Fathers & Sons is one of the greatest nineteenth century Russian novels & has long been acclaimed as Turgenevs finest work. It is a political novel set in a domestic context with a universal theme the generational divide between fathers & sons. Set in 1859 at the moment when the Russian autocratic state began to move hesitantly towards social & political reform the novel explores the conflict between the liberal-minded fathers of Russian reformist sympathies & their free-thinking intellectual sons whose revolutionary ideology threatened the stability of the state. At its centre is Evgeny Bazorov a strong-willed antagonist of all forms of social orthodoxy who proclaims himself a nihilist & believes in the need to overthrow all the institutions of the state. As the novel develops Bazarovs political ambitions become fatally meshed with emotional & private concerns & his end is a tragic failure. The novel caused a bitter furore on its publication in 1862 & this a year later drove Turgenev from Russia.