Fathers and Sons

«All my story is directed against the nobility as the leading class. Look closely at the faces of Nikolai Petrovich, Pavel Petrovich, Arkady. Weakness and lethargy or limitation», — thus Turgenev explains the intention of his novel. Moreover, he takes «exactly good representatives of the nobility», showing: «If the cream is bad, what can the milk be?»

Yevgeny Bazarov — the main character, a nihilist and a member of the lower gentry, opposing both liberal ideas and conservative ones. The uncompromising stance and the priority of the useful over the beautiful — these are the two main principles of the young doctor, who became a role model for the youth of the 1860s. Alien to everyone, Bazarov suddenly feels within himself that which he had previously renounced as useless — love. But can he be a slave to his passion?..