personally offended; With inner pleasure, he finds weaknesses and shortcomings in them, which he speaks about with poorly 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 childishly rejoices when he manages to prick his unloved hero with something, make jokes at him, present him in a funny or vulgar and vile way; Every mistake, every rash step of the hero pleasantly tickles his pride, evokes a smile of self-satisfaction, revealing a proud, but petty and inhumane consciousness of his own superiority.

This vindictiveness reaches the point of ridiculousness, has the appearance of schoolboy pinching, revealing itself in small things and trifles. The main character of the novel speaks with pride and arrogance about his skill at playing cards; and Turgenev makes him constantly lose. Then Turgenev tries to portray the main character as a glutton who only thinks about how to eat and drink, and again this is 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 is clear that his main character is not a stupid person, - on the contrary, he is very capable and gifted, inquisitive, diligently studying and knowing a lot; and yet 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 person, but some kind of terrible creature, just a devil, or, to put it more poetically, an asmodeus. He systematically hates and persecutes everything, from his kind parents, whom he cannot stand, and ending with frogs, which he slaughters with merciless cruelty. Never did any feeling creep into his cold heart; not a trace of any hobby or passion is visible in him; He releases the very hatred calculatedly, grain by grain. And note, this hero is a young man, a youth! He appears to be some kind of poisonous creature that poisons everything he touches; he has a friend, but he despises him too and has not the slightest affection for him; He has followers, but he also hates them. The novel is nothing more than a merciless and also destructive criticism of the younger generation. In all modern issues, mental movements, sentiments and ideals that occupy the younger generation, Turgenev does not find any meaning and makes it clear that they only lead to depravity, emptiness, prosaic vulgarity and cynicism.

What conclusion can be drawn from this novel; who will turn out to be right and wrong, who is worse and who is better - “fathers” or “children”? Turgenev's novel has the same one-sided meaning. Sorry, Turgenev, you did not know how to define your task; instead of depicting the relationship between “fathers” and “children,” you wrote a panegyric for the “fathers” and a denunciation of the “children”; and you didn’t understand the “children,” and instead of denunciation you came out with slander. You wanted to portray the spreaders of sound concepts among the younger generation as corrupters of youth, sowers of discord and evil, haters of good - in a word, Asmodeus. This is not the first attempt and is repeated quite often.

The same attempt was made several years ago in one novel, which was “a phenomenon missed by our criticism,” because it belonged to the author, who was unknown at that time and did not have the great fame that he enjoys now. This novel is "Asmodeus of Our Time", Op. Askochensky, published in 1858. Turgenev’s last novel vividly reminded us of this “Asmodeus” with its general thought, its tendencies, its personalities, and especially its main character.

An article appeared in the magazine “Russian Word” in 1862 D.I. Pisarev “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 towards this line of thought.”

But the general conclusion about the novel does not come down to this. D.I. Pisarev finds in the image of Bazarov an artistic synthesis of the most significant aspects of the worldview of heterogeneous democracy, depicted truthfully, despite Turgenev’s original plan. 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 will understand.” The author’s critical attitude towards Bazarov is perceived by the critic as a virtue, since “from the outside the advantages and disadvantages are more visible,” and “ 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 artist’s social sensitivity and the aesthetic significance of the novel: “Turgenev’s new novel gives us everything that we are accustomed to enjoying in his works. The artistic decoration is impeccably 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 the characters in this novel.” Even before the actual controversy begins D. I. Pisarev actually predicts Antonovich’s position. Regarding the scenes with Sitnikov and Kukshina, he notes: “Many of the literary opponents of the Russian Messenger will fiercely attack Turgenev for these scenes.”

