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 in performances, films, 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. Maternal grandfather, Mikhail Vasilyevich Arseniev, a retired lieutenant of the guard, married Elizabeth from the powerful and wealthy Stolypin family. In marriage, they acquired the village of Tarkhany. The father of Elizaveta Stolypina was elected for several years by the Penza provincial marshal of the nobility.

But the father of the famous poet, Yuri Petrovich Lermontov, could not boast of his origin, he really did not have money and 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, for love. But the husband did not live up to expectations, drank and spent the dowry on women lung behavior, so that the couple's life together did not work out. The writer was born in Moscow in 1814. His birth did not correct the tense situation in the family. Already at the age of four, the boy experienced great grief. His mother died. Mikhail was brought up by his grandmother, Elizaveta Arsenyeva. The child spent all his childhood in the Penza province in the village of Tarkhany. The father received a generous compensation and did not interfere in the upbringing of the child at the request of the mother-in-law. The boy was very sickly and frail, so the elderly woman constantly took care of his health, limiting the activity of her grandson and vigilantly supervising him.

Youth and education

The young man in 1828 entered the Noble boarding house at Moscow University. Later he studied in it at the moral and political faculty, but did not graduate from it. Mikhail Yurievich had a desire to leave to study at St. Petersburg University. But he couldn't do it.

As a result, the poet studied at the school of guards cadets and ensigns, 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 early work of the poet is based on the works of Alexander Pushkin: the poems "Circassians" and "Prisoner of the Caucasus".

Mikhail Yurievich considered the year 1828 to be the beginning of the journey. In that year, the poems "Autumn", "Cupid's Delusion", "Poet" were written. The author began with a description of nature, then he 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 fond of the work of Alexander Sergeevich. He did not think that he would take a piece of the fate of the great poet. Even fame touched Lermontov when the people heard the poem “On the Death of a Poet” dedicated to the sun of Russian poetry. This work shocked secular society. Details from this period of his life we ​​described .

Lermontov, like a warrior, came to Russian literature. Therefore, his creative world teaches readers to reject any obstacles and treat themselves strictly. The lyrical hero of the poet stands at the crossroads between the real and the ideal world. His rebellious nature is often immersed in daydreams.

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

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 the girl on the way to the Simonov Monastery for the 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 paths of the lovers did not merge into one.

Rumors broke the crystal and pure love of the young. In 1832, Mikhail went to St. Petersburg to study at the cadet school. New life eclipsed the image of Barbara dear to her heart. Stories about the stormy and passionate romance between Lermontov and Sushkova reached the girl. Lopukhina decided to take a desperate step - she married, at the request of her parents, not a young, but rich Bekhmetov. Parents were sure that the daughter pulled out lottery ticket in life - a happy marriage. But they were wrong. Their daughter never found out 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 the wedding of his beloved as a betrayal. Mikhail was jealous of Varvara, but he could not do anything. I suffered, but time could not be returned back. The pain of the soul remained only on paper. life tragedy changed the mind of the young man. In the Caucasus, he dedicated poems to Lopukhina-Bekhmetova, painted her portraits. Over time, the zealous egoistic love of Lermontov was replaced by a merciful one. The poet was happy that he knew such a beautiful girl. He did not blame her, but wished only the best.

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 was involved in her upbringing. Catherine had a girlfriend, Alexander Vereshchagin. She has a young lady in her house and met the writer.

Lermontov dedicated to his beloved "Sushkov's cycle" of eleven poems. Catherine mockingly treated bright youthful feelings. Four years later, their paths crossed in St. Petersburg. Even then, Mikhail became an officer in the Life Guards of the Hussar Regiment. And the beautiful Catherine 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, disrupted her wedding. He inspired her with hope for a happy future together, and then broke up with her.

Other women of Lermontov did not leave such a deep mark on his life and work, so we can only say that his love story did not end with a happy ending: he was not married, he died young. He didn't have 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 was a scythe and did not shoot well. But it was in a duel with a famous poet that he did not miss. Not surprising, because Mikhail Yuryevich constantly ridiculed him in society, and a 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 could not find another occupation for himself.
7. Lermontov was very offended by his grandmother because she forbade them to see their father.

