an idea of my own. . . . For my part, I ought to confess that I never attempted to create a type without having, not an idea, but a living person, in whom the various elements were harmonised together, to work from. I have always needed some groundwork on which I could tread firmly. This was the case with Fathers and Children. At the foundation of the principal figure Bazarov was the personality of a young provincial doctor. He died not long before 1860. In that remarkable man was incarnated to my ideas the just rising element, which, still chaotic, afterwards received the title of Nihilism. The impression produced by this individual was very strong. At first I could not clearly define him to myself. But I strained my eyes and ears, watching everything surrounding me, anxious to trust simply in my own sensations. What confounded me was that I had met not a single idea or hint of what seemed appearing to me on all sides. And the doubt involuntarily suggested itself. . . .'
Fathers and Children was published in the spring of 1862 in Katkoffs paper, The Russian Messenger, the organ of 'the Younger Generation,' and the stormy controversy that the novel immediately provoked, was so bitter, deep, and lasting, that the episode forms one of the most interesting chapters in literary history. Rarely has so great an artist so thoroughly drawn public attention to a scrutiny of the new idea
vi
