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(b.
Oct. 15 [Oct. 3, Old Style], 1814, Moscow, Russia--d.
July 27 [July 15], 1841, Pyatigorsk), the leading
Russian Romantic poet and author of the novel Geroy
nashego vremeni (1840; A Hero
of Our Time), which was to have a profound influence on
later Russian writers. Lermontov
was the son of Yury Petrovich Lermontov,
a retired army captain, and Mariya Mikhaylovna, née
Arsenyeva. At the age of three he lost his
mother and was brought up by his grandmother,
Yelizaveta Alekseyevna Arsenyeva, on her estate
in Penzenskaya province. Russia's abundant
natural beauty, its folk songs and tales, its
customs and ceremonies, the hard forced labour of
the serfs, and stories and legends of peasant
mutinies all had a great influence in developing
the future poet's character. Because the child
was often ill, he was taken to spas in the
Caucasus on three occasions, where the exotic
landscapes created lasting impressions on him.
In 1827 he moved with his
grandmother to Moscow, and, while attending a
boarding school for children of the nobility (at
Moscow University), he began to write poetry and
also studied painting. In 1828 he wrote the poems
Cherkesy ("Circassians") and Kavkazsky
plennik ("Prisoner of the Caucasus")
in the vein of the English Romantic poet Lord
Byron, whose influence then predominated over
young Russian writers. Two years later he
entered Moscow University. In 1832, after
clashing with a reactionary professor, Lermontov
left the university and went to St.
Petersburg, where he entered the cadet school.
Upon his graduation in 1834 with the rank of
subensign (or cornet), Lermontov was
appointed to the Life-Guard Hussar Regiment
stationed at Tsarskoye Selo (now Pushkin), close
to St. Petersburg. As a young officer, he spent a
considerable portion of his time in the capital,
and his critical observations of aristocratic
life there formed the basis of his play Maskarad
("Masquerade").
Lermontov was
greatly shaken in January 1837 by the death of
the great poet Pushkin in a duel. He wrote an
elegy that expressed the nation's love for the
dead poet, denouncing not only his killer but
also the court aristocracy, whom he saw as
executioners of freedom and the true culprits of
the tragedy. As soon as the verses became known
to the court of Nicholas I, Lermontov was
arrested and exiled to a regiment stationed in
the Caucasus. Travel to new places, meetings with
Decembrists (in exile in the Caucasus), and
introduction to the Georgian intelligentsia
broadened his horizon. Attracted to the nature
and poetry of the Caucasus and excited by its
folklore, he studied the local languages and
translated and polished the Azerbaijanian story
"Ashik Kerib." Caucasian themes and
images occupy a strong place in his poetry and in
the novel Geroy nashego vremeni, as well
as in his sketches and paintings.
As a result of zealous
intercession by his grandmother and by the
influential poet V.A. Zhukovsky, Lermontov was
allowed to return to the capital in 1838. His
verses began to appear in the press: the romantic
poem (1837; "A Song About Tsar
Ivan Vasilyevich, His Young Bodyguard, and the
Valiant Merchant Kalashnikov"), the
realistic satirical poems (1838;
"The Tambov Paymaster's Wife") and Sashka
(written 1839, published 1862), and the
romantic poem Demon. Soon Lermontov became
popular; he was called Pushkin's successor and
was lauded for having suffered and been exiled
because of his libertarian verses. Writers and
journalists took an interest in him, and
fashionable ladies were attracted to him.
At the end of the 1830s,
the principal directions of his creative work had
been established. His freedom-loving sentiments
and his bitterly skeptical evaluation of the
times in which he lived are embodied in his
philosophical lyric poetry ("Duma"
["Thought"], "Ne ver sebye . . .
" ["Do Not Trust Yourself . . .
"]) and are interpreted in an original
fashion in the romantic and fantastic images of
his Caucasian poems, Mtsyri (1840) and Demon,
on which the poet worked for the remainder of his
life. Finally, Lermontov's mature prose
showed a critical picture of contemporary life in
his novel Geroy nashego vremeni,
containing the sum total of his reflections on
contemporary society and the fortunes of his
generation. The hero, Pechorin, is a cynical
person of superior accomplishments who, having
experienced everything else, devotes himself to
experimenting with human situations. This
realistic novel, full of social and psychological
content and written in prose of superb quality,
played an important role in the development of
Russian prose.
