Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov was born on October 3, 1814 in Moscow, and died at the foot of Mount Mashuk, located near Pyatigorsk, on July 15, 1841. His ashes in April of the following year, 1842, were transported to Tarkhany, to the family crypt. This article presents the biography of Lermontov, the main milestones of his life and work.

Origin of M. Yu. Lermontov

He was the son of Yuri Petrovich Lermontov (lived 1787-1831), an army captain, and Maria Mikhailovna (lived 1795-1817), nee Arsenyeva, the only daughter and therefore heiress of the large fortune of Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva, a Penza landowner (lived - 1773-1845), who belonged to the influential and wealthy Stolypin family.

Lermontov in this family was related or related to the Khastatovs, Shah-Gireys, Evreinovs, Meshcherinovs, Filosofovs, as well as with Alexei Arkadyevich Stolypin, one of his best friends, nicknamed Mongo. The marriage, concluded against the will of the maternal grandmother, was unhappy and unequal; the boy was forced to grow up in an environment of constant family strife.

After his parent died early, her mother, a powerful, intelligent and firm woman, who transferred all her love to her grandson, began raising him herself, while completely sidelining his father.

Lermontov's work reflected these early impressions of life in Tarkhany in such works as "People and Passions" (1830), "Strange Man" (written in 1831), as well as in the poems "Epitaph" (1832) and "Terrible the fate of father and son", created by the author in 1831.

Ancestral legends

Tribal family traditions also influenced him directly or indirectly. The Lermontov family is believed to have been founded by George (Yuri) Lermont, a Scottish officer who lived in the 17th century. It goes back to Thomas the Rhymer (13th century), a semi-legendary soothsayer and poet from Scotland.

Lermontov's childhood

Mikhail Yuryevich spent his childhood in the Penza province, on the Tarkhany estate, which belonged to the boy’s grandmother. Now the Lermontov Museum is located here. The future poet received a home education in the capital (his tutor was a Frenchman, Bonn was a German woman, and in later years an Englishman was appointed teacher). The Lermontov Museum, as a symbol of the connection of times, carefully preserves the tree planted by Mikhail Lermontov in the Tarkhany estate, on the shore of the pond.

Since childhood, the boy was fluent in German and French. As a child, he knew well the life of his native landowner's estate (including social life), which he captured in his autobiographical dramas. In the summer of 1825, my grandmother took Mikhail Yuryevich to the Caucasus, to the waters; His impressions of the mountain peoples and Caucasian nature remained in the early works of this author (“Caucasus”, 1830, the poem “Blue Mountains of the Caucasus, I greet you!” written in 1832).

Moving to Moscow, studying at a boarding school

In 1827, Mikhail Yuryevich’s entire family moved to Moscow, and he left his parents’ home. Since September 1828, Lermontov has been enrolled as a half-boarder in a Moscow boarding school, in the 4th grade, where he receives a humanitarian education, supplemented by Mikhail Yuryevich with constant, systematic reading. This is how Lermontov’s childhood continued. While still in Tarkhany, he developed a keen interest in literature and poetry; in Moscow, the boy’s mentors were A.F. Merzlyakov, A.Z. Zinoviev and S.E. Raich, who led the literary circle at the boarding school. In the poems of the young poet of the period 1828-1830 there are traces of the influence of Raich, the “Italian school”, as well as the poetry of K. N. Batyushkov, but already in the boarding school the predominant orientation of this author towards A. S. Pushkin, in particular, towards the Byronic poem, developed , as well as the program of wise men from the Moskovsky Vestnik magazine. It is the Byronic poem that in the coming years becomes the main one in the early work of Mikhail Yuryevich. In 1828-1829 he created the following works: “Two Brothers”, “Oleg”, “Criminal”, “Corsair”.

Moscow University, first hobby

The free rules of the boarding school in March 1830 aroused the dissatisfaction of Tsar Nicholas I himself (who visited it in the spring), and by decree of the Senate this educational institution was transformed into a gymnasium. In 1830, Lermontov evaded “at the request” and spent the whole summer with the Stolypins, in the Serednikovo estate, located near Moscow (from April to July 1830); in the same year, after successfully passing the exams, he was enrolled as a student at Moscow University. Lermontov’s first serious youthful passion for E. A. Sushkova (life: 1812-1868), whom Mikhail Yuryevich met at A. M. Vereshchagina, his friend, also dates back to this period. A lyrical “cycle” of 1830 is dedicated to Sushkova (poems “The Beggar”, “To Sushkova”, “Night”, “Stanzas”, “Imitation of Byron”, “I don’t love you: passions”, etc.).

Lermontov's Beloved

Lermontov's life and work are closely connected, since the works of this poet largely reflect his life, including love, impressions.

Apparently, Mikhail Yuryevich somewhat later experiences an even stronger feeling, albeit short-lived, for N. F. Ivanova (life - 1813-1875), daughter of F. F. Ivanov, playwright. The poems of the cycle dedicated to her ("N.F.I...howl", "Romance to I...", "N.F.I.", "K*", etc.) are highly dramatic, including motives for death, love betrayal, etc. The drama “Strange Man” also reflected the general contours of the romance with this girl.

The next recipient of Mikhail Yuryevich’s poems in the early 1830s was Varvara Aleksandrovna Lopukhina (married to Bakhmetev) (1815-1851), the sister of Lermontov’s university friend. Mikhail Yuryevich’s feeling for her turned out to be the longest and strongest; he, according to A.P. Shan-Girey, close to the poet, kept it “until his death.” Varvara Alexandrovna was the prototype and addressee both in the poet’s early lyrics (“K.L.”, “She is not proud of her beauty...”, etc.), and in his later works: “Valerik” or, for example, the dedication to the sixth edition "Demon." This image runs through Lermontov’s work in the poems “To Princess Ligovskaya”, “No, it’s not you I love so ardently”, etc.

Moving to St. Petersburg and military career

We continue to describe the biography of the great Russian poet. At the beginning of the 1830s, Lermontov's life and work moved to the next stage. Disappointed with the routine of teaching, Mikhail Yuryevich left the university in 1832 and went to St. Petersburg (July-August of the same year), hoping to continue his education at St. Petersburg University; however, here they refused to give him credit for the courses he took in Moscow. In order not to start his studies all over again, the poet accepts, not without hesitation, the advice of his relatives to choose a military career for himself. He takes exams in November 1832 at the School of Guards Ensigns and spends two “terrible years” in this closed educational institution, where parades, duty, and combat service left Lermontov almost no time for creative activity (the life of this place was reflected in a crudely naturalistic form in the cadets poems by Mikhail Yuryevich - “Ulansha”, “Peterhof Holiday”, “Gospital”, written in 1834). This theme comes to life the following year, 1835, when the poet was released as a cornet into the Hussar Regiment (this happened in September 1834). At the same time, his poem “Hadji Arbek” appeared, Mikhail Yuryevich censored the drama “Masquerade” in the first edition, worked on the works “Boyarin Orsha”, “Sashka”, and began writing his novel “Princess Ligovskaya”.

Lermontov Mikhail Yuryevich gets the opportunity to communicate with representatives of the literary circles of St. Petersburg. However, information about these contacts is scant; it is known that he met I. I. Kozlov, A. N. Muravyov, as well as S. A. Raevsky, who were close to Slavophile circles, which contributed to the growth of Lermontov’s already emerging interest in the problems of national culture and history. Raevsky, one of this author’s close comrades (who suffered in 1837 for distributing the poem “Death of a Poet”), was privy to the process of Mikhail Yuryevich’s work on the work “Princess Ligovskaya” (begun in 1836, but never completed, published only in 1882), in which one of the plot lines is based on the story of Lermontov’s romance with Sushkova, which was renewed again at that time.

"Death of poet"

Lermontov Mikhail Yuryevich in 1835-1836 was not included in A.S.’s inner circle. Pushkin, he is also not familiar with the poet himself. Therefore, the poem “The Death of a Poet” (written in 1837, published in 1858) takes on an all the more fundamental character. Lermontov in his speech represents an entire generation that mourned the death of this national genius and rebelled against the enemies who killed him. This work instantly spread to various lists and brought wide fame to its creator. The poet transferred the main burden of guilt to society, in particular, to its elite, the so-called “new aristocracy” (in his poem - “arrogant descendants”), which had no support in the national cultural and historical tradition and formed the core of the anti-Pushkin party in the capital, retaining posthumous hatred for him. The final 16 lines of the poem (added later, on February 7) were interpreted at court as a direct “appeal to revolution.” Lermontov was arrested on February 18, 1837; a political case began about his so-called “inadmissible” poems. While under arrest, Mikhail Lermontov created several works: the poems “Neighbor”, “Prisoner”, etc., which laid the foundation for his “prison lyrics” - a brilliant cycle of poems, including such works as “The Captive Knight”, “The Neighbor” (both in 1840 year) and others.

Years of service in the Caucasus

In February 1837, the tsar issued an order to transfer Lermontov to the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment as an ensign to the Caucasus. He left via Moscow in March. Having caught a cold on the way, Mikhail Yuryevich was sent for treatment along the route to his regiment in Stavropol, Kislovodsk, Pyatigorsk (April - September 1837) and other places. Lermontov was sent to Tiflis in November, where connections arose with the cultural environment grouped around A. Chavchavadze (who was Griboedov’s father-in-law). This man was one of the most significant representatives of romanticism in Georgia. Mikhail Yuryevich comes into close contact with the life of the people, sees the life of Russian soldiers, Cossack villages, and various nationalities of the Caucasus. All this reflects Lermontov’s creativity, in particular, in elements of folklore; in 1837, the poet writes down a fairy tale about Ashik-Kerib with the same name, where he strives to show the flavor of oriental speech and the psychology of the Azerbaijani storyteller; in “The Fugitive”, “Cossack Lullaby”, “Gifts of the Terek”, a folk character with its ethnic features grows out of the element of folklore. In Stavropol and Pyatigorsk, the poet meets N. M. Satin, whom he knew from the Moscow boarding school, as well as Doctor N. V. Mayer (in “Princess Mary” his prototype is Doctor Werner) and Belinsky; converges closely with A.I. Odoevsky, to whom he later dedicated the poem “In Memory of A.I. Odoevsky.”

What was Lermontov like?

Mikhail Yuryevich made a great impression, which Belinsky later wrote about in his letters. People of the so-called “generation of the 1820s,” the Decembrists in particular (Lorer, Nazimov), felt that the poet Lermontov was a representative of a different generation, infected with social pessimism and skepticism, hiding his inner world from others under the guise of social indifferentism and irony. With Mikhail Yuryevich this was often expressed outwardly in the desire to avoid conversations on any serious topics, in an ironic attitude towards confession and enthusiasm. This characteristic of Lermontov was noted by many contemporaries. This manner of behavior in 1837 initially alienated Belinsky, who was accustomed to philosophical disputes in friendly circles. For Lermontov himself, meanwhile, these conversations and meetings became rich creative material: he found the opportunity to comprehend, by contrast, some of the socio-psychological characteristics of the generation to which he belonged. The results of this are summarized by the poet Lermontov in “Duma” and in the image of Pechorin.

During his exile and especially later, another artistic talent of Mikhail Yuryevich was revealed, who was fond of painting from childhood. His brushes include oil paintings, watercolors, genre scenes, landscape paintings, caricatures and portraits, the best of which are related to Caucasian themes.

