Since childhood, some amazing, unique gallery of favorite images has appeared in my imagination. At first these were heroes of fairy tales: Russian, German, French, Irish. I admired the brave Ivan Tsarevich, Aladdin, the brave and kind knight Hans from Cologne.
Then the heroes of Jules Verne, Mayne Reed, Cooper... Then they seemed to me examples of strong, real men. Yes and in at the moment, leafing through these books, I feel an envious toad and some kind of vague melancholy, although I know that for the most part this is fiction, that in reality everything was simpler and rougher.
Then I admired the heroes of Jack London, Greene, Ostrovsky, Voynich. Amazing and unique Arthur Gray, captain of all seas, who gave the girl happiness; Tirreus Devenatus, who bravely walked his path of suffering; Martin Ideas with his iron tenacity; heroes of Turgenev...
All of them are different from each other, but this is generally natural: bright, powerful individuals are always unique, original, always sharply different. And yet, in some ways they are related. What? Of course, it is impossible to give a general formulation, but they all agree on one thing. Courage, freedom, courage, hard work - all these traits are normal smart man can develop in itself, that's not all. In the heroes who have become loved by young people, there is some kind of unique poetry, love for people (not for the abstract concept of humanity, but for living ordinary people people you meet in everyday life), gentleness, delicacy, talent (namely talent, not skill) of pure sublime love. All these qualities, combined with courage, determination and enterprise, create that charm of a full-fledged, bright person, which you dream about in your youth. And here is Bazarov...
Sorry for the too long introduction, but I think that without revealing the qualities that a positive, no, winged, impeccable hero should have, it is impossible to decide who Bazarov is.
In essence, the formulation is not entirely accurate: are people divided only into positive and negative? Of course not. Bazarov cannot be put on the same level as Mark Volokhov from Goncharov’s novel “The Precipice”. In Eugene you can find many qualities that should be admired, but still, when reading the novel, you cannot get rid of the thought of some kind of defectiveness, inferiority of the hero, his doom. This has its own explanations.
Among Turgenev's heroes, Bazarov looks like a stranger; it is impossible to find anyone who in any way resembles an iron nihilist. The frantic dreamer Rudin, the smart, kind, gentle Lavretsky, the courageous and purposeful, but at the same time surprisingly charming and poetic Insarov. And suddenly that same man, his sharp categorical judgments, his rudeness, arrogant manners and his freedom, iron, unbending, powerful freedom that can crush everything in its path, his fanatical loyalty to his ideals.
Bazarov is not a Turgenev figure: the writer himself was afraid of his hero, he was afraid and admired at the same time. Apparently, despite his assertion that the prototype of the image of a nihilist was not Dobrolyubov, but a certain doctor D. (it is strange that Turgenev did not name the full name, and the initial letter D. fits Dobrolyubov’s surname), it was the latter that was reflected in Bazarov.
Turgenev was afraid of Dobrolyubov, he was disliked by that same seminarian, his firmness, harshness, intransigence, moreover, the fact that his coat was buttoned up with all the buttons, like a plebeian. And at the same time I admired him. He tried to convince himself that his hostility was not a class feeling, that Belinsky was also a commoner, however, he was very charming, but he immediately realized with bitterness that in him, in Turgenev himself, there were no such traits that Dobrolyubov possessed. This strange, contradictory attitude continued in the novel.
Turgenev was alien to Bazarov’s ideas, he did not know the true activities of these nihilists, and besides, there was censorship... Bazarov is given outside the scope of his business, we see him only from one side. He is very categorical, sometimes even to the point of arrogance, he does not want to listen to other people's opinions. He is rude and harsh and is not at all shy in his assessments. Pavel Petrovich is an “archaic phenomenon” for him. Nikolai Petrovich is “a retired man, his song is sung.” After listening to the story of Pavel Petrovich’s romantic interest, he says disdainfully: “I got burned on my own milk - I’m blowing on someone else’s water.” He never has the desire to think about someone else’s life, to understand it, to sympathize with it.
He says that he will respect only the one who does not give up in front of him, the stronger person, everyone else is weak." ladybugs"But this is fundamentally wrong: before the pressure of rudeness, a soft and delicate person is always lost. Rudeness is not strength. However, one cannot help but admire Bazarov. He says that he does not want to depend on time - let time depend on him. This is a man who himself, without anyone’s help, received an education and raised himself. He is amazingly efficient: all the time he spent with the Kirsanovs, Evgeniy Vasilyevich was busy with business.
He is courageous: during the duel with Pavel Petrovich he behaved in such a way that, moreover, his opponent was forced to admit that “Mr. Bazarov behaved excellently.” He is proud and cannot accept Odintsova’s alms: pity is not for him. He can be imitated in some cases. But all the charm dissipates when you remember his attitude towards his parents, his condescending tone in conversations with his father, an unusually kind and sweet man, his silence, which always frightened his mother, who doted on her Enyusha. And leaving home, which greatly wounded the soul of his father and mother... No, all this hardly speaks for Bazarov.
This arrogant attitude towards people is especially manifested in relations with Sitnikov, whom he pushes around like a little dog. Moreover, if someone is lower than you in ability, intelligence and will, how can you despise him for this? And if that same person is delighted with you and your speeches, then neglecting him, who selflessly believes in you, is simply mean!
And again the fatal oddity controversial Bazarov manifests himself in the picture of his death, where he shows an example of courage. How much nobility and contempt for death we hear in his last monologue! But, reading last chapters novel, as if we feel the hero’s doom, the inevitability of his death. Turgenev could not show how his hero lives and acts, and showed how he dies. The whole pathos of the novel is contained in this.