However, D.I. Pisarev is convinced that a real nihilist, a commoner democrat, just like Bazarov, must deny art, not understand Pushkin, and be sure that Raphael “is not worth a penny.” But it is important for us that Bazarov, who dies in the novel, is “resurrected” on the last page of Pisarev’s article: “What to do? To live while you live, to eat dry bread when there is no roast beef, to be with women when you cannot love a woman, and not to dream of orange trees and palm trees at all, when there are snowdrifts and cold tundra 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 magazine “Time”, published by F.M. and M.M. Dostoevsky, an interesting article is coming out N. N. Strakhova, which is called "AND. 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 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 as an essential character trait of a nihilist: “...Art always has the character of reconciliation, while Bazarov does not at all want to come to terms with life. Art is idealism, contemplation, detachment from life and worship of ideals; Bazarov is a realist, not a contemplator, but a doer...” However, if in D.I. Pisarev Bazarov is a hero in whom word and deed merge into one whole, then in Strakhov the nihilist is still a hero of “words,” albeit with a thirst for activity taken to extremes.

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. Turgenev had the ambition and audacity to create a novel with all sorts of directions; an admirer of eternal truth, eternal beauty, he had the proud goal of pointing out the eternal in the temporal and wrote a novel that was neither progressive nor retrograde, but, so to speak, eternal,” the critic wrote.

At the end of the decade, he himself became involved in the controversy surrounding the novel. Turgenev. In the article “About “Fathers and Sons” he tells the story of his plan, the stages of publishing the novel, and makes his judgments about the objectivity of the reproduction of reality: “...To accurately and powerfully reproduce the truth, the reality of life is the highest happiness for a writer, even if this truth does not coincide with his own sympathies.” .

D. I. Pisarev. Bazarov Turgenev's new novel gives us everything that we are accustomed to enjoying in his works. The artistic finishing is immaculately good; the characters and situations, scenes and pictures are drawn so clearly and at the same time so softly that the most desperate art denier will feel some kind of incomprehensible pleasure when reading the novel.

Turgenev's novel, in addition to its artistic beauty, is also remarkable in that it stirs the mind, provokes thought, although in itself it does not resolve any issue and even illuminates with a bright light not so much the phenomena being deduced as the author's attitude towards these very phenomena.

You can be indignant at people like Bazarov all you want, but recognizing their sincerity is absolutely necessary. These people can be honest or dishonest, civic leaders or outright swindlers, depending on circumstances and personal tastes. Nothing but personal taste prevents them from killing and robbing, and nothing but personal taste encourages people of this caliber to make discoveries in the field of science and social life.

Working tirelessly, Bazarov obeyed immediate attraction, taste and, moreover, acted according to the most correct calculation.

So, Bazarov everywhere and in everything acts only as he wants or as it seems profitable and convenient to him. There is no lofty goal ahead; There is no lofty thought in the mind, and with all this, the strength is enormous. - But this is an immoral person! If bazaarism- a disease, then it is a disease of our time. It is Bazarov himself who fits the definition of a real person. Bazarov does not need anyone, is not afraid of anyone, does not love anyone and, as a result, does not spare anyone. In Bazarov’s cynicism, two sides can be distinguished: internal and external, cynicism of thoughts and feelings and cynicism of manners and expressions. Turgenev, obviously, does not favor his hero... The Pechorins have will without knowledge, the Rudins have knowledge without will; The Bazarovs have both knowledge and will. Thought and deed merge into one solid whole.

Maxim Alekseevich Antonovich. Asmodeus of our time

...Reading makes some kind of unsatisfactory impression on you, which is reflected not on your feelings, but, most surprisingly, on your mind. You are enveloped in some kind of deadening cold; you do not live with the characters in the novel, do not become imbued with their lives, but begin to coldly reason with them, or, more precisely, follow their reasoning. This shows that Mr. Turgenev’s new work is extremely unsatisfactory artistically.

In "Fathers and Sons" he skimps on description and does not pay attention to nature... All the author's attention is drawn to the main character and other characters - however, not on their personalities, not on their mental movements, feelings and passions, but almost exclusively on their conversations and reasoning.

All the personalities in him are ideas and views, dressed up only in a personal concrete form... for these unfortunate, lifeless personalities, Mr. Turgenev does not have the slightest pity, not a drop of sympathy and love, that feeling that is called humane.

There is nothing to say about the moral character and moral qualities of the hero; this is not a person, but some kind of terrible creature, just a devil, or, to put it more poetically, an asmodeus. He systematically hates and persecutes everything, from his kind parents, whom he cannot stand, to frogs, whom he slaughters with merciless cruelty. He teaches everyone who submits to his influence to be immoral and senseless; He kills their noble instincts and sublime feelings with his contemptuous mockery, and with it he keeps them from every good deed.

