All Turgenev’s stories are tales of frustration. Rudin is destroyed by his own temperament. The heroes of “A House of Gentlefolk” and “Torrents of Spring” are ruined by the malign machinations of satanic women. Bazarov is snuffed out by a capriciously evil destiny. Insarov’s splendid mind and noble aspirations accomplish nothing, because his lungs are weak. He falls back on the sofa, and Elena, thinking he has fainted, calls for help. A grotesque little Italian doctor, with wig and spectacles, quietly remarks, “Signora, the foreign gentleman is dead - - of aneurism in combination with disease of the lungs.”
This novel caused great excitement in Russia, and the title, “On the Eve,” was a subject for vehement discussion everywhere. What did Turgenev mean? On the eve of what? Turgenev made no answer; but over the troubled waters of his story moves the brooding spirit of creation. Russians must and will learn manhood from foreigners, from men who die only from bodily disease, who are not sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought. At the very close of the book, one man asks another, “Will there ever be men among us?” And the other “flourished his fingers and fixed his enigmatical stare into the far distance.” Perhaps Turgenev meant that salvation would eventually come through a woman - - through women like Elena. For since her appearance, many are the Russian women who have given their lives for their country.*
· See an article in the “Forum” for August, 1910.
The best - known novel of Turgenev, and with the possible exception of “A House of Gentlefolk,” his masterpiece, is “Fathers and Children,” which perhaps he intended to indicate the real dawn suggested by “On the Eve.” The terrific uproar caused in Russia by this book has not yet entirely ceased. Russian critics are, as a rule, very bad judges of Russian literature. Shut off from participation in free, public, parliamentary political debate, the Russians of 1860 and of to - day are almost certain to judge the literary value of a work by what they regard as its political and social tendency. Political bias is absolutely blinding in an attempt to estimate the significance of any book by Turgenev; for although be took the deepest interest in the struggles of his unfortunate country, he was, from the beginning to the end of his career, simply a supreme artist. He saw life clearly in its various manifestations, and described it as he saw it, from the calm and lonely vantage - ground of genius. Naturally he was both claimed and despised by both parties. Here are some examples from contemporary Russian criticism* (1862): - -
· To the best of my knowledge, these reviews have never before been
translated. These translations were made for me by a Russian friend, Mr. William S. Gordon.
“This novel differs from others of the same sort in that it is chiefly philosophical. Turgenev hardly touches on any of the social questions of his day. His principal aim is to place side by side the philosophy of the fathers and the philosophy of the children and to show that the philosophy of the children is opposed to human nature and therefore cannot be accepted in life. The problem of the novel is, as you see, a serious one; to solve this problem the author ought to have conscientiously and impartially studied both systems of speculation and then only reach certain conclusions. But on its very first pages you see that the author is deficient in every mental preparation to accomplish the aim of his novel. He not only has not the slightest understanding of the new positive philosophy, but even of the old ideal systems his knowledge is merely superficial and puerile. You could laugh at the heroes of the novel alone as you read their silly and ‘hashy’ discussions on the young generation had not the novel as a whole been founded on these identical discussions.”
The radical critic Antonovich condemned the book in the following terms: - -
“From an artistic standpoint the novel is entirely unsatisfactory, not to say anything more out of respect for the talent of Turgenev, for his former merits, and for his numerous admirers. There is no common thread, no common action which would have tied together all the parts of the novel; all of it is in some way just separate rhapsodies. . . . This novel is didactic, a real learned treatise written in dialectic form, and each character as he appears serves as an expression and representative of a certain opinion and direction. . . . All the attention of the author is turned on the principal hero and the other acting characters, however, not on their personality, not on the emotions of their souls, their feelings and passions, but rather almost exclusively on their talks and reasonings. This is the reason why the novel, with the exception of one nice old woman, does not contain a single living character, a single living soul, but only some sort of abstract ideas, and various movements which are personified and called by proper names. Turgenev’s novel is not a creation purely objective; in it the personality of the author steps out too clearly, his sympathies, his inspiration, even his personal bitterness and irritation. From this we get the opportunity to find in the novel the personal opinions of the author himself, and in this we have one point to start from - - that we should accept as the opinions of the author the views expressed in the novel, at least those views which have been expressed with a noticeable feeling for them on the part of the author and put into the mouths of those characters whom he apparently favours. Had the author had at least a spark of sympathy for the ‘children,’ for the young generation, had he had at least a spark of true and clear understanding of their views and inclinations, it would have necessarily flashed out somewhere in the run of the novel.
