characteristic sign--negation in the name of realism, as the
opposition to the old ideally liberal conservatism. It is known that
he found not only an unusually appropriate nickname for this negation,
but a nickname which later became attached to a certain group of
phenomena and types and as such was accepted not only by Russia alone
but by the whole of Europe. The artist created in the image of Bazarov
an exceedingly characteristic representative of the new formation of
life, of the new movement, and christened it with a wonderfully
fitting word, which made so much noise, which called forth so much
condemnation and praise, sympathy and hatred, timid alarm and bold
raving. We can point out but few instances in the history of
literature of such a deep and lively stir called forth in our literary
midst by an artistic creation and by a type of almost political
significance. This novel even after twenty years appears the same
deep, bright, and truthful reflection of life, as it was at the moment
of its first appearance. Now its depth and truthfulness seem even more
clear and arouse even more wonder and respect for the creative thought
of the artist who wrote it. In our days, when the period of
development pointed at by Turgenev in his celebrated novel is almost
entirely lived through, we can only wonder at that deep insight with
which the author had guessed the fundamental characteristic in that
life movement which had celebrated that period. The struggle of two
social streams, the anti-reform and post-reform stream, the struggle
of two generations; the old brought up on aesthetical idealism for
which the leisure of the nobility, made possible by their rights over
the peasants, afforded such a fertile soil; and the young generation
which was carried away by realism and negation,--this is what made up
the essence of the movement of the epoch in the sixties. Turgenev with
the instinct of genius saw through this fundamental movement in life
and imaged it in living bright pictures with all its positive and