Creation

The image of Lermontov in the 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 even in life a 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. The unhappy childhood of Mtsyri echoes the fate of Mikhail Yuryevich himself, separated from his father. In the character of Pechorin, we see the same uncertainty of goals and objectives, the same disdain for women, the same fatal wit as that of the writer himself.

Main topics

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

The theme of the motherland is found in the works: “Farewell, unwashed Russia”, “Borodino”, “I ran through the countries of Russia”. The poet revealed this topic through the struggle for freedom with the slave chains of the 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 murderer. The death of the poet is a mystery because there are many versions. One of the causes of death is the very caustic language of the poet. He knew the weaknesses of his environment. Once Lermontov decided to play a trick on Martynov. He called him "a man with a dagger", "highlander", drew cartoons, people laughed for a long time. But Mikhail did not even mean that a cruel joke would be the beginning of the end of life. Martynov asked not to joke in front of the ladies, but Lermontov continued. After that, Nikolai set the date for the fight, but none of those around him took this statement seriously. Mikhail could have reconciled with an 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 resolute. 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 the ridicule of society, 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. Grandmother quarreled with the authorities to give permission for the burial of the body in Tarkhany. There he was buried after 250 days.

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

Moscow youth

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov was born on the night of October 2 to 3 (October 15, according to a new style) in 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 for being 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 called not Peter, as his father wanted, but Michael.

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

The artist is unknown. Portrait of Mikhail Lermontov. 1820–1822 Institute of Russian Literature, St. Petersburg

All childhood he was ill with scrofula. A slender boy with an eating disorder and a rash all over his body caused neglect and ridicule among his peers. “Deprived of the opportunity to have fun with the usual amusements of children, Sasha began to look for them in himself ...”- Lermontov wrote in one of his autobiographical stories. The more often Lermontov was unwell, the more intensively his grandmother was engaged in his treatment and education. In 1825, she brought him to the Caucasus - this is how the most important toponym for him appeared in Lermontov's life. “The Caucasian mountains are sacred to me”- wrote the poet.

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

True, Mikhail did not seek the friendship of fellow students, did not take part in student circles, and ignored disputes. Among those "ignored" by Lermontov was Vissarion Belinsky: for the first time they talked much later - during the first arrest of the poet. At the end of the second year, at the rehearsal of exams in rhetoric, heraldry and numismatics, Lermontov showed erudition beyond the program and ... almost complete ignorance of the lecture material. Arguments arose with the examiners. So in the records of the administration, opposite the name of Lermontov, a note appeared in Latin: consilium abeundi (“advised to leave”). After that, the young man moved to St. Petersburg.

Petersburg students

Lermontov disliked the city on the Neva, and this feeling was mutual. St. Petersburg University refused to count Lermontov two Moscow years of study - he was offered to enter the first year again. Lermontov was offended and, on the advice of a friend, passed the exam for 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 the 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 was stooped, but the accuracy of the nickname was not only in this. Its second meaning is a reference to the character of the novels named Mae - a cynic and a wit. On the course, the poet really kept himself independent and bold, while in his studies 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 his 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", Lermontovo village, Penza region

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

In the Petersburg period, the poet began 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, the duel between Alexander Pushkin and Georges Dantes took place on the Black River. Even before his death, rumors about the death of the poet spread throughout St. Petersburg - they reached Lermontov as well. Already on January 28, the first 56 verses of The Death of a Poet were finished, and the work began to spread rapidly 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 memorized by everyone”. On February 7, Lermontov wrote the 16 final lines of the poem (starting with “And you, arrogant descendants // By the well-known meanness of the illustrious fathers”), in which, along with the "murderer", he called the highest Petersburg society and those close to the "throne" guilty of the death of the poet.

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

Literary fame

Lermontov's first Caucasian exile lasted only a few months, but was rich in events: work on Mtsyri and The Demon, acquaintance with the exiled Decembrists, a visit to Pyatigorsk with its "water society" and a trip to Tiflis. During the exile, the poet's youthful gaiety almost disappeared, he became even more withdrawn, often in "black melancholy."

