The article “Bazarov” by Pisarev was written in 1862. She was one of the first critical reviews of the novel by I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons". The article consists of eleven structural parts. Walking through the plot of the novel, Pisarev determines the character traits and ideological warehouse of the main characters of the novel, evaluates the features of their literary images. And also tries to determine the attitude of the author to his characters.
Already in the first chapter of the article, it is clear that the novel received a rather high assessment by Pisarev: “The artistic finish is impeccably good; characters and positions, scenes and pictures are drawn so clearly and at the same time so softly that the most desperate denier of art will feel some kind of incomprehensible pleasure when reading the novel, which cannot be explained either by the amusingness of the events being told, or by the amazing fidelity of the main idea.
In the second chapter, Pisarev follows the plot of the novel, briefly retelling the content and simultaneously analyzing the images of the characters. What Turgenev did not finish, Pisarev draws with the help of his imagination. We can say that he praises Turgenev for giving Bazarov not only positive, but also negative character traits.
The author of the article expressed his thoughts about the images of the main characters from the position of "real criticism". In each chapter, the author compared images and singled out social and ideological types. He called Bazarov's type a "new type", which was lacking in literature. In this, Pisarev finds reason for reflection and writes: "Turgenev's novel, in addition to its artistic beauty, is also remarkable in that it stirs the mind, leads to reflections ...".
For Pisarev, Bazarov is a man of a new generation, way of thinking and outlook. “Bazarov does not steal other people's scarves, does not extract money from his parents, works diligently and is not even averse to doing something worthwhile in life. I foresee that many of my readers will ask themselves the question: what keeps Bazarov from vile deeds and what induces him to do something worthwhile? "- reflects Pisarev.
In Bazarov, the critic saw the embodiment of his literary ideal - the "realist". "From the first minute of his appearance, Bazarov riveted all my sympathies to himself, and he continues to be my favorite even now," Pisarev wrote in 1864 in the article "Realists". The critic repeatedly mentioned Bazarov in critical publications on literary works.
The fourth chapter is interesting by the introduction of a fictional character, which the author compares with images from other works of art (Onegin, Pechorin, Rudin, Beltov). Based on the created literary image, the critic gives positive and negative assessments of some actions.
In the fifth chapter, Pisarev proceeds to the actual analysis of the novel: “Having learned what Bazarov is, we must pay attention to how Turgenev himself understands this Bazarov, how he makes him act and in what relationship he puts him to the people around him. »Further, the author analyzes the attitude of other heroes of the work to Bazarov (friend Arkady Kirsanov, his father and uncle). And he analyzes Turgenev’s attitude to the novel itself and Bazarov’s hero: “Looking at Bazarov from the outside, looking as only a “retired” person who is not involved in the modern movement of ideas can look, examining him with that cold, probing look that is given only by long experience life, Turgenev justified Bazarov and appreciated him. Bazarov came out of the test clean and strong. Turgenev did not find a single significant accusation against this type, and in this case, his voice, as the voice of a person who is in a different camp by age and outlook on life, has a particularly important, decisive significance. Turgenev did not like Bazarov, but recognized his strength, recognized his superiority over the people around him, and himself brought him full tribute.
The sixth chapter is an analysis of Bazarov's relationship with his parents: "Neither with his father nor with his mother, Bazarov can neither talk like he talks with Arkady, nor even argue like he argues with Pavel Petrovich." In his reasoning, Pisarev comes to clarify the ideological concept of the novel. He approaches the main problems of the work through an assessment of the creative skill of the author of the novel: “Depicting Bazarov’s attitude towards the elderly, Turgenev does not at all turn into an accuser, deliberately choosing gloomy colors; he remains as before a sincere artist and depicts the phenomenon as it is, without sweetening or brightening it up according to his arbitrariness.”
Further, the critic describes the characters of the novel following the plot. He calls the young man Sitnikov and the young lady Kukshina "a superbly executed caricature of a brainless progressive and Russian-style emancipated woman." In the seventh chapter, Pisarev admires the realistic depiction of "ridiculous personalities": "... the artist who draws a strikingly lively caricature before our eyes, ridiculing the distortions of great and beautiful ideas, deserves our full gratitude." Here, too, the critic approves of Turgenev's mastery.
The eighth chapter is devoted to the relationship between Bazarov and Odintsova. Here Pisarev is engaged in romantic discussions about what kind of woman could fall in love with a man of this type. And how Bazarov tried to comprehend love with the help of scientific views. The critic writes: “A woman who is able to appreciate Bazarov will not give herself to him without preconditions, because such a woman usually has her own mind, knows life and, by calculation, protects her reputation.”
In the ninth chapter, the author considers Bazarov's attitude to the common people, his courtship of Fenechka, a duel with Pavel Petrovich. The tenth chapter tells about the death of the protagonist. Here Pisarev expresses the prevailing opinion about the personality of Bazarov. The way he behaves seems to completely satisfy our critic: “Bazarov does not change himself; the approach of death does not regenerate him; on the contrary, he becomes more natural, more human, more at ease than he was in full health.”
In the last chapter, Dmitry Ivanovich writes: “The honest, pure nature of the artist takes its toll, breaks down theoretical barriers, triumphs over the delusions of the mind and redeems everything with its instincts - both the inaccuracy of the main idea, and the one-sidedness of development, and the obsolescence of concepts. Looking at his Bazarov, Turgenev as a person and as an artist grows in his novel, grows before our eyes and grows to a correct understanding, to a fair assessment of the created type. Although Turgenev did not express his attitude towards the hero of Bazarov, Pisarev in his article was able to objectively evaluate this innovative image.
The composition of the article "Bazarov" is built on the methodological system of Pisarev's analysis, based on the principles of the "theory of realism" created by the critic, his philosophical and aesthetic views. Also, when evaluating a work of art, Pisarev considers “benefit” for society to be the main criterion.
In the protagonist of the novel "Fathers and Sons" by Turgenev, the critic Pisarev saw something that he himself liked. This is a kind of embodiment of his own ideal. Pisarev's article "Bazarov", a summary of which will be presented below, was published in March 1862. In it, the author defines and details the character of the hero of the novel. He portrayed him as a proclaimer of selfishness and a self-liberated person. Pisarev and then continued to write about Bazarov. In 1864, in the article "Realists", he points out that this hero from the first minutes of his appearance in the novel became his favorite. And then for a long time he continued to be them.
Pisarev wrote in the first chapter that Bazarov does not recognize any authority, regulator, any moral laws and principles, because he lives on his own: as he knows how, as he knows, as he wants, and regardless of faces.
People like Bazarov really behave very sharply, sometimes brazenly and fearlessly. Their character is manifested in actions, habits and lifestyle. Such people are not at all interested in whether the people will follow them and whether society will accept them. Until then, they have nothing to do.
The Bazarovs are filled with their own lives and do not want to let anyone into it. But let's continue to develop the topic further, consider what else Pisarev's article "Bazarov" tells us about. The summary of the work of the famous critic also indicates that at first, perhaps, the main character felt quite confident and comfortable, but then, as time has shown, he did not find himself happy in his nihilistic image, except for "inner life".
Pisarev writes that it is not so good for Bazarov, with his principles and ideas, to live in the world. After all, where there is no activity, there is no love, there is no pleasure. What to do then? Pisarev, who did not share revolutionary views, gives an interesting answer to this question. He writes that in this case one must "live while one lives, if there is no roast beef, eat and be with women, since one cannot love a woman." In general, do not dream about something like palm trees, but realistically be content with snowdrifts and cold tundras, not wanting more.
Pisarev's brief article "Bazarov" tells that the critic himself perfectly understands that all representatives of the young generation of his time in their views and aspirations can absolutely recognize themselves in the image of Turgenev's hero. But this applies not only to them. Those who followed Pisarev could also recognize themselves in Bazarovo. But those who followed such a leader of the revolution as Chernyshevsky, hardly. With them, Bazarov would have been a spokesman for ideas, but no more. The thing is that revolutionary democracy approached the people and the political struggle in an absolutely opposite way.
