Lermontov, Mikhail

Lermontov, Mikhail (Yuryevich)

(born Oct. 15, 1814, Moscow, Russia—died July 27, 1841, Pyatigorsk) Russian poet and novelist. His first volume of verse, Spring, was published in 1830, the year he entered Moscow University. He left the university two years later to enter cadet school. A guards officer after graduating in 1834, he was twice exiled to regiments in the Caucasus because of his passionately libertarian verse. He became popular for having suffered for his poetry, which combined civic and philosophical themes with deeply personal motifs. His mature poems include “Mtsyri” (1840) and “Demon” (1841). His novel A Hero of Our Time (1840), a reflection on contemporary society and the fortunes of his generation, is written in superb prose, and the portrait of its alienated hero profoundly influenced later Russian writers. Like Aleksandr Pushkin, to whom he is often compared, he died in a duel. He is remembered as his country's leading Romantic poet.