Return to St. Petersburg

Lermontov's further biography is marked by the following events. The exile of Mikhail Yuryevich through A. Kh. Benckendorf was shortened by the efforts of his grandmother. In October 1837, an order was issued to transfer the poet to the Novgorod province to the Grodno Hussar Regiment, and then to Tsarskoe Selo. Mikhail Yuryevich returned in January 1838, and then, from May 1838, settled in St. Petersburg. The years of the poet's literary glory fell on the period from 1838 to 1841. He was immediately accepted into the Pushkin literary circle, where he became close with P. A. Vyazemsky, V. A. Zhukovsky, V. A. Sologub, P. A. Pletnev, closer to V. F. Odoevsky, as well as the Karamzins, who became for him the closest cultural environment: he participates in home entertainment and performances of this family, is friends with regular visitors to their salon - I. P. Myatlev, Smirnova-Rosset, Rostopchina. Here, at the Karamzins’, the poet read “Clouds” on the eve of his last exile. In 1840, “Hero of Our Time” and “Poems” - the only lifetime collection of poetry - were published in separate editions in St. Petersburg.

"Circle of Sixteen"

In 1838-1840, Mikhail Yuryevich was a member of the “Circle of Sixteen” - a youth aristocratic society, whose members were K. V. Branitsky-Korchak, A. N. Dolgoruky, I. S. Gagarin, Stolypin and others. It was united by special laws behavior, as well as the political opposition of members of this association. According to some reports, Lermontov plays a leading role in this circle.

Collision with E. Barant

Lermontov's biography continues with the following events. At a ball hosted by Countess Laval, held in February 1840, Mikhail Yuryevich clashed with E. Barant, the son of the French envoy. The reason was the secular rivalry of these two people, more precisely, the preference of the poet by Princess M.A. Shcherbatova (to whom Mikhail Lermontov dedicated the poems “On Secular Chains”, “Prayer” and, possibly, “Father”). Barant was infatuated with this woman, as was Mikhail Yuryevich (in 1839-1840). On February 18, a duel took place, which ended in reconciliation. Nevertheless, Lermontov was handed over to a military court; While under arrest, he is visited by literary acquaintances and friends, including Belinsky. At the same time, a new explanation took place with Barant, which worsened the course of the matter.

Pyatigorsk, duel with Martynov

Lermontov's biography continues. In April 1840, the poet was transferred to the active army in the Caucasus. In June he arrives in Stavropol, and already in July he takes part in skirmishes with the highlanders in the battle near the Valerik River.

At the beginning of February 1841, he came to St. Petersburg on vacation and spent 3 months in the capital, after which in April 1841 he returned to the Caucasus. In May, the poet arrives in Pyatigorsk for treatment with mineral waters, where he finds the company of former acquaintances, including Martynov, the poet’s friend at the School of Junkers. Lermontov's jokes at one of the evenings offended the latter, and a quarrel broke out, leading to a challenge to a duel, in which Mikhail Yuryevich was killed.

The Meaning of Creativity

The work of this poet, which lasted very briefly (only 13 years - in the period from 1828 to 1841), was in the post-Pushkin period the highest point in the development of Russian poetry and opened new paths for Russian prose. The main dates of Lermontov form the history of not only his life and work, but also the development of literature in our country in those years. Associated with it is such a concept as the “1830s,” characterized by an increasing interest in the latest trends in religious and idealistic philosophy (Hegel, Schelling), as well as deepening self-analysis of society, attention to deep historical processes, and the dialecticism of literary thinking.

During the period of gloomy reaction, Mikhail Yuryevich expressed his protest against social and political oppression, called for struggle, for action, revealed the existing tragic situation in the state of progressive thinking people, and pointed out that salvation lies only in the people. This poet, with his work, continued the work of the Decembrists, preparing in new historical conditions the path followed in the 60s by the revolutionary democrats, representatives of the second stage of the liberation movement in our country. Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky, their leaders, passionately loved Lermontov’s poetry and noted its great role in the history of social thought and Russian literature in our country.

And with the novel “Hero of Our Time,” Mikhail Yuryevich paved the way for such writers as Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev and Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

Mikhail Lermontov is one of the most famous Russian poets, and recognition came to him during his lifetime. His work, which combined sensitive social themes with philosophical motives and personal experiences, had a huge influence on poets and writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. “Culture.RF” talks about the personality, life and work of Mikhail Lermontov.

Moscow youth

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov was born on the night of October 2-3 (October 15, new style) 1814 in a house opposite the Red Gate Square - the very one where the most famous monument to the poet in Russia stands today.

Lermontov’s mother was not even seventeen at that time, and his father had a reputation as an attractive but frivolous person. The real power in the family was in the hands of the poet’s grandmother, Elizaveta Arsenyeva. It was she who insisted that the boy be named not Peter, as his father wanted, but Mikhail.

Young Lermontov was not distinguished by either good health or a cheerful disposition.

Artist unknown. Portrait of Mikhail Lermontov. 1820–1822. Institute of Russian Literature, St. Petersburg

Throughout his childhood he suffered from scrofula. A slight boy with an eating disorder and a rash all over his body caused disdain and ridicule among his peers. “Deprived of the opportunity to have fun with the ordinary amusements of children, Sasha began to look for them in himself...”- Lermontov wrote in one of his autobiographical stories. The more often Lermontov was ill, the more intensively his grandmother worked on his treatment and education. In 1825, she brought him to the Caucasus - this is how the most important toponym for him arose in Lermontov’s life. “The Caucasus Mountains are sacred to me”, wrote the poet.

From September 1830, the poet studied at Moscow University - first in the moral and political department, and then in the verbal department. Later, following the Caucasus, Lermontov would call the University his “holy place.”

True, Mikhail did not seek the friendship of fellow students, did not take part in student circles, and skimped on disputes. Among those “ignored” by Lermontov was Vissarion Belinsky: they first communicated much later - during the poet’s first arrest. At the end of the second year, during a rehearsal for exams in rhetoric, heraldry and numismatics, Lermontov demonstrated that he was well-read beyond the syllabus and... almost complete ignorance of the lecture material. There were arguments with the examiners. So in the administration records, opposite Lermontov’s last name, a note appeared in Latin: consilium abeundi (“advised to leave”). After this, the young man moved to St. Petersburg.

St. Petersburg students

Lermontov disliked the city on the Neva, and the feeling turned out to be mutual. St. Petersburg University refused to count Lermontov's two Moscow years of study - he was offered to enroll again as a first-year student. Lermontov was offended and, on the advice of a friend, passed the exam at the School of Guards Ensigns and Cavalry Junkers.

On the eve of admission, Lermontov wrote a credo poem “Sail”. However, instead of a “storm”, only drill and routine awaited the poet at school. Here “It was not allowed to read books of purely literary content”. Lermontov called his years of study “terrible” and “ill-fated.”

At the School of Ensigns, the poet received the nickname Mayushka (in consonance with the French “doigt en maillet” - “crooked finger”). Lermontov really had a stoop, but the accuracy of the nickname lay not only in this. Its second meaning is a reference to a character in novels named Mae, a cynic and wit. During the course, the poet really behaved independently and boldly, while academically he was among the best students. In the notes of fellow student Nikolai Martynov (the same one who challenged the poet to the last duel), Lermontov is characterized as a person “so superior in mental development to all other comrades that it is impossible to draw parallels between them”.

Mikhail Lermontov. Pyatigorsk 1837-1838. State Literary Museum, Moscow

Mikhail Lermontov. Attack of the Life Guards Hussars near Warsaw. 1837. State Lermontov Museum-Reserve “Tarkhany”, village of Lermontovo, Penza region

Mikhail Lermontov. View of Tiflis. 1837. State Literary Museum, Moscow

During the St. Petersburg period, the poet began a historical novel on the theme of Pugachevism (“Vadim”), wrote lyrics (poems “Prayer”, “Angel”), the poem “Boyarin Orsha”, worked on the drama “Masquerade”.

On January 27, 1837, a duel between Alexander Pushkin and Georges Dantes took place on the Black River. Even before his death, rumors about the poet's death spread throughout St. Petersburg - they also reached Lermontov. Already on January 28, the first 56 verses of “The Death of a Poet” were finished, and the work began to rapidly spread in the lists. Literary critic Ivan Panaev wrote: “Lermontov’s poems on the poet’s death were copied in tens of thousands of copies, reread and learned by heart by everyone.”. On February 7, Lermontov wrote the 16 final lines of the poem (starting with “And you, arrogant descendants // Of the famous meanness of the illustrious fathers”), in which, along with the “murderer,” the high society of St. Petersburg and those close to the “throne” were named guilty of the poet’s death.

At the end of February, Lermontov was taken into custody. The proceedings took place with the personal participation of Emperor Nicholas I. Pushkin's friends (primarily Vasily Zhukovsky) and Lermontov's own grandmother, who also had social connections, stood up for Lermontov. As a result, he was transferred “with rank retained” to the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment, which was then operating in the Caucasus. Lermontov left St. Petersburg a scandalous celebrity.

Literary fame

Lermontov's first Caucasian exile lasted only a few months, but was eventful: work on Mtsyri and The Demon, meeting the exiled Decembrists, visiting Pyatigorsk with its “water society” and a trip to Tiflis. During his exile, the poet’s youthful gaiety almost disappeared; he became even more withdrawn, often in “black melancholy.”

Thanks to his grandmother’s efforts, in 1838 Lermontov returned to the St. Petersburg world again. He was accepted into the circle of the literary elite: Pyotr Vyazemsky, Vasily Zhukovsky, Nikolai Karamzin. Lermontov became one of the most popular writers in the capital. Almost every issue of the magazine “Domestic Notes” by Andrei Kraevsky was published with new poems by the poet.

However, two years later, after another participation in a duel - with the son of the French ambassador Ernest de Barant - Lermontov again found himself in the Caucasus. He was ordered to be in the active army. Lermontov accepted the new punishment with passion: he participated in many battles, including the battle on the Valerik River. He dedicated the poem “Valerik” to this battle.

In the Caucasus, the poet worked on the novel “A Hero of Our Time,” the first chapters of which were created several years earlier. The work was published in excerpts in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski, and later published as a separate book - it sold out very quickly. In the same year, 1840, the only lifetime edition of Lermontov’s poems was published.

Pyotr Konchalovsky. Portrait of Mikhail Lermontov. 1943. Image: russianlook.com

Ilya Repin. Duel (fragment). 1897. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

At the beginning of February 1841, Lermontov obtained a short vacation to St. Petersburg. In the poet’s notebook at that moment the textbook “Cliff”, “Dream”, “Prophet”, “An oak leaf tore off from a branch” and “I go out alone on the road” were already written down. In the capital, Lermontov was busy with the publication of the poem “The Demon” and was considering a plan to publish his own magazine. However, these projects were not destined to come true: in April, the poet received an order to leave the city back to the regiment within 48 hours.

A quarrel with Nikolai Martynov happened on the poet’s way to the Caucasus, in Pyatigorsk. Being in his most sarcastic and melancholy mood, Lermontov teased the retired major evening after evening - and he challenged him to a duel. It took place on July 27, 1841 at the foot of Mount Mashuk near Pyatigorsk. According to eyewitnesses, during the duel the poet defiantly fired into the air. However, Martynov was too offended to show the same generosity. Mikhail Lermontov was shot through the chest.

The only collection of Lermontov's lifetime was "Poems by M. Lermontov", published in 1840 in a circulation of 1000 copies. The collection includes two (out of 36) poems by the author and 26 (out of 400) poems.

Comparing the creative baggage of Mikhail Lermontov with the number of years he has lived, it becomes clear that we have before us a genius. At 10 he wrote plays for the home theater, read French, German and English classics in the original, drew beautifully, at 15 he wrote the first edition of the poem “Demon”, at 20 - the drama in verse “Masquerade”, at 24 - the novel “A Hero of Our Time” " And at the age of 26, Lermontov died.

Childhood and youth

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov was born on the night of October 15, 1814 in Moscow. The poet’s grandmother Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva is a noblewoman from the noble Stolypin family. The minister is the poet's second cousin.

Powerful and wealthy Elizaveta Arsenyeva did not want her only daughter to marry Yuri Lermontov, a handsome military man from an impoverished family. His dubious origins from the Scotsman George Learmont did not inspire confidence in her. Later, the British company Oxford Ancestors denied the poet’s relationship with the Lermonts using DNA analysis, confirming Arsenyeva’s doubts.