As can be seen from the very title of the novel, the author wants to portray in it the old and young generations, fathers and children. The novel is nothing more than a merciless, destructive criticism of the younger generation. Conclusion: Mr. Turgenev’s novel serves as an expression of his own personal likes and dislikes; the novel’s views on the younger generation express the views of the author himself; it depicts the entire young generation as it is and what it is even in the person of its best representatives; the limited and superficial understanding of modern issues and aspirations expressed by the heroes of the novel lies with the responsibility of Mr. Turgenev himself. If you look at the novel from the point of view of its tendencies, then from this side it is just as unsatisfactory as in artistic terms.

But all the shortcomings of the novel are redeemed by one advantage - the heroes’ flesh was vigorous, but their spirit was weak. The main character of the last novel is the same Rudin... it was not for nothing that time passed, and the heroes developed progressively in their bad qualities. Fathers = children, that’s our conclusion. Nihilism. Turgenev defines it as follows: “A nihilist is one who does not recognize anything; who respects nothing; who approaches everything from a critical point of view.” The author directs the arrows of his talent against something into the essence of which he has not penetrated. Nikolai Nikolaevich Strakhov. "Fathers and Sons" Oman apparently arrived at the wrong time; it does not seem to meet the needs of society; he does not give it what it seeks. And yet he makes a very strong impression.

If Turgenev's novel plunges readers into bewilderment, then this happens for a very simple reason: it brings to consciousness what has not yet been conscious, and reveals what has not yet been noticed. Bazarov in it is so true to himself, so complete, so generously supplied with flesh and blood, that it is impossible to call him composed there is no possibility for a person. But he is not a walking type... Bazarov, in any case, is a person created, and not just reproduced, predicted, and not just exposed.

The system of beliefs, the range of thoughts, of which Bazarov is a representative, were more or less clearly expressed in our literature. Turgenev understands the younger generation much better than they understand themselves. People of a negative direction cannot come to terms with the fact that Bazarov consistently reached the end in denial... Deep asceticism permeates Bazarov’s entire personality; This trait is not accidental, but essentially necessary. Bazarov emerged as a simple man, alien to any brokenness, and at the same time strong, powerful in soul and body. Everything about him unusually suits his strong nature. It is quite remarkable that he, so to speak, more Russian than all the other characters in the novel.

Turgenev finally reached the type of complete person in Bazarovo. Bazarov is the first strong person, the first integral character to appear in Russian literature from the environment of the so-called educated society. Despite all his views, Bazarov craves love for people. If this thirst manifests itself as malice, then such malice is only the other side of love.

From all this it is clear, at least, what a difficult task Turgenev took on and, as we think, accomplished in his last novel. He depicted life under the deadening influence of theory; he gave us a living person, although this person, apparently, completely embodied himself in an abstract formula. What is the meaning of the novel? he had the proud goal of pointing to the eternal in the temporal and wrote a novel that was neither progressive nor retrograde, but, so to speak, everlasting.

Change of generations- this is the main theme of the novel; he portrayed the relationship between these two generations perfectly.

So, here it is, here is the mysterious moral teaching that Turgenev put into his works. Bazarov shuns life; The author does not make him 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 portrays him himself with all the luxury and insight of poetry. In a word, Turgenev stands for the eternal principles of human life, for those basic elements that can endlessly change their forms, but in essence always remain unchanged.

Be that as it may, Bazarov is still defeated; defeated not by the faces and not by the accidents of life, but by the very idea of ​​​​this life.

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Maxim Alekseevich Antonovich
Asmodeus of our time

I look sadly at our generation.1
The first line from M. Yu. Lermontov’s poem “Duma”.