Bazarov is strong, bright personality, you can admire him in your own way, but he is not an ideal, he cannot stand on a par with Gadfly, Gray, Martin Eden. He lacks charm and poetry, which, by the way, he denied. Perhaps this is due to the time when strong deniers were needed (a person still depends on his era), but Bazarov cannot be a guiding star for youth.
Home > LiteratureChapter 2. The image of a positive hero in the works of I.S. Turgenev 2.1. Controversy around the image of Bazarov I. S. Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons” was loved by A. P. Chekhov. "My God! What a luxury “Fathers and Sons” is! Just shout guard!” Contemporaries said that there was some kind of commonality between Bazarov and Chekhov himself. It is possible that Chekhov’s choice of medicine as a profession was made not without the influence of Bazarov. “Positive, sober, healthy,” writes I.E. Repin, “he reminded me of Tour-Geneva’s Bazarov. Subtle, inexorable, purely Russian analysis dominated his eyes and facial expression. An enemy of sentiment and pompous hobbies, he seemed to hold himself in the mouthpiece of cold irony and with pleasure felt the chain mail of courage on himself.” “My first feeling, or rather impression,” recalls A.I. Suvorin of his acquaintance with the writer, “was that he should be like one of my favorite heroes - Bazarov.” A.V. Amphiteatrov especially often returned to this comparison. “Each time, approaching the individuality of his friend, Amphitheater-memoirist returned to the image of Turgenev’s Bazarov, a “typical realist analyst”: Chekhov is “the son of Bazarov”, he “had the mind of a researcher”; “there was not a drop of sentimentality in him”; as a type of intellectual thinker, he is closely aligned with Bazarov.” Today Bazarov is not favored, they disown him, they expose him. In 1985, even before the start of perestroika, the spirit of which was already in the air, O. Chaikovskaya warned on the pages of the Uchitelskaya Gazeta about the danger of Bazarov for modern youth: “... in an undeveloped soul it is not difficult to arouse thirst and even the delight of destruction...", "there were times when we ourselves experienced a period of some kind of nihilism... and who knows, maybe some frantic leftist, blowing up monuments of ancient art, had in the subcortex of his brain brain precisely the image of Bazarov and his destructive doctrine? In 1991, on the pages of Komsomolskaya Pravda, I. Virabov, in the article “The autopsy showed that Bazarov is alive” (B. Sarnov gives a rebuke to her in his book “The Overturned Font”), argued that “we have turned into Bazarov society”: wanting to find out “how this happened,” he reasoned: “In order to build a new building, a new person was needed - with an ax or scalpel. He came. There were only a few Bazarovs, but they became the ideal. The fight for universal happiness was entrusted to Bazarov, a man who subordinated everything to one idea.” A little later, in 1993, in Izvestia, K. Kedrov generalized: “I don’t know who Bazarov is, but I feel every day and every hour an evil heart that hates everything and everyone. They heal as they kill, they love as they hate.” The methodology of such revelations was well demonstrated by A.I. Batyuto: individual quotes are taken out of the living context and a concept is built on them. Here is one of many examples. Bazarov’s words “All people are alike” (Chapter XVI) are often quoted. But in the next chapter, Bazarov will tell Odintsova: “Maybe you’re right: maybe, for sure, every person is a mystery.” “It’s as if Bazarov, who has comprehended everything,” writes the researcher, “is not all clear and understandable.” Constantly in the novel we see how “confidence of judgments and sentences is replaced by anxious reflection.” Sometimes it is completely ignored that this is not a speculative treatise, not a sum of ideological, political and moral-aesthetic quotations, but a living, full-blooded, controversial image. Constructing from quotes, torn from figurative flesh and living context, turns out to be very sad. Let us limit ourselves to one, but very expressive example. For example, a certain thinker took up arms against many outstanding figures of world culture. Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Dante, Tasso, Milton, Shakespeare, Raphael (the same one whom Bazarov did not accept), Michelangelo, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, Brahms, Strauss - for him savagery, meaninglessness, absurdity, harmfulness, fictitiousness, unfinishedness, incomprehensibility. He puts Uncle Tom's Cabin above Shakespear. “I have studied Shakespeare and Goethe three times in my life from beginning to end and have never been able to understand what their charm is. Tchaikovsky, Rubinstein - so-so, from the average. They write a lot of false, far-fetched, artificial things.” Who is this destroyer of sacred things, who so mercilessly throws the greatest of our time from the ship cultural values? Who is he, the desperate nihilist of nihilists? I answer: Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. But can Tolstoy be reduced to these assessments and statements? Although without them it does not exist. We also do not reduce Bazarov to his biting aphorisms, although he does not exist without them. But it is more complex, deeper, more voluminous, more tragic. And the figure of a denier of everything and everyone, by its very essence, cannot be tragic. We have inherited from many decades of intolerance towards other points of view, other views, tastes, and unusual positions. This intolerance is especially dangerous in our time, when the polyphony of opinions has become an objective reality of our lives, and the ability to listen and hear is a necessary condition of our existence. This difficult art of tolerance is what literature teaches. After all, a literary text, according to Y. Lotman, “makes us experience any space as a space of proper names. We oscillate between the subjective world, personally familiar to us, and its antithesis. IN art world“someone else’s” is always “one’s own,” but at the same time, “one’s own” is always “someone else’s.” But where did the self-confident Bazarov come from with such bitter thoughts? Of course, also from bitter love for Odintsova. It was here that he said: “I didn’t break myself, so my grandma won’t break me.” And from loneliness (at least in the space and time of the novel). But there are also more global reasons here. And Tolstoy’s Konstantin Levin thinks that “without knowing what I am and why I am here, it is impossible to live”: “In infinite time, in infinite matter, in infinite space, a bubble-organism stands out, and this bubble will last and burst, and this