As the woman predicted, the personal life of her daughter Masha, who “jumped out” to marry the red tape Yuri Lermontov at the age of 16, turned out to be unhappy. The husband began to cheat on his young wife almost immediately after the wedding. He started an affair with the German nanny of Misha’s son, and chased courtyard girls. And when the wife reproached her husband for cheating, she received a punch in the face. 21-year-old Maria Arsenyeva-Lermontova died of transient consumption, leaving 2-year-old Misha half-orphaned.

Elizaveta Alekseevna, who was 44 years old at the time of her daughter’s death, took her grandson away from her son-in-law, writing a promissory note to Lermontov for 25 thousand rubles. Yuri left the Stolypin family estate, and Misha’s grandmother took up raising him. The woman adored her grandson and spared no expense on his education and health. Mikhail Lermontov grew up as a sickly scrofulous boy, and his grandmother hired the French doctor Anselm Levy for his grandson.

The domineering mother-in-law occasionally allowed the father to meet with his son, which caused both of them to suffer.

“I became a prey torn apart,” Mikhail Lermontov later complained.

The childhood and teenage years of the future classic were spent on the Tarkhany estate in the Penza province. Elizaveta Alekseevna hired teachers for his education. A former officer in the Napoleonic army, Frenchman Capet, taught the boy French. After the death of the teacher, his place was taken by the emigrant Shandro, whom Mikhail Lermontov later described in the poem “Sashka”, calling him the Marquis de Tess and the “Parisian Adonis”. Shandro was replaced by the Englishman Vindson, who introduced the young man to English literature. Lermontov's love for creativity comes from a British teacher.

Mikhail Lermontov grew up watching village life on his family estate, listening to folk songs and legends about and from peasants.

A trip with his grandmother to the Caucasus left a deep imprint on the life and creative biography of Mikhail Lermontov. In Goryachevodsk, a 10-year-old boy fell in love for the first time and 2 years later dedicated the poem “To the Genius” to his first muse.

Poetry

In September 1828, Mikhail Lermontov was enrolled in the 4th grade of the capital's university boarding school. In December, the boy was transferred to the fifth grade, given a painting and a book for his diligence. This year is significant in that Lermontov counted the beginning of his creativity from it.

At the boarding school, the teenager began to compile handwritten journals. In one of them, called “Morning Dawn,” the young poet became the main collaborator and published the first poem “Indian Woman”. But two years after the boarding school was transformed into a gymnasium, Misha left his studies.

16-year-old Mikhail Lermontov spent the summer in the Moscow region, on the Stolypins’ Serednikovo estate. Vereshchagina's relatives lived nearby. Lermontov was friends with Alexandra Vereshchagina. The girl introduced Mikhail to her friend, the “black-eyed beauty” Ekaterina Sushkova, with whom the young man fell in love. The young poet’s feelings remained unanswered; he suffered unbearably. Katya chuckled at the lovelorn, clumsy and homely boy. Later, Sushkova will understand that she made a fatal mistake by mocking the unfortunate young man.

In the fall of 1830, Mikhail Lermontov entered Moscow University, choosing the moral and political department. For two years he studied with Vissarion Belinsky, Alexander Herzen and Nikolai Ogarev. During his student years, Lermontov wrote the drama “The Strange Man,” which condemned serfdom. Mikhail showed an impudent disposition and discourtesy, for which the teachers took revenge on him during the exams: the young man “failed” the exams.

Lermontov refused to stay for a second year and left the university, moving with his grandmother to St. Petersburg. An attempt to enroll in the second year was unsuccessful: Mikhail was offered to start from the first. On the advice of friends and grandmother, the young man entered the school of guards ensigns and cavalry cadets, where he studied for two years, calling them “scary” because of the military drill.

In St. Petersburg, the previously clumsy and gloomy Mikhail Lermontov was transformed: the young man became the life of the party, caroused and drove beauties crazy. The young man's sharp mind, erudition, and sarcasm were noted by friends and high society ladies.

In 1835, the poet's works first appeared in print. Lermontov’s comrade, without his knowledge, gave the story “Hadzhi-Abrek” to print.

Since the second half of the 30s, Mikhail Lermontov's poems have been readily published. Critics and readers warmly received the poem “Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich...”. In the poems “Dagger” (“My Iron Friend”), “Poet” and “Duma,” Lermontov proclaimed the ideals of civic poetry. The folk theme and Russian character are outlined in the poems “Borodino” and “Motherland”.

A striking example of romanticism is the verse “Sail,” first published in Otechestvennye zapiski. Reading the lines, the emotional impulses of the 18-year-old poet become clear.

During the years of his life in St. Petersburg, Mikhail Lermontov observed the morals of the aristocracy - observations form the basis of the drama “Masquerade,” which the poet rewrote several times, but never broke through the censorship wall.

The turning point from Lermontov's early to mature work occurred in 1837, after the publication of an angry response to death. The poem “The Death of a Poet,” condemning the murderer and the court nobility, named by Lermontov as the culprit of the tragedy, was read throughout Russia. Pushkin's friends and admirers of his talent greeted the poem with admiration, and his enemies, including society ladies who sided with the handsome Dantes, were indignant.

Having learned about the negative reaction of the light, Mikhail Lermontov added spice. The first poem ended with the line: “And on his lips is a seal.” The continuation became a challenge to the “arrogant descendants”: the poems were seen as an appeal to the revolution.

Links

After the poem appeared, a trial and arrest followed. The emperor watched the process. Lermontov's grandmother and Pushkin's friends, including, tried to soften the fate of Mikhail Lermontov. The rebel was sent into exile in the Caucasus, as an ensign in a dragoon regiment.

The first exile lasted six months, but greatly changed Lermontov. The picturesque nature of the Caucasus, the life of the highlanders, and local folklore were reflected in the works of the “Caucasian” period. But the poet’s youthful gaiety melted away, giving way to “black melancholy.”

After returning to the St. Petersburg high society, Mikhail Lermontov is in the center of attention: he is admired by some and hated by others. The Caucasus inspired the poet to write poems, conceived and begun in Moscow: “Demon” and “Mtsyri” appeared, works that complement each other.

After his exile, Mikhail Lermontov brought new works to St. Petersburg, which are published in every issue of the journal Otechestvennye zapiski. Mikhail Yuryevich entered the circle of close friends of Pushkin and is at the peak of his popularity. He is still cocky and sarcastic. A quarrel with the son of the French ambassador, Ernest de Barent, in February 1840 ends in a duel. Lermontov and de Barant met across the Black River, not far from the site of Pushkin’s duel with Dantes. Ernest de Barant missed, and Mikhail Lermontov shot to the side.

The authorities found out about the duel, the poet was arrested and handed over to a military court. The emperor ordered the duelist to be exiled to the Caucasus for the second time, but now to an army regiment that fought on the front line. Lermontov distinguished himself by showing courage, but by order of Nicholas I did not receive any awards.

One of the poet’s last poems, “I Go Out Alone on the Road,” appeared at the end of May 1841. Critics saw in it the “lyrical result of the quest” to which Mikhail Lermontov turned at the end of his earthly journey. A few weeks before the murder, the poet composed the poem “The Cliff,” which was published 2 years after his death.

Novels

In St. Petersburg, during breaks between drills, Mikhail Lermontov composed the novel “Vadim,” in which he described the events of the Pugachev uprising.

But the apotheosis of Lermontov’s realism is the novel “A Hero of Our Time,” written in 1840, shortly before his death. The image of Pechorin is shown against the contrasting background of the life of Russian society. The contradiction between the depth of Pechorin’s nature and the futility of his actions is autobiographical. The innovation of the novel is in its subtle psychologism and revelation of the spiritual life of the characters, which none of the Russian writers had done before.

Personal life

Mikhail Lermontov wrote:

“I loved three times - three times hopelessly.”

The poet, according to the description of a contemporary young lady, was not distinguished by beauty. He is short, stocky, has a gloomy look in his black eyes, an unkind smile, a nervous young man who looks like a spoiled and spiteful child.

Lermontov's three main loves got married: Ekaterina Sushkova, with whom Mikhail fell in love at the age of 16, Natalya Ivanova, to whom he dedicated the “Ivanovo Cycle,” Varvara Lopukhina, whom the poet loved until the end of his life.

Mikhail Lermontov took brutal revenge on Sushkova 5 years later. Having learned that the girl was going to get married, he upset the wedding, playing out passion and making Catherine fall in love with him. The bride, compromised in the eyes of the world, suffered for a long time. The story of the tragic relationship is reminiscent of the love line of the novel “A Hero of Our Time.”

The poet took the news of Varenka Lopukhina’s marriage painfully. When Varvara got married, Lermontov never called her by her husband’s last name - Bakhmeteva: his beloved remained Lopukhina for him.

Death

The winter of 1840-41 turned out to be Lermontov's last. He came to St. Petersburg on vacation, dreaming of retirement and literary work. The grandmother, who dreamed of a military career for her grandson and did not share his passion for literature, dissuaded Mikhail from submitting his resignation. Lermontov returned to the Caucasus with an anxious heart.

In Pyatigorsk, a fatal quarrel between Mikhail Lermontov and retired major Nikolai Martynov, whom he met in Moscow and even visited his parents’ house, took place. Martynov later said that in Pyatigorsk Lermontov did not miss a single opportunity to make barbs at him.

The duel took place on July 27, 1841. The opponents agreed to shoot until the end. Mikhail Lermontov shot upward, and Martynov fired point-blank into the enemy’s chest, killing him outright. A thunderstorm and heavy rain prevented the doctor from arriving at the scene, and the murdered poet lay on the ground for a long time.

At Lermontov's funeral, despite the efforts of his friends, there was no church ceremony. In St. Petersburg, the news of the poet’s death was greeted with the words: “That’s where he belongs.” According to the memoirs of Pavel Vyazemsky, the emperor dropped: “A dog’s death is a dog’s death,” but after the Grand Duchess’s reproach, he came out to those present and proclaimed that “the one who could replace Pushkin for us has been killed.”

Lermontov was buried on July 29, 1841 at the old cemetery in Pyatigorsk. But after 250 days, Mikhail Yuryevich’s grandmother obtained permission from the emperor to transport the body to Tarkhany.

In April 1842, the body in a lead coffin was buried in the family chapel-burial vault, next to his grandfather and mother.

Memory

Lermontov's books have undergone dozens of reprints. The latest one was in 2014: a collection of works in 4 volumes was published by the Pushkin House Publishing House in 300 copies.

Streets, squares, and libraries in Russia and post-Soviet republics bear the name of Mikhail Yuryevich. In Odessa, city library No. 16 and a clinical sanatorium are named after the poet.

The minor planet number 2222, discovered in March 1981, is named “Lermontov”.

A monument to Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov was erected in Grozny on Prospekt, next to the Drama Theater named after M. Yu. Lermontov. On the pedestal are the poet's lines:

“Like the sweet song of my Fatherland, I love the Caucasus!”

Bibliography

• "Hadji Abrek"
• "Daemon"
• "Mtsyri"
• "Borodino"
• "Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich"
• "Thought"
• "Bela"
• "Fatalist"
• "Taman"
• "Sail"
• "Izmail-Bey"
• "Death of poet"
• "Hero of our time"

aliases: -въ; Lamver; Gr. Diyarbakir; Lerma

Russian poet, prose writer, playwright, artist

Mikhail Lermontov

short biography

- the pride of Russian literature, Russian poet, prose writer, playwright - was born in 1814, on the night of May 14-15 (May 2-3, O.S.) in the family of a retired officer Yuri Petrovich and Maria Mikhailovna, a representative of a noble family, who died when the boy was two years old. Her death became a serious psychological trauma for the future poet, and was aggravated by the conflictual relationship between her father and maternal grandmother, E.A. Arsenyeva. She took the boy to her estate, in the Penza province, with. Tarkhany, and the future poet spent his childhood there. Mikhail grew up, caressed by love and care, received a good education, however, being an emotional, romantic, sickly, precocious child, he was, for the most part, in a sad mood, focused on the inner world.

