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Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Lermontov in 1837
Born	October 15, 1814 Moscow, Russia
Died	July 27, 1841
Occupation	Poet, romantic writer, artist
Nationality	Russian
Writing period	Posthumous publication
Genres	Romanticism, poetry
Influences At the age of fourteen Lermontov moved to Moscow, where he entered a boarding school for the sons of the nobility. At the Moscow University he started to write poetry under the influence of Lord Byron, adapting the Byronic cult of personality.

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (Михаи́л Ю́рьевич Ле́рмонтов Russian pronunciation: [mʲɪxɐˈil ˈjurʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈlʲɛrməntəf]), (October 15 [O.S. October 3] 1814 – July 27 [O.S. July 15] 1841), a Russian Romantic writer and poet, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", was the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death. His influence on later Russian literature is still felt in modern times, not only through his poetry, but also by his prose. His poetry remains popular in Chechnya, Daghestan, and beyond Russia. Image File history File links Emblem-important. ... Download high resolution version (504x664, 158 KB)A portrait of Mikhail Lermontov by Pyotr Zabolotsky, painted in 1837. ... is the 288th day of the year (289th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1814 (MDCCCXIV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ... For other uses, see Moscow (disambiguation). ... is the 208th day of the year (209th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1841 is a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... This article is about work. ... Sappho and Alcaeus of Mytilene, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1881). ... Romantics redirects here. ... A writer is anyone who creates a written work, although the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ... The definition of an artist is wide-ranging and covers a broad spectrum of activities to do with creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. ... In English usage, nationality is the legal relationship between a person and a country. ... A literary genre is one of the divisions of literature into genres according to particular criteria such as literary technique, tone, or content. ... Romantics redirects here. ... This article is about the art form. ... Lermontov (Russian: ) is a town in Stavropol Krai, Russia. ... The Mikhail Lermontov was a Soviet cruise ship that sank in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand, on February 16, 1986. ... is the 288th day of the year (289th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Old Style redirects here. ... Year 1814 (MDCCCXIV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ... is the 208th day of the year (209th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Old Style redirects here. ... 1841 is a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Romantics redirects here. ... A writer is anyone who creates a written work, although the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ... Sappho and Alcaeus of Mytilene, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1881). ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Caucasus Mountains. ... Pushkin redirects here. ... Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia or its émigrés, and to the Russian-language literature of several independent nations once a part of what was historically Russia or the Soviet Union. ... The Chechen Republic (IPA: ; Russian: , Chechenskaya Respublika; Chechen: , Noxçiyn Respublika), or, informally, Chechnya (; Russian: ; Chechen: , Noxçiyçö), sometimes referred to as Ichkeria, Chechnia, Chechenia or Noxçiyn, is a federal subject of Russia. ... The Republic of Dagestan (Russian: Респу́блика Дагеста́н) is a federal subject of the Russian Federation (a republic). ...

Early life

Lermontov was born in Moscow to a respectable noble family of the Tula Governorate, and grew up in the village of Tarkhany (in the Penza Governorate), which now preserves his remains. His family traced descent from the Scottish Learmonths[1], one of whom settled in Russia in the early 17th century, during the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov.

Lermontov's father, Yuri Lermontov, like his father before him, was a military. Having moved up the ranks to captain, he married the sixteen year old Mariya Arsenyeva, to the great dismay of her mother, Yelizaveta Alekseyevna. A year after the marriage, on the night of October 3 (Old Style), 1814, Mariya Arsenieva gave birth to Mikhail Lermontov. According to the tradition, soon after his birth, some discord between Lermontov's father and grandmother erupted, and unable to bear it, Mariya Arsenieva fell ill and died in 1817. After the daughter's death, Yelizaveta Alekseyevna devoted all her love to her grandson, always in fear that his father might move away with him. Either because of this pampering or continuing family tension or both, Lermontov as a child developed a fearful and arrogant temper, which he took out on the servants, and smashing the bushes in his grandmother's garden.

