Fathers and Sons 1081just completing their time at the University of St.
Petersburg. Arkady brings Bazarov home to Mary-
ino for a long visit, and his father Nikolai Petrovich
makes them both welcome but cannot conceal his
pride in his son. Arkady is initially influenced by
Bazarov’s intellectualism, but he still deeply loves
his kind, affectionate father. Nikolai Kirsanov, a
small-time, none-too-efficient country landholder,
is puzzled by his son’s new urban sophistication.
“I have been left behind, he has advanced and we
can’t understand each other,” he laments, like any
modern-day sensitive father whose clever child has
just brought home a college degree.
For Nikolai Kirsanov, parenthood is a duty, a
matter of pride in his son’s achievements, which
he considers have surpassed his own. He sincerely
regrets that Arkady’s mother is no longer alive to
share this triumph of parenthood. The self-pro-
claimed nihilist Bazarov sneers at Nikolai for being
a closet romantic and an “archaic phenomenon.” He
mocks Arkady’s father for playing the cello “with an
unpracticed hand” in the country backwoods with
no audience except his brother, Pavel Petrovich,
and his peasant mistress, Fenechka, who is also the
mother of his infant son, Mitya. Bazarov also picks
up on Nikolai’s inherent tendency toward self-
effacement in the presence of his son, and he startles
Arkady by asking if he has ever noticed how timid
his father is, something the son has never noticed
before. Indeed, Nikolai’s most persistent character
flaw, which particularly affects his attitude toward
parenthood, is his lack of self-confidence and his
failure to articulate any ideas with enough convic-
tion to carry them into action. Intensely desirous
of always making the best decisions he can for
everyone under his care—his peasants, his estate, his
son, his brother, his mistress—he never seems to go
the whole way. Trying to please everyone prevents
him from acting as his conscience dictates. Out
of love, he defers to his son’s temporary espousal
of Bazarov’s nihilistic ideas. Out of respect for his
brother’s feelings of aristocratic superiority, he gives
no thought to marrying Fenechka until Pavel, sup-
ported by Arkady, suggests it to him. Out of fear
of offending his son’s and Bazarov’s new urbanity,
he allows Fenechka and her son to withdraw from
the family circle until Arkady reaches out to accept
his infant half brother. Nikolai is a father figure to
everyone at Maryino, but the same fear affects his
reorganization of his estate along modern lines, so
that his reforms are never more than halfhearted or
ineffectual. As Bazarov comments, “it’s hardly likely
that he understands farming,” either.
Nikolai’s brother, Pavel Petrovich, is Arkady’s
other role model for parenthood. Unlike Nikolai,
Pavel is more of an enigma. With his lofty adher-
ence to his aristocratic ideals and the British man-
nerisms he copies, he may be said to have fulfilled
most if not all of Nikolai’s romantic ambitions. His
youthful, hopeless love affair with a princess has ren-
dered him an interesting Don Juan figure with the
local ladies but has brought him nothing but painful
memories and an unfulfilled life as a middle-aged
bachelor living with his widowed brother. His big
moment comes when he challenges Bazarov to a
duel to defend Fenechka’s honor, and Arkady begins
to appreciate Pavel’s aristocratic conventions. In his
willingness to protect Fenechka, Pavel demonstrates
to Arkady the true value of family, relationships
and responsibility. At the end of the novel, although
he retires into a romanticized life in Europe, he
proves himself to be a more practical reformer than
his brother by advising Nikolai to marry Fenechka,
despite her peasant status.
Bazarov’s parents come into the story compara-
tively late. They are an orthodox couple of strong
faith. As Bazarov tells Arkady, “They’re a good lot,
my parents, particularly my father—a most amusing
fellow.” To Bazarov, his father is as much of a “has-
been” as Nikolai Petrovich and needs to be “edu-
cated” in modernity. Like Nikolai, Vassily Ivanovich
Bazarov ostensibly acquiesces in his son’s modernist
views. He privately instructs his wife to restrain
herself from “any excessive effusions of tenderness”
while their son is at home and pretends that their
priest’s visits are accidental. Vassily’s ambitions are
rooted in Bazarov, and he aspires to some day share
in Yevgeny’s intellectual fame. He and his wife are
intensely proud of their son’s intellectualism, though
their devotion to him is mixed with curiosity and
fear of his rejection. Bazarov denies any value in
his parent’s conservatism, but when he lies dying
of typhus, he does come to recognize some comfort
in it. Despite his commitment to science and the