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МЕНЮ
| Bazarov: a lunatic or visionary?Bazarov: a lunatic or visionary?Vlad Elkis Bazarov: a lunatic or a visionary? “And the castle made of sand Melts into the sea, Eventually.” - James Marshall Hendrix Ivan Turgenev’s attempt at creating a new Russian contemporary “hero”
has yielded a figure of extremely high complexity, contradiction, and
divergence. This character, a man named Evgeny Bazarov and the enigma of
his person have fueled limitless debates on the true essence of this
figure, as it was intended by the author. As Socrates said, “Amid the
argumentation, the truth is found”, so let this modest contribution to the
seemingly endless discussion of Bazarov bring us perhaps one small step
closer to the truth about this mysterious man and his true essence. What is Evgeny Bazarov was born into a family of a modest provincial doctor. Unfortunately, the power of Bazarov’s mind played a rude joke on the
young pseudo-philosopher. His refusal to acknowledge any authority also
meant his failure to recognize that perhaps he was not the wisest person in
the world. “When I meet a man who can hold his own beside me, then I’ll
change my opinion of myself,”- says Bazarov. Clearly, he is blindly
infatuated with the idea of his own greatness. Pavel Kirsanov remarks this
trait in Bazarov’s character as “Satanic pride”. Perhaps, this super-
egotistic obsession with self-righteousness was fueled by his companion, The young Kirsanov, barely twenty-three years of age, apparently had
not yet formed a sound system of morals and values and was drawn into
discipleship of nihilism primarily by the power of Bazarov’s charisma and
the “freshness” of the nihilists’ ideas, rather than their sensibility. Although it appears to be understandable why such an intelligent and developed figure as Bazarov would try to avoid extended periods of exclusive contact with simpler people – they bore him. But it also seems that Bazarov, in general, feels most comfortable around people who inherently have no capability to confront him and question his maximalistic slogans. He enjoys the company of the local kids in Maryino and delightfully explains his work in dissecting frogs; Arkady is his friend because he is harmless; he even tries to seduce Fenechka, that shy and timid woman, during his final visit at the Kirsanovs’. One way to explain these gravitational tendencies is by a hypothesis that Bazarov felt vulnerable as a nihilist. The ordinary people around him constantly challenged his ideas, and Bazarov’s two rudimentary reactions were to either withdraw and avoid these debates, as it usually was in his encounters with Pavel Kirsanov, or to engage in all-out verbal melees with his attackers, who oftentimes sound more reasonable than the belligerent nihilist. Bazarov becomes consumed by his own lies. By so fiercely renouncing authority, principles, and norms, he contradicts himself. According to him, poetry is a nothing but romantic nonsense, music is a waste of time, admiration of nature is next to hallucinating. Consumed by his fictitious theories, Bazarov fails (or refuses) to realize that by arbitrarily denying these and other naturally existing attributes of the society and people, he disaffirms his own dedication to empiricism. Bazarov’s belief in chemistry attests to the exact opposite of what he asserts. Chemistry is merely a science that examines the interaction between atoms; it does not write the laws of these interactions. Similarly, the world is constructed with its principles of interactions between people within the society. Therefore, by refusing to recognize the underlying order of the society and becoming a nihilist, Bazarov puts himself in danger of someday facing a painful revelation. His relentless struggle against the ideals and the idealists has
transformed his very self into an idealist. By attacking all principles
already so solidly embedded in the society, he makes himself an author of
just another set of ideals, values, and principles. “Thou shalt not enjoy
the nature, music, poetry, or love! Thou shalt enjoy Stoff und Kraft and
chemistry!” is a possible quote relatable to Bazarov through paraphrasing
of his loud claims. But it is strange that such an intelligent man as Strongly intoxicated by his own brilliance and without understanding his mistake, Bazarov found the audacity and temerity to question and ridicule the natural order of his society at the time. His quest for reform essentially was a trip to the dawn of human race, to the prehistoric times of laissez-faire ethics (or absence thereof) and an attempt to redesign the law of the world, the law that constructed itself over the centuries and evolved as an environmental force much too strong for a simple idealist like Bazarov to engage. “Fathers and Sons” is similar to a Sophoclean tragedy, in which the
main character, Bazarov, follows a line that involves most of the
attributes of a real tragic hero, as outline in Greek drama: hubris, an
anagnorisis, and a catharsis. His hubris was the titanic pride and contempt
for too many of the world’s principles. His unsuccessful relationship with Even after yet another version of the interpretation of Bazarov’s
story is presented, it is still unclear whether Bazarov’s death was an
accident or the unshakable nihilist’s deliberate departure from the world
he refused to respect and recognize as his. But what would happen if the
doctor whom Bazarov was assisting during that autopsy did have the
antibiotic to save Bazarov from the typhus infection? Would he abandon his
audacious nihilistic ideals? The answer, I believe, is yes. Bazarovism is
an absolutely unsustainable school of thought in human society, and |
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