Fathers and Sons is the most famous and most philosophical of all Turgenev's novels. In conceiving the novel, Turgenev sought to comprehend the character and direction of the 'new people'—the heroes of a new era in Russian public life. So who is this Turgenev Bazarov, if the author himself said of him: 'Did I mean to criticize Bazarov or extol him? I don't know myself...'