Through the efforts of his grandmother, in 1838, Lermontov returned to Petersburg society 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 of the capital. Almost every issue of Andrei Kraevsky's journal "Domestic Notes" came out 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 Barante - Lermontov again ended up 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 had been written a few years before. The work was printed in excerpts in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, and later released as a separate book - it was 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

In early February 1841, Lermontov secured a short vacation in St. Petersburg. In the poet’s notebook at that moment, the textbook “Cliff”, “Dream”, “Prophet”, “Oak leaf came off the branch of my dear” and “I go out alone on the road” were already recorded. In the capital, Lermontov busied himself with publishing the poem "The Demon" and pondered a plan to publish his own journal. 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 way of the poet to the Caucasus, in Pyatigorsk. Being in his most caustic 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 dead through the chest.

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

I am very glad that my Sashenka chose this, my favorite, writer for the essay! The essay was prepared by Sashulka, and I "licked" it from her in order to place it in my diary. It might come in handy for someone. And once again I was pleased to read about Lermontov ...

MichaelYurievich Lermontov-( Born in Moscow on the night of October 2-3, 1814 - July 15, 1841, Pyatigorsk) - Russian poet, prose writer, playwright, artist, officer.

BIOGRAPHY

In the generations closest to the time of the poet, the Lermontov family was already considered seedy; his father, Yuri Petrovich, was a retired infantry captain. According to people who knew him closely, he was a wonderful handsome man, with a kind and sympathetic soul, but extremely frivolous and unrestrained. His estate - Kropotovka, Efremovsky district, Tula province - was located next to the Vasilyevsky estate, which belonged to Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva, nee Stolypin. The beauty and metropolitan gloss of Yuri Petrovich captivated the only daughter of Arsenyeva, the nervous and romantic-minded Maria Mikhailovna. Despite the protests of her proud mother, she soon became the wife of a poor "army officer". Their family happiness did not last long, apparently. Constantly ill, Lermontov's mother died in the spring of 1817, leaving many vague but dear images in her son's memories. “My mother died in tears,” Lermontov said and remembered how she sang lullabies over him.

Upbringing.

The poet's grandmother, Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva, passionately loved her grandson, who in childhood was not very healthy, but the worse she began to relate to her son-in-law; strife between themthey had such an exacerbated character that already on the 9th day after the death of his wife, Yuri Petrovich forced den had to leave his son and go to his housestye. He only occasionally appeared in the house of ARseneva, each time frightening her with his intention to take her son to her. Until his death,There was this mutual enmity, and it caused a lot of suffering to the child.. Energetic and persistent, she made every effort to give him everything that the successor of the Lermontov family can claim. Lermontov was aware of all the unnaturalness of his provisions, and all the time he suffered in hesitation between his father and grandmother. He in his youthful works he very fully and accurately reproduced the events and characters of his personal life. Arsenyeva, having the opportunity to spend “four thousand a year on teaching different languages” for her grandson, took him to her with the persuasion of raising him until the age of 16 and consulting with his father in everything. 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, Tarkhany, Penza province; he was surrounded by love and care - but he did not have the bright impressions characteristic of age.

In 1828, Lermontov went to the Moscow University Noble boarding school and stayed there for about two years. A taste for literature flourished here; as before, handwritten journals were compiled by the students; in one of them - "Morning Dawn" - Lermontov was the main collaborator and placed his first poem - "Indian Woman". Of the Russian writers, he is most influenced by the one whom he bowed to all his life, and of the foreign ones by Schiller, especially by his first tragedies. In both of them, the poet finds the images he needs to express his own, still, difficult condition. He is oppressed by sad loneliness; he is ready to finally break with external life, to create "in his mind another world, and other images of existence." His dreams are "dejected by the burden of deceit"; he lives "believing in nothing and recognizing nothing." In these outpourings, of course, there are not a few exaggerations, but they are undoubtedly based on a spiritual discord with the surrounding life. By 1829, the first essay "Demon" and the poem "Monologue" belong; this heavy mood poured out very brightly in both of them. In the first, the poet refuses "gentle and cheerful songs", compares his life with a "boring autumn day", draws the tormented soul of a demon living without faith, without hope, treating everything in the world with indifference and contempt. The "Monologue" depicts in gloomy colors the seedy "children of the north", their spiritual anguish, cloudy life without love and sweet friendship.

