Bazarov's death: Ideals, goals and Europe’s comfort zone

In mid-19th-century Tsarist Russia, Yevgeny Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov engaged in a fierce debate over tradition and innovation, ultimately leading to a duel. How could Bazarov have known that the ideas he championed would one day clash so violently with the realities of life?

This conflict in novelist Ivan Turgenev’s 1862 novel "Fathers and Sons" was not merely a showdown between two individuals or two generations. In fact, it was a clash between the values of the old world and the claims of the new.

For Bazarov, the past was a burden to be overcome. Traditions, beliefs, romanticism and authority were obstacles standing in the way of human liberation. In his view, reason and science were enough to pave the way for humanity. However, there was one thing Bazarov failed to take into account: human beings were not merely the product of reason. Nor did history progress according to the theories humans devised.

Throughout his short life, Bazarov rejected traditions, questioned established values and hardly ever doubted his own truths. He built a world of thought in which no authority could rule over him. Yet he was slow to realize that the emotions he rejected, the human frailties he scorned and the realities he ignored were also an inseparable part of his own life.

Finally, on his deathbed, life’s simplest truth stood in opposition to all those grand ideals and seemingly unshakable beliefs. While trying to change the world, Bazarov was defeated by the unchanging reality of human nature. In fact, his greatest tragedy was not his death. It was that he could only confront the truths he had rejected throughout his life as he lay dying.

But is Bazarov’s tragedy confined solely to 19th-century Russia? When we look at the political, social and moral crises Europe is facing today, Bazarov’s story feels surprisingly familiar.

Europe, just like Bazarov, believed in the immutability of its own truths. It believed that the order it established after World War II would usher humanity into a new era. It believed that wars were a thing of the past, that borders had lost their significance, that economic prosperity would ensure lasting social peace and that liberal values would eventually prevail throughout the world. Especially after the end of the Cold War, this belief became an almost unquestionable dogma. While Europe thought it had left history’s darkest chapters behind, it actually began to believe that history itself had left it behind.

Today, the walls of that vast comfort zone are cracking one by one. On one side are rising levels of racism, xenophobia, social polarization and increasingly eroded moral values; on the other are economic stagnation, energy dependence, migration crises, political instability and the reality of war knocking at Europe’s very door.

Europe, which until just yesterday lectured the world on human rights, democracy and freedoms, is now being tested by the very values it champions. It is no coincidence that a continent that declared human rights to be universal is increasingly accused of applying double standards regarding whom these rights actually protect. The rising political rhetoric in parts of Europe is dividing people based on their citizenship, origin, religion and identity. Ideas once viewed as the shame of the past are now being brought back to the center of politics.

However, there is an even greater danger than all of this. Europe faces not only a moral and political crisis but also a growing physical security threat.

The Russia-Ukraine war has shaken the security paradigm the continent has built upon for decades. Europe had believed that war would no longer take place on its own soil. It had assumed that economic interdependence would prevent conflicts, that diplomatic institutions would resolve crises and that, when necessary, the American security umbrella would protect it. But the bombs exploding in Ukraine have shown just how fragile all these assumptions are.

Europe’s problem is not merely a lack of sufficient weapons, troops or defense capabilities.

World War II was one of the greatest catastrophes in human history. In the wake of that war, the continent built important institutions to preserve peace. However, establishing peace was not the same as constantly keeping alive the will to defend that peace. Europe drew important lessons from the devastation of war but, over time, forgot the reality that the possibility of war would never disappear. It began to view peace not as a goal but as a natural and permanent state of affairs. It substituted prosperity for security, economic growth for political will and diplomatic statements for deterrence.

Today, studies showing that young people in many European countries are reluctant to fight for their nations are being discussed. Of course, the degree of this reluctance varies from country to country. However, the question that arises is far more important than mere percentages: How can a society defend itself if it loses the shared ideals it deems worth fighting for?

Europe’s younger generations know war largely from history books and the screen. Having grown up in peace is, of course, an achievement. But believing that peace can be sustained without cost and on its own turns this achievement into its greatest weakness.

Moreover, while all these developments unfold, no strong political leadership capable of shaping the continent’s shared future has emerged in Europe. Capitals speak with different voices, governments struggle with their own internal political balances and joint decisions are often delayed. Although the European Union is an economic giant, it struggles to act as a geopolitical power.

Wasn’t Bazarov the same way?

He believed he could explain everything, yet he could not answer the most fundamental questions that life presented him with. He pushed human emotions to the background, yet became a prisoner of his own emotions. He could view death as a natural fact of life, but when death came knocking at his door, all his theories lost their meaning.

Today’s Europe is also experiencing its own “Bazarov” contradiction. It argued that borders had lost their importance; now it is seeking ways to protect its borders. It thought military power had taken a back seat; now it is trying to rearm. It believed nationalism was a thing of the past; now it is struggling against rising nationalism. It took America’s security guarantee for granted; now it is seeking strategic autonomy. And perhaps most importantly, just as it thought it had overcome the ideological conflicts of the past, it found itself right in the middle of a new generational conflict.

Pavel represented the values of the past, while Bazarov embodied the challenges of the new world. A similar reckoning is taking place in Europe today. On one side is the political and institutional structure striving to preserve the values of the post-World War II order; on the other are new generations who no longer believe to the same extent in the prosperity, security and future promised by that order. Yesterday’s innovators have become today’s traditionalists. And perhaps the greatest irony of history lies here: the new order that replaced the old one Bazarov sought to dismantle has, over time, created its own Pavels. As Europe defends the order it has established, it now faces the danger of losing the very courage to question that once made that order possible.

Bazarov’s tragedy was not that all his ideas were wrong. His tragedy was that he could not fully accept that his own ideas might also be wrong. For Europe, too, the real danger begins here. Because the collapse of a civilization does not always begin with an attack from the outside. Sometimes the collapse begins the day it stops questioning its own truths.

By the time Bazarov saw the truth on his deathbed, there was very little left for him to change. Europe, however, is not yet on its deathbed. But it is clearly heading toward the wall.