In the pages which describe his death Turgenev reaches the high-water mark of his art, his moving quality, his power, his reserve. For manly pathos they rank among the greatest scenes in literature, stronger than the death of Colonel Newcome and the best of Thackeray. Among English novelists it is, perhaps, only Meredith who has struck such strong, piercing chords, nobler than anything in Daudet or Maupassant, more reserved than anything in Victor Hugo, and worthy of the great poets, of the tragic pathos of Goethe and Dante. The character of Bazarov, as has been said, created a sensation and endless controversy. The revolutionaries thought him a caricature and a libel, the reactionaries a scandalous glorification of the Devil; and impartial men such as Dostoevsky, who knew the revolutionaries at first hand, thought the type unreal. It is impossible that Bazarov was not like the Nihilists of the sixties; but in any case as a figure in fiction, whatever the fact may be, he lives and will continue to live....—From "An Outline of Russian Literature" (1914).
LIST OF CHARACTERS
NIKOLAI PETROVITCH KIRSANOV, a landowner.
PAVEL PETROVITCH KIRSANOV, his brother.
ARKADY (ARKASHA) NIKOLAEVITCH (or NIKOLAITCH), his son.
YEVGENY (ENYUSHA) VASSILYEVITCH (or VASSILYITCH) BAZAROV, friend of Arkady.
VASSILY IVANOVITCH (or IVANITCH), father of Bazarov.
ARINA VLASYEVNA, mother of Bazarov.
FEDOSYA (FENITCHKA) NIKOLAEVNA, second wife of Nikolai.