As a small boy Lermontov listened to stories about the outlaws of the Volga region, about their great bravery and wild country life. When he was ten, Mikhail fell sick, and Yelizaveta Alekseyevna took him to the Caucasus region for a better climate. There, young Lermontov for the first time fell in love.

School years

The intellectual atmosphere in which he grew up differed little from that experienced by Pushkin, though the domination of French had begun to give way to a preference for English, and Lamartine shared his popularity with Byron. In his early childhood Lermontov was educated by a Frenchman named Gendrot. Yelizaveta Alekseyevna felt that this was not sufficient and decided to take Lermontov to Moscow, to prepare for gymnasium. In Moscow, Lermontov was introduced to Goethe and Schiller by a German pedagogue, Levy, and shortly afterwards, in 1828, he entered the gymnasium. He showed himself to be exceptional student. Also at the gymnasium he became acquainted with the poetry of Pushkin and Zhukovsky, and one of his friends, Katerina Hvostovaya, later described him as "married to a hefty volume of Byron". This friend had at one time been an object of Lermontov's affection, and to her he dedicated some of his earliest poems, "Нищий (У врат обители святой)" (The Beggar). At that time, along with his poetic passion, Lermontov also developed an inclination for poisonous wit, and cruel and sardonic humor. His ability to draw caricatures was matched by his ability to pin someone down with a well aimed epigram or nickname. Aleksandr Pushkin by Vasily Tropinin Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Пу́шкин, Aleksandr Sergeevič PuÅ¡kin,  ) (June 6, 1799 [O.S. May 26] – February 10, 1837 [O.S. January 29]) was a Russian Romantic author who is considered to be the greatest Russian poet[1] [2][3] and the founder of modern Russian... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Portrait of Alphonse de Lamartine Lamartine in front of the Hôtel de Ville de Paris, on the 25 February 1848, by Philippoteaux Alphonse Marie Louise Prat de Lamartine (Alphonse-Marie-Louis de Prat de Lamartine) (October 21, 1790 - February 28, 1869) was a French writer, poet and politician, born... Byron redirects here. ... A gymnasium (pronounced with or, in Swedish, as opposed to ) is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English Grammar Schools and U.S. High Schools. ... Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (pronounced [gø tə]) (August 28, 1749–March 22, 1832) was a German writer, politician, humanist, scientist, and philosopher. ... Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (November 10, 1759 - May 9, 1805), usually known as Friedrich Schiller, was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and dramatist. ... On the publication of Pushkins first major work in 1820, Zhukovsky presented the younger poet with this famous portrait of himself, over the inscription: To the victorious disciple from his vanquished tutor Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky (b. ... For the book of comics by Daniel Clowes, see Caricature (Daniel Clowes collection). ... An epigram is a short poem with a clever twist at the end or a concise and witty statement. ...

At the university

After the academic gymnasium, in the August 1830, Lermontov entered the Moscow University. That same summer the final, tragic act of the family discord played out. Having been struck deep by his son's alienation, Yuri Lermontov left the Arseniev house for good, only to die a short time later. His father's death on such a note was a terrible loss for Mikhail, and is reflected in his poems: "Forgive me, Will we Meet Again?" and "The Terrible Fate of Father and Son". Moscow State University campus M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (Московский Государственный Университет имени М.В.Ломоносова, often abbreviated МГУ, MSU, MGU) is considered the oldest university in Russia, founded in 1755. ...

Lermontov's career at the university was short-lived. He attended lectures faithfully, but he would often read a book in the corner of the auditorium, and rarely took part in a student life. What brought his time at the University to an end was a prank a group of students pulled against one of the professors named Malov. Several biographers see this incident as the reason for Mikhail's departure.

Lermontov Museum in the village of Taman.

1. ...

