ABSTRACT
Bazarov, the major protagonist of Ivan S. Turgenev's classic Fathers and Sons, was the symbol for the new, emerging radicals who would oppose the gentry's vision of the world. Bazarov's patterns of behavior are quite symbolic in the sense that they demonstrate a close connection between the radicals and the gentry, or more precisely between the radicals and the Slavophiles. The social background of Russian radicals was actually extraneous to politics, and often they demonstrated an impressionism in their social thought that would determine their approach to the French Revolution; an approach similar to that of the conservative intellectuals. The history of Russian radicalism and its approach to the French Revolution can be divided into two parts. The first comprises the first half of the century and is intellectually dominated by Alexander I. Herzen. The second comprises the last half of the century and is dominated by a collection of populist groups and later by Marxist groups.
