# Fathers and Children — Character guide

> Key figures in Fathers and Children by Ivan Turgenev.

- [Yevgeny Bazarov](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/yevgeny_bazarov.md): Bazarov arrives at Maryino as Arkady's university friend, armed with a scalpel-sharp contempt for authority, sentiment, and the comfortable illusions of the older generation. He is a man who boasts that he has never let 
- [Arkady Kirsanov](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/arkady_kirsanov.md): Arkady returns to his father's estate with a diploma, a new vocabulary, and Bazarov in tow, eager to see the old world through his mentor's cold eyes. But he is softer than his creed allows: he flinches at Bazarov's rude
- [Pavel Petrovitch Kirsanov](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/pavel_petrovitch_kirsanov.md): Pavel Petrovitch presides over Maryino with exquisite fingernails and a cold, deliberate courtesy that Bazarov finds absurd and Arkady finds touching. He once turned women's heads and ruined himself for one of them; now 
- [Nikolai Petrovitch Kirsanov](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/nikolai_petrovitch_kirsanov.md): Nikolai Petrovitch waits at the posting station for Arkady with his heart in his throat, then spends the visit trying to be modern enough for a son who has already moved past him. He is a widower who has quietly taken Fe
- [Anna Sergyevna Odintsov](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/anna_sergyevna_odintsov.md): Madame Odintsov has survived a scandalous marriage, a provincial gossip mill, and a fortune she did not earn, and has emerged with a beautiful face, an excellent Russian prose style, and a horror of vulgarity. She invite
- [Fenitchka](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/fenitchka.md): Fenitchka was seventeen when Nikolai Petrovitch cured her eye and then, in confusion, kissed the parting of her hair; now she lives in a small lodge with their son Mitya and appears on the terrace with cocoa, blushing as
- [Katya](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/katya.md): Katya lives in the shadow of her brilliant older sister Anna, whose beauty and independence command every room they enter. Where Anna is cool and calculating, Katya is warm, observant, and disarmingly composed — she sees
- [Vassily Ivanovitch](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/vassily_ivanovitch.md): Vassily Ivanovitch runs a tiny household of six rooms cluttered with anatomical diagrams, stuffed birds, and a broken galvanic battery — the relics of a life spent trying to be useful. He tiptoes around his son with dipl
- [Arina Vlasyevna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/arina_vlasyevna.md): Arina Vlasyevna belongs to an older Russia of amulets, samovars, and unquestioning maternal love — a world her son has intellectually rejected but cannot entirely escape. She consults her husband anxiously about which so
- [Sitnikov](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/sitnikov.md): A foolish hanger-on who pretends to be a progressive.
- [Evdoksya Kukshin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/evdoksya_kukshin.md): An eccentric, emancipated woman who hosts intellectual gatherings.
- [Piotr](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/piotr.md): A servant in the Kirsanov household.
- [Matvy Ilyitch Kolyazin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/matvy_ilyitch_kolyazin.md): A government official and relative of the Kirsanovs.
- [Father Alexey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/father_alexey.md): A local priest who visits the Bazarov household.
- [Timofeitch](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/timofeitch.md): An old servant of the Bazarov family.
- [Mitya](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/mitya.md): The infant son of Nikolai and Fenitchka.
- [Dunyasha](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/dunyasha.md): A maid in the Kirsanov household.
- [Prokofitch](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/prokofitch.md): An elderly servant at the Kirsanov estate.
- [Princess R](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters/princess_r.md): A mysterious woman from Pavel Petrovitch's past.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/fathers_and_children_se/characters