“The ‘fathers’ as opposed to the ‘children’ are permeated with love and poetry; they are men, modestly and quietly doing good deeds; they would not for the world change their age. Even such an empty nothing as Pavel Petrovich, even he is raised on stilts and made a nice man. Turgenev could not solve his problem; instead of sketching the relations between the ‘fathers’ and the ‘children’ he wrote a panegyric to the ‘fathers’ and a decrial against the ‘children’; but he did not even understand the children; instead of a decrial it was nothing but a libel. The spreaders of healthy ideas among the young generation he wanted to show up as corrupters of youth, the sowers of discord and evil, haters of good, and in a word, very devils. In various places of the novel we see that his principal hero is no fool; on the contrary, a very able and gifted man, who is eager to learn and works diligently and knows much, but notwithstanding all this, he gets quite lost in disputes, utters absurdities, and preaches ridiculous things, which should not be pardoned even in a most narrow and limited mind. . . . In general the novel is nothing else but a merciless and destructive criticism on the young generation. In all the contemporaneous questions, intellectual movements, debates and ideals with which the young generation is occupied, Turgenev finds not the least common sense and gives us to understand that they lead only to demoralisation, emptiness, prosaic shallowness, and cynicism. Turgenev finds his ideal in quite a different place, namely in the ‘fathers,’ in the more or less old generation. Consequently, he draws a parallel and contrast between the ‘fathers’ and the ‘children,’ and we cannot formulate the sense of the novel in this way; among a number of good children there are also bad ones who are the ones that are ridiculed in the novel; this is not its aim, its purpose is quite different and may be formulated thus: the children are bad and thus are they represented in the novel in all their ugliness; but the ‘fathers’ are good, which is also proven in the novel.”
One of the very few criticisms from a truly artistic standpoint appeared in the “Russian Herald” during the year 1862, from which a brief quotation must suffice: - -
“Everything in this work bears witness to the ripened power of Turgenev’s wonderful talent; the clearness of ideas, the masterly skill in sketching types, the simplicity of plot and of movement of the action, and moderation and evenness of the work as a whole; the dramatic element which comes up naturally from the most ordinary situations; there is nothing superfluous, nothing retarding, nothing extraneous. But in addition to these general merits, we are also interested in Turgenev’s novel because in it is caught and held a current, fleeting m
oment of a passing phenomenon, and in which a momentary phase of our life is typically drawn and arrested not only for the time being but forever.”
These prophetically true words constitute a great exception to the prevailing contemporary criticism, which, as has been seen, was passionately unjust. Twenty years later, a Russian writer, Boorenin, was able to view the novel as we see it to - day: - -
“We can say with assurance that since the time of “Dead Souls” not a single Russian novel made such an impression as “Fathers and Children” has made. A deep mind, a no less deep observation, an incomparable ability for a bold and true analysis of the phenomena of life, and for their broadest relations to each other, - - all these have shown themselves in the fundamental thought of this positively historical creation. Turgenev has explained with lifelike images of ‘fathers’ and ‘children’ the essence of that life struggle between the dying period of the nobility which found its strength in the possession of peasants and the new period of reforms whose essence made up the principal element of our ‘resurrection’ and for which, however, none had found a real, true (BRIGHT) definition. Turgenev not only gave such a definition, not only illumined the inner sense of the new movement in the life of that time, but he also has pointed out its principal characteristic sign - - negation in the name of realism, as the opposition to the old ideally liberal conservatism. It is known that he found not only an unusually appropriate nickname for this negation, but a nickname which later became attached to a certain group of phenomena and types and as such was accepted not only by Russia alone but by the whole of Europe. The artist created in the image of Bazarov an exceedingly characteristic representative of the new formation of life, of the new movement, and christened it with a wonderfully fitting word, which made so much noise, which called forth so much condemnation and praise, sympathy and hatred, timid alarm and bold raving. We can point out but few instances in the history of literature of such a deep and lively stir called forth in our literary midst by an artistic creation and by a type of almost political significance. This novel even after twenty years appears the same deep, bright, and truthful reflection of life, as it was at the moment of its first appearance. Now its depth and truthfulness seem even more clear and arouse even more wonder and respect for the creative thought of the artist who wrote it. In our days, when the period of development pointed at by Turgenev in his celebrated novel is almost entirely lived through, we can only wonder at that deep insight with which the author had guessed the fundamental characteristic in that life movement which had celebrated that period. The struggle of two social streams, the anti - reform and post - reform stream, the struggle of two generations; the old brought up on aesthetical idealism for which the leisure of the nobility, made possible by their rights over the peasants, afforded such a fertile soil; and the young generation which was carried away by realism and negation, - - this is what made up the essence of the movement of the epoch in the sixties. Turgenev with the instinct of genius saw through this fundamental movement in life and imaged it in living bright pictures with all its positive and negative, pathetic and humorous sides.