In the spring of 1810, the noble boarding school was transformed into a gymnasium, and Lermontov left it. He spends his summers at Serednikovo, the estate near Moscow of his grandmother's brother, Stolypin. Not far from Serednikov lived his Moscow acquaintances young ladies, A. Vereshchagina and her friend E. Sushkova, a "black-eyed" beauty, in which Lermontov dreamed of being seriously in love. In Sushkova's notes, Lermontov is depicted as a nondescript, clumsy, clumsy boy, with red, but intelligent, expressive eyes, with an upturned nose and a caustic-mocking smile. While flirting with Lermontov, Sushkova at the same time mocked him mercilessly. In response to his feelings, he was offered "a shuttlecock or a rope, treated to buns stuffed with sawdust." When they met again under a completely different situation, Lermontov took revenge on Sushkova very angrily and cruelly.

In the same summer, Lermontov's serious interest arose in the personality and poetry of the "huge" Byron, whom the poet "would like to achieve" all his life. He is pleased to think that they have "one soul, the same torments"; he longs passionately for "the same fate." From the very beginning, there is more a feeling of kinship between two rebellious souls than what is usually understood as influence. This is evidenced by those numerous parallels and analogies, common motives, images and dramatic situations that can be found in Lermontov even in the most mature period, when there can be no question of imitation.

In the fall of 1830, Lermontov entered Moscow University in the "moral and political department." University teaching of that time contributed little to the mental development of young people. "Learning, activity and mind, in the words of Pushkin, were then alien to Moscow University." Professors lectured on other people's manuals, finding that "you won't get any smarter, although you will write your own." A serious mental life began in student circles, but Lermontov did not get along with the students; he gravitates towards a secular society. However, some of the hopes and ideals of the then best youth, however, are also reflected in his drama The Strange Man (1831), the main character of which, Vladimir, is the embodiment of the poet himself. He, too, is experiencing a family drama, is also torn apart by internal contradictions; he knows the selfishness and insignificance of people and yet strives for them; when "he is alone, it seems to him that no one loves him, no one cares about him - and it's so hard!" This is the state of mind of Lermontov himself. And all the more valuable is the scene when the peasant tells Vladimir about the cruelties of the landowner and about other peasant sorrows, and he becomes furious, and a cry breaks out from him: "Oh, my fatherland! my fatherland!" Yet this is only an accidental motif, touching the soul of the poet; the main, basic ones are still the discord between dream and reality, the tragic clash of opposite principles, pure and vicious, a deep hatred for people, for that very "light" in which he so willingly visited.

Lermontov spent less than two years at Moscow University. The professors, remembering his brash antics, cut him off in public examinations. He did not want to stay for the second year on the same course and moved to St. Petersburg, along with his grandmother. Shortly before this, his father had died; later, in the hours of sorrowful reminiscences, the poet mourned him in a poem: "The terrible fate of father and son." Lermontov did not get into St. Petersburg University: he was not credited for a two-year stay in Moscow and was offered to take the entrance exam for the first year.

On the advice of his friend Stolypin, he decided to enter the school of guards cadets and ensigns, where he was enrolled by order of November 10, 1832, "first as a non-commissioned officer, then as a cadet." Almost at the same time, his future killer, N.S., entered school with him. Martynov, in whose biographical notes the cadet poet is depicted as a young man, "so superior in his mental development to all other comrades that it is impossible to draw parallels between them. He went to school, according to Martynov, already a man, read a lot, thought a lot; others still peered into life, he had already studied it from all sides. For years he was no older than others, but by experience and outlook on people he left them far behind him.

Lermontov spent "two terrible years" at school, as he himself puts it. The earthly element of his nature won for a time a complete victory over the other, better part of his soul, and he plunged headlong into the "revelry" that reigned in the school. About this time, his relative Shan-Giray writes the following: “Lermontov turned his ability to draw and poetic talent into caricatures, epigrams and various works inconvenient in print, such as “Ulansha”, “Peterhof holiday”, placed in a handwritten illustrated magazine published at school , and some of them went from hand to hand and in separate issues. He was threatened with complete moral death, but he managed to save his creative forces here too. During the hours of reflection, hiding his serious literary plans even from friends, the poet "went to distant classrooms, empty in the evenings, and there alone sat for a long time and wrote until late at night." In letters to his friend, M. Lopukhina, he occasionally reveals this better part of his soul, and then one hears a bitter feeling of regret for past defiled dreams.

