Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/84

58

ISAREV'S philosophic impressionism is, of course, quite inconsistent; he contradicts himself frequently and in almost all points; his rapid development is effected catastrophically and by leaps. The "Prometheus" of to-day was yesterday still a "sheep"; yesterday's darling has to-day become a bête noire. Thus did he treat Puškin and many others.

Nevertheless we discern that Pisarev became calmer as he grew older, and it may also be said that he became clearer. Many critics suggest that his prison experiences and the diligent reading of many books had a favourable effect upon his mind. Pisarev himself ascribed his green extemporisations (I speak à la Pisarev) to the liberating influence of Heine.

I cannot in this brief sketch give a detailed account of Pisarev's mental development, but I must refer to his later study of Turgenev's Bazarov, which is the best criticism of the Pisarev of the first epoch, the Pisarev I have just been characterising; it has moreover literary importance, for Pisarev's name has a peculiarly intimate association with the literary disputes concerning Turgenev's Fathers and Children and concerning nihilism. A consideration of his febrile activity in this matter will furnish an excellent opportunity for a philosophic study of the nature and significance of nihilism.

Turgenev's novel Fathers and Children appeared during 1862 in Katkov's review. In the figure of Bazarov, the young doctor, we have an analysis of realistic youth, its outlook on the world, and its aspirations, and realism is given the designation of nihilism. The type, though not the term was new in Russian literature.

An analysis of the Bazarov type, in so far as Turgenev himself provides it, will follow later. At present we are only concerned with grasping the essence of realism as nihilism in the sense wherein the realists of that day, the realistic critics, became clearly aware of their own principles through the study of Bazarov. For decades Bazarov and nihilism remained a general theme of literary, philosophic, and political discussion.