“Superfluity”of Rudin And The Clash Of Civilizations

Based on keen insight into the times,Turgenev wrote a novel Rudin to express his thoughts on major issues exposed in the development of society.Generations of scholars have tried to interpret the classic character-Rudin,and most of the research focused on the identity "superfluous person".However,more than 160 years have passed,people's understanding of Rudin has not yet reached a consensus.The time at which Rudin lived was a period of intense clash between Western and Russian civilizations,so Rudin's "superfluity" must have a great correlation with the clash of these two civilizations.On the one hand,the rapid development of Western civilization has made Rudin see the deficiencies of Russia's native civilization,so he actively promoted the advanced ideas of the West to his people and tried to reform the agriculture,industry,commerce,and education in accordance with Western methods.Although the ideas promoted by Rudin have shaken the traditional thinking mode of the Russian people to some extent,none of his reforms have succeeded.This is because Rudin and most Russian people have great differences in the national worldview.On the other hand,compared with Western civilization,there seems to be a lot of irrationality and backwardness in Russian civilization.However,after a series of reform failures,Rudin reflected on the two civilizations,and he found that the native civilization infiltrated by the Orthodox Church has the unique superiority.As a result,Rudin was caught in the circle of "going Russia's own way or imitating the road of Western Europe".Rudin's loss in civilizations completed his enlightenment to future generations.In the tragedy of Rudin,peopel tried to find the proper attitude towards these two civilizations and explore the way for Russia's future development.This article explores the origin of Rudin's superfluity by reinterpreting the text of Rudin,combining the background of the times and Turgenev's opinions about philosophy and religion.On this basis,article further interprets the image of Rudin from a philosophical and religious perspective to explore the clash of civilizations behind it,and strive to provide a more comprehensive and in-depth research perspectives to the study of Turgenev's "superfluous person".