As a ten-year-old boy, Mikhail Lermontov first came to the Caucasus, with which his entire future biography would be connected. From childhood, the future poet was imbued with special feelings for this region, especially since the impressions of his stay there were decorated with his first love. He showed an early ability for versification: poems and even poems written by him at the age of 14 have been preserved.

After their family moved to Moscow in 1827, in 1828 Mikhail became a fourth-class half-boarder at the Moscow University Noble Boarding School, where he received his education for about two years before the boarding house was transformed into a gymnasium. Here, his first poem, “Indian Woman,” was published in a handwritten journal.

In September 1830, Lermontov was a student at Moscow University (moral and political, then verbal department), where he studied for less than two years, because does not pass public exams: the teachers did not forgive him for his impudent behavior. Lermontov's poetic potential in this short period developed very fruitfully; his lyrical creativity of the early stage in 1830-1831. reaches its highest point. In order not to remain in the same course for the second year, he comes to St. Petersburg with his grandmother, hoping to transfer to a local university. However, his hopes were not justified: his studies in Moscow were not taken into account, and he was offered to enroll again as a first-year student.

Following the advice of a friend, on November 10, 1832, Lermontov entered the school of guard cadets and ensigns, where he spent, in his own words, “two terrible years,” filled with revelry, base entertainment, into which he plunged with all the strength of his restless and rebellious soul. After graduating from school in November 1834 with the rank of cornet, Life Guards, Lermontov was assigned to a hussar regiment located in Tsarskoe Selo.

His lifestyle is not much different from his previous one: Lermontov leads an active social life, becomes the life of the party, spends a lot of time with friends, flirts with women, breaking their hearts. In secular and officer circles he was already known as a poet, and in 1835 his work first appeared in print, without the knowledge of the author: a friend took the story “Hadji-Abrek” to the “Library for Reading”. It was greeted warmly by readers, but the dissatisfied Lermontov refused to publish his poems for a long time.

A poem written in 1837 on the death of Pushkin by M.Yu. Lermontov became a turning point in his biography. A hitherto unknown outstanding literary talent was revealed to the public, and the accusatory pathos of the work was perceived as an appeal to revolution. The consequence of this was deportation to the active army in the Caucasus, to the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment. Staying in his beloved lands had a fruitful effect on Lermontov and helped him find peace of mind; he even thought about retiring and staying here when his grandmother obtained a transfer for him in October 1837 to the Grodno Hussar Regiment, stationed in Novgorod. On his way home, Lermontov spent several months in Stavropol, where he met the Decembrists.

Since January 1838 M.Yu. Lermontov lives in St. Petersburg, having been transferred to the Life Guards Hussar Regiment, where he previously served. The two years he spent in the capital (1838-1840 and part of 1841) became the time of the real flowering of his poetic gift, the loud literary fame that came to him, and his perception as the political heir of A. Pushkin. He moves in Pushkin's literary circle, actively writes and publishes. This period includes, in particular, his “Mtsyri”, “Hero of Our Time”, “Fairy Tale for Children”, and many poems.

A duel after a quarrel at a ball with the son of the French ambassador on February 16, 1841 ended in reconciliation with the enemy - and exile in April to the Caucasus, to the active Tenginsky infantry regiment. Lermontov had to participate in fierce battles, in particular in Chechnya near the Valerki River, in which he demonstrated amazing courage and courage. He was nominated for awards twice, but the king did not give his consent.

In January 1841, Lermontov came to St. Petersburg on vacation for three months. People continue to be interested in him, he is hatching new creative plans, and dreams of retiring in order to devote himself to literature. When the vacation ended, his friends got him a short respite, and Lermontov, counting on the fact that he would still be given full retirement, did not leave on time. However, his hopes were not justified: he was ordered to leave St. Petersburg within 48 hours. According to contemporaries, the poet left for the Caucasus with a heavy heart, tormented by gloomy forebodings. Many of his best poems, included in the treasury of Russian poetry, date back to this period of his creative activity: “Farewell unwashed Russia”, “Cliff”, “I go out alone on the road...”, “Leaf”, “Motherland”, “Tamara” , “Prophet”, etc.

In Pyatigorsk, Lermontov moved in a circle of old acquaintances, young people who indulged in social entertainment. Among them was retired Major Martynov, with whom Lermontov had once studied at the school of guards cadets. The sharp-tongued poet more than once sarcastically ridiculed his posturing, pomposity and dramatic manners. The disagreement between them ended on July 27 (July 15, O.S.), 1841, with a duel in which the poet, who was in the prime of his life and creative powers, who did not attach importance to the seriousness of his opponent’s intentions, was killed on the spot. Friends tried to have him buried according to church customs, but this was not possible. In the spring of 1842, the ashes of Mikhail Yuryevich were brought to Tarkhany and buried in the family crypt.

Literary heritage of M.Yu. Lermontov, which consisted of about three dozen poems, four hundred poems, a number of prose and dramatic works, was published mainly after the death of their author. In the short 13 years of his creative biography, the poet made an invaluable contribution to Russian literature as the author of lyric poetry with an exceptional variety of themes and motifs; his work completed the development of the national romantic poem and created the foundation for the realistic novel of the 19th century.

Biography from Wikipedia

Family

The Lermontov family came from Scotland and went back to the semi-mythical bard-prophet Thomas Lermont. In 1613, one of the representatives of this family, lieutenant of the Polish army Georg (George) Learmont (about 1596-1633 or 1634), was captured by the troops of Prince Dmitry Pozharsky during the capitulation of the Polish-Lithuanian garrison of the Belaya fortress and, among other so-called “Belsky Germans" entered the service of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich. Lermont converted to Orthodoxy and became, under the name of Yuri Andreevich, the founder of the Russian noble family of Lermontov. With the rank of captain of the Russian Reitar system, he died during the siege of Smolensk. British company Oxford Ancestors, which compiles pedigrees, carried out work to verify this version of Lermontov’s origin using DNA analysis. However, it was not possible to discover a relationship between the modern British Lermonts and the descendants of Mikhail Lermontov.

Lermontov dedicated the poem “Desire” to his supposed Scottish roots. In his youth, Lermontov associated his surname with the early 17th century Spanish statesman Francisco Lerma. These fantasies were reflected in the imaginary written by the poet portrait of Lerma, as well as in the drama “The Spaniards”.

The poet's great-grandfather Yuri Petrovich Lermontov, graduated from the gentry cadet corps. The Lermontov family was wealthy; but subsequently fell into disrepair.

The poet's father also Yuri Petrovich Lermontov(1787-1831), before marrying his mother, Maria Mikhailovna Arsenyeva, retired with the rank of infantry captain. According to the memoirs collected by Chembar local historian P.K. Shugaev (1855-1917), he “ he was of average height, rare handsome and perfectly built; in general, he can be called an elegant man in the full sense of the word; he was kind, but terribly hot-tempered" Yuri Petrovich had sisters, the poet’s aunts, who lived in Moscow.

The poet's maternal grandfather, Mikhail Vasilievich Arsenyev(8.11.1768 - 2.1.1810), retired lieutenant of the guards, married at the end of 1794 or beginning of 1795 in Moscow to Elizaveta Alekseevna Stolypina(1773-1845), after which he bought “almost for nothing” from I. A. Naryshkin in the Chembar district of the Penza province the village of Tarkhany, where M. Yu. Lermontov spent his childhood.

Tarkhany was founded in the 18th century by I. A. Naryshkin, who resettled serfs there from among fanatical schismatics, as well as “thieves and thugs” from his Moscow and Vladimir estates.

During the Pugachev uprising, rebel detachments entered the village. The prudent village head managed to appease all the dissatisfied in advance by distributing almost all the master's bread to the peasants, so he was not hanged.

M. V. Arsenyev " He was of average height, handsome, stately, with a strong build; he came from a good old noble family" He loved to organize various entertainments and was somewhat eccentric: he ordered a dwarf from Moscow to his estate.

Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva (1773-1845), grandmother of M. Yu. Lermontov

Elizaveta Alekseevna, the poet's grandmother, was " not particularly beautiful, tall, stern and somewhat clumsy" She had a remarkable intelligence, willpower and business acumen. She came from the famous Stolypin family. Her father, Alexey Emelyanovich Stolypin, was elected Penza provincial leader of the nobility for several years. There were 11 children in his family; Elizaveta Alekseevna was the first child. One of her siblings, Alexander, served as an adjutant, two others - Nikolai and Dmitry - became generals; one became a senator and was friends with Speransky, two were elected leaders of the provincial nobility in Saratov and Penza. One of her sisters was married to the Moscow vice-governor, the other to a general.

After the birth of her only daughter, Maria, on March 17 (28), 1795, Elizaveta Alekseevna fell ill with a female disease. As a result, Mikhail Vasilyevich became friends with a neighbor on the estate, a landowner Mansyreva, whose husband was abroad for a long time in the active army. On January 2 (14), 1810, having learned during the Christmas tree he arranged for his daughter that Mansyreva’s husband was returning home, Mikhail Vasilyevich took poison. Elizaveta Alekseevna, stating: “ dog death", together with her daughter, she went to Penza for the duration of the funeral. Mikhail Vasilyevich was buried in the family crypt in Tarkhany.

Elizaveta Alekseevna began to manage her estate herself. She kept the serfs, of whom she had about 600 souls, in strictness - although, unlike other landowners, she never applied corporal punishment to them. Her most severe punishment was to shave half the head of a guilty man, or to cut off a serf's braid.

Maria Mikhailovna Lermontova (1795-1817),
mother of M. Yu. Lermontov

The estate of Yuri Petrovich Lermontov - Kropotovka, Efremovsky district of the Tula province (currently the village of Kropotovo-Lermontovo, Stanovlyansky district, Lipetsk region) - was located next to the village Vasilievsky, belonged to the Arsenyev family. Marya Mikhailovna married Yuri Petrovich when she was not yet 17 years old, as they said then, “ jumped out in a hurry" But for Yuri Petrovich it was a brilliant game.

Memorial plaque at the birthplace of M. Yu. Lermontov

After the wedding, the Lermontovs settled in Tarkhany. However, Yuri Petrovich took his young wife, who was not in good health, to give birth to Moscow, where she could count on the help of experienced doctors. There, on the night of October 2 (14) to October 3 (15), 1814, in a house opposite the Red Gate (now on this site there is a high-rise building with a memorial plaque to M. Yu. Lermontov), ​​the future great Russian poet was born.

Yuri Petrovich Lermontov (1787-1831), father of the poet

On October 11 (23), in the Church of the Three Saints at the Red Gate, newborn Mikhail Lermontov was baptized. The grandmother, Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva, became the godmother. She, who did not like her son-in-law, insisted that the boy be named not Peter (as his father wanted), but Mikhail - in honor of his grandfather, Mikhail Vasilyevich Arsenyev.

According to legend, after the birth of her grandson, Arsenyeva’s grandmother, seven miles from Tarkhan, founded a new village, which she named in his honor - Mikhailovsky (in fact, the Mikhailovsky farm was founded even before the birth of Arsenyeva’s grandson). There is a chapel with a crypt where the poet is buried. Over time, Mikhailovskoye merged with Tarkhany.

Mikhail Lermontov's first biographer, Pavel Aleksandrovich Viskovaty, noted that his mother, Marya Mikhailovna, was “ gifted with a musical soul" She often played music on the piano, holding her little son on her lap, and allegedly Mikhail Yuryevich inherited from her “ his extraordinary nervousness».