That is why the criticism of Sovremennik reacted very sharply both to the novel Fathers and Sons and to Pisarev's interpretation of the image of the hero Bazarov. Those images in which the then revolutionary democracy recognized itself were in Chernyshevsky's novel What Is to Be Done? It was in this work that a different answer was given to the main question, different from the one that Pisarev offered at the end of his article. After all, the critic later paid much attention to Bazarov in other articles: "Realists" (1864), "Thinking Proletariat" (1865), "Let's see!" (1865).
In addition to all the material that Pisarev's article "Bazarov" presented, its summary continues further with the thought of the appearance of new people in society with a forgivable and understandable extreme.
Pisarev speaks of Bazarov as a new type of person, but, however, further, over time, his interpretation began to change, in accordance with changes in the socio-political views of the author. In the article "Realists" he already considers Bazarov's egoism in a different way. He says that such consistent realists live by "the highest guiding idea." She gives them great strength in the fight. Such egoists have their own “personal calculation”, which does not interfere with their struggle for high goals. And they at that time consisted in the destruction of the begging of the working people. The critic already writes about the fact that it is precisely this egoism that finds in itself the satisfaction of this activity, leading to the realization of the set goal.
How does Pisarev's article "Bazarov" end? Its summary tells that Turgenev himself is not very sympathetic to his hero. Realism jars and corrodes his vulnerable and loving nature, and the slightest manifestations of cynicism offend his subtle aesthetic instinct. Without showing us how he lived, the author paints a very vivid picture of how his hero dies. This is quite enough to understand what power this man possessed. However, unfortunately, it has not found its application for a useful and dignified life.
D. I. Pisarev
(“Fathers and Sons”, novel by I. S. Turgenev)
Turgenev's new novel gives us everything that we used to enjoy in his works. The artistic finish is impeccably good; characters and positions, scenes and pictures are drawn so clearly and at the same time so softly that the most desperate denier of art will feel some incomprehensible pleasure while reading the novel, which cannot be explained either by the amusingness of the events told, or by the amazing fidelity of the main idea. The fact is that the events are not at all entertaining, and the idea is not at all strikingly correct. In the novel there is no plot, no denouement, no strictly considered plan; there are types and characters, there are scenes and pictures, and, most importantly, through the fabric of the story, the author's personal, deeply felt attitude to the derived phenomena of life shines through. 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 protagonists of this novel. By this I do not mean that in Turgenev's novel the ideas and aspirations of the younger generation are reflected in the way that the younger generation itself understands them; Turgenev refers to these ideas and aspirations from his personal point of view, and the old man and the young man almost never agree among themselves in convictions and sympathies. But if you approach a mirror, which, reflecting objects, changes their color a little, then you will recognize your physiognomy, despite the errors of the mirror. Reading Turgenev's novel, we see in it the types of the present moment and at the same time we are aware of the changes that the phenomena of reality have experienced, passing through the consciousness of the artist. It is curious to trace how a person like Turgenev is affected by the ideas and aspirations that stir in our young generation and manifest themselves, like all living things, in the most diverse forms, rarely attractive, often original, sometimes ugly.
This kind of research can be very profound. Turgenev is one of the best people of the past generation; to determine how he looks at us and why he looks at us this way and not otherwise, means to find the cause of the discord that is noticed everywhere in our private family life; that discord from which young lives often perish and from which old men and women constantly grunt and groan, not having time to process the concepts and actions of their sons and daughters to their stock. The task, as you see, is vital, large and complex; I probably won’t manage to cope with her, but to think - I’ll think.
Turgenev's novel, besides its artistic beauty, is also remarkable for the fact that it stirs the mind, leads one to think, 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 to these very phenomena. It leads one to contemplation precisely because it is permeated through and through with the most complete, most touching sincerity. Everything that is written in Turgenev's last novel is felt to the last line; this feeling breaks through in spite of the will and consciousness of the author himself and warms the objective story, instead of being expressed in lyrical digressions. The author himself does not give himself a clear account of his feelings, does not subject them to analysis, does not become critical of them. This circumstance enables us to see these feelings in all their untouched immediacy. We see what shines through, and not what the author wants to show or prove. Turgenev's opinions and judgments will not change a hair's breadth of our view of the younger generation and the ideas of our time; we will not even take them into consideration, we will not even argue with them; these opinions, judgments and feelings, expressed in inimitably vivid images, will only provide materials for characterizing the past generation, in the person of one of its best representatives. I will try to group these materials and, if I succeed, I will explain why our old people do not agree with us, shake their heads and, depending on their different characters and different moods, either get angry, or perplexed, or quietly sad about our actions and reasoning.
The novel is set in the summer of 1859. A young candidate, Arkady Nikolaevich Kirsanov, comes to the village to his father, along with his friend, Evgeny Vasilyevich Bazarov, who obviously has a strong influence on his comrade's way of thinking. This Bazarov, a strong man in mind and character, is the center of the whole novel. He is a representative of our young generation; in his personality are grouped those properties that are scattered in small shares in the masses; and the image of this person is vividly and distinctly looming before the imagination of the reader.
Bazarov - the son of a poor district doctor; Turgenev says nothing about his student life, but it must be assumed that it was a poor, working, hard life; Bazarov's father says about his son that he never took an extra penny from them; in truth, a lot could not have been taken even with the greatest desire, therefore, if the old man Bazarov says this in praise of his son, it means that Yevgeny Vasilyevich supported himself at the university by his own labors, survived with penny lessons and at the same time found the opportunity to effectively prepare yourself for future activities. From this school of labor and deprivation, Bazarov emerged as a strong and stern man; the course he took in the natural and medical sciences developed his natural mind and weaned him from accepting any concepts and beliefs on faith; he became a pure empiricist; experience became for him the only source of knowledge, personal sensation - the only and last convincing proof. “I stick to the negative direction,” he says, “because of the sensations. I am pleased to deny that this is how my brain works - and that's it! Why do I like chemistry? Why do you love apples? Also by virtue of feeling - it's all one. People will never go deeper than that. Not everyone will tell you that, and I won’t tell you another time either.” As an empiricist, Bazarov recognizes only that which can be felt with the hands, seen with the eyes, put on the tongue, in a word, only that which can be witnessed by one of the five senses. He reduces all other human feelings to the activity of the nervous system; as a result of this, the enjoyment of the beauties of nature, music, painting, poetry, love, women do not at all seem to him higher and purer than enjoying a hearty dinner or a bottle of good wine. What enthusiastic young men call the ideal does not exist for Bazarov; he calls all this "romanticism," and sometimes instead of the word "romanticism" he uses the word "nonsense." Despite all this, Bazarov does not steal other people's scarves, does not extract money from his parents, works diligently and is not even averse to doing something worthwhile in life. I foresee that many of my readers will ask themselves the question: what keeps Bazarov from vile deeds and what induces him to do something worthwhile? This question will lead to the following doubt: is Bazarov pretending to be in front of himself and in front of others? Is he drawing? Perhaps in the depths of his soul he admits much of what he denies in words, and perhaps it is precisely this recognized, this lurking that saves him from moral decline and from moral insignificance. Although Bazarov is neither my matchmaker nor my brother, although I may not sympathize with him, however, for the sake of abstract justice, I will try to answer the question and refute the crafty doubt.
