Fathers and Sons. Eternal Stories

Young Arkady Kirsanov returns home after graduating from university. He is accompanied, much to the displeasure of his father and uncle, by a strange friend — Yevgeny Bazarov, who «does not yield to any authorities, who accepts no principle on faith».

 

Turgenev's novel, after its publication in 1862, stunned Russian society: old and young reactionaries, romantics and radicals. At the same time, it garnered the recognition of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Maupassant, and Henry James for its original language and psychological insight — and to this day it remains just as fresh and candid.