Turgenev: The Father of Nihilism
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was one of the most important writers in the Russian language. He was one of the first in Russian literature to address the everyday hardships and anxieties of Russian society, and coined the term “nihilism” (Нигилизм). His articulations and explorations of nihilism, existentialism, and liberalism have continued to echo through Russian intelligensia to this day. Dostoevsky, for example, saw Turgenev’s Nihilistic crypto-Hegelian materialism as a great threat, and modeled his antagonist in Crime and Punishment after Turgenev. Tolstoy likewise dispised Turgenev and once even challenged him to a dual. His enduring work, Father and Sons, stands as a magnum opus of anti-metaphysical, Nihilistic Russian literature
He spoke fluent German, French and English and navigated these worlds seamlessly. He translated parts of Faust, proselytized the novel within Russia, many poems and plays including Egemont and Roman Elegy, and wrote extensively about German literature. He translated the writings of Flaubert, Byron, Heinrich Heine, the American poet Walt Whitman and Voltaire. Translated Lermontov’s Demons into English from the Russian. Perrault's Fairy Tales, Don Quixote, several adaptations of Shakespeare’s works and Schiller's William Tell. He gave dozens of major speeches and wrote thousands of letters to a broad range of intellectuals. He regularly published articles on Russian heritage, culture and language and wrote dozens of prefaces to other books.
Turgenev is considered one of the most important representatives of Russian realism. He is credited with influencing the development of "Melancholic Impressionism" in Western Europe. In his early years, until 1847, he concentrated mainly on poetry (e.g. the verse novella Parascha, 1843). From 1855 he became increasingly active as a writer of drama and comedy. His outwardly less dramatic developments foreshadow the dramas of Anton Chekhov.
Turgenev's prose has a lyrical tone, especially in natural descriptions and emotional digressions. Starting from the language of Pushkin, he tried to expand it to include the expressiveness and artistic use of the melody of the sentence. Turgenev was a master at drawing characters, creating them from many small, almost imperceptible details.
A Central Figure of the Intelligentsia
Turgenev's engagement with his contemporaries also speaks volumes about his philosophical leanings and the prevailing intellectual climate of the 19th century. His correspondence and interactions with figures such as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Flaubert provide a window into the lively, if sometimes contentious, dialogues that shaped the literary and philosophical landscape of the period. Turgenev's relationships with these figures were often complex and multifaceted, revealing a simultaneous exchange of ideas and subtle ideological clashes.
Turgenev's exchanges and friendships exposed him to a wide range of ideas and perspectives. Turgenev's links with the European intellectual community also reflect the significant influence of European thought, particularly French and German, on Russian intellectual circles. The influx of these ideas inevitably found expression in Turgenev's work, shaping his narratives and the philosophical explorations within them.
Turgenev's interaction with Dostoevsky is particularly worth exploring. The two held very different views on many issues, including nationalism and the role of the individual in society. While Dostoevsky often delved into the depths of the human psyche and the complex interplay between the individual and his socio-cultural milieu, Turgenev took a somewhat different approach, often focusing on societal norms and structures as the framework within which individual narratives unfolded. This divergence in focus and methodology highlights the rich diversity of thought and approach that characterized 19th-century Russian literature and philosophy.
He was a personal acquaintance of Gogol, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. For instance, while Turgenev and Flaubert maintained a warm epistolary relationship, his interactions with Dostoevsky were tinted with a notable degree of tension and ideological disparities, especially in matters concerning nationalism and rationalism.
Leo Tolstoy, reflecting on Turgenev's work, once said: "Turgenev's great knowledge of humanity is astonishing. In all our literature I have not met a single artist who had such a knowledge of mankind...". This statement by a contemporary of equal stature illustrates the depth and perspicacity with which Turgenev created his characters, offering not just narratives but explorations into the myriad complexities of human nature, social interaction and ideological formulation.
Turgenev's influence undoubtedly extends beyond his literary contributions, into the realms of philosophy and cultural studies. His explorations of nihilism, particularly through the character of Bazarov, have become seminal in understanding the historical development and nuances of this philosophical perspective. His characterizations provide a lens through which the ramifications and applications of nihilism in societal and personal contexts are explained, providing a profound exploration of the ideological currents of his era.
Moreover, Turgenev's entanglements with the various sociopolitical and philosophical ideologies that ebbed and flowed through 19th-century Europe cannot be overlooked. His interactions with the myriad intellectual circles, including but not limited to the nihilists, the liberals and the Slavophiles, rendered his works not merely literary endeavors, but complex reflections and commentaries on the ideological tapestry of his era.