The Lermontovs' family happiness was short-lived. " Yuri Petrovich lost interest in his wife for the same reason as his father-in-law towards his mother-in-law; as a result, Yuri Petrovich began an intimate relationship with his son’s wife, a young German woman, Cecilia Fedorovna, and, in addition, with the servants... The storm broke out after Yuri Petrovich and Marya Mikhailovna went to visit their neighbors Golovnin... going back to Tarkhany, Marya Mikhailovna became reproach your husband for cheating; then the ardent and irritable Yuri Petrovich was infuriated by these reproaches and hit Marya Mikhailovna very hard in the face with his fist, which subsequently served as the reason for the unbearable situation that established itself in the Lermontov family. From that time on, Marya Mikhailovna’s illness developed with incredible speed, subsequently turning into consumption, which brought her to an early grave. After the death and funeral of Marya Mikhailovna... Yuri Petrovich had no choice but to leave for his own small family estate in Tula, Kropotovka, which he did soon, leaving his son, still a child, in the care of his grandmother Elizaveta Alekseevna..." There is another version of the family life of the poet’s parents.

Marya Mikhailovna was buried in the same crypt as her father. Her monument, installed in a chapel built above the crypt, crowns broken anchor- a symbol of an unhappy family life. On the monument there is an inscription: “ Under this stone lies the body of Marya Mikhailovna Lermontova, née Arsenyeva, who died on February 24, 1817, Saturday; her life was 21 years and 11 months and 7 days».

Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva, who survived her husband, daughter, son-in-law and grandson, is also buried in this crypt. She has no monument.

After the death of Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva, the village of Tarkhany with the village of Mikhailovskaya passed, according to the spiritual will, to her brother Afanasy Alekseevich Stolypin, and then to the latter’s son, Alexei Afanasyevich.

On December 1, 1974, next to the Arsenyev chapel, thanks to the efforts of the famous Soviet Lermontov scholar Irakli Andronikov and the 2nd Secretary of the Penza Regional Committee of the CPSU Georg Myasnikov, the poet’s father, Yuri Petrovich Lermontov, was reburied (his ashes were transferred from the village of Shipovo, Lipetsk region).

Upbringing

M. Yu. Lermontov at the age of 3-4 years.

The poet's grandmother, Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva, passionately loved her grandson, who was not in good health as a child. Energetic and persistent, she made every effort to give him everything that a successor to the Lermontov family could claim. She did not care about her father's feelings and interests.

M. Yu. Lermontov aged 6-9 years.

Lermontov in his youthful works very fully and accurately reproduces the events and characters of his personal life. The drama with a German title - "Menschen und Leidenschaften" - tells the discord between his father and grandmother.

Lermontov the father did not have the means to raise his son the way his aristocratic relatives wanted, and Arsenyev, having the opportunity to spend on his grandson, “ four thousand a year for teaching different languages“, she took him in with an agreement to raise him until he was 16 years old, to make him her only heir and to consult with his father in everything. But the last condition was not met; even meetings between father and son met with insurmountable obstacles from Arsenyeva.

From the very beginning, the child should have been aware of the unnaturalness of this situation. His childhood passed on his grandmother's estate - in the village of Tarkhany, Penza province. The boy was surrounded with love and care - but he did not have the bright impressions of childhood characteristic of his age.

In the unfinished youthful " Stories» Lermontov describes his childhood Sasha Arbenina, a double of the author himself. From the age of six, Sasha exhibits a penchant for daydreaming and a passionate attraction to everything heroic, majestic and stormy. Lermontov was born sickly and suffered from scrofula throughout his childhood; but this illness also developed extraordinary moral energy in the child. The child’s painful condition required so much attention that the grandmother, who spared nothing for her grandson, hired a doctor for him. Anselm Lewis(Levi) - a Jew from France, whose main responsibility was the treatment and medical supervision of Michael.

The “Tale” recognizes the influence of illness on the mind and character of the hero: “ he learned to think... Deprived of the opportunity to have fun with the ordinary amusements of children, Sasha began to look for them in himself. Imagination became a new toy for him... Throughout the painful insomnia, suffocating between hot pillows, he was already getting used to overcoming the suffering of the body, carried away by the dreams of the soul... It is likely that early mental development greatly hindered his recovery…»

This early development became a source of grief for Lermontov: not only was none of those around him able to meet him halfway “ the dreams of his soul“, but didn’t even notice them. The main motives of his future poetry of “disappointment” are rooted here. In a gloomy child, contempt for the everyday life around him grows. Everything alien and hostile to her aroused warm sympathy in him: he himself is lonely and unhappy - every loneliness and other people’s misfortune, resulting from human misunderstanding, indifference or petty selfishness, seems to him his own. In his heart live side by side a feeling of alienation among people and an irresistible thirst for a kindred soul - just as lonely, close to the poet with its dreams and, perhaps, suffering. And as a result " In my childhood, the melancholy of sultry love // ​​I began to understand the restless soul».

His grandmother took 10-year-old Mikhail to the Caucasus, to the waters. Here he met a girl of about nine years old - and for the first time an unusually deep feeling awoke in him, leaving a memory for the rest of his life; but at first it is unclear and unsolved for him. Two years later, the poet talks about his new hobby, dedicating the poem “To the Genius” to him.

First love inextricably merged with overwhelming impressions of the Caucasus. " The Caucasian mountains are sacred to me"- wrote Lermontov. They united everything dear that lived in the soul of the child poet.

In the autumn of 1825, Lermontov's more or less constant training began, but the choice of teachers - the Frenchman Capet and the Greek who fled from Turkey - was unsuccessful. The Greek soon gave up teaching altogether and took up furriery. The Frenchman, obviously, did not instill in Lermontov a special interest in the French language and literature: in the poet’s student notebooks, French poems very early give way to Russian ones. Nevertheless, having an excellent library in Tarkhany, Lermontov, who was addicted to reading, self-educated under the guidance of teachers and mastered not only European languages ​​(he read English, German and French writers in the originals), but also perfectly studied European culture in general and literature in particular.

As a fifteen-year-old boy, he regrets that he did not hear Russian folk tales in his childhood: “ there is probably more poetry in them than in all French literature" He is captivated by the mysterious but courageous images of those rejected by human society - corsairs, criminals, captives, prisoners.

Two years after returning from the Caucasus, my grandmother took Lermontov to Moscow, where in 1829-1832. rented a small wooden one-story (with mezzanine) mansion for living on Malaya Molchanovka. She began to prepare her grandson for admission to the university noble boarding school - straight into the 4th grade. His teachers were Zinoviev (teacher of Latin and Russian at the boarding school) and the Frenchman Gondrot, a former colonel of the Napoleonic Guard. The latter was replaced in 1829 by an Englishman Vindson, who introduced Lermontov to English literature. At the boarding school, the future poet learned literacy and mathematics. After training, M. Yu. Lermontov mastered four languages, played four musical instruments (seven-string guitar, violin, cello and piano), was fond of painting and even mastered needlework techniques.

Lermontov stayed at the boarding house for about two years. Here, under the leadership of Merzlyakov and Zinoviev, a taste for literature was instilled: “literature meetings” took place, young people tried their hand at independent creativity, there was even a magazine with the main participation of Lermontov.

The poet eagerly began to read; at first he is absorbed by Schiller, especially his youthful tragedies; then he takes on Shakespeare. In a letter to a relative, he “stands up for his honor” and quotes scenes from Hamlet.

As before, Lermontov is looking for his soulmate, is carried away by friendship with one or another comrade, experiences disappointments, is indignant at the frivolity and betrayal of his friends. The last time of his stay at the boarding school (1829) was marked in the poet’s works by an unusually gloomy disappointment, the source of which was a completely real drama in his personal life.

The period of his upbringing under the guidance of his grandmother was coming to an end. The father often visited his son at the boarding school, and his relationship with his mother-in-law deteriorated to the extreme. The fight developed before the eyes of Mikhail Yuryevich; she is depicted in detail in his youth drama. The grandmother, citing her lonely old age and appealing to her grandson’s feelings of gratitude, won him away from her son-in-law, threatening, as before, to transfer all her movable and immovable property to the Stolypin family if the grandson, at the insistence of his father, left her. Yuri Petrovich had to retreat, although father and son were attached to each other. The father, apparently, more than anyone else, understood how gifted his son was: this is precisely what his dying letter to his son testifies to.

The poems of this time are a vivid reflection of the poet’s experiences. He develops a penchant for memories: there is obviously little joy in the present. “My spirit has faded and grown old,” he says, and only “a vague monument of past dear years” is “kind to him.” The feeling of loneliness turns into a helpless complaint - depression; the young man is ready to finally break with the outside world, creates “in his mind” “another world and other images of existence,” considers himself “marked by fate,” “a victim in the middle of the steppes,” “the son of nature.”

“The earthly world is small” for him, his impulses are “depressed by the burden of deception”, before him is the specter of premature old age... In these outpourings, of course, there is a lot of youthful play at terrible feelings and heroic moods, but they are based on the undoubtedly sincere grief of the young man, an undoubted spiritual discord it with the surrounding reality.

The first essay of “The Demon” and the poem “Monologue”, foreshadowing the “Duma,” date back to 1829. The poet renounces his inspiration, comparing his life with an autumn day, and draws the “tormented soul” of the Demon, living without faith, with contempt and indifference to “everything in the world.” A little later, mourning his father, he calls himself and him “victims of the earth’s lot”: “You gave me life, but happiness was not given!..”

First youthful hobbies

In the spring of 1830, the noble boarding school was transformed into a gymnasium, and Lermontov left it. He spent the summer in Serednikov, the estate of his grandmother’s brother, Stolypin, near Moscow. Currently, a monument has been erected there with the inscription on the front side: "M. Yu. Lermontov. 1914 This obelisk was erected in memory of his stay in 1830-31. in Srednikov". The back side contains the words: “To the singer of sadness and love...”.

Not far from Serednikov lived other relatives of Lermontov - the Vereshchagins; Alexandra Vereshchagina introduced him to her friend, Ekaterina Sushkova, also a neighbor on the estate. Sushkova, later Khvostova, left notes about this acquaintance. Their content is a real “novel”, split into two parts: in the first - the triumphant and mocking heroine, Sushkova, in the second - the cold and even cruelly vengeful hero, Lermontov.

A sixteen-year-old “boy”, prone to “sentimental judgments”, homely, club-footed, with red eyes, an upturned nose and a sarcastic smile, could least of all seem like an interesting gentleman for young ladies. In response to his feelings, they offered him “a top or a rope” and treated him to buns filled with sawdust. Sushkova, many years after the event, portrayed the poet in the illness of hopeless passion and even attributed to herself a poem dedicated to Lermontov to another girl - Varenka Lopukhina, his neighbor in a Moscow apartment on Malaya Molchanovka: for her he had the deepest feeling until the end of his life, when... or caused in him by a woman.

Varvara Lopukhina-Bakhmeteva.
Watercolor by Mikhail Lermontov

In the same summer of 1830, Lermontov's attention focused on the personality and poetry of Byron; For the first time he compares himself with an English poet, realizes the similarity of his moral world with Byron’s, and devotes several poems to the Polish revolution. It is unlikely, in view of all this, that the poet’s passion for the “black-eyed” beauty, that is, Sushkova, can be considered as all-consuming and tragic as the heroine herself portrays it. But this did not prevent the “novel” from introducing new bitterness into the poet’s soul; this will later be proven by his truly cruel revenge - one of his responses to human heartlessness, which frivolously poisoned his “childish days” and extinguished the “divine fire” in his soul. In 1830, Lermontov wrote the poem “Prediction” (“The year will come, / Russia’s black year, / When the king’s crown falls ...”).

In the same year, the poet met Natalya Fedorovna Ivanova, the mysterious stranger N.F.I., whose initials Irakli Andronikov managed to reveal. The so-called “Ivanovo cycle” of approximately thirty poems is dedicated to her. Relations with Ivanova initially developed differently than with Sushkova - Lermontov felt a mutual feeling for the first time. However, soon an incomprehensible change occurs in their relationship; a more experienced and wealthy rival is preferred to the ardent young poet.