Everyone interested in literature and those close to it knew from printed and oral rumors that Mr. Turgenev had an artistic plan to compose a novel, depict in it the modern movement of Russian society, express in artistic form his view of the modern young generation and explain his relationship to it. Several times a hundred-year-old rumor spread the news that the novel was already ready, that it was being printed and would soon be published; however, the novel did not appear; they said that the author stopped printing it, reworked, corrected and supplemented his work, then sent it back to print and again began to rework it. Everyone was overcome with impatience; the feverish expectation was tense to the highest degree; everyone wanted to quickly see the new work of that famous sympathetic artist and public favorite. The very subject of the novel aroused keen interest: Mr. Turgenev’s talent appeals to the modern young generation; the poet took on youth, the spring of life, the most poetic subject. The younger generation, always trusting, enjoyed the hope of seeing their own in advance; a portrait drawn by the skillful hand of a sympathetic artist who will contribute to the development of his self-awareness and become his leader; it will look at itself from the outside, take a critical look at its image in the mirror of talent and better understand itself, its strengths and weaknesses, its calling and purpose. And now the desired hour has come; the long-awaited and several times predicted novel finally appeared next to the “Geological Sketches of the Caucasus”, well, of course, everyone, young and old, eagerly rushed to him, like hungry wolves to prey.

And the general reading of the novel begins. From the very first pages, to the greatest amazement of the reader, a certain kind of boredom takes possession of him; but, of course, you are not embarrassed by this and continue to read, hoping that it will be better, that the author will enter into his role, that talent will take its toll and involuntarily captivate your attention. Meanwhile, further on, when the action of the novel unfolds completely before you, your curiosity does not stir, your feeling remains intact; reading makes some kind of unsatisfactory impression on you, which is reflected not in your feelings, but, most surprisingly, in your mind. You are enveloped in some kind of deadening cold; you do not live with the characters in the novel, do not become imbued with their lives, but begin to coldly reason with them, or, more precisely, follow their reasoning. You forget that before you lies a novel by a talented artist, and imagine that you are reading a moral and philosophical treatise, but a bad and superficial one, which, not satisfying the mind, thereby makes an unpleasant impression on your feelings. This shows that Mr. Turgenev’s new work is extremely unsatisfactory artistically. Long-time and ardent admirers of Mr. Turgenev will not like such a review of his novel; they will find it harsh and even, perhaps, unfair. Yes, we admit, we ourselves were surprised at the impression that “Fathers and Sons” made on us. We, however, did not expect anything special and unusual from Mr. Turgenev, just as probably all those who remember his “First Love” did not expect either; but there were still scenes in it where one could stop, not without pleasure, and relax after the various, completely unpoetic, quirks of the heroine. In Mr. Turgenev’s new novel there are not even such oases; there is nowhere to hide from the suffocating heat of strange reasoning and to free yourself, even for a minute, from the unpleasant, irritating impression produced by the general course of the actions and scenes depicted. What is most surprising is that in Mr. Turgenev’s new work there is not even that psychological analysis with which he used to analyze the play of feelings in his heroes, and which pleasantly tickled the reader’s feelings; there are no artistic images, pictures of nature, which one really could not help but admire and which gave every reader several minutes of pure and calm pleasure and involuntarily disposed him to sympathize with the author and thank him. In “Fathers and Sons” he skimps on description and does not pay attention to nature; after minor retreats, he hurries to his heroes, saves space and energy for something else and, instead of complete pictures, draws only strokes, and even then unimportant and uncharacteristic, like the fact that “some roosters were cheerfully crowing to each other in the village; and somewhere high in the tops of the trees the incessant squeak of a young hawk rang like a tearful call” (p. 589).