bubble is me.” This “bubble” makes us remember Bazarov’s “atom”, “mathematical point” not only because in both “Fathers and Sons” and “Anna Karenina” there is a reflection on oneself - the “bubble”, “atom” “is associated with the infinity of space and time, but also because, first of all, there is an initial doubt about why I am here. Konstantin Levin will find support and an answer in Christ and faith. For Bazarov, there are no answers here. “And in this atom, in this mathematical point, the blood circulates, the brain works, it also wants something... What a disgrace!” “Ugly - because the quantities are too immeasurable: a tiny thinking being and infinite space. Man is lost in a world devoid of God - rejected, Pavel Petrovich would say; non-existent and non-existent, according to Bazarov’s ideas. There is no higher power, no providence, no predestination; man is alone with the Universe, and he opposes it and must himself organize and streamline everything around him, and a load of immeasurable weight falls on his shoulders. There is no one to turn to for support, for new strength; he must endure and decide everything himself.” It’s difficult to talk about all this today, when, according to Bazarov, “it’s about daily bread,” when millions of people are deprived of the most necessary things, when, even if we're talking about that millions of people and thousands of schools are deprived of normal sewerage. But Bazarov is not talking about all this in modern, well-fed Sweden, or prosperous Germany, or comfortable Switzerland, and yet. And doesn’t the subtext of these words sound biblical: “Man does not live by bread alone”? “When you are hungry”, “when it comes to your daily bread” - this is Bazarov’s starting position. But he does not see his final goal in his daily bread. He understands well that solving the problem of daily bread (very important in itself) is not the goal of human life. And the white hut (house, apartment, as we would say today) is not his ideal. So he has a different ideal? And he has no other ideal. “Correct society, and there will be no diseases,” says Bazarov. But what does it mean to “correct society”? And how can I change it? Bazarov does not know the answer to these questions. Let us remember his dying words: “Russia needs me... No, apparently I’m not needed. And who is needed? Bazarov doesn’t know who Russia needs and what to do. Bazarov says that there is not a single resolution “in our modern life, in family and social life, which would not cause complete and merciless rejection.” Bazarov’s tragedy is that his complete and merciless denial extends not only, let’s use the words of Pavel Petrovich, to all principles that defend the existing order of things and institutions between people, but also to all principles that oppose them . Nothing meets his limitless demands and aspirations. Now that the literary critical works of D.N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky have been republished, you can read his thoughts on this topic from an article about Bazarov written a hundred years ago. Moreover, these reflections are based on the analysis of the same scene under the haystack that we are talking about now. “But what is especially characteristic of Bazarov and at the same time is a sign of his sharp difference inner world from truly revolutionary natures and minds, it is that eternal dissatisfaction and inability to find satisfaction, that lack of balance of spirit, which was especially clearly reflected in the following tirade. The revolutionary is over-filled with the consciousness of his mission, the illusion of the great historical cause that he is called to serve, and is more likely to exaggerate his significance, his value - social, national, international - than to feel his insignificance. In a psychological sense, there are no busier people than revolutionaries; and there are no more balanced people, free from skepticism, hesitation, and doubt. Those thoughts about infinity, eternity, about the insignificance of man, to which Bazarov is so accessible, do not even occur to them. These are people living in the current historical moment, the interests and illusions of which fill their souls; they have no time to philosophize about the vanity of vanities, and human insignificance “does not stink to them.” This alone is enough to conclude that Bazarov is not a representative of the revolutionary type.” (We will later remember these words both when we talk about Rakhmetov, and when we read Nekrasov’s poems “In Memory of Dobrolyubov” and “Prophet”, whose heroes have a clearly realized goal and which are devoid of doubts and hesitations, spiritual confusion, in contrast, we note in passing, from Nekrasov himself.) Let’s try to approach everything said from a different angle. After reading the novel, Dostoevsky immediately wrote a detailed letter to Turgenev. Answering, Turgenev thanks: “You captured so completely and subtly what I wanted to express to Bazarov that I just threw my hands out of amazement - and pleasure. It’s like you entered my soul and even felt what I didn’t consider necessary to say.” However, a year later, Dostoevsky, in “Winter Notes on Summer Impressions,” mentioned both Turgenev and his novel. Obviously, his statement did not diverge from what was said in the letter to the author and was so enthusiastically received by him. “Well, he got it for Bazarov, the restless and yearning Bazarov (a sign of a great heart), despite all his nihilism.” But why are anxiety and melancholy a sign of a great heart? And how to understand this - despite all his nihilism? Then Dostoevsky will put these words into Raskolnikov’s mouth: “Suffering and pain are always obligatory for a broad consciousness and a deep heart.” And in last novel writer, Elder Zosima will say to Ivan Karamazov: “This issue has not been resolved in you, and this is your great grief, for it urgently requires resolution... But thank the Creator for giving you a higher heart, capable of suffering such torment, the “mountain “be wise and seek the highest” This is what “despite all the nihilism” means. After all, if we use the words just quoted from The Brothers Karamazov, for nihilism there are no unresolved questions, because all questions have already been resolved clearly and definitely. Let us now pay attention to one more important circumstance. Dostoevsky took the words anxiety and melancholy from the novel itself. But there they sound, it would seem, in a completely different context than in Dostoevsky’s review. From the penultimate chapter of the novel: “...the fever of work slipped away from him and was replaced by dreary boredom and dull anxiety. A strange fatigue was noticeable in all his