Rudin is the first novel of the major Russian writer Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883). A reader innocent of nineteenth-century Russian literature, save for a vague pre-conception that it consisted principally of very long works, might be surprised by the modest length of Rudin, which, in scale, conforms to the Russian sub-genre of the povest’ – a short novel or novella. This is a form, which, by trial and error, Turgenev was to make his own. By the time he wrote Rudin, in 1855, Turgenev had succeeded as a short story writer, attracting critical acclaim and Tsarist disapproval, for his humanitarian tales, Zapiski okhotnika [A Sportsman’s Sketches; or Notes from a Hunter’s Album], and had abandoned a projected long novel, the provisional title of which – Two Generations – suggests its ambitious scope. Rudin, less than 200...
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Citation: Turton, Glyn. "Rudin". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 March 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=11249, accessed 09 June 2026.]
