Fathers and Sons

A novel set in Russia in the late 1850s, just before the emancipation of the serfs. A young graduate, Arkady, returns home with his friend Bazarov, a medical student who calls himself a nihilist and scorns tradition, art and sentiment. Their stay at Arkady's family estate brings Bazarov into friction with Arkady's gentle father and his proud, refined uncle. Love, friendship and family loyalty test the friend's confident principles. The book is a sharp and sympathetic study of the gap between generations and of a society on the edge of change, and it gave the word nihilism wide currency.