movements; even his gait, firm and swiftly bold, changed.” Again, melancholy and anxiety are the result of change. This is a different, different Bazarov. Meanwhile, these seemingly characteristic states only for certain moments become for Dostoevsky the starting points for determining the most important thing. The words melancholy and anxiety, associated in the novel, seemingly with specific states, are taken as key, essential. as they would say in philosophy, substantial. Bazarov was close to the author of Crime and Punishment. Let us remember what Porfiry Petrovich says about Raskolnikov’s article in this novel: “... A gloomy article, sir, but it’s good, sir.” Why “good, sir”? Yes, because “in sleepless nights and in a frenzy, she conceived it, with a rising and pounding heart, with suppressed enthusiasm.” And the last words spoken in “Fathers and Sons” about Bazarov - “a passionate, sinful, rebellious heart” - could be applied to Raskolnikov. “With the exception of Nikolai Stavrogin, everyone central characters his tragic novels, starting with Raskolnikov and ending with Ivan Karamazov, find themselves, to one degree or another, in the sphere of influence of this “sacred melancholy” - a consequence of the unquenched thirst for the realization of a high ideal.” Bazarov and Raskolnikov are compared in detail by G.A. Byal in his article “Two schools of psychological realism (Turgenev and Dostoevsky)”: “There could not but be significant similarities among writers who approached a person primarily from the side of his ideological world, who considered their The goal is to study the forms of consciousness of modern man, dissatisfied with life and exhausted by it. This included interest in those painful fractures of consciousness that accompany the intense work of thought and conscience.” At the same time, “in both novelists, the hero is created by an idea, a theory, it dominates over him, subjugates him to itself, becomes his passion, his second nature, but it is the second, the first, primary nature that does not submit to it, enters into a struggle with it , and the arena of this struggle becomes human psychology.” I will give one more extract, especially since we have already spoken on this topic and will continue to speak. Raskolnikov, “of course, still, according to Dostoevsky,” is an unbeliever, but his consciousness seems to tremble with the possibility of faith. This is very far from Bazarov’s complete and irrevocable denial. Only one thing is close: irreligious consciousness is alarming and restless not only in Raskolnikov, but also in Bazarov. Pisarev also wrote about the contradiction between views and, as Dostoevsky would say, in kind in his article “Bazarov”. Turgenev himself wrote; “Pisarev’s article in Russian Word seemed very remarkable to me.” So the evidence of Dostoevsky and Pisarev can be said to be authorized by Turgenev himself. So this is what Pisarev wrote: “Bazarov’s rationality was a forgivable and understandable extreme in him; this extreme, which forced him to overthink and break himself, would have disappeared under the influence of time and life; she disappeared in the same way as death approached. He became a man instead of being the embodiment of the theory of nihilism.” It is characteristic that N. Strakhov, speaking about Bazarov, refers to despite: “Despite all his views, Bazarov longs for love for people.” In a letter to Dostoevsky, Turgenev wrote: “No one seems to suspect that I tried to imagine in him tragic face- and everyone says: - Why is he so stupid? or - why is he so good? Researchers believe that this phrase - “I tried to imagine a tragic face in him” - was prompted directly by Dostoevsky’s letter or, in any case, is in tune with his spirit. Against the background of this lofty and true tragedy, you especially understand how superficial and opportunistic attempts to portray Bazarov as some kind of petty demon are. 2.2. Bazarov as a positive hero The images of positive heroes in literature are similar to each other, and this, however, is natural: bright, powerful individuals are always unique, original, and always sharply different. In some ways they are related. What? Of course, it is impossible to give a general formulation, but they all agree on one thing. Courage, will, courage, hard work - all these traits can be developed by a normal, intelligent person, but that's not all. They have some kind of unique poetry, love for people (not for the abstract concept of humanity, but for living ordinary people whom you meet in everyday life), gentleness, delicacy, talent (namely talent, not skill) of pure sublime love . All these qualities, combined with courage, determination and enterprise, create the charm of a full-fledged, vibrant person. Without revealing the qualities that a positive hero should have, it is impossible to decide who Bazarov is. In essence, the formulation is not entirely accurate: are people divided only into positive and negative? Of course not. Bazarov cannot be put on the same level as Mark Volokhov from Goncharov’s novel “The Precipice”. In Eugene you can find many qualities that should be admired, but still, when reading the novel, you cannot get rid of the thought of some kind of defectiveness, inferiority of the hero, his doom. This has its own explanations. Among Turgenev's heroes, Bazarov looks like a stranger; it is impossible to find anyone who in any way resembles an iron nihilist. The frantic dreamer Rudin, the smart, kind, gentle Lavretsky, the courageous and purposeful, but at the same time surprisingly charming and poetic Insarov. And suddenly this man, his sharp categorical judgments, his rudeness, arrogant manners and his will, an iron, unbending, powerful will that can crush everything in its path, his fanatical loyalty to his ideals. Bazarov is not a Turgenev figure: the writer himself was afraid of his hero, he was afraid and admired at the same time. Apparently, despite his assertion that the prototype of the image of a nihilist was not Dobrolyubov, but a certain doctor D. (it is strange that Turgenev did not name the full name, and the initial letter D. fits Dobrolyubov’s surname), it was the latter that was reflected in Bazarov. Turgenev was afraid of Dobrolyubov, this seminarian was unpleasant to him, his firmness, harshness, intransigence, even the fact that his coat was buttoned up with all the buttons, like a plebeian. And at the same time I admired him. He tried to convince himself that his hostility was not a class feeling, that Belinsky was also a commoner, however, he was very charming, but he immediately realized with bitterness that in him, in Turgenev himself, there were no such traits that Dobrolyubov possessed. This strange, contradictory