By the summer of 1831, the key theme of betrayal and infidelity became a key theme in Lermontov’s work. From the “Ivanovo” cycle of poems it is clear how painfully the poet experienced this feeling. The poems addressed to N.F. Ivanova do not contain any direct indications of the reasons for the heartfelt drama of two people; in the first place is only the feeling of unrequited love, interspersed with thoughts about the bitter fate of the poet. This feeling is more complicated in comparison with the feeling described in the cycle to Sushkova: the poet is oppressed not so much by the lack of reciprocity as by the reluctance to appreciate the rich spiritual world of the poet.

At the same time, the rejected hero is grateful to his beloved for that uplifting love that helped him more fully realize his calling as a poet. Heartache is accompanied by reproaches to his unfaithful chosen one for stealing him from Poetry. At the same time, it is poetic creativity that can immortalize the feeling of love:

The poet's love becomes an obstacle to poetic inspiration and creative freedom. The lyrical hero is overwhelmed by a contradictory range of feelings: tenderness and passion fight in him with innate pride and love of freedom.

Study at Moscow University

Since September 1830, Lermontov was listed as a student at Moscow University, first in the “moral and political department”, then in the “verbal department”.

Serious intellectual life developed outside the walls of the university, in student circles, but Lermontov did not agree with any of them. He undoubtedly has a greater inclination towards secular society than towards abstract, friendly conversations: he is by nature an observer of real life. The feeling of youthful, unclouded gullibility disappeared, the ability to respond to feelings of friendship, to the slightest glimpses of sympathy cooled. His moral world was of a different kind than that of his comrades, the enthusiastic Hegelians and aestheticians.

He respected the university no less than them: he calls the “bright temple of science” a “holy place,” describing the desperate disdain of students for the priests of this temple. He also knows about the philosophical arrogant “disputes” of young people, but he himself does not take part in them. He probably was not even familiar with the most ardent debater - the later famous critic, although one of the heroes of his student drama “The Strange Man” bears the name Belinsky, which indirectly indicates Lermontov’s difficult attitude towards the ideals preached by the enthusiastic youth among whom he had to study.

The main character - Vladimir - embodies the author himself; Through his lips, the poet openly confesses to the painful contradiction of his nature. Vladimir knows the selfishness and insignificance of people - and yet he cannot leave their company: “when I am alone, it seems to me that no one loves me, no one cares about me - and it’s so hard!” Drama is even more important as an expression of the poet’s social ideas. The man tells Vladimir and his friend Belinsky - opponents of serfdom - about the cruelties of the landowner and other peasant hardships. The story makes Vladimir angry and makes him cry out: “Oh, my fatherland! My fatherland!” - and Belinsky forces him to help the men.

For Lermontov's poetic activity, his university years turned out to be extremely fruitful. His talent matured quickly, his spiritual world was sharply defined. Lermontov diligently attends Moscow salons, balls, and masquerades. He knows the real price of these entertainments, but knows how to be cheerful and share the pleasures of others. To superficial observers, Lermontov's stormy and proud poetry seemed completely unnatural given his secular talents.

They were ready to consider his demonism and disappointment a “drapery”, his “cheerful, relaxed appearance” as a truly Lermontov quality, and the burning “melancholy” and “anger” of his poems as a pretense and a conventional poetic masquerade. But it was poetry that was a sincere echo of Lermontov’s sentiments. “Inspiration saved me from petty vanities,” he wrote, and devoted himself to creativity as the only pure and high pleasure. “Light,” in his opinion, levels and vulgarizes everything, smooths out personal shades in people’s characters, eradicates all originality, and brings everyone to the same level of an animated mannequin. Having degraded a person, “light” accustoms him to be happy precisely in a state of impersonality and humiliation, fills him with a sense of complacency, and kills any possibility of moral development.

Lermontov is afraid of suffering such a fate himself; More than ever, he hides his inner thoughts from people, arms himself with ridicule and contempt, and sometimes plays the role of a good fellow or a desperate seeker of social adventures. In solitude, he recalls Caucasian impressions - powerful and noble, not a single feature similar to the trifles and infirmities of a refined society.

He repeats the dreams of the poets of the last century about a state of nature, free from the “decency of chains,” from gold and honors, from the mutual enmity of people. He cannot allow “unfulfillable desires” to be placed in our souls, so that we vainly seek “perfection in ourselves and in the world.” His mood is disappointment of active moral forces, disappointment in the negative phenomena of society, in the name of fascination with the positive tasks of the human spirit.

These motives were fully determined during Lermontov’s stay at Moscow University, which he preserved the memory of as a “holy place” precisely for this reason.

M.Yu. Lermontov’s petition to the board of Moscow University for dismissal from among the students. June 1, 1832

Lermontov did not stay at the university even two years; the certificate issued to him speaks of dismissal “by request” - but the request, according to legend, was forced by the student’s history with one of the least respectable professors, Malov. From June 18, 1832, Lermontov was no longer listed as a student.

Comments to P. F. Wistenhof’s “Memoirs” clarify that Lermontov left Moscow University (applied?) in the spring of 1832. Moreover, of the four semesters of his stay, the first did not take place due to quarantine due to a cholera epidemic; in the second semester, classes did not improve partly due to the “Malovsky story,” and then Lermontov transferred to the verbal department. There, at rehearsals for exams in rhetoric (P.V. Pobedonostsev), as well as heraldry and numismatics (M.S. Gastev), Lermontov, revealing that he was well-read beyond the syllabus and at the same time unfamiliar with the lecture material, entered into arguments with the examiners; after an explanation with the administration, a note appeared next to his name in the list of students: lat. consilium abeundi (“advised to leave”).

He left for St. Petersburg with the intention of enrolling again at the university, but they refused to count him for the two years he spent at Moscow University, suggesting that he enroll again as a first-year student. Lermontov was not satisfied with such a long student life.

At the School of Guards Ensigns and Cavalry Junkers

Under the influence of his St. Petersburg relatives, primarily Mongo-Stolypin, and contrary to his own plans, Lermontov entered the School of Guards Ensigns and Cavalry Junkers. This career change also suited my grandmother's wishes.

Lermontov remained at school for two “ill-fated years,” as he himself puts it. Nobody thought about the mental development of students; they “were not allowed to read books of purely literary content.” The school published a magazine, but its character is quite obvious from Lermontov’s poems included in this organ: “Ulansha”, “Peterhof Holiday”...

On the eve of entering school, Lermontov wrote the poem “Sail”; The “rebellious” sail, “asking for the storm” in moments of imperturbable peace - this is still the same restless soul of the poet from childhood. “He looked for perfection in people, but he himself was no better than them,” he says through the mouth of the hero of the poem “Angel of Death,” written back in Moscow.

In Lermontov studies, there is an opinion that during the two cadet years Lermontov did not create anything significant. Indeed, in the volume of poems over the years we will find only a few “Junker Prayers.” But we must not forget that Lermontov pays so little attention to poetry not because he was completely immersed in cadet revelry, but because he works in a different genre: Lermontov writes a historical novel on the theme of Pugachevism, which will remain unfinished and will go down in the history of literature like the novel "Vadim". In addition, he writes several poems and is increasingly interested in drama. The life he leads, which causes sincere fear among his Moscow friends, gives him the opportunity to study life in its fullness. And this knowledge of life, brilliant knowledge of the psychology of people, which he acquired during his cadetship, will be reflected in his best works.

Junker revelry and bullying now provided him with the most convenient environment for the development of any “imperfections.” Lermontov did not lag behind his comrades in any way, and was the first participant in all adventures - but here, too, his chosen nature showed itself immediately after the most apparently unconscious fun. Both in Moscow society and in the junker revels, Lermontov knew how to preserve his “best part,” his creative powers; in his letters one can sometimes hear bitter regret about past dreams, cruel self-flagellation for the need for “sensual pleasure.” Everyone who believed in the poet’s talent became afraid for his future. Vereshchagina, Lermontov’s constant friend, in the name of his talent, conjured him to “firmly stick to his path.” Lermontov described the fun of the cadets, including erotic ones, in his poems. These youthful poems, which also contained obscene words, earned Lermontov his first poetic fame.

In 1832, in the arena of the School of Guards Ensigns, a horse hit Lermontov in the right leg, breaking it to the bone. Lermontov lay in the infirmary, he was treated by the famous doctor N. F. Arendt. Later, the poet was discharged from the hospital, but the doctor visited him in the St. Petersburg house of the poet’s grandmother E. A. Arsenyeva.

In the guard

Patent to M. Yu. Lermontov for the rank of Life Guard cornet.

Having left school (November 22, 1834) as a cornet in the Life Guards Hussar Regiment, Lermontov still lives among the hobbies and reproaches of his conscience; amidst passionate impulses and doubts bordering on despair. He writes about them to his friend Maria Lopukhina; but he strains all his strength so that his comrades and the “society” do not suspect his “Hamlet” moods.

M. Yu. Lermontov in the uniform of the Life Guards Hussar Regiment. Portrait of P.Z. Zakharov-Chechen.

People who knew him closely, like Vereshchagina, were confident in his “kind character” and “loving heart”; but Lermontov considered it humiliating for himself to appear kind and loving in front of the “arrogant jester” - the “light.” On the contrary, he wants to seem merciless in words, cruel in actions, at all costs to be known as an inexorable tyrant of women’s hearts. Then the time of reckoning came for Sushkova.

It was easy for Lermontov the hussar, the heir to a large fortune, to captivate the heart of the once mocking beauty and upset her marriage with Lopukhin. Then the retreat began: Lermontov adopted such a form of address to Sushkova that she was immediately compromised in the eyes of the “world”, finding herself in the position of a ridiculous heroine of a failed novel. All that remained for Lermontov to do was to finally break with Sushkova - and he wrote an anonymous letter in her name with a warning against himself, sent the letter to the hands of the relatives of the unfortunate girl and, in his words, caused “thunder and lightning.”

Then, when meeting the victim, he played the role of an amazed, distressed knight, and in the last explanation he directly stated that he did not love her and, it seemed, had never loved her. All this, except for the scene of separation, was told by Lermontov himself in a letter to Vereshchagina, and he sees only the “funny side of the story.” The only time Lermontov will allow himself not to write a novel, but to “live it” in real life, playing out the story note by note, as Pechorin will do in the near future.

Completely indifferent to the service, inexhaustible in pranks, Lermontov writes drinking songs of the most relaxed genre - and at the same time such works as “I, Mother of God, now with prayer...”.

Until now, Lermontov's poetic talent was known only in officer and secular circles. His first work to appear in print, “Hadji Abrek,” ended up in the “Reading Library” without his knowledge, and after this involuntary but successful debut, Lermontov did not want to publish his poems for a long time. The death of Pushkin revealed Lermontov to the Russian public in all the power of his poetic talent. Lermontov was ill when the terrible event happened. Conflicting rumors reached him; “many,” he says, “especially ladies, justified Pushkin’s opponent,” because Pushkin was foolish and jealous and had no right to demand love from his wife.

At the end of January, the same doctor N. F. Arendt, having visited the sick Lermontov, told him the details of the duel and the death of Pushkin.

Another writer, P. A. Vyazemsky, spoke about the doctor’s special attitude to the events that took place.

Autograph of the poem "Death of a Poet". Ending. List 1837 State Literary Museum, Moscow

Involuntary indignation gripped Lermontov, and he “ poured out the bitterness of my heart on paper" The poem “The Death of a Poet” (1837) ended first with the words “ And his seal is on his lips" It spread quickly" on the lists", caused a storm in high society and new praise for Dantes. Finally, one of Lermontov’s relatives, N. Stolypin, began to condemn to his face his ardor towards such a “gentleman” as Dantes. Lermontov lost his temper, ordered the guest to get out and, in a fit of passionate anger, wrote the final 16 lines - “ And you, arrogant descendants...».