The Identification of “Nihilism”
His character Bazarov in 'Fathers and Sons' offers an unflinching and somewhat critical depiction of this philosophy. Nihilism, which advocated a rejection of prevailing religious and moral principles, was seen as a revolutionary and potentially threatening ideology. Turgenev navigates this philosophical landscape by allowing his characters to embody and wrestle with these concepts, presenting them in a manner that is accessible and empathetic to his readers, while also subjecting them to critical scrutiny.
Interestingly, Turgenev himself did not fully embrace nihilism. His nuanced position on the philosophy is illustrated through his characterizations and the development of their narrative arcs. Bazarov, for example, encounters numerous conflicts and challenges that expose the limitations and contradictions inherent in nihilism and reveal Turgenev's own reservations and criticisms of the philosophy. In this way, Turgenev manages to provide a balanced exploration that neither fully endorses nor wholly condemns the emerging ideologies of his time.
In particular, his play "Fathers and Sons" provides a rich ground for exploring his engagement with the ideological currents of his time, especially nihilism, through his character Bazarov. In this work, Turgenev coins the term 'nihilist' to describe the emerging generation of radical intellectuals, a term that would later permeate global philosophical and political discourse.
"Fathers and Sons" is a nuanced exploration of the generational divide in 19th century Russian society. His character Bazarov becomes emblematic of the younger generation's nihilistic disposition, vehemently rejecting the principles and philosophical orientations of the previous generation. In this way, Turgenev provides a powerful commentary on the conflicting ideologies competing for supremacy in his time.
An examination of his position on liberalism provides further insight into Turgenev's philosophical orientations. Through various characters and narratives, Turgenev explores the promises and shortcomings of liberalism, a philosophy advocating social equality and individual freedom, which naturally contrasted with the existing autocratic and serfdom-ridden society of nineteenth-century Russia. Rather than presenting it as a panacea for social ills or completely discrediting its potential, he highlights the practical challenges and ideological conflicts it could face in the prevailing Russian context.
Continental Philosophy and Turgenev
Turgenev had deep affinities with the work of Hegel, a philosopher who based the inevitable transformation of social structures on the dialectical movement of history. Dostoevsky bitterly opposed Hegel in Notes from a Dead House. As E.H. Carr, a historian and philosopher, proclaimed, "The facts speak only when the historian calls upon them: it is he who decides which facts shall be given the floor, and in what order or context", capturing the spirit of dialectical progression and selective reconstruction. Herein lies an indirect link between Hegelian dialectics and Turgenev's artistry, as the latter gave voice to the subaltern and elucidated social dynamics through the lens of those immersed in its depths.
Furthermore, Turgenev's crafting of character dynamics offers a poignant exploration of the personal ramifications of societal and ideological shifts. His characters are not simply proponents or opponents of particular philosophies, but complex beings whose identities and relationships ebb and flow with the changing tides of social norms and political ideologies. In doing so, Turgenev offers a profound commentary on the inherent entanglements of the personal and the political, and how one inevitably informs and shapes the other.
Turgenev emerges not only as a literary icon, but also as a philosopher, social commentator and questioner of existential and ideological certainties. His literary and philosophical legacy not only resides within the confines of his narratives, but continues to dance through the endless dialogues and debates that have been and continue to be woven around them. Thus, his creations remain forever imbued with the intricate web of philosophical reflection stemming from the Nihilism of central European ideologies, particularly the inverted de-sacritized Hegelianism we would see developed by Marx and implemented in the Soviet regime. Turgenev was an icon of the replacement with healthy religion which binds the individual to the ancient Archetypes with a pathological socio-political dogmatism. Turgenev represents the what Dostoevsky displays in his novel Demons- the “possession” of individuals with political ideology like Marxism.
Turgenev and Dostoevsky, despite their opposite philosophical positions, maintained great respect for each other and their works. Dostoevsky wrote one of the few positive reviews of Fathers and Sons, which Turgenev deeply appreciated, even though Dostoevsky spent his later life writing against the Nihilism it espoused. Turgenev's last letter to Dostoevsky read:
"Dear and dear Lev Nikolayevich, I have not written to you for a long time, for I was and am, I say directly, on my deathbed... I am writing to you, in fact, to tell you how glad I was to be your contemporary and to express to you my last sincere request. My friend, return to literary activity! For this gift of yours is from whence all other things are.... My friend, great writer of the Russian land, - heed my request."