attitude continued in the novel. Turgenev was alien to Bazarov’s ideas, he did not know the true activities of these nihilists, and besides, there was censorship... Bazarov is given outside his business, we see him only from one side. He is very categorical, sometimes even to the point of arrogance, he does not want to listen to other people's opinions. He is rude and harsh and is not at all shy in his assessments. Pavel Petrovich for him is an “archaic phenomenon.” Nikolai Petrovich is “a retired man, his song is sung.” After listening to the story of Pavel Petrovich’s romantic interest, he says disdainfully: “I got burned on my own milk - I’m blowing on someone else’s water.” He never has the desire to think about someone else’s life, to understand it, to sympathize with it. He says that he will respect only the one who does not save in front of him, the stronger person, all the rest are weak “ladybugs”. But this is fundamentally wrong: before the pressure of rudeness, a soft and delicate person is always lost. Rudeness is not strength. However, one cannot help but admire Bazarov. He says that he does not want to depend on time - let time depend on him. This is a person who, without anyone’s help, received an education and raised himself. He is amazingly efficient: all the time he spent with the Kirsanovs, Evgeniy Vasilyevich was busy with business. He is courageous: during a duel with Pavel Petrovich he behaved in such a way that even his opponent was forced to admit that “Mr. Bazarov behaved excellently.” He is proud and cannot accept Odintsova’s alms: pity is not for him. He can be imitated in some cases. But all the charm dissipates when you remember his attitude towards his parents, his condescending tone in conversations with his father, an unusually kind and sweet man, his silence, which always frightened his mother, who doted on her Enyusha. And leaving home deeply wounded the soul of father and mother. No, all this hardly speaks for Bazarov. This arrogant attitude towards people is especially evident in relations with Sitnikov, whom he pushes around like a little dog. And again, the fatal strangeness of Bazarov’s contradictory character is manifested in the picture of his death, where he shows an example of courage. How much nobility and contempt for death we hear in his last monologue! But, reading the last chapters of the novel, we seem to feel the doom of the hero, the inevitability of his death. Turgenev could not show how his hero lives and acts, and showed how he dies. The whole pathos of the novel lies in this. Bazarov is a strong, bright personality, one can admire him in his own way, but he is not ideal, he cannot stand on a par with Gadfly, Gray, Martin Eden. He lacks charm and poetry, which, by the way, he denied. Perhaps this is due to the time when strong deniers were needed (a person still depends on his era), but Bazarov cannot be a guiding star for youth. 2. 3 The concept of a positive hero in Turgenev’s novel “Smoke” The novel “Smoke” reflects Turgenev’s deep pessimism, which grew up in the very era when most society lived with one hope or another. The source of this pessimism is the disappointment of the individual in the “universal world.” The whole life of the main character of the novel, Litvinov, seems like smoke, something deceptive and unreal. “Smoke, smoke,” he repeated several times; and everything suddenly seemed like smoke to him, everything own life, Russian life is everything human, especially everything Russian. All smoke and steam, he thought; everything seems to be constantly changing, new images are everywhere, phenomena run after phenomena, but, in essence, everything is the same; everything is in a hurry, rushing somewhere - and everything disappears without a trace, achieving nothing; ...smoke, he whispered, smoke...” These reasonings of Litvinov vaguely echo the final idea of Turgenev’s speech about Hamlet and Don Quixote: “Everything will pass, everything will disappear, everything will crumble into dust... Everything great on earth Scatters like smoke. .. But good deeds do not go up in smoke; they are more durable than the most radiant beauty...” People obsessed with an idea, blindly believing in it and ready to make any sacrifice in the name of its implementation, according to Turgenev, contribute to historical progress. Without them, history would stop flowing. Turgenev was not like-minded with these people and did not even believe in the possibility of achieving their goals. They reminded him of selfless, but still funny quixotes who, in the struggle for their ideas, often make cruel mistakes; but these are holy mistakes - they are history. Honest servants of the idea, according to Turgenev, make history, but they are not the everyday builders of life. This is why the Lezhnevs and Litvinovs are needed, on whose shoulders falls the painstaking but honorable task of performing ordinary, everyday and prosaic tasks. Under the influence of pessimistic thoughts about the fate of the Bazarov type in the 60s, the writer more than ever believed in the fruitfulness of the “patient active labor” of honest and educated landowners, that is, a class of society confronted by life itself with the need to act. In connection with this, the central hero of “Smoke” Litvinov became such a useful figure for Turgenev - not in the broad, historical, but in the narrower and more modest, practical sense of this concept. Having named the real positive hero of his novel, he thereby rejected the attempt to perceive Litvinov as a failed exponent of progressive ideas this time. public views. This hero was not an ideal in the eyes of Turgenev public figure. Search the best heroes The 60s of “world harmony” led to an irreconcilable collision with the imperfections of the surrounding reality, and this imperfection itself was realized not only in social relations between people, but also in the disharmony of human nature itself, dooming each individually unique phenomenon, personality to death. In “Smoke,” the first chapters, in which Turgenev depicts the various forces emerging in Russian life after the reform of 1861, form the social background of the novel, but Litvinov seems to become an integral part of this background. Although Turgenev sympathizes with Litvinov, he nevertheless immediately shows the reader that this is not the hero that Russia is really waiting for. Turgenev deprived Litvinov of even any distinctive character traits; his image is not associated with historically progressive ideas. Litvinov is endowed with the only quality - confidence in the usefulness of his small practical business. But he will also lose this quality after his first serious encounters with life.
