A hero for your time

bridges to an understanding of Turgenev's nihilist

Abstract

This work proposes to build a brigde between the type of hero of our time, elaborated by Mikhail Lermontov in his homonym book in 1840, and the niihislit type, developed by Ivan Turgenev in Fathers and Sons in 1861. Both types were established in Russian literary traditon of the 19th century, being unavoidable references for writers of the time who sought to approach the forces of freedom and opposition to official power. Considering that, this work proposes an analysis of the incorporation of these forces around the typification of these characters and a comparison that allows to comprehend the Turgenev's niihilist type as a continuation of the consecrated image of the hero of our time.