“Restless Man” in Russian Literature

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the type of characters in Russian classical literature, for which the author proposes the definition of “restless person” (by analogy with “superfluous” and “little man”). According to the observations of the author, “the nickname of a restless person” was first formally applied to the hero of one of the stories by V.I. Dahl (1842). A similar type (the type of Don Quixote), clearly manifested in the image of Chatsky from “Woe from Wit” by A.S. Griboyedov, became quite common in prose and drama of the 19th century. The article examines characteristic features of this type of literary characters in the heroes of A.N. Ostrovsky, N.S. Leskov and others, analyzes the perception of this type in Russian criticism, reflection by its writers, I.S. Turgenev, F.M. Dostoevsky, Maxim Gorky.

Keywords

• “restless man”
• 19th-century russian literature
• literary types
• chatsky
• don quixote
• v. dal
• “woe from wit”