All the author's attention is paid to the main character and other characters - however, not to their personalities, not to their mental 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 person or living soul, but all only abstract ideas and different directions, personified and called by proper names. For example, we have a so-called negative direction and it is characterized by a certain way of thinking and views. Mr. Turgenev went ahead and called him Evgeniy Vasilyevich, who says in the novel: I am a negative direction, my thoughts and views are such and such. Seriously, literally! There is also a vice in the world, which is called disrespect for parents and is expressed by certain actions and words. Mr. Turgenev called him Arkady Nikolaevich, who does these actions and says these words. The emancipation of women, for example, is called Eudoxie by Kukshina. The entire novel is built on this focus; all personalities in it are ideas and views, dressed up only in a personal, concrete form. - But all this is nothing, whatever the personalities, and most importantly, for these unfortunate, lifeless personalities, Mr. Turgenev, a highly poetic soul and sympathetic to everything, does not have the slightest pity, not a drop of sympathy and love, that feeling that called humane. He despises and hates his main character and his friends with all his heart; his feeling for them is not, however, the high indignation of the poet in general and the hatred of the satirist in particular, which are directed not at individuals, but at the weaknesses and shortcomings noticed in individuals, and the strength of which is directly proportional to the love that the poet and satirist have for to their heroes. It is a hackneyed truth and a commonplace that a true artist treats his unfortunate heroes not only with visible laughter and indignation, but also with invisible tears and invisible love; he suffers and is heartbroken because he sees weaknesses in them; he considers, as it were, his own misfortune the fact that other people like him have shortcomings and vices; he speaks about them with contempt, but at the same time with regret, as about his own grief, Mr. Turgenev treats his heroes, not his favorites, completely differently. He harbors some kind of personal hatred and hostility towards them, as if they had personally done him some kind of insult and dirty trick, and he tries to mark them at every step as a person who has been personally insulted; with inner pleasure he finds weaknesses and shortcomings in them, which he speaks about 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 childishly rejoices when he manages to prick his unloved hero with something, make jokes at him, present him in a funny or vulgar and vile way; Every mistake, every rash step of the hero pleasantly tickles his pride, evokes a smile of self-satisfaction, revealing a proud, but petty and inhumane consciousness of his own superiority. This vindictiveness reaches the point of ridiculousness, has the appearance of schoolboy pinching, revealing itself in small things and trifles. The main character of the novel speaks with pride and arrogance about his skill at playing cards; and Mr. Turgenev makes him constantly lose; and this is not done for fun, not for what, for example, Mr. Winkel 2
Mr. Winkel(in modern translations Winkle) is a character in “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club” by Charles Dickens.

The one who boasts of his shooting accuracy hits a cow instead of a crow, in order to prick the hero and hurt his proud pride. The hero was invited to fight in preference; he agreed, wittily hinting that he would beat everyone. “Meanwhile,” notes Mr. Turgenev, “the hero kept regressing and regressing. One person played cards skillfully; the other one could also fend for herself. The hero was left with a loss, although insignificant, but still not entirely pleasant.” “Father Alexey, they told the hero, wouldn’t mind playing cards. Well, he answered, let’s sit in the mess, and I’ll beat him. Father Alexei sat down at the green table with a moderate expression of pleasure and ended up beating the hero by 2 rubles. 50 kopecks banknotes." - And what? beat? not ashamed, not ashamed, but he was also bragging! - Schoolchildren usually say in such cases to their fellow shamed braggarts. Then Mr. Turgenev tries to portray the main character as a glutton, who only thinks about how to eat and drink, and this again is done not with good nature and comedy, but with the same vindictiveness and desire to humiliate the hero even by a story about gluttony. Rooster 3
Rooster- one of the characters in “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol.