Young cadet - first poems

The events at the University led Lermontov to seriously reconsider his career choice. From 1830 to 1834 he attended the cadets school in Saint Petersburg, and in due course he became an officer in the guards. There Lermontov got a chance to show his incredible strength: he and another junior officer would tie steel ramrods, as if they were simple ropes, into knots, until they were caught at this task . When they were caught doing it,by General Schlippenbach he yelled them "What are you kids doing, pulling pranks like these?" and since then Lermontov would laugh:"Such kids! to tie steel ramrods into knots!" Saint Petersburg (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, English transliteration: Sankt-Peterburg), colloquially known as Питер (transliterated Piter), formerly known as Leningrad (Ленингра́д, 1924–1991) and Petrograd (Петрогра́д, 1914–1924), is a city located in Northwestern Russia on the delta of the river Neva at the east end of the Gulf of Finland... Look up ramrod in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

At that time he began writing poetry. He also took a keen interest in Russian history and medieval epics, which would be reflected in the Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov, his long poem Borodino, poems addressed to the city of Moscow, and a series of popular ballads. A Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevish, the Young Oprichnik, and the Valorous Merchant Kalashnikov, often abbreviated as The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov, is a poem by Mikhail Lermontov written in 1837 and first published in 1838. ... For other uses, see Moscow (disambiguation). ... A ballad is a story in song, usually a narrative song or poem. ...

Fame and exile

To express his own and the nation's anger at the loss of Pushkin (1837) the young soldier wrote a passionate poem the latter part of which was explicitly addressed to the inner circles at the court, though not to the tsar himself. The poem all but accused the powerful "pillars" of Russian high society of complicity in Pushkin's murder. (Note: Pushkin was not murdered. He was killed in a duel, in which he was the challenger.) Without mincing words, it portrayed that society as a cabal of self-interested venomous wretches "huddling about the throne in a greedy throng", "the hangmen who kill liberty, genius, and glory" about to suffer the apocalyptic judgement of God. Cleaving the repressive atmosphere of 1830's Russia like a lightning bolt from a still sky, the poem had the power of biblical prophecy.

Lermontov took delight in painting mountain landscapes

The tsar, however, seems to have found more impertinence than inspiration in the address, for Lermontov was forthwith sent off to the Caucasus as an officer in the dragoons. He had been in the Caucasus with his grandmother as a boy of ten, and he found himself at home, with feelings deeper than those of childhood recollection. The stern and rocky virtues of the mountain tribesmen against whom he had to fight, no less than the scenery of the rocks and of the mountains themselves, were close to his heart; the tsar had exiled him to his native land. Mikhail Lermontov. ... Mikhail Lermontov. ... A light dragoon from the American Revolution A dragoon is a soldier trained to fight on foot, but transport himself on horseback. ...

Lermontov visited Saint Petersburg in 1838 and 1839, and his indignant observations of the aristocratic milieu, wherein fashionable ladies welcomed him as a celebrity, occasioned his play Masquerade. His not reciprocated attachment to Varvara Lopukhina was recorded in the novel Princess Ligovskaya, which he never finished. His duel with a son of the French ambassador led to Lermontov being returned to the army fighting the war in the Caucasus, where he distinguished himself in hand-to-hand combat near the Valerik River.

A landscape painted by Lermontov. Tiflis, 1837

By 1839 he completed his most important novel, A Hero of Our Time, which prophetically describes the duel like the one in which he would eventually later lose his life. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 752 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1134 × 904 pixel, file size: 217 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) МИХАИЛ ЛЕРМОНТОВ. Тифлис. 1837 Mikhail Lermontov Tiflis 1837 From http://john-petrov. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 752 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1134 × 904 pixel, file size: 217 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) МИХАИЛ ЛЕРМОНТОВ. Тифлис. 1837 Mikhail Lermontov Tiflis 1837 From http://john-petrov. ... View of Tiflis from the Grounds of Saint David Church, ca. ... For other uses, see Novel (disambiguation). ... A Hero of Our Time (Russian: ) is a short novel by Mikhail Lermontov, written in 1839 and revised in 1841. ... A duel is a formalized type of combat. ...

