HOME

Fathers and Sons

Fathers and Sons

Author(s): ,

Genre(s):

Narrators:

Number of Chapters: 28

Length: 9 hours and 15 minutes

Language: English

The fathers and children of the novel refers to the growing divide between the two generations of Russians, and the character Yevgeny Bazarov has been referred to as the "first Bolshevik", for his nihilism and rejection of the old order.

Turgenev wrote Fathers and Sons as a response to the growing cultural schism that he saw between liberals of the 1830s/1840s and the growing nihilist movement. Both the nihilists (the "sons") and the 1830s liberals sought Western-based social change in Russia. Additionally, these two modes of thought were contrasted with the conservative Slavophiles, who believed that Russia's path lay in its traditional spirituality.

Fathers and Sons might be regarded as the first wholly modern novel in Russian Literature (Gogol's Dead Souls, another main contender, is sometimes referred to as a poem or epic in prose as in the style of Dante's Divine Comedy). The novel introduces a dual character study, as seen with the gradual breakdown of Bazarov's and Arkady's nihilistic opposition to emotional display, especially in the case of Bazarov's love for Madame Odintsova and Fenichka. This prominent theme of character duality and deep psychological insight would exert an influence on most of the great Russian novels to come, most obviously echoed in the novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

The novel is also the first Russian work to gain prominence in the Western world, eventually gaining the approval of well established novelists Gustave Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant, and Henry James, proving that Russian literature owes much to Ivan Turgenev. (Summary from Wikipedia)

Listening:
Continue to listen:    
Chapter 01 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 02 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 03 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 04 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 05 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 06 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 07 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 08 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 09 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 10 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 11 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 12 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 13 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 14 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 15 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 16 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 17 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 18 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 19 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 20 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 21 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 22 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 23 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 24 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 25 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 26 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 27 (Roger Melin)
Chapter 28 (Roger Melin)
The audiobook Fathers and Sons falls under the genres of . It is written by , .