Written more calmly and with greater sympathy on the part of the author for his hero. In all the scenes and instances of food, Mr. Turgenev, as if not on purpose, notes that the hero “spoke little, but ate a lot”; whether he is invited somewhere, he first of all asks whether there will be champagne for him, and if he gets there, he even loses his passion for talkativeness, “occasionally he will say a word, but is more and more occupied with champagne.” This personal dislike of the author towards his main character manifests itself at every step and involuntarily outrages the feeling of the reader, who finally becomes annoyed with the author, why he treats his hero so cruelly and mocks him so viciously, then he finally deprives him of all meaning and all human properties, why puts thoughts into her head, into his heart, feelings that are completely incompatible with the character of the hero, with his other thoughts and feelings. In artistic terms, this means incontinence and unnaturalness of character - a drawback consisting in the fact that the author did not know how to portray his hero in such a way that he constantly remained true to himself. Such unnaturalness has the effect on the reader that he begins to distrust the author and involuntarily becomes the hero’s lawyer, recognizes as impossible in him those absurd thoughts and that ugly combination of concepts that the author attributes to him; evidence and evidence is evident in other words of the same author, relating to the same hero. The hero, if you please, is a physician, a young man, in the words of Mr. Turgenev himself, devoted to the point of passion, to the point of selflessness, to his science and his studies in general; He does not part with his instruments and apparatus for a single minute, he is constantly busy with experiments and observations; wherever he is, wherever he appears, immediately at the first convenient minute he begins to botanize, catch frogs, beetles, butterflies, dissect them, examine them under a microscope, subject them to chemical reactions; according to Mr. Turgenev, he carried with him everywhere “some kind of medical-surgical smell”; He did not spare his life for science and died from infection while dissecting a typhoid corpse. And suddenly Mr. Turgenev wants to assure us that this man is a petty braggart and a drunkard, chasing champagne, and claims that he has no love for anything, not even for science, that he does not recognize science, does not believe in it, that he even despises medicine and laughs at it. Is this a natural thing? Was the author too angry with his hero? In one place, the author says that the hero “possessed a special ability to arouse trust in himself among inferior people, although he never indulged them and treated them carelessly” (p. 488); “The master’s servants became attached to him, even though he made fun of them; Dunyasha giggled with him willingly; Peter, an extremely proud and stupid man, even grinned and brightened as soon as the hero paid attention to him; the yard boys ran after the “doctor” like little dogs” and even had learned conversations and debates with him (p. 512). But, despite all this, elsewhere a comic scene is depicted in which the hero did not know how to say two words with the men; the men could not understand someone who spoke clearly even to the yard boys. The latter described his reasoning with the peasant as follows: “The gentleman was chattering something, I wanted to scratch my tongue. It is known, master; does he really understand? The author could not resist even here, and at this sure opportunity, he put a pin in the hero: “alas! and also boasted that he could talk to men” (p. 647).