In
February 1840 Lermontov was brought to
trial before a military tribunal for his duel
with the son of the French ambassador at St.
Petersburg--a duel used as a pretext for
punishing the recalcitrant poet. On the
instructions of Nicholas I, Lermontov was
sentenced to a new exile in the Caucasus, this
time to an infantry regiment that was preparing
for dangerous military operations. Soon compelled
to take part in cavalry sorties and hand-to-hand
battles, he distinguished himself in the heavy
fighting at Valerik River, which he describes in
"Valerik" and in the verse
("I Am Writing to You . . . "). The
military command made due note of the great
courage and presence of mind displayed by the
officer-poet.
As a
result of persistent requests by his grandmother,
Lermontov was given a short leave in
February 1841. He spent several weeks in the
capital, continuing work on compositions he had
already begun and writing several poems noted for
their maturity of thought and talent. But he soon
received an order to return to his regiment and
left, full of gloomy forebodings. During this
long journey he experienced a flood of creative
energy: his last notebook contains such
masterpieces of Russian lyric poetry as "Utes"
("The Cliff"), "Spor" ("Argument"),
"Svidanye" ("Meeting"),
"Listok" ("A Leaf"), "Net,
ne tebya tak pylko ya lyublyu" ("No, It
Was Not You I Loved So Fervently"), "Vykhozhu
odin ya na dorogu . . . " ("I go to the
Road Alone . . . "), and "Prorok"
("Prophet"), his last work.
On the way to his
regiment, Lermontov lingered on in the
health resort city of Pyatigorsk for treatment.
There he met many fashionable young people from
St. Petersburg, among whom were secret ill-wishers
who knew his reputation in court circles. Some of
the young people feared his tongue, while others
envied his fame. An atmosphere of intrigue,
scandal, and hatred grew up around him. Finally,
a quarrel was provoked between Lermontov and
another officer, N.S. Martynov; the two fought a
duel that ended in the poet's death. He was
buried two days later in the municipal cemetery,
and the entire population of the city gathered at
his funeral. Later, Lermontov's coffin was
moved to the Tarkhana estate, and on April 23,
1842, he was buried in the Arsenyev family vault.
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Only
26 years old when he died, Lermontov had
proved his worth as a brilliant and gifted poet-thinker,
prose writer, and playwright, the successor of
Pushkin, and an exponent of the best traditions
of Russian literature. His youthful lyric poetry
is filled with a passionate craving for freedom
and contains calls to battle, agonizing
reflections on how to apply his strengths to his
life's work, and dreams of heroic deeds. He was
deeply troubled by political events, and the
peasant mutinies of 1830 had suggested to him a
time "when the crown of the tsars will fall."
Revolutionary ferment in western Europe met with
an enthusiastic response from him (verses on the
July 1830 revolution in France, on the fall of
Charles X), and the theme of the French
Revolution is found in his later works (the poem Sashka).
Civic and philosophical
themes as well as subjective, deeply personal
motifs were closely interwoven in Lermontov's
poetry. He introduced into Russian poetry the
intonations of "iron verse," noted for
its heroic sound and its energy of intellectual
expression. His enthusiasm for the future
responded to the spiritual needs of Russian
society. Lermontov's legacy has found
varied interpretations in the works of Russian
artists, composers, and theatrical and cinematic
figures. His dramatic compositions have played a
considerable role in the development of
theatrical art, and his life has served as
material for many novels, poems, plays, and films.
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Laurence
Kelly, Lermontov: Tragedy in the
Caucasus (1977, reissued 1983), is a detailed
biography. Shorter biographical sketches are
found in the works of literary criticism, such as
John Mersereau, Mikhail Lermontov (1962); Janko Lavrin, Lermontov (1959); B.M. Eikhenbaum, Lermontov:
A Study in Literary-Historical Evaluation (1981);
and John Garrard, Mikhail Lermontov (1982), which discuss both the romantic
poetry and prose of the writer. Lermontov's
largest and most important prose work is analyzed
in C.J.B. Turner, Pechorin: An Essay on Lermontov's
"A Hero of Our Time" (1978); and
William Mills Todd III, Fiction and Society in
the Age of Pushkin: Ideology, Institutions, and
Narrative (1986). Good translations of Lermontov
into English are found in Charles Johnston (trans.),
Narrative Poems by Alexander Pushkin and by
Mikhail Lermontov (1983);
and Guy Daniels (trans.), A Lermontov
Reader (1965).
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