Upon leaving school (November 22, 1834) as a cornet of the Life Guards Hussars, Lermontov settled with his friend A.A. Stolypin in Tsarskoye Selo, continuing to lead the same way of life. He becomes "the soul of a society of young people of the highest circle, a leader in conversations, in circles, happens in society, where he amuses himself by driving women crazy, upsets parties," for which he "plays out of himself in love for several days." By this time, the denouement of Lermontov's long-standing romance with E. Sushkova dates back. He pretended to be in love again, this time achieving her reciprocity; treated her publicly, "as if she were close to him," and when he noticed "that a further step would destroy him, he quickly began to retreat." However strong, however, his fascination with "light" and his desire to create a "pedestal" for himself in it - all this is just one side of his life: the same duality of his nature, his art of hiding his intimate feelings and moods under the mask of cheerfulness, is still evident. Former gloomy motives are now complicated by a feeling of deep remorse and fatigue. It sounds in his autobiographical story "Sashka", in the drama "Two Brothers", in his lyrics; it is also reflected in his letters to M. Lopukhina and Vereshchagina.

At the end of 1835, rumors reached him that Varvara Lopukhina, whom he had loved for a long time and did not stop loving until the end of his life, was marrying N.I. Bakhmetiev. Shan Giray tells how Lermontov was struck by the news of her marriage. The first appearance of Lermontov in print dates back to 1835. Until then, Lermontov was known as a poet only in officer and secular circles. One of his comrades, without his knowledge, took the story "Khadzhi-Abrek" from him and gave it to the "Library for Reading". Lermontov was very dissatisfied with this. The story was a success, but Lermontov did not want to publish his poems for a long time.

The death of Pushkin showed Lermontov to Russian society in all the power of his brilliant talent. Lermontov was ill when the news of this terrible event spread throughout the city. Various rumors reached him; some, "especially the ladies, justified Pushkin's opponent", finding that "Pushkin had no right to demand love from his wife, because he was jealous, bad-looking." Indignation seized the poet, and he poured it out on paper. At first, the poem ended with the words: "And on the lips of his seal." In this form, it quickly spread in the lists, caused a storm of enthusiasm, and aroused indignation in high society. When Stolypin began to censure Pushkin under Lermontov, arguing that Dantes could not have done otherwise, Lermontov immediately interrupted the conversation and, in a fit of anger, wrote a passionate challenge to "arrogant descendants" (the last 16 verses). The poem was understood as "an appeal to revolution"; the case began, and a few days later (February 25), by the Highest order, Lermontov was transferred to the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment, which operated in the Caucasus. Lermontov went into exile, accompanied by general sympathy; he was looked upon as a victim, an innocent victim.

The Caucasus revived Lermontov, allowed him to calm down, to come to a fairly stable balance for a while. Glimpses of some new trend in his work are beginning to be more clearly outlined, which manifested itself with such beauty and strength in his "Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible", completed in the Caucasus, and in such poems as "I, Mother of God ..." and "When the yellowing field is agitated." Thanks to my grandmother's connections, on October 11, 1837, an order was issued to transfer Lermontov to the Life Guards of the Grodno Hussars, which was then stationed in Novgorod. Lermontov reluctantly parted with the Caucasus and even thought about resigning. He delayed his departure and spent the end of the year in Stavropol, where he became acquainted with the Decembrists who were there, including Prince Alexander Ivanovich, with whom he became close friends.

In early January 1838, the poet arrived in St. Petersburg and stayed here until mid-February, after which he went to the regiment, but served there for less than two months: on April 9, he was transferred to his former Life Guards Hussar Regiment. Lermontov returns to " big light", again plays the role of a "lion" in him; all the salon ladies look after him: "lovers of celebrities and heroes." But he is no longer the same and very soon begins to be weary of this life; he is not satisfied with any military service, no secular and literary circles, and he either asks for a vacation, or dreams of returning to the Caucasus. “What an eccentric, quick-tempered person he is,” A.F. Smirnova writes about him, “he will probably end in disaster ... He is distinguished by impossible audacity. He dies of boredom, is indignant at his own frivolity, but at the same time does not have enough character to break out of this environment. It is a strange nature."