And there are plenty of similar inconsistencies in the novel. On almost every page one can see the author’s desire to humiliate the hero at all costs, whom he considered his opponent and therefore loaded him with all sorts of absurdities and mocked him in every possible way, scattering in witticisms and barbs. This is all permissible, appropriate, perhaps even good in some polemical article; and in the novel this is a blatant injustice that destroys its poetic effect. In the novel, the hero, the author’s opponent, is a defenseless and unrequited creature, he is entirely in the hands of the author and is silently forced to listen to all sorts of fables that are thrown at him; he is in the same position as the opponents were in the learned treatises written in the form of conversations. In them, the author speaks, always speaks intelligently and reasonably, while his opponents appear to be pathetic and narrow-minded fools who do not know how to say words decently, let alone present any sensible objection; whatever they say, the author refutes everything in the most victorious way. From various places in Mr. Turgenev’s novel it is clear that his main character is not a stupid person, - on the contrary, he is very capable and gifted, inquisitive, diligently studying and knowing a lot; and yet in disputes he is completely lost, expresses nonsense and preaches absurdities that are unforgivable to the most limited mind. Therefore, as soon as Mr. Turgenev begins to joke and mock his hero, it seems that if the hero were a living person, if he could free himself from silence and speak on his own, then he would strike Mr. Turgenev on the spot and laugh would have been much more witty and thorough over him, so that Mr. Turgenev himself would then have to play the pitiful role of silence and irresponsibility. Mr. Turgenev, through one of his favorites, asks the hero: “Do you deny everything? not only art, poetry... but And... it’s scary to say... - That’s it, the hero answered with inexpressible calmness” (p. 517). Of course the answer is unsatisfactory; but who knows, a living hero might have answered: “No,” and added: we only deny your art, your poetry, Mr. Turgenev, your And; but we do not deny and even demand another art and poetry, another And, at least this And, which was imagined, for example, by Goethe, a poet like you, but who denied your And . – There is nothing to say about the moral character and moral qualities of the hero; this is not a person, but some kind of terrible creature, just a devil, or, to put it more poetically, an asmodeus. He systematically hates and persecutes everything, from his kind parents, whom he cannot stand, to frogs, whom he slaughters with merciless cruelty. Never did any feeling creep into his cold heart; not a trace of any hobby or passion is visible in him; He releases even hatred calculatedly, grain by grain. And note, this hero is a young man, a youth! He appears to be some kind of poisonous creature that poisons everything he touches; he has a friend, but he despises him too, not the slightest favor; He has followers, but he hates them too. He teaches everyone who submits to his influence to be immoral and senseless; He kills their noble instincts and sublime feelings with his contemptuous mockery, and with it he keeps them from every good deed. The woman, kind and sublime by nature, is at first attracted to him; but then, having gotten to know him better, she turns away from him with horror and disgust, spits and “wipes him with a handkerchief.” He even allowed himself to be contemptuous of Father Alexei, a priest, a “very good and sensible” man, who, however, jokes evilly at him and beats him at cards. Apparently, Mr. Turgenev wanted to portray in his hero, as they say, a demonic or Byronic nature, something like Hamlet; but, on the other hand, he gave him features by which his nature seems most ordinary and even vulgar, at least very far from demonism. And from this, as a whole, what emerges is not a character, not a living personality, but a caricature, a monster with a tiny head and a giant mouth, a small face and a huge nose, and, moreover, the most malicious caricature. The author is so angry with his hero that he does not want to forgive him and reconcile with him even before his death, at that, oratorically speaking, sacred moment when the hero is already standing with one foot on the edge of the coffin - an act completely incomprehensible in a sympathetic artist. Besides the sacredness of the moment, prudence alone should have softened the author’s indignation; the hero dies - it is late and useless to teach and expose him, there is no need to humiliate him in front of the reader; his hands will soon become numb, and he cannot do any harm to the author, even if he wanted to; It seems like we should have left him alone. But no; the hero, as a doctor, knows very well that he has only a few hours left before death; he calls to himself a woman for whom he had not love, but something else, not like real sublime love. She came, the hero said to her: “Death is an old thing, but something new for everyone.” I’m still not afraid... and then unconsciousness will come and fume! Well, what should I tell you... That I loved you? it didn’t make any sense before, and even more so now. Love is a form, and my own form is already decaying. I’d rather say that you are so nice! And now here you stand, so beautiful...” (The reader will see more clearly what a nasty meaning lies in these words.) She came closer to him, and he spoke again: “Oh, how close, and how young, fresh, clean... in this disgusting room!..” (p. 657). From this sharp and wild dissonance, the effectively painted picture of the hero’s death loses all poetic meaning. Meanwhile, in the epilogue there are pictures that are deliberately poetic, intended to soften the hearts of readers and lead them into sad reverie and completely fail to achieve their goal due to the indicated dissonance. Two young fir trees grow on the hero’s grave; his father and mother - “two already decrepit old men” - come to the grave, cry bitterly and pray for their son. “Are their prayers, their tears, fruitless? Isn’t love, holy, devoted love, omnipotent? Oh no! No matter what passionate, sinful, rebellious heart hides in the grave, the flowers growing on it serenely look at us with their innocent eyes: they tell us not only about eternal peace, but about that great peace of “indifferent” nature; they also speak of eternal reconciliation and endless life” (p. 663). It seems that what is better; everything is beautiful and poetic, and old people, and Christmas trees, and the innocent glances of flowers; but all this is tinsel and phrases, even unbearable after the death of the hero is depicted. And the author turns his tongue to talk about all-reconciling love, about endless life, after this love and the thought of endless life could not keep him from inhumane treatment of his dying hero, who, lying on his deathbed, calls on his beloved to to tickle his dying passion for the last time with the sight of her charms. Very nice! This is the kind of poetry and art that is worth denying and condemning; in words they sing touchingly about love and peace, but in reality they turn out to be malicious and irreconcilable. – In general, artistically, the novel is completely unsatisfactory, to say the least out of respect for the talent of Mr. Turgenev, for his previous merits and for his many admirers. There is no common thread, no common action that would connect all parts of the novel; all some kind of separate rhapsodies. Completely superfluous personalities are brought out; it is unknown why they appear in the novel; such, for example, is Princess X...aya; she appeared several times for dinner and tea in the novel, sat “on a wide velvet armchair” and then died, “forgotten on the very day of death.” There are several other personalities, completely random, bred only for furniture.