Tragic death and the aftermath

On July 25, 1841, at Pyatigorsk, fellow army officer Nikolai Martynov, who felt hurt by one of Lermontov's jokes, challenged Lermontov to a duel. The duel took place two days later at the foot of Mashuk mountain. Lermontov chose the edge of a precipice for the duel, so that if either combatant was wounded, he would fall down the cliff. Lermontov was killed by Martynov's first shot. Several of his verses were posthumously discovered in his notebook. is the 206th day of the year (207th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1841 is a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Pyatigorsk (Russian: Пятигорск) is a city of a population of over 200,000 (2002) located in Stavropol Krai on the Podkumok River in the Northern Caucasus Federal District of Russia about twenty kilometers from Mineralnye Vody, at 44°2′N 43°4′E. The name Pyatigorsk means five mountains in Russian... Nikolay Solomonovich Martynov (Russian: ) (1815–1875) was a Russian army officer who fatally shot the poet Mikhail Lermontov in a duel. ...

Lermontov's life must be viewed as one of the most epic and dramatic in the history of literature. After attacking the tsar as complicit in the de facto assassination of Pushkin, Lermontov himself fell in a duel that many believe was also the work of a tsarist conspiracy designed to silence nascent rebellion. His major works, which can be readily quoted from memory by many Russians, suffer from the generally poor quality of translation from Russian to English - Lermontov therefore, remains largely unknown to English-speaking readers. His poem "Mtsyri" ("The Novice") tells the story of a young man who finds that dangerous freedom is vastly preferable to protected servitude, and speaks as eloquently as anything written by Thomas Jefferson for the spirit of the American revolution. The presence of Lermontov with his enormous talent and growing popularity was dangerous for the tsarist system in Russia. Thomas Jefferson (13 April 1743 N.S.–4 July 1826) was the third President of the United States (1801–09), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and one of the most influential Founding Fathers for his promotion of the ideals of Republicanism in the United States. ...

Works

Lermontov's poetic development was unusual. His earliest unpublished work that he circulated through his friends in the military was mere a joke with bawdy elements. They were used to damage the poet reputation, so much so that admission of familiarity with Lermontov's poetry was not permissible for any young upper-class woman for a good part of 19th century. These early poems were published only once, in 1924, as part of a scholarly edition of Lermontov's complete works (edited by Irakly Andronikov).

During his lifetime, Lermontov published only one slender collection of poems (1840). Three volumes, much mutilated by censorship, were published a year after his death. His short poems range from indignantly patriotic pieces like Fatherland to the pantheistic glorification of living nature (e.g., Alone I set out on the road ...) Lermontov's early verse has been termed by some puerile, for despite his dexterous command of the language, it usually appeals more to adolescents than to adults. But like Percy Bysshe Shelley, with whom he is often compared, he attempted to analyse and bring to light the deeper reasons for this metaphysical discontent with society and himself. Poetry (ancient Greek: poieo = create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... For other uses, see Censor. ... Pantheism (Greek: πάν ( pan ) = all and θεός ( theos ) = God) literally means God is All and All is God. It is the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent abstract God; or that the universe, or nature, and God are equivalent. ... Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792 – July 8, 1822; pronounced ) was one of the major English Romantic poets and is widely considered to be among the finest lyric poets of the English language. ...

Mikhail Vrubel's illustration to the Demon (1890).