“In his novel Turgenev did not at all side with the ‘fathers’ as the unsympathetic progressive critics of that time insisted, he did not wish to in the least extol them above the ‘children’ in order to degrade the latter. Just so he had no intention of showing up in the character of the representative of the ‘children’ some kind of model of a ‘thinking realist’ to whom the young generation should have bowed and imitated, as the progressive critics who received the work sympathetically imagined. Such a one - sided view was foreign to the author; he sketched both the ‘fathers’ and the ‘children’ as far as possible impartially and analytically. He spared neither the ‘fathers’ nor the ‘children’ and pronounced a cold and severe judgment both on the ones and the others. He positively sings a requiem to the ‘fathers’ in the person of the Kirsanovs, and especially Paul Kirsanov, having shown up their aristocratic idealism, their sentimental aestheticism, almost in a comical light, ay almost in caricature, as he himself has justly pointed out. In the prominent representative of the ‘children,’ Bazarov, he recognized a certain moral force, the energy of character, which favourably contrasts this strong type of realist with the puny, characterless, weak - willed type of the former generation; but having recognised the positive side of the young type, he could not but show up their shortcomings to life and before the people, and thus take their laurels from them. And he did so. And now when time has sufficiently exposed the shortcomings of the type of the generation of that time, we see how right the author was, how deep and far he saw into life, how clearly he perceived the beginning and the end of its development. Turgenev in “Fathers and Children” gave us a sample of a real universal novel, notwithstanding the fact that its plot centres on the usual intimate relations of the principal characters. And with what wonderful skill the author solves this puzzling problem - - to place in narrow, limited frames the broadest and newest themes (CONTENT). Hardly one of the novelists of our age, beginning with Dickens and ending with George Sand and Spielhagen, has succeeded in doing it so compactly and tersely, with such an absence of the DIDATIC element which is almost always present in the works of the above - mentioned authors, the now kings of western literatures, with such a full insight into the very heart of the life movement which is reflected in the novel. I repeat again, “Fathers and Children” is thought of highly by European critics, but years will pass and it will be thought of even more highly. It will be placed in a line with those weighty literary creations in which is reflected the basic movement of the time which created it.”
It would have been well for Turgenev if he could have preserved an absolute silence under the terrific storm of abuse that his most powerful novel brought down on his head; it would have been well to let the book speak for itself, and trust to time to make the strong wine sweet. But this was asking almost too much of human nature. Stung by the outrageous attacks of the Radicals, and suffering as only a great artist can suffer under what he regards as a complete misrepresentation of his purpose, Turgenev wrote letters of explanation, confession, irony, letters that gained him no affection, that only increased the perplexity of the public, and which are much harder to understand than the work itself. The prime difficulty was that in this book Turgenev had told a number of profound truths about life; and nobody wanted the truth. The eternal quarrel between the old and the young generation, the eternal quarrel between conservative and liberal, was at that time in Russia in an acute stage; and everybody read “Fathers and Children” with a view to increasing their ammunition, not with the object of ascertaining the justice of their cause. The “fathers” were of course angry at Turgenev’s diagnosis of their weakness; the “sons” went into a veritable froth of rage at what they regarded as a ridiculous burlesque of their ideas. But that is the penalty that a wise man suffers at a time of strife; for if every one saw the truth clearly, we should never fight each other at all.
Turgenev’s subsequent statement, that so far from Bazarov being a burlesque, he was his “favourite child,” is hard to understand even to - day. The novelist said that with the exception of Bazarov’s views on art, he himself was in agreement with practically all of the ideas expressed by the great iconoclast. Turgenev probably thought he was, but really he was not. Authors are poor judges of their own works, and their statements about their characters are seldom to be trusted. Many writers have confessed that when they start to write a book, with a clear notion in their heads as to how the characters shall develop, the characters often insist on developing quite otherwise, and guide the pen of the author in a manner that constantly awakens his surprise at his own work. Turgenev surely intended originally that we should love Bazarov; as a matter of fact, nobody really loves him,* and no other character in the book loves him for long except his parents. We have a wholesome respect for him, as we respect any ruthless, terrible force; but the word “love” does not express our feeling tow
ard him. It is possible that Turgenev, who keenly realised the need in Russia of men of strong will, and who always despised himself because he could not have steadily strong convictions, tried to incarnate in Bazarov all the uncompromising strength of character that he lacked himself; just as men who themselves lack self - assertion and cannot even look another man in the eye, secretly idolise the men of masterful qualities. It is like the sick man Stevenson writing stories of rugged out - door activity. I heard a student say once that he was sure Marlowe was a little, frail, weak man physically, and that he poured out all his longing for virility and power in heroes like Tamburlaine.
· I cannot believe that even Mr. Edward Garnett loves him, though in
his Introduction to Constance Garnett’s translation, he says, “we love him.”
Bazarov, as every one knows, was drawn from life. Turgenev had once met a Russian provincial doctor,* whose straightforward talk made a profound impression upon him. This man died soon after and had a glorious resurrection in Bazarov, speaking to thousands and thousands of people from his obscure and forgotten grave. It is rather interesting that Turgenev, who drew so many irresolute Russian characters, should have attained his widest fame by the depiction of a man who is simply Incarnate Will. If every other person in all Turgenev’s stories should be forgotten, it is safe to say that Bazarov will always dwell in the minds of those who have once made his acquaintance.
· It is difficult to find out much about the original of Bazarov.
Haumant says Turgenev met him while travelling by the Rhine in 1860; but Turgenev himself said that the young doctor had died not long before 1860, and that the idea of the novel first came to him in August, 1860, while he was bathing on the Isle of Wight. Almost every writer on Russian literature has his own set of dates and incidents.
A Sportsman's Sketches: Works of Ivan Turgenev 1 Page 385