On New Year's Eve 1840, Lermontov was at a masquerade ball in the Noble Assembly. Those present there observed how the poet "was not given rest, they constantly pestered him, took him by the hands; one mask was replaced by another, and he almost did not leave his place and silently listened to their squeak, turning his gloomy eyes on them in turn. it seemed, - says Turgenev, - that I caught on his face a beautiful expression of poetic creativity. As you know, this masquerade was inspired by his full of bitterness and melancholy poem "The First of January".

At the ball at the Countess Laval (February 16), he had a collision with the son of the French envoy, Barant. The result was a duel, this time ending happily, but resulting in Lermontov's arrest in the guardhouse, and then transfer (by order of April 9) to the Tenginsky Infantry Regiment in the Caucasus. During the arrest, Lermontov was visited by Belinsky. They met back in the summer of 1837 in Pyatigorsk, in the house of Lermontov's comrade from the university boarding school N. Satin, but then Belinsky left the most unfavorable impression of Lermontov, as an extremely empty and vulgar person. This time Belinsky was delighted with "both the personality and the artistic views of the poet." Lermontov took off his mask, appeared himself, and in his words one felt "so much truth, depth and simplicity." During this period of Lermontov's life in St. Petersburg, he wrote the last, fifth, essay "Demon" (the first four - 1829, 1830, 1831 and 1833), "Mtsyri", "A Tale for Children", "A Hero of Our Time"; poems "Duma", "In a difficult moment of life", "Three palm trees", "Gifts of the Terek", etc. On the day of departure from St. Petersburg, Lermontov was at the Karamzins; standing at the window and admiring the clouds floating over the Summer Garden and the Neva, he sketched his famous poem "Clouds of heaven, eternal wanderers." When he finished reading it, an eyewitness reports, "his eyes were wet with tears."

On the way to the Caucasus, Lermontov stopped in Moscow and lived there for about a month. On May 9, together with Turgenev, Zagoskin and others, he attended Gogol's birthday dinner at Pogodin's house and read his Mtsyri there. On June 10, Lermontov was already in Stavropol, where the main apartment of the commander of the Caucasian Line troops was then located. In two campaigns - in Lesser and Greater Chechnya - Lermontov attracted the attention of the head of the detachment "by promptness, fidelity of sight, ardent courage" and was presented with a golden saber with the inscription: "for courage".

In mid-January 1841, Lermontov received leave and left for St. Petersburg. The next day after his arrival, he went to a ball at the Countess Vorontsova-Dashkova. "The appearance of a disgraced officer at a ball where the Highest Persons were" was considered "indecent and impudent"; his enemies used this incident as proof of his incorrigibility. At the end of the vacation, Lermontov's friends began to petition for a respite, and he was allowed to stay in St. Petersburg for some more time. Hoping to receive a complete resignation, the poet missed this deadline and left only after the energetic order of the duty general Kleinmichel to leave the capital at 48 hours. It was said that this was demanded by Benckendorff, who was burdened by the presence in St. Petersburg of such a restless person as Lermontov. This time Lermontov left St. Petersburg with very heavy forebodings, leaving his homeland as a farewell to his amazingly powerful poems: "Farewell, unwashed Russia."

In Pyatigorsk, where he arrived, there lived a large company of cheerful youth - all of Lermontov's old acquaintances. “The audience,” recalls Prince A.I. Vasilchikov, “lived together, cheerfully and somewhat recklessly ... Time passed in noisy picnics, cavalcades, parties with music and dancing. Emilia Alexandrovna Verzilina, nicknamed the “rose of the Caucasus,” was especially popular among young people. In this company was also a retired major Martynov, who loved to be original, to show off, to draw attention to himself. Lermontov often angrily and caustically ridiculed him for "sham Byronism", for "terrible" poses. A fatal quarrel occurred between them, ending in "eternally sad" duel. The poet fell victim to his duality. Tender, sympathetic to a small circle of the elect, he always behaved arrogantly and fervently towards all other acquaintances. The narrow-minded Martynov belonged to the latter and did not understand "at that moment, bloody, what he raised his hand to." The funeral of Lermontov, despite all the efforts of friends, could not be performed according to the church rite.The official announcement of his death read: "June 15, about 5 o'clock evening, a terrible storm broke out with thunder and lightning; at that very time, between the mountains of Mashuk and Beshtau, M.Yu., who was being treated in Pyatigorsk, died. Lermontov". According to Prince Vasilchikov, in St. Petersburg, in high society, the death of the poet was greeted with the words: "He is dear there."

