{{Short description|Stock character in mid-19th century Russian literature}} [[File:Eugene Onegin illustration.jpg|thumb|250px|A superfluous man (''Eugene Onegin'') idly polishing his fingernails. Illustration by Elena Samokysh-Sudkovskaya, 1918]] __NOTOC__ The '''superfluous man''' ({{langx|ru|лишний человек}}, ''líshniy chelovék'', "extra person") is an 1840s and 1850s Russian literary concept derived from the Byronic hero.<ref name="chances">{{cite book| editor1-last = Cornwell | editor1-first = Neil | title = The Routledge Companion to Russian Literature | publisher = Routledge | location = New York | year = 2001 | isbn = 978-0-415-23366-8 |chapter=Ch. 10: The Superfluous Man in Russian Literature |last = Chances |first = Ellen |page=[https://archive.org/details/routledgecompani0000unse_q7s1/page/110/mode/2up?view=theater 111]}}</ref> It refers to a man, perhaps talented and capable, who does not fit into social norms. In most cases, this person is born into wealth and privilege. Typical characteristics are disregard for social values, cynicism, and existential boredom; typical behaviors are gambling, drinking, romantic intrigues and duels. He is often unmindful, indifferent or unempathetic with society's issues and can carelessly distress others with his actions, despite his position of power. He will often use his power for his own comfort and security and will have very little interest in being charitable or using it for the greater good.
The character type originates in Alexander Pushkin's verse-novel ''Eugene Onegin'' (1825–1832). This term was popularized by Ivan Turgenev's novella ''The Diary of a Superfluous Man'' (1850) and was thereafter applied to characters from earlier novels.<ref name=chances/> Mikhail Lermontov's ''A Hero of Our Time'' (1840) depicts another superfluous man – Pechorin – as its protagonist. He can be seen as a nihilist and fatalist. Later examples include Alexander Herzen's Beltov in ''Who Is to Blame?'' (1845–46), Turgenev's ''Rudin'' (1856), and the title character of Ivan Goncharov's ''Oblomov'' (1859).<ref name=chances/>
Russian critics such as Vissarion Belinsky (1811–1848) viewed the superfluous man as a byproduct of Nicholas I's reign, when the best-educated men would not enter the discredited government service but, lacking other options for self-realization, doomed themselves to live out their life in passivity. The radical critic Nikolay Dobrolyubov (1836–1861) analyzed the superfluous man as by-product of Russian serfdom.<ref>{{Britannica|574296|Superfluous man}}</ref> Scholar David Patterson describes the superfluous man as "not just ... another literary type but ... a paradigm of a person who has lost a point, a place, a presence in life" before concluding that "the superfluous man is a homeless man."<ref>{{cite book | last = Patterson | first = David | title = Exile: The Sense of Alienation in Modern Russian Letters | publisher = University Press of Kentucky | location = Lexington | year = 1995 | isbn = 0-8131-1888-3 | page=2}}</ref>
== See also == * Dandy * Failson * Male expendability * Remittance man * Socialite
==References== <references/>
==External links== * {{Britannica|574296|Superfluous man}}
{{Stock characters}} {{Eugene Onegin}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Superfluous man}} Category:Literary concepts Category:Russian literature Category:1840s in the Russian Empire Category:Male stock characters Category:1850s in the Russian Empire Category:1840s in literature Category:1850s in literature