(280 words) Gallery of Heroes I.S. Turgenev is famous for vivid images not typical of Russian literature. Evidently Bazarov from the novel “Fathers and Sons” can be considered the most famous such hero. An ideological hero, faithful to the beliefs of nihilism, undergoes a series of trials throughout the whole narrative: the test of friendship, family, duel, and, finally, the test of love.
The test of love is the most important plot component of Turgenev’s novels. Through the motive of love, the Turgenev hero is revealed. As a radical materialist, the nihilist Bazarov denies love as a feeling, and perceives it through the prism of physiological needs. Even at the first meeting with Anna Odintsova, whose image excited Eugene, he describes her beauty from the point of view of a medical cynic. Beyond the "rich body" of the young widow, there is a cunning mind, not inferior to the mind of Bazarov himself. And while he was thinking, "What category of mammals does this person belong to," Anna, unexpectedly for the natural scientist himself, won his heart. The question of love for Bazarov is a truly fatal question. In this relationship, the beautiful, but cold Anna is the embodiment of rock in the fate of a young man. Romanticism was alien to the hero, but in the episode of the last meeting, he asks Anna to blow out the "dying lamp, and let it go out." A change in the soul cannot go unnoticed for himself, and therefore the death of Eugene is a logical continuation of his fate. As the famous literary critic D.I. Pisarev argued, "the whole point of the novel was the death of Bazarov." It is no coincidence that he dies after he cannot cope with the feeling of love for this woman. An attentive reader could not fail to notice the fact that Bazarov, as a promising physician, is in no hurry to process a cut and save himself from typhoid infection.
Of course, the test of love for Bazarov is a test of his whole life, views and beliefs. The events that made his death possible happen after the emotional decline of the hero, who until the end remained faithful to his ideals, despite all the contradictions of character, and ended up like a true nihilist.
