In our next meeting, we will continue our conversation about Nabokov’s work ‘Lectures on Russian Literature’. This round-table talk will be dedicated to the third Nabokov’s lecture – Ivan Turgenev and his novel Fathers and Sons (1862).

According to Nabokov, the best part of Turgenev’s works it is mellow colored little paintings — rather watercolors than the Flemish glory of Gogol’s art gallery — inserted here and there into his prose, that we still admire today. At the same time, Nabokov also states that besides being good at painting nature, Turgenev was likewise excellent at painting little colored cartoons, which remind one of those seen in British country clubs.

Following by Nabokov we are going to think about the moral conflict between the good-meaning, ineffectual and weak people of the 1840s and the new strong revolutionary generation of the “nihilistic” youth. We will discuss what Nabokov’s expression, ‘A cold heart and a hot head’ means for us today and why the “Turgenev maiden” has a special appeal for the reader. We will also try to analyze why Bazarov denies any esthetic or moral values. According to Nabokov Bazarov is aggressive materialist who ‘believes in nothing but “frogs,” meaning nothing but the results of his own practical scientific experience. He knows neither pity nor shame’.