You can be indignant at people like Bazarov to your heart's content, but recognizing their sincerity is absolutely necessary. These people can be honest and dishonest, civic leaders and notorious swindlers, according to circumstances and personal tastes. Nothing but personal taste prevents them from killing and robbing, and nothing but personal taste induces people of this temperament to make discoveries in the field of science and social life. Bazarov won't steal a handkerchief for the same reason he won't eat a piece of rotten beef. If Bazarov were starving, he would probably do both. The tormenting feeling of unsatisfied physical need would have overcome in him the disgust for the bad smell of decaying meat and for the secret encroachment on someone else's property. In addition to direct attraction, Bazarov has another leader in life - calculation. When he is sick, he takes medicine, although he does not feel any immediate attraction to castor oil or assafetida. He does this by calculation: at the price of a small inconvenience, he buys in the future a greater convenience or deliverance from a greater annoyance. In a word, he chooses the lesser of two evils, although he does not feel any attraction to the lesser. With mediocre people, this kind of calculation for the most part turns out to be untenable; they are calculated to be cunning, mean, steal, get confused and in the end remain fools. Very smart people act differently; they understand that it is very profitable to be honest and that any crime, from a simple lie to murder, is dangerous and, therefore, inconvenient. Therefore, very smart people can be honest by calculation and act frankly where limited people will wag and throw loops. Working tirelessly, Bazarov obeyed immediate inclination, taste, and, moreover, acted according to the most correct calculation. If he had looked for patronage, bowed, scoffed, instead of working and behaving proudly and independently, then he would have acted imprudently. Quarries pierced by one's own head are always stronger and wider than quarries laid by low bows or the intercession of an important uncle. Thanks to the last two means, one can get into provincial or metropolitan aces, but by the grace of these means no one, since the world has been standing, has succeeded in becoming either Washington, or Garibaldi, or Copernicus, or Heinrich Heine. Even Herostratus - and he made his career on his own and got into history not by patronage. As for Bazarov, he does not aim for provincial aces: if the imagination sometimes draws a future for him, then this future is somehow indefinitely broad; he works without a goal, to get his daily bread or out of love for the process of work, but meanwhile he vaguely feels from the amount of his own strength that his work will not remain without a trace and will lead to something. Bazarov is extremely proud, but his pride is imperceptible precisely because of its immensity. He is not interested in those little things that make up ordinary human relations; he cannot be offended by obvious neglect, he cannot be pleased with signs of respect; he is so full of himself and stands so unshakably high in his own eyes that he becomes almost completely indifferent to the opinions of other people. Uncle Kirsanov, who is close to Bazarov in terms of mindset and character, calls his pride "satanic pride." This expression is very well chosen and perfectly characterizes our hero. Indeed, only an eternity of constantly expanding activity and ever-increasing pleasure could satisfy Bazarov, but, unfortunately for himself, Bazarov does not recognize the eternal existence of the human person. “Yes, for example,” he says to his comrade Kirsanov, “today you said, passing by the hut of our elder Philip, “it is so nice, white,” you said: Russia will then reach perfection when the last peasant will have the same premises , and each of us should contribute to this ... And I began to hate this last peasant, Philip or Sidor, for whom I have to climb out of my skin and who won’t even thank me ... And why should I thank him? Well, he will live in a white hut, and burdock will grow out of me; “Well, what next?”
So, Bazarov everywhere and in everything does only as he wants or as it seems to him profitable and convenient. It is controlled only by personal whim or personal calculations. Neither above himself, nor outside himself, nor within himself does he recognize any regulator, any moral law, any principle. Ahead - no lofty goal; in the mind - no lofty thought, and with all this - enormous forces. “Yes, he is an immoral man! Villain, freak! - I hear exclamations of indignant readers from all sides. Well, well, villain, freak; scold him more, persecute him with satire and epigram, indignant lyricism and indignant public opinion, the fires of the Inquisition and the axes of the executioners - and you will not exterminate, you will not kill this freak, you will not put him in alcohol to the surprise of a respectable public. If Bazarovism is a disease, then it is a disease of our time, and one has to suffer through it, in spite of all palliatives and amputations. Treat Bazarovism however you like - that's your business; and stop - do not stop; this is cholera.
The disease of the century first of all sticks to people who, in terms of their mental powers, are above the general level. Bazarov, obsessed with this disease, has a remarkable mind and, as a result, makes a strong impression on people who come across him. “A real person,” he says, “is one about whom there is nothing to think about, but whom one must obey or hate.” It is Bazarov himself who fits the definition of a real person; he constantly immediately seizes the attention of the people around him; some he intimidates and repels; He subjugates others, not so much with arguments, but with the direct force, simplicity and integrity of his concepts. As a remarkably intelligent man, he had no equal. “When I meet a person who would not give in to me,” he said with emphasis, “then I will change my opinion of myself.”
He looks down on people and rarely even bothers to hide his half-contemptuous, half-protective attitude towards those people who hate him and those who obey him. He doesn't love anyone; without breaking existing ties and relations, at the same time he will not take a single step in order to re-establish or maintain these relations, he will not soften a single note in his stern voice, he will not sacrifice a single sharp joke, not a single red word.
He acts in this way not in the name of principle, not in order to be completely frank at every given moment, but because he considers it completely unnecessary to embarrass his person in anything, for the same motive by which Americans lift their legs. on the backs of armchairs and spit tobacco juice on the parquet floors of luxurious hotels. Bazarov needs no one, fears no one, loves no one, and, as a result, spares no one. Like Diogenes, he is ready to live almost in a barrel and for this he grants himself the right to speak harsh truths to people's faces for the reason that he likes it. In Bazarov's cynicism, two sides can be distinguished - internal and external: the cynicism of thoughts and feelings and the cynicism of manners and expressions. An ironic attitude to every kind of feeling, to reverie, to lyrical impulses, to outpourings, is the essence of inner cynicism. The crude expression of this irony, the unreasonable and aimless harshness in the address, belong to outward cynicism. The first depends on the mindset and on the general outlook; the second is determined by purely external conditions of development, the properties of the society in which the subject in question lived. Bazarov's mocking attitude towards the soft-hearted Kirsanov stems from the basic properties of the general Bazarov type. His rough clashes with Kirsanov and his uncle are his personal property. Bazarov is not only an empiricist - he is, moreover, an uncouth bursh who knows no other life than the homeless, laboring, sometimes wildly riotous life of a poor student. Among Bazarov's admirers, there will probably be people who will admire his rude manners, traces of the bursat life, will imitate these manners, which in any case constitute a disadvantage, not dignity, will even, perhaps, exaggerate his angularity, baggy and harshness. . Among the haters of Bazarov, there are probably people who will pay special attention to these unsightly features of his personality and put them in reproach to the general type. Both will err and reveal only a deep misunderstanding of the present matter. Both of them can be reminded of Pushkin's verse:
You can be a smart person
And think about the beauty of nails.
One can be an extreme materialist, a complete empiricist, and at the same time take care of his toilet, treat his acquaintances with refinement and politeness, be an amiable conversationalist and a perfect gentleman. I say this for those readers who, attaching great importance to refined manners, will look with disgust at Bazarov, as a man mal eleve and mauvais ton. It is indeed mal eleve and mauvais ton, but this has nothing to do with the essence of the type and speaks neither against it nor in its favor. It occurred to Turgenev to choose an uncouth man as a representative of the Bazarov type; he did just that and, of course, drawing his hero, he did not hide or paint over his angularities; Turgenev's choice can be explained by two different reasons: firstly, the personality of a person who mercilessly and with complete conviction denies everything that others recognize as high and beautiful, is most often developed in the gray atmosphere of working life; hard work makes hands coarse, manners coarse, feelings coarse; a person grows stronger and drives away youthful daydreaming, gets rid of tearful sensitivity; you can’t dream at work, because attention is focused on the busy business; and after work, rest is needed, real satisfaction of physical needs is needed, and the dream does not come to mind. A person gets used to looking at a dream as a whim, characteristic of idleness and lordly effeminacy; he begins to regard moral suffering as dreamy; moral aspirations and feats - invented and absurd. For him, a working man, there is only one, ever-recurring concern: today we must think about not starving tomorrow. This simple concern, formidable in its simplicity, obscures from him the rest, secondary anxieties, squabbles and cares of life; in comparison with this concern, various unresolved questions, unexplained doubts, indefinite relations that poison the life of wealthy and leisurely people, seem to him petty, insignificant, artificially created.
