Why did Ivan Turgenev use the phrase “superfluous man” in The Diary of a Superfluous Man?

Ivan Turgenev used the phrase “superfluous man” to describe a specific character type that became a national archetype in 19th-century Russian literature. In his 1850 story, The Diary of a Superfluous Man, Turgenev utilized the term to characterize the "intellectual-without-a-will," a figure he frequently explored in his prose.12

These characters are typically aristocrats who are intelligent, well-educated, and possess idealism and goodwill. Despite their awareness of the injustice and stupidity surrounding them, they remain bystanders, incapable of engaging in effective action. While Turgenev’s work popularized the epithet, the character type itself was introduced earlier by Aleksandr Pushkin in Eugene Onegin. Critics, such as Nikolay A. Dobrolyubov, later analyzed this phenomenon as an affliction peculiar to Russia, viewing it as a byproduct of the social system and serfdom.1