The Diary of a Superfluous Man

The Diary of a Superfluous Man
AuthorIvan Turgenev
Original titleДневник лишнего человека
LanguageRussian
Subjectsuperfluous man
Genrenovella, epistolary
Set inMoscow and rural Russia, early 19th century
PublisherOtechestvennye Zapiski
Publication date
1850
Publication placeRussian Empire
891.733
LC ClassPG3421 .D58
Original text
Дневник лишнего человека at Russian Wikisource
TranslationThe Diary of a Superfluous Man at Wikisource

The Diary of a Superfluous Man (Russian: Дневник лишнего человека, Dnevník líshnego chelovéka) is an 1850 novella by the Russian author Ivan Turgenev. It is written in the first person in the form of a diary by a man, Tchulkaturin, who, though only 31 years old, is dying of an unspecified illness and has only a few days left to live as he recounts incidents of his life. The story has become the archetype for the Russian literary concept of the superfluous man.[1][2] It was first published in 1850 in the Saint Petersburg literary magazine Otechestvennye Zapiski.

  1. ^ Chances, Ellen (2001). "Ch. 10: The Superfluous Man in Russian Literature". In Cornwell, Neil (ed.). The Routledge Companion to Russian Literature. New York: Routledge. p. 111. ISBN 978-0-415-23366-8.
  2. ^ Superfluous man at the Encyclopædia Britannica