Thus, the working proletarian, by the very process of his life, independently of the process of reflection, reaches practical realism; he, through lack of time, weaned himself from dreaming, chasing the ideal, striving in the idea for an unattainable high goal. By developing energy in the worker, labor teaches him to bring business closer to thought, an act of will to an act of the mind. A person who is accustomed to relying on himself and on his own strength, accustomed to carry out today what was conceived yesterday, begins to look with more or less obvious disdain on those people who, dreaming of love, of useful activity, of the happiness of the entire human race, they do not know how to move a finger to improve their own, highly uncomfortable situation in any way. In a word, a man of action, be he a physician, an artisan, a teacher, even a writer (one can be a man of letters and a man of action at the same time), feels a natural, irresistible aversion to phrasing, to waste of words, to sweet thoughts, to sentimental aspirations and in general to any claims not based on real, tangible power. This kind of disgust for everything that is detached from life and vanishes in sounds is a fundamental property of people of the Bazarov type. This fundamental property is developed precisely in those heterogeneous workshops in which a person, refining his mind and tensing his muscles, fights with nature for the right to exist in this world. On this basis, Turgenev had the right to take his hero in one of these workshops and bring him in a working apron, with unwashed hands and a sullenly preoccupied look, into the society of fashionable gentlemen and ladies. But justice prompts me to suggest that the author of Fathers and Sons did not act in this way without cunning intent. This insidious intent is the second reason, which I mentioned above. The fact is that Turgenev, obviously, does not favor his hero. His soft, loving nature, striving for faith and sympathy, warps with corrosive realism; his subtle aesthetic sense, not devoid of a significant dose of aristocracy, is offended by even the slightest glimpses of cynicism; he is too weak and impressionable to endure gloomy denial; he needs to make peace with existence, if not in the realm of life, then at least in the realm of thought, or rather, dreams. Turgenev, like a nervous woman, like a “don’t touch me” plant, shrinks painfully from the slightest contact with the bouquet of Bazarovism.
Feeling, therefore, an involuntary antipathy to this trend of thought, he brought it before the reading public in a possibly ungraceful copy. He knows very well that there are a lot of fashionable readers in our public, and, relying on the refinement of their aristocratic taste, he does not spare coarse colors, with an obvious desire to drop and vulgarize, together with the hero, that warehouse of ideas that constitutes the common affiliation of the type. He knows very well that most of his readers will only say about Bazarov, that he is badly brought up and that he cannot be allowed into a decent living room; further and deeper they will not go; but in speaking to such people, the gifted artist and honest man must be extremely careful, out of respect for himself and for the idea he defends or refutes. Here one must keep one's personal antipathy in check, which, under certain conditions, can turn into involuntary slander against people who do not have the opportunity to defend themselves with the same weapons.
Until now, I have tried to outline in large terms the personality of Bazarov, or, rather, that general, emerging type, of which the hero of Turgenev's novel is a representative. We must now trace as far as possible its historical origin; it is necessary to show what kind of relationship Bazarov has with the various Onegins, Pechorins, Rudins, Beltovs and other literary types in which, in past decades, the younger generation recognized the features of their mental physiognomy. At all times there have been people in the world dissatisfied with life in general, or with certain forms of life in particular; at all times these people constituted a small minority. The masses lived in clover at all times and, due to their characteristic unpretentiousness, were satisfied with what was available. Only some kind of material disaster, such as "cowardice, famine, flood, invasion of foreigners," set the mass into restless movement and disrupted the usual, drowsy-serene process of its vegetation. The mass, made up of those hundreds of thousands of indivisibles who have never used their brain as an instrument of independent thinking, lives for themselves from day to day, does their own business, gets jobs, plays cards, reads something, follows the fashion in ideas and dresses, goes at a snail's pace forward by the force of inertia and, never asking himself large, comprehensive questions, never tormented by doubts, does not experience irritation, fatigue, annoyance, or boredom. This mass makes neither discoveries nor crimes; other people think and suffer for her, seek and find, fight and make mistakes, eternally strangers to her, always looking at her with disdain and at the same time eternally working to increase the comforts of her life. This mass, the stomach of humanity, lives on everything ready, without asking where it comes from, and without contributing a single penny to the common treasury of human thought. Massive people in Russia study, serve, work, have fun, get married, have children, bring them up, in a word, live the fullest life, are completely satisfied with themselves and their environment, do not want any improvement and, walking along the beaten road, do not suspect any possibility. nor the need for other paths and directions. They keep the routine by the force of inertia, and not by attachment to it; try to change this order - they will now get used to the innovation; hardened Old Believers are original personalities and stand above the unrequited herd. And the mass today drives on bad country roads and puts up with them; in a few years she will sit in the wagons and admire the speed of movement and the conveniences of travel. This inertia, this ability to agree to everything and get along with everything, is, perhaps, the most precious asset of mankind. The wretchedness of thought is thus balanced by the modesty of demands. A person who does not have the intelligence to think of means to improve his intolerable situation can only be called happy if he does not understand and does not feel the inconvenience of his situation. The life of a limited person almost always flows more smoothly and pleasantly than the life of a genius or even just an intelligent person. Clever people do not get along with those phenomena to which the masses become accustomed without the slightest difficulty. Intelligent people, depending on the various conditions of temperament and development, are in the most heterogeneous relationship to these phenomena.
Let us suppose that a young man lives in St. Petersburg, the only son of rich parents. He is smart. They taught him properly, a bit of everything that, according to the concepts of papa and tutor, a young man of a good family needs to know. Books and lessons bored him; tired of the novels, which he read at first on the sly, and then openly; he greedily pounces on life, dances until he drops, drags after women, wins brilliant victories. Two or three years fly by unnoticed; today is the same as yesterday, tomorrow is the same as today - there is a lot of noise, hustle, movement, brilliance, variegation, but in essence there is no variety of impressions; what our supposed hero saw is already understood and studied by him; there is no new food for the mind, and a tormenting feeling of mental hunger and boredom begins. Disappointed, or, more simply and more accurately, a bored young man begins to think about what he should do, what he should do. Work, right? But to work, to give yourself work in order not to be bored, is the same as walking for exercise without a specific goal. It is strange for an intelligent person to think about such a trick. And finally, would you like to find a job with us that would interest and satisfy an intelligent person who was not drawn into this work from a young age. Shouldn't he enter the service in the Treasury Chamber? Or not to prepare for fun for the master's exam? Shouldn't you imagine yourself an artist and, at twenty-five, start drawing eyes and ears, studying perspective or general bass?
Is it to fall in love? - Of course, it would not hurt, but the trouble is that smart people are very demanding and rarely satisfied with those female specimens that abound in the brilliant St. Petersburg living rooms. With these women they are courteous, they intrigue with them, they marry them, sometimes by passion, more often by prudent calculation; but to make relationships with such women an occupation that fills life, saves from boredom, is unthinkable for an intelligent person. The same mortifying bureaucracy that has taken over the rest of the manifestations of our private and public life has penetrated into relations between a man and a woman. The living nature of man here, as elsewhere, is fettered and discolored by uniforms and rituals. Well, a young man who has studied the uniform and the rite to the last detail can only either give up on his boredom as a necessary evil, or, out of desperation, throw himself into various eccentricities, harboring an indefinite hope of dissipating. The first was made by Onegin, the second by Pechorin; the whole difference between the one and the other lies in temperament. The conditions under which they were formed and from which they got bored are the same; the environment that has become boring to both is the same. But Onegin is colder than Pechorin, and therefore Pechorin fools much more than Onegin, rushes to the Caucasus for impressions, looks for them in Bela's love, in a duel with Grushnitsky, in battles with the Circassians, while Onegin languidly and lazily carries his beautiful disappointment with him around the world. . A little Onegin, a little Pechorin has been and still is with us any more or less intelligent person who owns a wealthy fortune, who grew up in an atmosphere of nobility and did not receive a serious education.
