Nihilism and religion in the work Parents and Children by Ivan Turgueniev

Abstract

This essay comes from reflections made during the study of the curricular component Religion and Literature at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, under the guidance of teacher Jimmy Sudário Cabral, the concept of nihilism and its impact on the reformulation of the concept of religion in 19th century Russian literature. The present study is justified by the historical-critical need to recognize how the terms nihilism and religion appear in novels such as “Parents and Children” by Ivan Turgenev, written between 1860 and 1862, although it was already a concept present in Russia in secondary literatures in a period marked by the end of serfdom and the emergence of political movements aimed at defeating the autocratic regime. It is in this work that the Russian writer launches the term nihilist through the protagonist Yevgeni Bazárov, positivist materialist, opponent of the 1840 generation – the idealistic Slavs defenders of romanticism – representing the generation of the 1860s, critique of social values and conventions. The problem in question is to see how the nihilist and religious perspective is situated in the plot. The hypothesis is that the novel researched addresses enough elements to make such an analysis. We worked with the exploratory methodology of interpretative bibliographic character, whose sources are original and qualitative analysis would identify the theses “Nihilism” and “Religion” in the work in question. It is indicated, as a result, to expand the academic debate surrounding this writer.