An arrest and trial followed, supervised by the Emperor himself; Pushkin's friends stood up for Lermontov, first of all Zhukovsky, who was close to the Imperial family; in addition, his grandmother, who had secular connections, did everything to soften the fate of her only grandson. Some time later, Cornet Lermontov was transferred to the “same rank,” that is, ensign, to the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment, operating in the Caucasus. The poet went into exile, accompanied by general attention: there was both passionate sympathy and hidden enmity.

First stay in the Caucasus and its influence on creativity

Lermontov's first stay in the Caucasus lasted only a few months. Thanks to the efforts of his grandmother, he was first transferred with the returned rank of cornet to the Life Guards Grodno Hussar Regiment, located in the Novgorod province, and then - in April 1838 - transferred to the Life Guards Hussar Regiment of His Majesty. With the regiment, Lermontov also traveled through the territory of Azerbaijan (Shusha (Nukha?), Kuba, Shamakhi). Despite the short duration of his service in the Caucasus, Lermontov managed to change greatly in moral terms. Impressions from the nature of the Caucasus, the life of the highlanders, and Caucasian folklore formed the basis for many of Lermontov’s works.

Nature attracted all his attention; he is ready to sit “all his life” and admire its beauty; society seemed to have lost its attractiveness for him, youthful gaiety disappeared, and even society ladies noticed “black melancholy” on his face. The instinct of a poet-psychologist, however, drew him into the midst of people. He was little appreciated here, understood even less, but bitterness and anger boiled in him, and new fiery speeches fell on paper, immortal images took shape in his imagination.

Lermontov returns to the St. Petersburg “society”, again plays the role of a lion, especially since all the lovers of celebrities and heroes are now courting him; but at the same time he ponders the powerful image that excited his imagination even in his youth. The Caucasus has renewed old dreams; “Demon” and “Mtsyri” are created.

"A few years ago,
Where, merging, they make noise,
Hugging like two sisters,
The streams of Aragva and Kura..."

Both poems were conceived a long time ago. The poet thought about “The Demon” back in Moscow, before entering the university, and later began and reworked the poem several times; The origin of “Mtsyri” is undoubtedly hidden in Lermontov’s youthful note, also from the Moscow period: “to write notes of a young monk: 17 years old. Since childhood he had been in the monastery, except for sacred books... His passionate soul languishes. Ideals."

At the heart of “Demon” is the consciousness of loneliness among the entire universe. Features of demonism in Lermontov’s works: a proud soul, alienation from the world and contempt for petty passions and cowardice. For the demon, the world is small and pitiful; for Mtsyri, the world is hateful, because there is no will in it, there is no embodiment of ideals brought up by the passionate imagination of the son of nature, there is no outlet for the mighty flame that has lived in the chest from a young age. “Mtsyri” and “Demon” complement each other.

Georgian Military Road near Mtskheta (Caucasian view from the saklya). 1837. Painting by M. Yu. Lermontov. Cardboard, oil.

The difference between them is not psychological, but external, historical. The demon is rich in experience; he has observed humanity for centuries - and has learned to despise people consciously and indifferently. Mtsyri dies in blooming youth, in the first impulse towards freedom and happiness; but this impulse is so decisive and powerful that the young prisoner manages to rise to the ideal heights of demonism.

Several years of languid slavery and loneliness, then several hours of admiration for freedom and the greatness of nature suppressed the voice of human weakness in him. The demonic worldview, harmonious and logical in the speeches of the Demon, in Mtsyri is a cry of premature agony.

Demonism is a general poetic mood composed of anger and contempt; The more mature the poet’s talent becomes, the more realistically this mood is expressed and the chord is decomposed into more specific, but also more definite motives.

At the heart of “Duma” lie the same Lermontovian feelings regarding “light” and “peace”, but they are aimed at tangible, historically accurate social phenomena: the “earth”, so arrogantly humiliated by the Demon, gives way to “our generation”, and powerful, but vague pictures and images of the Caucasian poem turn into life types and phenomena. This is the same meaning of the New Year's greeting for 1840.

M. Yu. Lermontov after returning from his first exile. 1838

Obviously, the poet quickly moved towards clear, real creativity, the inclinations of which were rooted in his poetic nature; but collisions with everything around him were not without influence. It was they who were supposed to outline more specific goals for the poet’s anger and satire and gradually turn him into a painter of social mores.

While in Tiflis, Lermontov began to learn the Azerbaijani (“Tatar”, in the terminology of that time) language. In 1837, in his letter to S. A. Raevsky, Lermontov writes: “I started learning Tatar, a language that is necessary here, and in Asia in general, like French in Europe - but it’s a pity, now I won’t finish studying, but it could be useful later...”. Lermontov was taught Azerbaijani language by the famous Azerbaijani educator Mirza Fatali Akhundov, who at that time served as a translator in the office of the Caucasian governor.

First duel

M. Yu. Lermontov in 1840

Returning from his first exile, Lermontov brought a lot of new poetic works. After “The Death of a Poet” he became one of the most popular writers in Russia, and in the world he is now perceived completely differently. Lermontov entered the circle of Pushkin’s friends and is finally starting to be published; almost every issue of A. A. Kraevsky’s journal “Domestic Notes” is published with new poems by the poet.

On February 16 (28), 1840, Lermontov was at a ball hosted by Countess Laval, where he quarreled with the son of the French ambassador, Ernest Barant, after which the latter challenged the poet to a duel. It took place on February 18 (March 1) on the Pargolovskaya road near the Black River. The duelists fought with swords, but Lermontov's blade broke during a lunge, and they switched to pistols. Barant shot first, but missed. Lermontov, in turn, unloaded the pistol, shooting to the side, after which the participants dispersed.

There is no clear version of the cause of the quarrel. According to Lermontov’s testimony during his arrest, Barant was offended by the fact that Lermontov said “unfavorable things” about him in a conversation with a “famous person.” Secular rumor considered Princess Maria Shcherbatova to be this special person and attributed to her the love interest of future duelists. There is also an opinion, expressed by contemporaries, that the fault lies with the wife of the secretary of the Russian consulate in Hamburg, Theresa Bacheracht. Allegedly, Barant was fond of both her and Shcherbatova, which is why Baherakht, trying to divert Ernest’s attention from her rival, accidentally quarreled with Lermontov.

The prerequisite for the quarrel in Laval’s house could also lie in strained Russian-French relations due to the political situation of those years. It is worth taking into account the anti-French sentiment of Lermontov himself due to the murder of Pushkin by the Frenchman Georges Dantes. Taking advantage of this, Lermontov’s ill-wishers back in 1839 informed Ernest Barant and his father that “The Death of a Poet” contained lines that supposedly hurt the national pride of the French. However, such an attempt at incitement failed, and Lermontov was even invited to the New Year's embassy ball for a personal acquaintance, but Ernest remained wary of the poet. Thus, the basis for the quarrel could have been everything together: both the prejudiced attitude of Barant and Lermontov towards each other, and the intrigues with the participation of Shcherbatova and Baherakht.

For “failure to report a duel” on March 11 (23), Lermontov was arrested; The case was heard by a military court. Barant, by the will of Nicholas I, was not brought to trial. Having learned about Lermontov's testimony, Ernest was offended and argued in the world that the poet was not shooting in the direction at all, but was aiming at the enemy, but missed. In response to this, Lermontov invited Barant to a secret meeting, which took place on March 22 (April 3) at the Arsenal guardhouse, where the poet was at that time. According to Lermontov’s testimony, he, among other things, expressed his intention to shoot again if Barant so desired. The court accused the poet of trying to arrange a duel again. The chief of the gendarmes, Count A.H. Benckendorf, personally demanded that the poet make a written apology to Barant for slanderous testimony in court. Such apologies could forever undermine Lermontov’s reputation and, in search of protection, he turned to Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, giving him a letter through A.I. Filosofov, in which, among other things, he stated:

Count Benckendorff suggested that I write a letter to Barant, in which I would apologize for unfairly testifying in court that I fired into the air. I could not agree to this, because it would be against my conscience... There could have been a mistake or misunderstanding in the words of mine or my second, I did not have a personal explanation during the trial with Mr. Barant, but I never humiliated myself to deception and lies

Letter from M. Yu. Lermontov to Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich

Mikhail Pavlovich, who was the commander-in-chief of all the guards corps and knew Lermontov well, handed over the letter to Nicholas I, as a result of which Benckendorff withdrew his request.

By a court decision made on April 13 (25), Lermontov was transferred back to the Caucasus, to the Tengin infantry regiment, in fact to the front line of the Caucasian War, where the poet went in early May. He received such a sentence not so much for the duel, but for his testimony, the veracity of which Barant denied. Lermontov's version of the duel cast the ambassador's son in a bad light, and rumors about it reached the French embassy in Berlin and Paris. Nicholas I’s personal hostility towards the poet, which persisted even after the first trial of Lermontov, also played a role. In fact, the court was forced by order from above to make a harsh decision: to send Lermontov to one of the most dangerous places of the war.

M. Yu. Lermontov after the Valerik battle. Palen D. P. July 23, 1840

The second exile to the Caucasus was radically different from what awaited him in the Caucasus several years earlier: then it was a pleasant walk that allowed Lermontov to get acquainted with eastern traditions, folklore, and travel a lot. Now his arrival was accompanied by a personal order from the emperor not to let the poet leave the front line and to involve him in military operations. Arriving in the Caucasus, Lermontov plunged into combat life and at first distinguished himself, according to an official report, with “courage and composure.” In the poem “Valerik” and in the letter to Lopukhin, Lermontov does not say a word about his exploits.

Lermontov's secret thoughts had long been devoted to the novel. It was conceived during his first stay in the Caucasus; Princess Mary, Grushnitsky and Doctor Werner, according to the same Satin, were copied from the originals back in 1837. Subsequent processing probably focused primarily on the personality of the main character, whose characteristics were associated for the poet with the matter of self-knowledge and self-criticism.

At first, the novel “A Hero of Our Time” existed in the form of separate chapters, published as independent stories in the magazine “Otechestvennye zapiski”. But soon the novel was published, supplemented with new chapters and thus receiving completeness.

The first edition of the work was quickly sold out, and criticism appeared almost immediately. Almost everyone, except Belinsky, agreed that Lermontov portrayed himself in the image of Pechorin, and that such a hero cannot be a hero of his time. Therefore, the second edition, which appeared almost immediately after the first, contained a preface by the author, in which he responded to hostile criticism. In the “Preface,” Lermontov drew a line between himself and his hero and outlined the main idea of ​​his novel.

In 1840, the only lifetime edition of Lermontov’s poems was published, in which he included 26 poems and two poems - “Mtsyri” and “Song about<…>merchant Kalashnikov."

Pyatigorsk Second duel

The last lifetime portrait of Lermontov in the frock coat of an officer of the Tengin infantry regiment. 1841 Artist K. A. Gorbunov

In the winter of 1840-1841, while on vacation in St. Petersburg, Lermontov tried to retire, dreaming of devoting himself entirely to literature, but did not dare to do so, since his grandmother was against it; she hoped that her grandson would be able to make a career for himself and did not share his hobbies of literature. Therefore, in the spring of 1841, he was forced to return to his regiment in the Caucasus. On the way to the Caucasus, Lermontov turned to Zemlyansk. He met former fellow soldier A. G. Remi, whom he had known for a long time - he once gave him his cigarette case with the image of a hunting dog (now this exhibit is in the Tarkhany museum-reserve). Together with Remi, who was assigned to Novocherkassk, Lermontov went to visit the officer of the Life Guards Hussar Regiment A.L. Potapov, at his Voronezh estate Semidubravnoe - 50 km from Voronezh and 10 km southwest of Zemlyansk.