Next to these bored drones there were and still are crowds of sad people, yearning from an unsatisfied desire to be useful. Brought up in gymnasiums and universities, these people get a fairly thorough understanding of how civilized peoples live in the world, how gifted figures work for the benefit of society, how different thinkers and moralists define the duties of a person. In vague, but often warm terms, professors speak to these people about honest activity, about the feat of life, about selflessness in the name of humanity, truth, science, and society. Variations on these warm expressions fill heartfelt student conversations, during which so much youthful freshness is expressed, during which one so warmly and boundlessly believes in the existence and triumph of good. Well, imbued with the warm words of idealistic professors, warmed by their own enthusiastic speeches, young people leave school with an indomitable desire to do a good deed or to suffer for the truth. Sometimes they have to suffer, but they never succeed in doing the job. Whether they themselves are to blame for this, or whether the life they are entering is to blame, it is difficult to judge. It is at least true that they do not have the strength to change the conditions of life, and they do not know how to get along with these conditions. Here they are rushing from side to side, trying their hand at different careers, asking, begging society: “Fix us somewhere, take our strength, squeeze out of them for yourself some particle of good; destroy us, but destroy us so that our death is not in vain. Society is deaf and inexorable; the ardent desire of the Rudins and Beltovs to settle into practical activities and see the fruits of their labors and donations remains fruitless. Not a single Rudin, not a single Beltov has risen to the rank of head of the department; and besides - strange people! - they, what good, even with this honorable and secured position would not be satisfied. They spoke in a language that society did not understand, and after vain attempts to explain their desires to this society, they fell silent and fell into a very excusable despondency. Other Rudins calmed down and found satisfaction in their pedagogical activity; becoming teachers and professors, they found an outlet for their striving for activity. We ourselves, they told themselves, had done nothing. At the very least, let's pass on our honest tendencies to the younger generation, which will be stronger than us and create other, more favorable times for itself. Remaining thus far from practical activity, the poor idealistic teachers did not notice that their lectures were producing Rudins just like themselves, that their students would have to stay out of practical activity in the same way or become renegades, renounce their convictions and tendencies. It would be difficult for Rudin teachers to foresee that they, even in the person of their students, would not take part in practical activities; and meanwhile they would be mistaken if, even foreseeing this circumstance, they thought that they did not bring any benefit. The negative benefit brought and brought by people of this temper is not subject to the slightest doubt. They breed people incapable to practical activities; as a result, the most practical activity, or rather, the forms in which it is usually expressed now, are slowly but constantly lowered in the opinion of society. About twenty years ago, all young people served in various departments; people who did not serve belonged to exceptional phenomena; society looked at them with compassion or with disdain; to make a career meant to rise to a high rank. Now so many young people are not serving, and no one finds anything strange or reprehensible in this. Why did it happen so? And therefore, it seems to me that they took a closer look at such phenomena, or, which is the same thing, because the Rudins multiplied in our society. Not so long ago, about six years ago, shortly after the Crimean campaign, our Rudins imagined that their time had come, that society would accept and put into play those forces that they had long offered it with complete selflessness. They rushed forward; literature revived; university teaching has become fresher; students have changed; society, with unprecedented zeal, took up the magazines and even began to look into the audience; even new administrative positions arose. It seemed that the era of fruitless dreams and aspirations was followed by an era of vigorous, useful activity. It seemed that the rudinstvo was coming to an end, and even Mr. Goncharov himself buried his Oblomov and announced that many Stoltsev were hiding under Russian names. But the mirage dissipated - the Rudins did not become practical figures; because of the Rudins, a new generation came forward, which reacted with reproach and ridicule to its predecessors. “What are you whining about, what are you looking for, what are you asking from life? I suppose you want happiness, - these new people said to the soft-hearted idealists, who sadly lowered their wings, - but you never know! Happiness must be won. There are forces - take it. No strength - be silent, otherwise it’s sickening without you! ” - A gloomy, concentrated energy was reflected in this unfriendly attitude of the younger generation towards their mentors. In their concepts of goodness and evil, this generation converged with the best people of the previous one; they had common sympathies; they desired the same thing; but the people of the past tossed about and fussed, hoping to settle down somewhere and somehow, secretly, in fits and starts, imperceptibly pour their honest convictions into life. People of the present do not rush about, do not look for anything, do not settle down anywhere, do not succumb to any compromises and do not hope for anything. In practical terms, they are just as powerless as the Rudins, but they realized their powerlessness and stopped waving their hands. “I can’t act now,” each of these new people thinks to himself, “I won’t even try; I despise everything that surrounds me, and I will not hide this contempt. I will go into the fight against evil when I feel strong. Until then, I will live on my own, as I live, not putting up with the reigning evil and not giving it any power over me. I am a stranger in the existing order of things, and I don't care about it. I am engaged in the bread craft, I think - what I want, and express - what can be expressed. ”This cold despair, reaching complete indifference and at the same time developing an individual personality to the last limits of firmness and independence, strains mental abilities; unable to act, people begin to think and explore; not being able to remake life, people vent their impotence in the realm of thought; there nothing stops the destructive critical work; superstitions and authorities are shattered to smithereens, and the worldview is completely cleansed of various illusory notions.
End of introductory segment.
Poorly brought up and bad taste ( fr.). – Red.
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D. I. Pisarev
(“Fathers and Sons”, novel by I. S. Turgenev)
Turgenev's new novel gives us everything that we used to enjoy in his works. The artistic finish is impeccably good; characters and positions, scenes and pictures are drawn so clearly and at the same time so softly that the most desperate denier of art will feel some incomprehensible pleasure while reading the novel, which cannot be explained either by the amusingness of the events told, or by the amazing fidelity of the main idea. The fact is that the events are not at all entertaining, and the idea is not at all strikingly correct. In the novel there is no plot, no denouement, no strictly considered plan; there are types and characters, there are scenes and pictures, and, most importantly, through the fabric of the story, the author's personal, deeply felt attitude to the derived phenomena of life shines through. 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 protagonists of this novel. By this I do not mean that in Turgenev's novel the ideas and aspirations of the younger generation are reflected in the way that the younger generation itself understands them; Turgenev refers to these ideas and aspirations from his personal point of view, and the old man and the young man almost never agree among themselves in convictions and sympathies. But if you approach a mirror, which, reflecting objects, changes their color a little, then you will recognize your physiognomy, despite the errors of the mirror. Reading Turgenev's novel, we see in it the types of the present moment and at the same time we are aware of the changes that the phenomena of reality have experienced, passing through the consciousness of the artist. It is curious to trace how a person like Turgenev is affected by the ideas and aspirations that stir in our young generation and manifest themselves, like all living things, in the most diverse forms, rarely attractive, often original, sometimes ugly.
This kind of research can be very profound. Turgenev is one of the best people of the past generation; to determine how he looks at us and why he looks at us this way and not otherwise, means to find the cause of the discord that is noticed everywhere in our private family life; that discord from which young lives often perish and from which old men and women constantly grunt and groan, not having time to process the concepts and actions of their sons and daughters to their stock. The task, as you see, is vital, large and complex; I probably won’t manage to cope with her, but to think - I’ll think.
Turgenev's novel, besides its artistic beauty, is also remarkable for the fact that it stirs the mind, leads one to think, 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 to these very phenomena. It leads one to contemplation precisely because it is permeated through and through with the most complete, most touching sincerity. Everything that is written in Turgenev's last novel is felt to the last line; this feeling breaks through in spite of the will and consciousness of the author himself and warms the objective story, instead of being expressed in lyrical digressions. The author himself does not give himself a clear account of his feelings, does not subject them to analysis, does not become critical of them. This circumstance enables us to see these feelings in all their untouched immediacy. We see what shines through, and not what the author wants to show or prove. Turgenev's opinions and judgments will not change a hair's breadth of our view of the younger generation and the ideas of our time; we will not even take them into consideration, we will not even argue with them; these opinions, judgments and feelings, expressed in inimitably vivid images, will only provide materials for characterizing the past generation, in the person of one of its best representatives. I will try to group these materials and, if I succeed, I will explain why our old people do not agree with us, shake their heads and, depending on their different characters and different moods, either get angry, or perplexed, or quietly sad about our actions and reasoning.
The novel is set in the summer of 1859. A young candidate, Arkady Nikolaevich Kirsanov, comes to the village to his father, along with his friend, Evgeny Vasilyevich Bazarov, who obviously has a strong influence on his comrade's way of thinking. This Bazarov, a strong man in mind and character, is the center of the whole novel. He is a representative of our young generation; in his personality are grouped those properties that are scattered in small shares in the masses; and the image of this person is vividly and distinctly looming before the imagination of the reader.
