A novel, published under this title in some English editions of the work better known as Fathers and Sons. In the late 1850s a young graduate, Arkady, brings his friend Bazarov, a self-declared nihilist, to his family's country estate. Bazarov's blunt rejection of tradition and sentiment clashes with the older generation, while love and friendship challenge his certainties. It is a sympathetic study of generational conflict in a Russia on the edge of change.
Quotes
A nihilist is a man who does not bow down before any authority, who does not take any principle on faith, whatever reverence that principle may be enshrined in.