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LERMONTOV, MIKHAIL YUREVICH (1814–1841)
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See also:LERMONTOV, MIKHAIL YUREVICH (1814–1841) , See also:Russian poet and novelist, often styled the poet of the See also:Caucasus, was See also:born in See also:Moscow, of Scottish descent, but belonged to a respectable See also:family of the See also:Tula See also:government, and was brought up in the See also:village of Tarkhanui (in the Penzensk government), which now preserves his dust. By his grandmother—on whom the whole care of his childhood was devolved by his See also:mother's See also:early See also:death and his See also:father's military service—no cost. nor pains was spared to give him the best See also:education she could think of. The intellectual See also:atmosphere which he breathed in his youth differed little from that in which See also:Pushkin had grown up, though the domination of See also:French had begun to give way before the See also:fancy for See also:English, and Lamartine shared his popularity with See also:Byron. From the See also:academic gymnasium in Moscow Lermontov passed in 1830 to the university, but there his career came to an untimely See also:close through the See also:part he took in some acts of insubordination to an See also:obnoxious teacher. From 1830 to 1834•he attended the school of cadets at St See also:Peters-See also:burg, and in due course he became an officer in the See also:guards. To his own and the nation's anger at the loss of Pushkin (1837) the See also:young soldier gave vent in a passionate poem addressed to the See also:tsar, and the very See also:voice which proclaimed that, if See also:Russia took no vengeance on the See also:assassin of her poet, no second poet would be given her, was itself an intimation that a poet had come already. The tsar, however, seems to have found more impertinence than See also:inspiration in the address, for Lermontov was forthwith sent off to the Caucasus as an officer of dragoons. He had been in the Caucasus with his grandmother as a boy of ten, and he found himself at See also:home by yet deeper sympathies than those of childish recollection. The stern and rocky virtues of the mountaineers against whom he had to fight, no less than the scenery of the rocks 'and mountains themselves, proved akin to his See also:heart; the See also:emperor had exiled him to his native See also:land. He was in St See also:Petersburg in 1838 and 1839, and in the latter See also:year wrote the novel, A See also:Hero of Our See also:Time, which is said to have been the occasion of the See also:duel in which he lost his See also:life in See also:July 1841. In this contest he had purposely selected the edge of a precipice, so that if either combatant was wounded so as to fall his See also:fate should be sealed. Lermontov published only one small collection of poems in 184o. Three volumes, much mutilated by the censorship, were issued in 1842 by Glazounov; and there have been full See also:editions of his See also:works in 186o and 1863. To See also:Bodenstedt's See also:German See also:translation of his poems (Mk/tail Lermontov's poetischer Nachlass, See also:Berlin, 1842, 2 vols.), which indeed was the first satisfactory collection, he is indebted for a wide reputation outside of Russia. His novel has found several translators (See also:August Boltz, Berlin, 1852, &c.). Among his best-known pieces are " See also:Ismail-See also:Bey," " Hadji Abrek," " Walerik," " The Novice," and, remarkable as an See also:imitation of the old Russian ballad, " The See also:song of the tsar See also:Ivan Vasilivitch, his young See also:body-guard, and the bold See also:merchant Kalashnikov."
See See also:Taillandier, " Le Poke du Caucase," in Revue See also:des deux mondes
(See also:February 1855), reprinted in Allemagne et Russie (See also:Paris, 1856) ; Duduishkin's " Materials for the See also:Biography of Lermontov," prefixed to the 1863 edition of his works. The Demon, translated by See also:Sir See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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