However, these personalities, like all others in the novel, are incomprehensible or unnecessary in artistic terms; but Mr. Turgenev needed them for other purposes alien to art. From the point of view of these goals, we even understand why Princess X...aya appeared. The fact is that his last novel was written with tendencies, with clearly and sharply protruding theoretical goals. This is a didactic novel, a real learned treatise, written in a colloquial form, and each person depicted serves as an expression and representative of a certain opinion and trend. This is how powerful and strong the spirit of the times is! “Russkiy Vestnik” says that at present there is not a single scientist, not excluding, of course, himself, who would not start dancing the trepak on occasion. It can also be said with certainty that at present there is not a single artist or poet who would not, on occasion, decide to create something with tendencies, Mr. Turgenev, the main representative and servant of pure art for art’s sake, the creator of “Notes of a Hunter” and “First Love”, left his service to art and began to enslave it to various theoretical considerations and practical goals and wrote a novel with tendencies - a very characteristic and remarkable circumstance! As can be seen from the very title of the novel, the author wants to portray in it the old and young generations, fathers and children; and indeed, he brings out several instances of fathers and even more instances of children in the novel. He doesn’t deal much with fathers, fathers for the most part only ask, ask questions, and the children already answer them; His main attention is paid to the younger generation, to children. He tries to characterize them as completely and comprehensively as possible, describes their tendencies, sets out their general philosophical views on science and life, their views on poetry and art, their concepts of love, the emancipation of women, the relationship of children to parents, and marriage; and all this is presented not in the poetic form of images, but in prosaic conversations, in the logical form of sentences, expressions and words.

How does the modern younger generation imagine Mr. Turgenev, our artistic Nestor, our poetic luminary? He is apparently not disposed towards him, and is even hostile towards children; He gives fathers complete advantage in everything and always tries to elevate them at the expense of their children. One father, the author’s favorite, says: “Putting all pride aside, it seems to me that children are further from the truth than we are; but I feel that they have some kind of advantage over us... Isn’t this advantage that there are fewer traces of lordship in them than in us?” (p. 523). This is the one and only good trait that Mr. Turgenev recognized in the younger generation; it can only console them; In all other respects, the young generation has moved away from the truth, wanders through the wilds of error and lies, which kills all poetry in it, leads it to hatred, despair and inaction or to activity that is meaningless and destructive. The novel is nothing more than a merciless and also destructive criticism of the younger generation. In all modern issues, mental movements, sentiments and ideals that occupy the younger generation, Mr. Turgenev does not find any meaning and makes it clear that they lead only to depravity, emptiness, prosaic vulgarity and cynicism. In a word, Mr. Turgenev looks at the modern principles of the younger generation in the same way as Messrs. Nikita Bezrylov and Pisemsky, that is, does not recognize any real and serious significance for them and simply mocks them. Defenders of Mr. Bezrylov tried to justify his famous feuilleton and presented the matter in such a way that he dirtyly and cynically mocked not the principles themselves, but only deviations from them, and when he said, for example, that the emancipation of a woman is a requirement for her to be fully freedom in a riotous and depraved life, he thereby expressed not his own concept of emancipation, but the concepts of others, which he supposedly wanted to ridicule; and that he generally spoke only of abuses and reinterpretations of modern issues. There may be hunters who, by means of the same strained method, will want to justify Mr. Turgenev; they will say that, portraying the younger generation in a funny, caricatured and even absurd form, he did not mean the young generation in general, not its best representatives, but only the most pitiful and narrow-minded children, that he is not talking about the general rule, but only about its exceptions; that he mocks only the younger generation, which is shown in his novel as the worst, but in general he respects them. Modern views and trends, defenders might say, are exaggerated in the novel, understood too superficially and one-sidedly; but such a limited understanding of them belongs not to Mr. Turgenev himself, but to his heroes. When, for example, the novel says that the younger generation follows the negative direction blindly and unconsciously, not because it is convinced of the inconsistency of what it denies, but simply because of a feeling, then this, the defenders may say, does not mean that Mr. Turgenev himself thought in this way about the origin of the negative trend - he only wanted to say that there are people who think this way, and there are freaks about whom this opinion is true.