Answer-reasoning based on the novel by I.S. Turgenev “Fathers and Sons” 10th grade 2nd quarter
Card 1.
“Bazarov came out as a simple man, alien to any brokenness, and at the same time strong, powerful in body and soul. Everything about him unusually suits him. strong nature Bazarov. (...) Bazarov could not be a cold, abstract person; his heart demanded fullness, demanded feelings; and so he gets angry at others, but feels that he should be even more angry at himself” (N.N. Strakhov).
“Just think, this fellow, Bazarov, dominates everyone and nowhere does he meet with any effective resistance...” (M.N. Katkov)
“Well, he (Turgenev) got it for Bazarov, the restless and yearning Bazarov (a sign of a great heart), despite all his nihilism” (F.M. Dostoevsky).
- Which of the critics’ judgments about Turgenev’s hero is closer to your understanding after reading the novel “Fathers and Sons”?
- Which critics do you agree with? Why? Which of the judgments were unexpected for you?
- How does Bazarov’s nihilism manifest itself?
- Formulate your judgment about Bazarov.
Answer-reasoning based on the novel by I.S. Turgenev “Fathers and Sons” 10th grade 2nd quarter
Card 2.
“...Bazarov’s denial is directed not so much at ideas, concepts, trends, etc., but at the socio-psychological and personal traits of a person: in Pavel Petrovich he denies, first of all, not a liberal. Not an idealist, but a gentleman, spoiled by his upbringing, spoiled by life, doing nothing, killing best years to love a woman... This is enmity between two opposing socio-psychological types, two different mental organizations, two moral principles. (D.I. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky)
-Whose point of view, Bazarov or Pavel Petrovich, is more convincing in their dispute?
-What is unique about the speech of the participants in the dispute? What is the role of chapter 10 in the novel?
Answer-reasoning based on the novel by I.S. Turgenev “Fathers and Sons” 10th grade 2nd quarter
Card 3.
“Bazarov does not miss an opportunity to communicate - directly or with a transparent hint - that he is a natural scientist, a physiologist, a doctor, a healer. But here’s another strange thing about him: he rarely and reluctantly speaks about literature “in his specialty,” while he somehow remembers fiction, philosophical literature, and journalism at almost every step, revealing at the same time an extensive and thorough knowledge.” (M. Eremin)
- How does Turgenev challenge his hero’s statement about art and nature?
- How can one explain Bazarov’s attitude towards art: ignorance, neglect as a useless phenomenon, or a deep understanding of its power to influence people?
Answer-reasoning based on the novel by I.S. Turgenev “Fathers and Sons” 10th grade 2nd quarter
Card 4.
“Did I want to scold Bazarov or praise him? I don’t know this myself, because I don’t know whether I love him or hate him... It was not an important thing to present him (Bazarov) as an ideal; but to make him a wolf and still justify him was difficult...” (I.S. Turgenev)
- What did Bazarov lack to be an ideal?
- Did the author manage to justify his hero? If yes, then why?
- Are there any traits in Bazarov that are worthy of imitation for modern youth?
Answer-reasoning based on the novel by I.S. Turgenev “Fathers and Sons” 10th grade 2nd quarter
Card 5
“The Decembrists are our great fathers, the Bazarovs are our prodigal children.”
“That Turgenev did not bring Bazarov out to pat him on the head is clear; that he wanted to do something in favor of the fathers is clear. But in contact with such pitiful and insignificant fathers as the Kirsanovs, the tough Bazarov carried away Turgenev, and instead of flogging his son, he flogged the fathers” (A.I. Herzen)
- What can you agree on and what can you not agree with Herzen?
- Why Bazarov - prodigal son, according to Herzen?
- What is the problem of “fathers” and sons”, as it is shown in the novel?
Bazarov and Bazarov.
“It’s no better from this side...”
Eeyore
The life described by Turgenev in “Fathers and Sons” is very complex and difficult, and all the heroes of the novel notice this property of it. With the exception, perhaps, of young Bazarov. He is the only one among the characters in Fathers and Sons who does not come to terms with the complexity of life, perhaps because at first he simply does not notice it. He contrasts it with an attempt to simplify human existence. At the beginning of the book, he chooses a strategy of nihilism; he denies everything that does not fit into the framework of his ideas about a simple, patterned life. Bazarov's nihilism extends to the public, personal and philosophical spheres.
Bazarov's social nihilism finds its most complete expression in an argument with Pavel Petrovich in the first part of the novel. Pavel Petrovich and Evgeniy adhered to their own views; they could not help but collide, like two opposite charges.
In the question of “the nature of transformations in Russia” Bazarov stands for a decisive breakup of the entire state and economic system (“In Russia there is not a single civil resolution that does not deserve criticism”), but offers nothing in return. In addition, Bazarov is not shown in any way in social activities, and the reader does not know whether he has any real plans for putting his views into practice.
In the personal sphere, Bazarov’s nihilism lies in his denial of the entire culture of feelings and all ideals. Bazarov generally denies the spiritual principle in man. He treats a person as a biological object: “All people are similar to each other both in body and soul; Each of us has the same brain, spleen, heart, and lungs; and the so-called moral qualities the same for everyone; small modifications mean nothing. One human specimen is enough to judge all others. People are like trees in the forest; not a single botanist will study each individual birch tree.” Just as Bazarov judges the structure of human organs from the frog, so also from the data natural sciences he thinks to judge a person in general and, moreover, about human society in general: with the correct structure of society, it will not matter whether a person is evil or kind, stupid or smart. It's just "moral diseases" similar "bodily diseases" and caused "the ugly state of society". “Fix society and there will be no diseases.”