In the spring of 1842 Lermontov's ashes were transferred to Tarkhany. In 1899, a monument to Lermontov was opened in Pyatigorsk, erected on the basis of an all-Russian subscription.

CREATIVITY Lermontov

In terms of the complexity and richness of its motives, Lermontov's poetry occupies an exceptional place in Russian literature. “In it,” according to Belinsky, “all the forces, all the elements that make up life and poetry: the invincible power of the spirit, the humility of complaints, the fragrance of prayer, fiery, stormy animation, quiet sadness, meek thoughtfulness, cries of proud suffering, groans of despair , mysterious tenderness of feeling, indomitable outbursts of daring desires, chaste purity, ailments of modern society, pictures of world life, pangs of conscience, touching remorse, sobbing of passion and quiet tears flowing in the fullness of a heart subdued by a storm of life, intoxication of love, awe of parting, joy of rendezvous, contempt for the prose of life, an insane thirst for rapture, fiery faith, the torment of spiritual emptiness, the groan of a feeling of frozen life that turns away from itself, the poison of denial, the cold of doubt, the struggle of the fullness of feeling with the destructive power of reflection, the fallen spirit of heaven, the proud demon and the innocent baby, violent a bacchante and a pure maiden - everything, everything in this poetry: both heaven and earth, and heaven, and hell. But in this wasteful luxury, in an amazing wealth of motives, ideas and images, one can, however, notice the main trend of his creative process, the psychological core around which they all revolve. From this point of view, Lermontov's work can be divided into two periods: the first stretches approximately until the mid-30s, the second - until the end of his life. short life. In the first period, he is completely at the mercy of his unbridled fantasy; he writes solely on the basis of his inner experience, terribly painfully feels and experiences all the irreconcilability of two opposite principles, two elements of his soul: heavenly and earthly, and sees in it the main cause of the tragedy of his life. In the second period, he is already closer to reality, his experience expands in the direction of studying the people around him, blife and society, and if it does not completely renounce its antithesis, then, of course, softens it. He begins as a dualist, acutely aware of the two-sidedness of his psyche, as a person doomed to a constant stay "between two lives in a terrible gap." The reason for all his painful experiences is clear to him, it is clear why he is obsessed with such an irresistible desire to be as far as possible from the low and dirty land. There is foreverth antagonism between the heavenly soul and the "involuntary", burdensomely heavy, "life partner" - the body; no matter how they are connected with each other in the short period of joint existence assigned to them, they gravitate in different directions. He is drawn to the night, the sky, the stars and the moon. On a quiet moonlit night, his gardens bloom, the world of his enchanting dreams awakens, and light-winged fantasy makes its mountain flight, takes it to "distant skies". Faint beam of a distant star"carries dreams to his sick soul; and then it is free and easy for him." The stars in the clear evening sky are as clear as the happiness of a child; but sometimes, when he looks at them, his soul is filled with envy. He feels unhappy because "the stars and the sky are the stars and the sky, and he is a man." He does not envy people, but only "beautiful stars: I would only like to take their place." There is a wonderful "bird Hope". During the day, she will not sing, but as soon as "the earth falls asleep, dressed in darkness in the stillness of the night," she "sings on a branch so sweetly, sweetly for the soul, that involuntarily you will forget the burden of torment listening to that song." And his soul, kindred to heaven, strives upward; she would also like to physically tear herself away from the sinful earth, to partwith his "unwitting life partner", with his body. That is why Lermontov so welcomes the blue mountains of the Caucasus, because they are the "thrones of the Lord", they accustomed him to the sky, for whoever "prayed to the creator at least once on the peaks, he despises life", he will never forget the sky that opened to him. Here is a wooden cross blackening over a high rock in the gorge of the Caucasus: "each of his hands is raised up, as if he wants to grab the clouds." And again an unearthly desire is born: “Oh, if I could climb there, how I would pray and cry then ... And then I would throw off the chain of being, and with a storm I would call myself a brother.” During these hours of lofty dreams, he once saw how “an angel flew across the midnight sky”, and how “the moon and the stars and clouds in a crowd listened to that holy song”, which the angel sang before parting to the soul descending into “the world of sorrow and tears”. He knows that there was once a close communication between the world of people and the world of angels, they lived like two native families, and even the angel of death was fearless, and "meeting with him seemedthis is a sweet lot. " In the poem: "Angel of Death" the idea is suggested that only through the fault of man the "last moment" became for people not "a reward, but a punishment: people are insidious and cruel, their virtues are vices", and they are already more do not deserve the compassion that used to be for them in the soul of the angel of death.

