"Rudin" was the first of Turgenev's novels, but already in this work the topic of the superfluous man and his inability to act (which became a major theme of Turgenev's literary work) was explored.Similarly to other Turgenev's novels, the main conflict in Rudin was centred on a love story of the main character and a young, but intellectual and self-conscious woman who is contrasted with the main hero (this type of female character became known in literary criticism as «тургеневская девушка», “Turgenev girl”).