Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume IV).djvu/11



On the Eve signalises the end of the Crimea epoch and the break-up of the crushing, overwhelming régime of Nicolas, Fathers and Children is a forecast of the new Liberal movement, which arose in the Russia of the sixties, and an analysis of the formidable type appearing on the political horizon—the Nihilist.

Turgenev was the first man to detect the existence of this new type, the Nihilist. His own account of his discovery gives us such an interesting glimpse of his method in creative work, that we transcribe a passage from his paper on Fathers and Children, written at Baden in 1869:—

'It was in the month of August 1860, when I was taking sea baths at Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight, that the first idea of Fathers and Children came into my head; that novel, thanks to which the favourable opinion of the younger generation about me, has come to an end. Many times I have heard and read in critical journals that I have only been elaborating