Bazarov - the son of a poor district doctor; Turgenev says nothing about his student life, but it must be assumed that it was a poor, working, hard life; Bazarov's father says about his son that he never took an extra penny from them; in truth, a lot could not have been taken even with the greatest desire, therefore, if the old man Bazarov says this in praise of his son, it means that Yevgeny Vasilyevich supported himself at the university by his own labors, survived with penny lessons and at the same time found the opportunity to effectively prepare yourself for future activities. From this school of labor and deprivation, Bazarov emerged as a strong and stern man; the course he took in the natural and medical sciences developed his natural mind and weaned him from accepting any concepts and beliefs on faith; he became a pure empiricist; experience became for him the only source of knowledge, personal sensation - the only and last convincing proof. “I stick to the negative direction,” he says, “because of the sensations. I am pleased to deny that this is how my brain works - and that's it! Why do I like chemistry? Why do you love apples? Also by virtue of feeling - it's all one. People will never go deeper than that. Not everyone will tell you that, and I won’t tell you another time either.” As an empiricist, Bazarov recognizes only that which can be felt with the hands, seen with the eyes, put on the tongue, in a word, only that which can be witnessed by one of the five senses. He reduces all other human feelings to the activity of the nervous system; as a result of this, the enjoyment of the beauties of nature, music, painting, poetry, love, women do not at all seem to him higher and purer than enjoying a hearty dinner or a bottle of good wine. What enthusiastic young men call the ideal does not exist for Bazarov; he calls all this "romanticism," and sometimes instead of the word "romanticism" he uses the word "nonsense." Despite all this, Bazarov does not steal other people's scarves, does not extract money from his parents, works diligently and is not even averse to doing something worthwhile in life. I foresee that many of my readers will ask themselves the question: what keeps Bazarov from vile deeds and what induces him to do something worthwhile? This question will lead to the following doubt: is Bazarov pretending to be in front of himself and in front of others? Is he drawing? Perhaps in the depths of his soul he admits much of what he denies in words, and perhaps it is precisely this recognized, this lurking that saves him from moral decline and from moral insignificance. Although Bazarov is neither my matchmaker nor my brother, although I may not sympathize with him, however, for the sake of abstract justice, I will try to answer the question and refute the crafty doubt.
You can be indignant at people like Bazarov to your heart's content, but recognizing their sincerity is absolutely necessary. These people can be honest and dishonest, civic leaders and notorious swindlers, according to circumstances and personal tastes. Nothing but personal taste prevents them from killing and robbing, and nothing but personal taste induces people of this temperament to make discoveries in the field of science and social life. Bazarov won't steal a handkerchief for the same reason he won't eat a piece of rotten beef. If Bazarov were starving, he would probably do both. The tormenting feeling of unsatisfied physical need would have overcome in him the disgust for the bad smell of decaying meat and for the secret encroachment on someone else's property. In addition to direct attraction, Bazarov has another leader in life - calculation. When he is sick, he takes medicine, although he does not feel any immediate attraction to castor oil or assafetida. He does this by calculation: at the price of a small inconvenience, he buys in the future a greater convenience or deliverance from a greater annoyance. In a word, he chooses the lesser of two evils, although he does not feel any attraction to the lesser. With mediocre people, this kind of calculation for the most part turns out to be untenable; they are calculated to be cunning, mean, steal, get confused and in the end remain fools. Very smart people act differently; they understand that it is very profitable to be honest and that any crime, from a simple lie to murder, is dangerous and, therefore, inconvenient. Therefore, very smart people can be honest by calculation and act frankly where limited people will wag and throw loops. Working tirelessly, Bazarov obeyed immediate inclination, taste, and, moreover, acted according to the most correct calculation. If he had looked for patronage, bowed, scoffed, instead of working and behaving proudly and independently, then he would have acted imprudently. Quarries pierced by one's own head are always stronger and wider than quarries laid by low bows or the intercession of an important uncle. Thanks to the last two means, one can get into provincial or metropolitan aces, but by the grace of these means no one, since the world has been standing, has succeeded in becoming either Washington, or Garibaldi, or Copernicus, or Heinrich Heine. Even Herostratus - and he made his career on his own and got into history not by patronage. As for Bazarov, he does not aim for provincial aces: if the imagination sometimes draws a future for him, then this future is somehow indefinitely broad; he works without a goal, to get his daily bread or out of love for the process of work, but meanwhile he vaguely feels from the amount of his own strength that his work will not remain without a trace and will lead to something. Bazarov is extremely proud, but his pride is imperceptible precisely because of its immensity. He is not interested in those little things that make up ordinary human relations; he cannot be offended by obvious neglect, he cannot be pleased with signs of respect; he is so full of himself and stands so unshakably high in his own eyes that he becomes almost completely indifferent to the opinions of other people. Uncle Kirsanov, who is close to Bazarov in terms of mindset and character, calls his pride "satanic pride." This expression is very well chosen and perfectly characterizes our hero. Indeed, only an eternity of constantly expanding activity and ever-increasing pleasure could satisfy Bazarov, but, unfortunately for himself, Bazarov does not recognize the eternal existence of the human person. “Yes, for example,” he says to his comrade Kirsanov, “today you said, passing by the hut of our elder Philip, “it is so nice, white,” you said: Russia will then reach perfection when the last peasant will have the same premises , and each of us should contribute to this ... And I began to hate this last peasant, Philip or Sidor, for whom I have to climb out of my skin and who won’t even thank me ... And why should I thank him? Well, he will live in a white hut, and burdock will grow out of me; “Well, what next?”
So, Bazarov everywhere and in everything does only as he wants or as it seems to him profitable and convenient. It is controlled only by personal whim or personal calculations. Neither above himself, nor outside himself, nor within himself does he recognize any regulator, any moral law, any principle. Ahead - no lofty goal; in the mind - no lofty thought, and with all this - enormous forces. “Yes, he is an immoral man! Villain, freak! - I hear exclamations of indignant readers from all sides. Well, well, villain, freak; scold him more, persecute him with satire and epigram, indignant lyricism and indignant public opinion, the fires of the Inquisition and the axes of the executioners - and you will not exterminate, you will not kill this freak, you will not put him in alcohol to the surprise of a respectable public. If Bazarovism is a disease, then it is a disease of our time, and one has to suffer through it, in spite of all palliatives and amputations. Treat Bazarovism however you like - that's your business; and stop - do not stop; this is cholera.
The disease of the century first of all sticks to people who, in terms of their mental powers, are above the general level. Bazarov, obsessed with this disease, has a remarkable mind and, as a result, makes a strong impression on people who come across him. “A real person,” he says, “is one about whom there is nothing to think about, but whom one must obey or hate.” It is Bazarov himself who fits the definition of a real person; he constantly immediately seizes the attention of the people around him; some he intimidates and repels; He subjugates others, not so much with arguments, but with the direct force, simplicity and integrity of his concepts. As a remarkably intelligent man, he had no equal. “When I meet a person who would not give in to me,” he said with emphasis, “then I will change my opinion of myself.”
He looks down on people and rarely even bothers to hide his half-contemptuous, half-protective attitude towards those people who hate him and those who obey him. He doesn't love anyone; without breaking existing ties and relations, at the same time he will not take a single step in order to re-establish or maintain these relations, he will not soften a single note in his stern voice, he will not sacrifice a single sharp joke, not a single red word.
He acts in this way not in the name of principle, not in order to be completely frank at every given moment, but because he considers it completely unnecessary to embarrass his person in anything, for the same motive by which Americans lift their legs. on the backs of armchairs and spit tobacco juice on the parquet floors of luxurious hotels. Bazarov needs no one, fears no one, loves no one, and, as a result, spares no one. Like Diogenes, he is ready to live almost in a barrel and for this he grants himself the right to speak harsh truths to people's faces for the reason that he likes it. In Bazarov's cynicism, two sides can be distinguished - internal and external: the cynicism of thoughts and feelings and the cynicism of manners and expressions. An ironic attitude to every kind of feeling, to reverie, to lyrical impulses, to outpourings, is the essence of inner cynicism. The crude expression of this irony, the unreasonable and aimless harshness in the address, belong to outward cynicism. The first depends on the mindset and on the general outlook; the second is determined by purely external conditions of development, the properties of the society in which the subject in question lived. Bazarov's mocking attitude towards the soft-hearted Kirsanov stems from the basic properties of the general Bazarov type. His rough clashes with Kirsanov and his uncle are his personal property. Bazarov is not only an empiricist - he is, moreover, an uncouth bursh who knows no other life than the homeless, laboring, sometimes wildly riotous life of a poor student. Among Bazarov's admirers, there will probably be people who will admire his rude manners, traces of the bursat life, will imitate these manners, which in any case constitute a disadvantage, not dignity, will even, perhaps, exaggerate his angularity, baggy and harshness. . Among the haters of Bazarov, there are probably people who will pay special attention to these unsightly features of his personality and put them in reproach to the general type. Both will err and reveal only a deep misunderstanding of the present matter. Both of them can be reminded of Pushkin's verse:
You can be a smart person
And think about the beauty of nails.