After Evgeniy has fairly thoroughly outlined his views, testing them with life begins. In the city, Bazarov meets Odintsova, which is a turning point not only in the plot action of the novel. This meeting gradually changes Bazarov’s character: he finds himself captivated by the extraordinary combination of a character equal in strength to him and refined feminine charm. Bazarov falls passionately in love and thereby becomes involved in the spiritual world, who just denied. Life turns out to be much more complicated than his constructions. Bazarov sees that his feeling is by no means exhausted "physiology", and with indignation finds within himself the very same "romanticism", the manifestations of which he so ridiculed in other people, regarding them as weakness and "dope". Before meeting Odintsova, Bazarov was convinced of his freedom and strength, this gave him unshakable self-confidence. But this was only one side of Bazarov - we did not see him from the other side. And only in love is Eugene’s personality finally revealed to us. His love grows into passion - "strong, heavy",“similar to malice and, perhaps, akin to it.” But Odintsova, perhaps due to her aristocratic coldness, was unable to respond to Bazarov’s feelings. The gap was also rooted in Evgeniy himself. Refusal "complete and merciless denial" would threaten the disappearance of that "negative" energy, which completely nourished his personality. Bazarov finally realizes that “created for a bitter, tart, grainy life”.
Unrequited love destroys Bazarov: he falls into melancholy, cannot find a place for himself anywhere and begins to engage in soul-searching, which until now he considered a sign of weakness. This “Hamlet” stage is the next stage of Bazarov’s spiritual evolution: now he philosophizes and realizes the hopelessness of his position in the world. (“I’m lying here under a haystack... the narrow place that I occupy is so tiny in comparison with the rest of the space where I am not and where no one cares about me; and the part of the time that I manage to live is so insignificant before eternity, where I am not and will not be... But in this atom, in this mathematical point, the blood circulates, the brain works, it also wants something... What a disgrace!
Soon Bazarov will abandon all principles. He will go further and will reject the very significance, universality and correctness of the way of thinking previously characteristic of him. (“There are no principles at all.. – but there are sensations.To me nice to denymy the brain works that way... Why do I like chemistry? Why do you love apples? Also due to sensation. It's all one. People will never go deeper than this. Not everyone will tell you this,and I won’t tell you this another time... ») Here denial is no longer justified by its usefulness to society, as it was in the first part (“At the present time, the most useful thing is to deny - we deny”). Now refutation is a subjective property of Bazarov’s personality, which does not find any explanation outside.
But this state of Bazarov’s soul is not yet final. Next, the third event circle of the novel begins - summing up. When he meets Pavel Petrovich, Bazarov behaves completely differently: he cannot secretly not respect Pavel Petrovich, since now he better understands the tragedy of his life, but a restrained and even hostile relationship still remains between them. The reason for the final clash between Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich turns out to be a kiss snatched by Bazarov from Fenechka and peeped by Pavel Petrovich. A comical duel takes place: not only the frightened footman Peter, but also the outcome itself - a trifling wound in the leg - convince Pavel Petrovich that the age of duels has indeed passed, and his vaunted "principles" noticeably outdated. Pavel Petrovich unexpectedly leaves the stage, the author sees him off with the words: “Illuminated by the bright daylight, his beautiful, emaciated head lay on a white pillow, like the head of a dead man... Yes, he was a dead man.”.
Turgenev also forces Bazarov to suddenly die. At the end of the novel, the reader is presented with a terrible scene of Bazarov’s death. Remaining a physician, Evgeny calmly notes the stages of his illness, angry at death simply as an absurd accident and despising himself for his helplessness (“What an ugly sight: the worm is half crushed, and still bristling”). Although Bazarov blames himself, we understand that we are witnessing the death of a strong man, maybe even a hero, who at the moment of death is capable of things that he would not have done before: he retains in himself the strength of personality that was always inherent in him. He is trying to console his old parents, whom, as the attentive reader still remembers, he ignored so much during the scene of Bazarov’s arrival at his parents’ house with his friend Arkady at the very beginning of the novel.
We feel the strength of Bazarov’s personality, which always lived in him and was the main core of his character. But now something else appeared in him, more airy than a black robe. After all, before his death, he still sends for Odintsova to say goodbye to everything dear that remained in his life - to say goodbye to life as such. Asking her for one last kiss, he unexpectedly speaks to the same "beautifulness" for which Arkady so reproached: “Blow on the dying lamp and let it go out...”, which means his involuntary obedience to the romanticism so recently disgusting to him.
One of Bazarov’s last phrases was made by Turgenev about his uselessness for Russia : “Russia needs me... No, apparently I don’t. And who is needed? I need a shoemaker, I need a tailor..." Russia does not need Bazarov as a nihilist, she needs him as outstanding personality. Evgeniy has nobility, morality, and a sense of justice, he knows his business perfectly, he is educated and hardworking, he is capable of creative work - and this is why Russia needs him. But he dies, and this Atlantean falls under the weight of his own sky - nihilism, which pressed on him too much, so much that even Bazarov did not have the strength to get out from under him. Nihilism becomes stupid as soon as it comes into service with the mediocre Sitnikovs. But it's even worse when it does real harm by killing people who are stronger, smarter, and "more" than the theory they preach.
The last picture of the novel - the image of Bazarov's grave with flowers serenely growing on it - correlates the entire action of the novel with eternity. Those forces of nature that lived in Bazarov against his will and will act in the world after his death triumph. Nature, as the mother of all living things, is not just majestically “indifferent” to the fate of her children, as Pushkin wrote in his "Do I wander along the noisy streets...", but also reconciles them in his love for "life endless".