He left St. Petersburg with heavy forebodings - first to Stavropol, where the Tenginsky regiment was stationed, then to Pyatigorsk. In Pyatigorsk, he had a quarrel with retired major Nikolai Martynov. Lermontov first met Martynov at the school of guards ensigns, which Martynov graduated a year later than Lermontov. In 1837, Lermontov, transferred from the guard to the Nizhny Novgorod regiment for his poem “On the Death of a Poet,” and Martynov, who was going to the Caucasus, spent two weeks in Moscow, often having breakfast together at Yar’s. Lermontov visited the Moscow house of Martynov’s parents. Subsequently, contemporaries believed that the prototype of Princess Mary was Natalya Solomonovna, Martynov’s sister.

As N. I. Lorer wrote in his “Notes of the Decembrist”:

Martynov served in the cavalry guards, moved to the Caucasus, to a linear Cossack regiment and just left the service. He was very handsome and had an excellent secular education. Wearing a Circassian costume out of convenience and habit, he exaggerated the tastes of the highlanders and, of course, thereby incurring the ridicule of his comrades, among whom Lermontov, by his mentality, was the most inexorable of all. While these jokes were within the bounds of decency, everything went well, but water wears away stones, and when Lermontov allowed himself inappropriate jokes in the company of ladies... these jokes seemed offensive to Martynov’s pride, and he modestly noted to Lermontov how inappropriate they were. But the bilious and bored man did not leave his victim, and when they once met in the Verzilins’ house, Lermontov continued to joke and mock Martynov, who, finally, out of patience, said that he would find a way to silence the offender. Spoiled by everyone's attention, Lermontov could not give in and replied that he was not afraid of anyone's threats and would not change his behavior.

From the testimony of N. S. Martynov, given on July 17, 1841 during the investigation into the duel case (original spelling preserved):

From the very moment of his arrival in Pyatigorsk, Lermontov did not miss a single occasion where he could say something unpleasant to me. Wit, barbs, ridicule at my expense in one word, everything you can do to annoy a person without touching his honor. I showed him as best I could that I did not intend to serve as a target for his mind, but he acted as if he did not notice how I accepted his jokes. About three weeks ago, during his illness, I spoke to him frankly about this; asked him to stop, and although he did not promise me anything, laughing it off and inviting me, in turn, to laugh at him, he really stopped for several days. Then, I took up the same again. At an evening in a private house, two days before the duel, he called me out of patience, attached to my every word, at every step showing a clear desire to annoy me. I decided to put an end to this. When leaving this house, I held his hand so that he walked next to me; the rest were all already ahead. Here, I told him that I had previously asked him to stop these jokes that were intolerable to me, but that now I was warning him that if he once again decided to choose me as the subject of his jokes, I would force him to stop. He did not let me finish and repeated over and over again: - that he did not like the tone of my sermon; that I cannot forbid him to say what he wants about me, and to top it off he told me: “Instead of empty threats, you would do much better if you acted. You know that I never refuse duels, so you won’t scare anyone with this.” At this time we approached his house. I told him that in this case I would send my Second to him, and returned to my place. Undressing, I told the man to ask Glebov to come to me when he arrived home. A quarter of an hour later Glebov came into my room and I explained to him what was going on; I asked him to be my Second and upon receiving his consent, I told him that the next day at dawn, he should go to Lermontov. Glebov tried to persuade me, but I decisively told him that he would see from the words of Lermontov himself that, in essence, it was not I who was calling, but I was being called - and that because of this, it was not possible for me to take the first step towards reconciliation.

Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov is a famous Russian poet. More than 170 years have passed since his death. And the works still find a response in the hearts of people. His work lives on in performances, films, and books. At school, students read the immortal novel “A Hero of Our Time.” Even though teachers read this work every year, they still discover something new for themselves. The life of Mikhail Lermontov made a great contribution to the development of Russian literature.

Birth and childhood

The poet came from a wealthy family. My maternal grandfather, Mikhail Vasilyevich Arsenyev, a retired lieutenant of the guard, married Elizaveta from the powerful and wealthy Stolypin family. During their marriage they acquired the village of Tarkhany. Elizaveta Stolypina's father was elected Penza provincial leader of the nobility for several years.

But the father of the famous poet, Yuri Petrovich Lermontov, could not boast of origin; he did not really have money or influence in society. He retired with the rank of infantry captain. Maria Mikhailovna Arsenyeva, the writer’s mother, married against the will of her parents, out of love. But the husband did not live up to expectations, drank and spent his dowry on women of easy virtue, so the couple’s life together did not work out. The writer was born in Moscow in 1814. His birth did not improve the tense situation in the family. Already at the age of four the boy experienced great grief. His mother died. Mikhail was raised by his grandmother, Elizaveta Arsenyeva. The child spent his entire childhood in the Penza province in the village of Tarkhany. The father received a generous compensation and did not interfere in the child's upbringing at the request of the mother-in-law. The boy was very sick and frail, so the elderly woman constantly took care of his health, limiting her grandson’s activity and keeping a watchful eye on him.

Youth and education

In 1828, the young man entered the Noble boarding house at Moscow University. Later he studied there at the moral and political faculty, but did not graduate. Mikhail Yuryevich had a desire to go to study at St. Petersburg University. But he couldn't get in.

As a result, the poet studied at the school of guard cadets and warrant officers, where life introduced him to his future executioner, Nikolai Martynov. In 1834, Mikhail was sent to serve in the Hussar Regiment.

History of success

First works

The poet's early work is based on the works of Alexander Pushkin: the poems "Circassians" and "Prisoner of the Caucasus."

Mikhail Yuryevich considered 1828 to be the beginning of his journey. That year the poems “Autumn”, “Cupid’s Delusion”, and “Poet” were written. The author began with a description of nature, then became interested in love and rebellious lyrics, and at the end of his life he paid more attention to philosophical themes and civic motives.

Confession

Lermontov was very interested in the work of Alexander Sergeevich. He never thought that he would take a piece of the great poet’s fate for himself. Lermontov even became famous when people heard the poem “On the Death of a Poet,” dedicated to the sun of Russian poetry. This work shocked secular society. We described details from this period of his life .

Lermontov, like a warrior, came to Russian literature. Therefore, his creative world teaches readers to reject any obstacles and be strict with themselves. The poet's lyrical hero stands at a crossroads between the real and ideal world. His rebellious nature often subsides into daydreams.

The story of the poet Lermontov began not only with recognition, but also with punishment: he was sent into exile for freethinking lines.

Personal life

Varvara Lopukhina

Throughout his life, the poet was accompanied by an unhappy love for Varvara Lopukhina. Varya came from an old family. The writer met a girl on the way to the Simonov Monastery for the all-night vigil. Lopukhina was the sister of his friend Alexei. Lermontov fell in love with her character. Varvara was a cheerful, sociable and smiling girl, a wonderful muse. Mutual feeling gave the young poet inspiration, but, unfortunately, the lovers’ paths did not merge into one.

Rumors shattered the crystal and pure love of the young. In 1832, Mikhail went to St. Petersburg to study at the school of cadets. The new life eclipsed the image dear to Varvara’s heart. The girl heard stories about Lermontov’s stormy and passionate romance with Sushkova. Lopukhina decided to take a desperate step - she married, at the request of her parents, the not young, but rich Bekhmetov. The parents were sure that their daughter had pulled out a lottery ticket to life - a happy marriage. But they were wrong. Their daughter never learned what family happiness is, which all ladies dream of. Bekhmetov's jealousy knew no bounds, so Lopukhina was like a bird in a cage.

The poet regarded his beloved’s wedding as a betrayal. Mikhail was jealous of Varvara, but could not do anything. I suffered, but time could not be turned back. The pain of the soul remained only on paper. Life's tragedy changed the young man's disposition. In the Caucasus, he dedicated poems to Lopukhina-Bekhmetova and painted her portraits. Over time, Lermontov's zealous, egoistic love was replaced by merciful love. The poet was happy to know such a beautiful girl. He did not blame her, but only wished her well.

Ekaterina Sushkova

The author's heart belonged to Lopukhina, but there were other women in his life too. Mikhail really liked Sushkova. She was an orphan, so her aunt raised her. Ekaterina had a friend, Alexandra Vereshchagina. In her house, a young lady met the writer.

Lermontov dedicated the “Sushkov cycle” of eleven poems to his beloved. Catherine mockingly treated the bright youthful feelings. Four years later, their paths crossed in St. Petersburg. Even then, Mikhail became an officer in the Life Guards Hussar Regiment. And the beautiful Ekaterina flirted with men, but was going to marry Alexei Lopukhin. The poet's love for Sushkova grew into resentment and a desire for revenge. The poet fell in love with an almost married lady and disrupted her wedding. He inspired her with hope for a happy future together, and then broke up with her.

Lermontov's other women did not leave such a deep mark on his life and work, so we will only say that his love story did not end with a happy ending: he was not married, he died young. He had no children.

1. In 1840, the only lifetime edition of Lermontov's works was published. Censorship prohibited the publication of many of his works.
2. The midwife looked at the newborn Misha and said that he would not die a natural death.
3. People learned about the duel between Martynov and Lermontov. They thought that Nikolai would be killed because he had a scythe and was a poor shot. But it was in a duel with a famous poet that he did not miss. It’s not surprising, because Mikhail Yuryevich constantly ridiculed him in society, and his friend harbored a grudge for a long time.
4. Lermontov was an interesting poet, an excellent artist and knew mathematics well.
5. Mikhail is the second cousin of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, the famous reformer.
6. Mikhail Yuryevich had a terrible character: he was a bilious joker, a cynic and a reserved person. He hated the service, but he couldn’t find anything else to do.
7. Lermontov was very offended by his grandmother because she forbade them to see their father.

Creation

The image of Lermontov in lyrics

The image of the poet in the lyrics is tragic. He lost faith in the feasibility of his dream of an ideal. Mikhail Yuryevich in his poems seems to be trying to break through the wall of misunderstanding between himself and the world.

His lyrical hero is a rebellious and underestimated person. He most often complains to women, because in his life the man lacked their attention. He associates himself with a beggar, a hermit, a wanderer, etc. In each main character of Lermontov's works we see the features of the author himself. Mtsyri's unhappy childhood echoes the fate of Mikhail Yuryevich himself, separated from his father. In Pechorin’s character we see the same uncertainty of goals and objectives, the same disdain for women, the same fatal wit as the writer himself.

Main themes

The poet touches on various topics in his work: loneliness, homeland, relationships between the crowd and the poet, love, etc. The first two topics occur frequently. The poet raises the theme of loneliness in the poems: “Sail”, “Prisoner”, “Loneliness”, “Both Bored and Sad” and many others. Lermontov always considered himself a stranger in any company. Society did not understand or accept him.

The theme of the homeland is found in the works: “Farewell, unwashed Russia”, “Borodino”, “I ran through the countries of Russia”. The poet revealed this theme through the struggle for freedom against the slave chains of autocracy or through confrontation with the real invader of his native land.

Death

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov could not even imagine that he had known his executioner for a very long time. Nikolai Martynov is a close friend and a killer. The death of the poet is a mystery because there are many versions. One of the reasons for death is the poet's very caustic language. He knew the weaknesses of his surroundings. One day Lermontov decided to play a joke on Martynov. He called him “the man with the dagger”, “highlander”, drew caricatures, people laughed for a long time. But Mikhail did not even mean that the cruel joke would be the beginning of the end of his life. Martynov asked not to joke in front of the ladies, but Lermontov continued. After this, Nikolai set a date for the fight, but none of those around him took this statement seriously. Mikhail could have made peace with his old friend, but for some reason he did not dare to take this step. They tried to dissuade Nikolai Solomovich from the duel, but the mood was decisive. Lermontov's friends thought that the duel would end in reconciliation. Even the conditions were violated: there was no doctor, there were no allocated seconds, there were spectators. Martynov was afraid of society's ridicule, so he shot in the chest, once and for all.

The famous poet died instantly after being wounded. He was buried on July 17 at the Pyatigorsk cemetery. The grandmother argued with the authorities to give permission to bury the body in Tarkhany. He was buried there 250 days later.

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