Arkady Kirsanov has just graduated from the University of Petersburg and returns with a friend, Bazarov, to his father's modest estate in an outlying province of Russia. His father, Nikolai, gladly receives the two young men at his estate, called Maryino, but Nikolai's brother, Pavel, soon becomes upset by the strange new philosophy called "nihilism" which the young men, especially Bazarov, advocate. Nikolai, initially delighted to have his son return home, slowly begins to feel uneasy, and a certain awkwardness in his regard, as it emerges that Arkady's views, much influenced by Bazarov, are radical and make his own beliefs feel dated

Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, translator and popularizer of Russian literature in the West. His major publication, a short story collection entitled A Sportsman's Sketches, was a milestone of Russian realism, and his novel Fathers and Sons is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century fiction.