Over the course of the novel, Bazarov certainly changes. It changes due to the natural force that lives in it. He is changed by nature, love, beauty - everything eternal that he denied. Bazarov now understands the greatness, diversity, and complexity of life. But he is dying. How a hero dies, having seen the truth for a moment. Looking into the eyes of the gorgon Medusa.
Preview:
Option I
1. I. S. Turgenev wrote:
a) “Doctor's Notes”
b) “Notes on cuffs”
c) “Notes of a Hunter”
d) “Notes from the House of the Dead”
2. What are the names of E. Bazarov’s parents?
3. The basis of the conflict in the novel “Fathers and Sons” is:
a) Quarrel between P. P. Kirsanov and E. V. Bazarov.
b) The conflict that arose between E.V. Bazarov and N.P. Kirsanov.
c) The struggle of bourgeois-noble liberalism and revolutionary democrats.
d) The struggle between liberal monarchists and the people.
4. Identify the characters in the novel by the following characteristics:
1) Representative of the young noble generation, quickly turning into an ordinary landowner, spiritual limitations and weakness of will, superficiality of democratic hobbies, a tendency to eloquence, lordly manners and laziness.
2) An opponent of everything truly democratic, an aristocrat admiring himself, whose life has been reduced to love and, unfortunately, about the passing past, an esthete.
3) Uselessness and inability to adapt to life, to its new conditions, the type of “outgoing nobility”.
4) Independent nature, not bowing to any authority, nihilist.
a) Evgeny Bazarov
b) Arkady Kirsanov
c) Pavel Petrovich
d) Nikolai Petrovich
5. Bazarov wrote a critical article:
a) I. S. Turgenev.
b) V. G. Belinsky.
c) A. I. Herzen.
d) D.I. Pisarev.
6. Which layer of Russian society did E. Bazarov consider promising?
a) Peasantry.
b) Noble aristocracy.
c) Russian patriarchal nobility.
d) Intelligentsia
“A long and thin [face] with a wide forehead, a flat pointed nose at the top, large greenish eyes and drooping sand-colored sideburns, it was enlivened by an awkward smile and expressed self-confidence and intelligence.”
8. What was especially alien to Turgenev in his hero?
a) Misunderstanding of the role of the people in the liberation movement.
b) Nihilistic attitude towards cultural heritage Russia.
c) Exaggeration of the role of the intelligentsia in the liberation movement.
d) Separation from any practical activity.
9. Fill in the missing words:
a) “The only witness to the duel between Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich was...”
b) “Such a rich body! At least now to... the theater."
c) “Pavel Petrovich took his trousers out of his pocket beautiful hand with long... nails."
10. I. S. Turgenev wrote: “He did not experience, like Onegin and Pechorin, an era of idealization and sympathetic exaltation.”
a) Why was Bazarov negatively received by the progressive magazine Sovremennik, liberal and democratic circles?
b) Are there any traits in Bazarov that are worthy of imitation for younger generation that time?
Test on the creativity of I. S. Turgenev
Option II
1. What are the names of I. S. Turgenev’s parents?
2. To whom is the dedication of the novel “Fathers and Sons” addressed:
a) A. I. Herzen
b) V. G. Belinsky
c) N. A. Nekrasov
d) To another person
3. The disputes between the heroes of the novel “Fathers and Sons” revolved around various issues, worried social thought Russia. Find the odd one out:
a) On the attitude towards the noble cultural heritage.
b) About art, science.
c) About the system of human behavior, about moral principles.
d) About the situation of the working class.
e) About public duty, about education.
4. I. S. Turgenev gave a general assessment of the political content of his novel “Fathers and Sons”: “My whole story is directed against...” Finish the sentence.
a) The proletariat as an advanced class
b) The nobility as an advanced class
c) The peasantry as an advanced class
d) Democrats as an advanced class
5. Remember which of the characters in the novel wrote the words: “We approximately know why physical illnesses occur, and moral illnesses arise from bad upbringing... from the ugly state of society, in a word, correct society, and there will be no illnesses.”
a) Arkady Kirsanov
b) N. P. Kirsanov
c) E. V. Bazarov
d) P. P. Kirsanov
6. Which of the characters in the novel “Fathers and Sons” would you call a “little man”?
a) V. I. Bazarov
b) N. P. Kirsanov
c) A. N. Kirsanov
d) another character in the novel
7. Find out the hero of the novel by portrait description:
“He looked about 45 years old, his short-cropped gray hair shone with a dark shine, like new silver; his face, bilious, but without wrinkles, unusually regular and clean, as if drawn with a thin and light chisel, showed traces of remarkable beauty.”
8. Distribute the characters in the novel according to their social status:
a) "Emancipe"
b) Russian aristocrat
c) Regimental doctor
d) Baric student
e) Democratic student
a) E. Bazarov
b) Kukshina
c) V. I. Bazarov
d) A. N. Kirsanov
e) P. P. Kirsanov
9. Fill in the missing words:
a) “Pavel Petrovich moistened his forehead with cologne and closed his eyes. Illuminated by a bright light, his beautiful, emaciated head lay on a white pillow, like a head...”
b) “The conversation turned to one of the neighboring landowners. Rubbish...,” Bazarov, who met with him in St. Petersburg, remarked indifferently.
c) The novel took place in... the year.
10. I. S. Turgenev wrote: “It would be an unimportant thing to present him (Bazarov) as an ideal; but to make him a wolf and still justify him was difficult...”
a) What did Bazarov lack to be an ideal?