Both patriotic and pantheistic Lermontov's poems had enormous influence on later Russian literature. Boris Pasternak, for instance, dedicated his 1917 poetic collection of signal importance to the memory of Lermontov's Demon, a long poem featuring some of the most mellifluous lines in the language, which Lermontov rewrote several times. The poem, which celebrates the carnal passions of the "eternal spirit of atheism" to a "maid of mountains", was banned from publication for decades. Anton Rubinstein's lush opera on the same subject was also banned by censors who deemed it sacrilegious. Demon Seated in a Garden (1890). ... Demon Seated in a Garden (1890). ... Self-portrait, 1885 Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel (Russian: Михаил Александрович Врубель;March 17, 1856 - April 14, 1910, all n. ... Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia or its émigrés, and to the Russian-language literature of several independent nations once a part of what was historically Russia or the Soviet Union. ... Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (Russian: ) (February 10 [O.S. January 29] 1890 – May 30, 1960) was a Nobel Prize-winning Russian poet and writer, in the West best known for his epic novel Doctor Zhivago. ... Anton Rubinstein. ... For other uses, see Opera (disambiguation). ...

For his only novel, Lermontov deserves to be regarded as one of the founding fathers of Russian prose. A Hero of Our Time is actually a tightly knitted collection of short stories revolving around a single character, Pechorin. The short stories comprising this work are intricately connected, and the reader moves from a superficial glimpse of the character's actions to an understanding of his philosophy and of the secret springs of his seemingly mysterious behavior. The structure of the novel is modern, and has inspired several imitations, notably by Vladimir Nabokov in his novel Pnin (1955). A Hero of Our Time (Russian: ) is a short novel by Mikhail Lermontov, written in 1839 and revised in 1841. ... This page is about the novelist. ... Pnin is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov published in 1957. ...

Legacy

A minor planet 2222 Lermontov discovered in 1977 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh is named after him. ^[1] Minor planets, or asteroids or planetoids, are minor celestial bodies of the Solar system orbiting the Sun (mostly Small solar system bodies) that are smaller than major planets, but larger than meteoroids (commonly defined as being 10 meters across or less[1]), and that are not comets. ... CCCP redirects here. ... Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh (Николай Степанович Черных) (born October 6, 1931, died May 26, 2004) was a Soviet/Russian astronomer. ...

A sample of Lermontov's poetry

The Dream is one of Lermontov's last poems, featured in his posthumous diary. Vladimir Nabokov, whose translation follows, thought this "threefold dream" prophetic of the poet's own death. This page is about the novelist. ...

Mikhail Lermontov.

References

See also

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Author:Mikhail Lermontov

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Mikhail Lermontov

• The Princess of the Tide - a poem by Lermontov
• Lermontov (crater) - crater on the planet Mercury named after him
• Mikhail Lermontov (ship)
• Sergei Parajanov - filmed Ashik Kerib, a 1988 film based on Lermontov's poem
• A Hero of Our Time - English translation by Irwin Paul Foote, Penguin Classics.

Image File history File links Wikisource-logo. ... The original Wikisource logo. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Wikiquote is one of a family of wiki-based projects run by the Wikimedia Foundation, running on MediaWiki software. ... This page is a candidate to be copied to Wikisource. ... This article is about the planet. ... The Mikhail Lermontov was a Soviet cruise ship that sank in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand, on February 16, 1986. ... Sergei Parajanov and Lilya Brik, a sister of Aragons wife Elsa Triolet. ... Ashik Kerib (Geo. ... // Michael Jacksons first film was Moonwalker Rain Man, starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise Who Framed Roger Rabbit, starring Bob Hoskins Coming to America, starring Eddie Murphy Big, starring Tom Hanks Twins, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito Crocodile Dundee II Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis The Naked Gun... A Hero of Our Time (Russian: ) is a short novel by Mikhail Lermontov, written in 1839 and revised in 1841. ...

External links

• International Lermontov Society
• 22 Poems translated to English and many more in Russian
• Works by Mikhail Lermontov at Project Gutenberg
• Online Lermontov shrine
• Some texts by Lermontov in the original Russian
• (Russian) The ancestors Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov
• M. Lermontov BORODINO

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.