One can be an extreme materialist, a complete empiricist, and at the same time take care of his toilet, treat his acquaintances with refinement and politeness, be an amiable conversationalist and a perfect gentleman. I say this for those readers who, attaching great importance to refined manners, will look with disgust at Bazarov, as a man mal eleve and mauvais ton. It is indeed mal eleve and mauvais ton, but this has nothing to do with the essence of the type and speaks neither against it nor in its favor. It occurred to Turgenev to choose an uncouth man as a representative of the Bazarov type; he did just that and, of course, drawing his hero, he did not hide or paint over his angularities; Turgenev's choice can be explained by two different reasons: firstly, the personality of a person who mercilessly and with complete conviction denies everything that others recognize as high and beautiful, is most often developed in the gray atmosphere of working life; hard work makes hands coarse, manners coarse, feelings coarse; a person grows stronger and drives away youthful daydreaming, gets rid of tearful sensitivity; you can’t dream at work, because attention is focused on the busy business; and after work, rest is needed, real satisfaction of physical needs is needed, and the dream does not come to mind. A person gets used to looking at a dream as a whim, characteristic of idleness and lordly effeminacy; he begins to regard moral suffering as dreamy; moral aspirations and feats - invented and absurd. For him, a working man, there is only one, ever-recurring concern: today we must think about not starving tomorrow. This simple concern, formidable in its simplicity, obscures from him the rest, secondary anxieties, squabbles and cares of life; in comparison with this concern, various unresolved questions, unexplained doubts, indefinite relations that poison the life of wealthy and leisurely people, seem to him petty, insignificant, artificially created.
Thus, the working proletarian, by the very process of his life, independently of the process of reflection, reaches practical realism; he, through lack of time, weaned himself from dreaming, chasing the ideal, striving in the idea for an unattainable high goal. By developing energy in the worker, labor teaches him to bring business closer to thought, an act of will to an act of the mind. A person who is accustomed to relying on himself and on his own strength, accustomed to carry out today what was conceived yesterday, begins to look with more or less obvious disdain on those people who, dreaming of love, of useful activity, of the happiness of the entire human race, they do not know how to move a finger to improve their own, highly uncomfortable situation in any way. In a word, a man of action, be he a physician, an artisan, a teacher, even a writer (one can be a man of letters and a man of action at the same time), feels a natural, irresistible aversion to phrasing, to waste of words, to sweet thoughts, to sentimental aspirations and in general to any claims not based on real, tangible power. This kind of disgust for everything that is detached from life and vanishes in sounds is a fundamental property of people of the Bazarov type. This fundamental property is developed precisely in those heterogeneous workshops in which a person, refining his mind and tensing his muscles, fights with nature for the right to exist in this world. On this basis, Turgenev had the right to take his hero in one of these workshops and bring him in a working apron, with unwashed hands and a sullenly preoccupied look, into the society of fashionable gentlemen and ladies. But justice prompts me to suggest that the author of Fathers and Sons did not act in this way without cunning intent. This insidious intent is the second reason, which I mentioned above. The fact is that Turgenev, obviously, does not favor his hero. His soft, loving nature, striving for faith and sympathy, warps with corrosive realism; his subtle aesthetic sense, not devoid of a significant dose of aristocracy, is offended by even the slightest glimpses of cynicism; he is too weak and impressionable to endure gloomy denial; he needs to make peace with existence, if not in the realm of life, then at least in the realm of thought, or rather, dreams. Turgenev, like a nervous woman, like a “don’t touch me” plant, shrinks painfully from the slightest contact with the bouquet of Bazarovism.
Feeling, therefore, an involuntary antipathy to this trend of thought, he brought it before the reading public in a possibly ungraceful copy. He knows very well that there are a lot of fashionable readers in our public, and, relying on the refinement of their aristocratic taste, he does not spare coarse colors, with an obvious desire to drop and vulgarize, together with the hero, that warehouse of ideas that constitutes the common affiliation of the type. He knows very well that most of his readers will only say about Bazarov, that he is badly brought up and that he cannot be allowed into a decent living room; further and deeper they will not go; but in speaking to such people, the gifted artist and honest man must be extremely careful, out of respect for himself and for the idea he defends or refutes. Here one must keep one's personal antipathy in check, which, under certain conditions, can turn into involuntary slander against people who do not have the opportunity to defend themselves with the same weapons.
The lamp of criticism should illuminate, not burn.
Sh. Favar
A number of articles about Bazarov were written in order to defend and clarify the whole structure of our concepts.
D. I. Pisarev
In the February issue of the magazine "Russian Messenger" for 1862, the fourth novel by I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons" was published. Around the novel, such a fierce controversy flared up that the history of Russian journalism has never known before or after. There were two reasons for serious disputes: the assessment of the modern historical moment and the complex image of the protagonist of the novel.
The ideological struggle and the events of the first Russian revolutionary situation of 1859-1861 split society into two camps. The camp of conservatives, friendly and united, acted, for various reasons, against any transformations; The camp of advanced people, torn apart by contradictions, recognized the need for changes in the economic, political, and spiritual life of the country, but was split over tactics. Moderate progressives (Turgenev belonged to them according to their convictions) advocated a liberal, reformist path for the development of Russia; active progressives - revolutionary democrats (employees of the editorial board of the Sovremennik magazine) believed that the salvation of Russia was in the peasant revolution.
Turgenev assessed the surrounding Russian reality from a liberal educational point of view: he was not a supporter of revolutions and popular uprisings, but at the same time he was a staunch opponent of feudal lack of rights, illiteracy and ignorance. In 1860, due to ideological differences, Turgenev stopped all relations with Sovremennik, that is, he refused to be published in the magazine and asked not to put his name among the magazine's employees.
Turgenev made the main character of the new novel the student Bazarov, a nobleman by birth and a revolutionary democrat by conviction, a young man with social views opposed to Turgenev's. Despite the latter circumstance, the writer “honestly and not only without prejudice, but even with sympathy” (I.S. Turgenev “About “Fathers and Sons”)” to Bazarov. In other words, the author himself understood that he had created a complex, contradictory image of the main character: “Hand on my heart, I do not feel guilty before Bazarov and could not give him unnecessary sweetness. If they don’t love him as he is, with all his ugliness, then it’s my fault and I didn’t manage to cope with the type I chose. It would be no big deal to present him as an ideal; but to make him a wolf and still justify him - it was difficult ... ”(letter to A.I. Herzen dated 1862). It is clear that few people could like such Bazarov, so different critics undertook to disassemble and smash the image of Turgenev's hero from different ideological positions.
Representatives of the camp of conservatives, speaking out against "materialism and all kinds of nihilism", believed that Turgenev exposed Bazarov to ridicule and censure (V.I. Askochensky), that the author saw in Bazarov and the younger generation in general only "wild Mongol power" ("Fathers and children”, X), that is, “something extraneous, not at all (...) not expensive” (N.N. Stakhov) and even hostile to Russian life. So Turgenev was presented as a hater of the young generation of Russia. However, especially interesting articles belonged to critics of liberal and revolutionary-democratic orientation.
N.M. Katkov, editor-in-chief of the liberal journal Russky Vestnik (in which, after breaking with Sovremennik, Turgenev published the novel Fathers and Sons), in the article Turgenev’s Roman and His Critics, he furiously attacked the nihilists. The critic in Bazarov's "science with its frogs and microscopes" saw only a "deception of the senses", and in Bazarov's denial - dubious wisdom, which all "consists of a series of zeros and minuses." Behind the new generation, behind the Bazarov type, there are no such forces of Russian society, Katkov believed, that could bring new content to life. The impetus for Katkov's speech was the fires in St. Petersburg allegedly set (there was no direct evidence) by nihilist revolutionaries two months after the publication of the novel Fathers and Sons. According to Katkov, Turgenev, who clearly sympathizes with Bazarov, was involved in these fires. So unwittingly Turgenev, in company with nihilist arsonists, turned out to be a hater of Russia.
