Fathers and Children

 
'Fathers and Children,' arguably the first modern novel in the history of Russian literature, shocked readers when it was first published in 1862 - the controversial character of Bazarov, a self-proclaimed 'nihilist' intent on rejecting all existing traditional values and institutions, providing a trenchant critique of the established order. Turgenev's masterpiece investigates the growing nihilist movement of mid-19th-century Russia in a universal and often hilarious story of generational conflict and the clash between the old and the new.