 The latter two are considered to be representations of their generations (‘men of twenties’ and ‘men of thirties’ respectively) as Rudin is considered to be a representation of his generation; the three literary works featuring these characters share many similarities in structure and all three characters are routinely referred to as ‘superfluous men’ (whether the term is applicable to all three has been a subject of scholarly debate).For a long time, Turgenev was unsure of the genre of "Rudin", publishing it with a subtitle of ‘novella’.In 1860, it was published together with two other novels, but in the three editions of Turgenev's "Works" that followed it was grouped with short stories.