The writer withstood the most merciless criticism from his former comrades from the revolutionary-democratic journal Sovremennik, where M.A. Antonovich’s article “Asmodeus of Our Time” (1862) was published. Antonovich carried out an editorial task - to “destroy” Turgenev’s novel, which the magazine’s staff considered “an open statement of Turgenev’s hatred for Dobrolyubov” (N.G. Chernyshevsky “Memoirs”). A critic of Sovremennik venomously called Bazarov "Asmodeus of our time", which is completely unfair to Turgenev's hero. Asmodeus is a prodigal demon from the Old Testament traditions. One of his “feats” is to torment the girl he liked with jealousy, killing her suitors one by one. According to Antonovich, Bazarov looks like Asmodeus already because before his death he says to Odintsova: “Oh, how close, and how young, fresh, pure ...” (XXVII), that is, he has an indecent passion for her at such an inopportune moment. In addition, "Asmodeus of Our Time" (1858) is the name of the scandalous novel by V.I. Askochensky, the main character of which is Pustovtsev, a young corrupter of innocence and a merciless mocker of all human feelings. According to Antonovich, "Pustovtsev is Bazarov's brother and double in character, in convictions, in immorality, even in negligence in receptions and toilet."
Simultaneously and independently of Sovremennik, another revolutionary-democratic journal, Russkoye Slovo, published its analysis of Fathers and Sons, an article by D.I. Pisarev, Bazarov (1862). Pisarev had his own editorial task - to answer Katkov and show what the social strength of the younger generation is. Having positively commented on the novel, Pisarev willy-nilly entered into an argument with Sovremennik. In other words, Antonovich and Pisarev completely disagreed in their assessment of Turgenev's novel on the most important issues: on the interpretation of the image of Bazarov, on the definition of author's sympathies, on the characterization of the artistic merits of the work, on the formulation of the main idea. Pisarev defended Turgenev on all the above points from the unfair attacks of Sovremennik.
Antonovich judges Turgenev’s attitude to Bazarov (and, consequently, to the younger generation) surprisingly superficially, as if the writer has “some kind of personal hatred and hostility” for young heroes (“children”), wants to “represent them in a funny or vulgar and vile form ". Turgenev “forces” Bazarov to lose cards to his father Alexei, makes a glutton out of the main character (he always notes that Bazarov “spoke little, but ate a lot”) and a drunkard (at breakfast at Kuksha’s, Bazarov was silent and “more and more engaged in champagne”) . In short, the protagonist of the novel is “not a man, but some kind of terrible creature, just a devil, or, more poetically, asmodeus. He systematically hates and persecutes everything from his kind parents, whom he cannot stand, to frogs, which he cuts with merciless cruelty. Pisarev writes about Turgenev’s relationship to Bazarov more calmly and fairly: “It occurred to Turgenev to choose an uncouth person as a representative of the Bazarov type; he did just that and, of course, drawing his hero, he did not hide or paint over his angularities ”(III). The writer "himself will never be Bazarov, but he thought about this type and understood him as truly as none of our young realists will understand" (V).
Antonovich claims that Turgenev is not disposed towards the younger generation: “he even treats children with hostility; he gives fathers full advantage in everything and always tries to exalt them at the expense of children. Pisarev, on the contrary, believes that the author “does not fully sympathize with any of his characters; not a single weak or ridiculous feature escapes his analysis; we see how Bazarov lies in his denial, how Arkady enjoys his development, how Nikolai Petrovich becomes shy, like a fifteen-year-old youth, and how Pavel Petrovich shows off and gets angry, why does Bazarov not admire him, the only person whom he respects in his very hatred » (V).
Antonovich believes that the novel "Fathers and Sons" is "a moral and philosophical treatise, but bad and superficial. (...) That is why in the novel (...) there is not a single living person and living soul, but everything is just abstract ideas and different directions, personified and named by appropriate names. Pisarev objects: “... the direct feeling of readers (...) will see in Turgenev’s novel not a dissertation on a given topic, but a true, deeply felt and without the slightest concealment painted picture of modern life” (V). Antonovich continues his criticism: there is little artistic truth and the truth of life in the novel, because Turgenev was guided by a trend, that is, by his clear political goals. Pisarev sees nothing terrible in the author’s tendentiousness: “I don’t want to say that in Turgenev’s novel the ideas and aspirations of the younger generation are reflected in the way that the younger generation itself understands them; Turgenev refers to these ideas and aspirations from his personal point of view, and the old man and the young man almost never agree among themselves in convictions and sympathies ”(I). For Pisarev, what matters is “what shines through, and not what the author wants to show or prove” (I).
In a word, for Antonovich the novel "Fathers and Sons" is weak and harmful. This is, in fact, “merciless and destructive criticism of the younger generation. In all modern questions, mental movements, rumors and ideals that occupy the younger generation, Turgenev does not find any meaning and makes it clear that they lead only to debauchery, emptiness, prosaic vulgarity and cynicism. Bazarov, on the other hand, is “not a character, not a living person, but a caricature, a monster with a tiny head and a giant mouth, with a small face and a very large nose, and, moreover, the most malicious caricature.” Pisarev comes to directly opposite conclusions: Turgenev did not hide or brighten up “the ungraceful roughness of the younger generation. (...) From the side, the advantages and disadvantages are more visible, and therefore a strictly critical look at Bazarov from the side at the present moment turns out to be much more fruitful than unfounded admiration or servile adoration. Looking at Bazarov from the side (...) with a cold, searching look (...), Turgenev justified Bazarov and appreciated him. Bazarov came out of the tests clean and strong. Turgenev did not find a single significant accusation against this type. (...) Turgenev did not love Bazarov, but recognized his strength, recognized his superiority over the people around him, and himself brought him full tribute ”(V).
From the above quotes, it can be seen that Antonovich and Pisarev agree on only one thing: Bazarov is not an ideal hero, but for some reason this assessment offended the first, and set the second on a thoughtful literary analysis.
So, the harsh controversy around "Fathers and Sons" is explained by the fact that all the critics and the author himself mixed political questions and personal relationships with purely literary problems. Turgenev deliberately coarsened the statements of N.A. Dobrolyubov in Bazarov’s speeches. The writer himself understood this well and foresaw the indignation of Sovremennik about both the novel and its protagonist: “It seems that I annoyed them greatly. And what is unpleasant: I will continue to salt ahead ”(letter to P.V. Annenkov dated 1862).
Conservative and liberal critics unanimously admitted that Turgenev's novel was good, as it unsightly showed young nihilist revolutionaries - Bazarov, Sitnikov, Kukshina. Antonovich, speaking on behalf of Sovremennik, polemically exaggerated Bazarov's weaknesses and hushed up his virtues. Antonovich wrote not about what was reflected in the novel, but about what, in his opinion, Turgenev wanted to say. As a result, the critic did not have enough artistic flair to discern the truth of life, the social significance and artistic merits of the novel, so Antonovich's article turned out to be superficial and did not convince anyone.
Pisarev, unlike the critic of Sovremennik, gave Turgenev's novel a positive assessment, because he understood that behind the external, rather unattractive appearance of the protagonist, a strong and noble character is hidden. Pisarev rightly foresaw that critics - some with joy, others with indignation - would analyze the negative features of Bazarov's image, so he himself focused primarily on the strengths of the hero's personality, noting his willpower, intelligence, sincerity, diligence, determination. In the article "Bazarov" the critic at the same time defended Turgenev from attacks, calling him a great artist and citizen (XI). According to Pisarev, the writer sympathizes more with the main character than condemns him.
Time has shown that it was Pisarev who was right in interpreting the novel. Seven years later, when criticism was no longer alive, Turgenev decided to explain his attitude towards Bazarov himself and published an article “About Fathers and Sons” (1869). In it, the writer confessed his sympathy for the young nihilist: "... many of my readers will be surprised if I tell them that, with the exception of Bazarov's views on art, I share almost all of his convictions." Indeed, a comparison of two articles - Pisarev and Turgenev - shows that the critic and the author essentially have nothing to argue about.