Lermontov is languishing as in a dungeon; he is "boring with the songs of the earth", and all life with all its joys, bright hopes and dreams is nothing but "a notebook with long-known poems." Man is no more like an "earth worm", "the earth is a nest of debauchery, madness and sadness." It is so hard for him on her, and he hates her so deeply that even in the highest moments, when he succeeds in dreaming to catch the bliss of otherworldly worlds, he is pursued by ominous earthly shadows, and he is afraid to look back, so as not to "remember this light where he wears all the seal of the curse, where all the embraces are full of poison, where there is no happiness without deceit. These motifs of his future "Duma" instill in him an amazingly deep idea of ​​heaven and hell, the same idea that Dostoevsky later, after somewhat changing, put into the mouth of the old man Zosima. He sees that "the magnificent light was not created for people ... their ashes are only to soften the earth for other purest creatures." These creatures will be free from earthly sins, and "their innocent days will flow like the days of children; angels will (as always could) flock to them. And people will see this paradise of the earth, chained under the abyss of darkness. purpose alone "... such will be their" execution for whole centuries of villainy, boiling under the moonoh!" ("Fragment", 1830). But does this radiant element have the final victorious power? In the joys that it promises, there is too much peace and very little life. This is also suitable for a contemplative nature, like; Lermontov has too much for this active, too energetic nature, with an insatiable thirst for being. He knows that first of all "he needs to act, he wants to make immortal every day, like the shadow of a great hero, and he cannot understand what it means to rest." "the twilight of the soul, when the object of desire is gloomy, between joy and sorrow half-light; when life is hateful and death is terrible.

And from the very first years of creativity, simultaneously and in parallel with these heavenly sounds, passionate, earthly, sinful sounds sound, and they feel much more depth, strength of tension. The poet passionately loves the Caucasus not at all for its proximity to heaven alone; he sees on it traces of his passions, signs of his mintzest: after all, "from an early age, heat and storms boil in his blood, a rebellious impulse."

The sea element captivates his ardent imagination with its agitated power, and he looks for images from her to express the state of his soul. Now it looks like a wave, “when it, driven by a fatal storm, hisses and rushes with its foam,” then it is a lonely sail, whitening in the blue fog of the sea; "Under him is a stream brighter than azure, above him is a golden ray of sun... And he, rebellious, asks for storms, as if there is peace in storms." In tacosIn this state, the peace and silence of heavenly joy seem to him absolutely unacceptable, and he confesses that he loves the torments of the earth: "they are dearer to him than heavenly blessings, he is used to them and will not leave them." The path of salvation is too narrow and it requires too many sacrifices from it; it is necessary for this that the heart be transformed into stone, that the soul be freed from the terrible thirst for singing, and this is tantamount to death ("Prayer", 1829). And he refuses this bodily way of salvation.

Earthly power is the main feature of all the heroes of his youthful stories and dramas: in "Giulio", and in "Litvinka", and in "Confession", in "Izmail-Bey", "Vadim", "Spaniards", "Menschen u. Liedendschaften", "Strange Man". In all these Byronic images of Circassians, corsairs, robbers, rebellious slaves, "sons of liberty" these earthly passions seethe; they are all in the power of the earthly principle, and Lermontov loves them, sympathizes with them and almost brings no one to repentance. The scene of action is very hourthen the monastery appears - the embodiment of asceticism, the laws of the spirit, which fundamentally reject the sinful earth. The ardent protests of the beloved children of his imagination are directed against the monastic holiness, against the heavenly beginning, in defense of other laws - the laws of the heart, they are also the laws of human blood and flesh. Blasphemous speeches are heard in the "Confession"; they are transferred exactly, in their entirety, both to "Boyar Orsha" and "Love of a Dead Man" and are still clearly heard later in "Mtsyri", though in a more softened form. The same negative attitude towards the monastery is found in all the essays of The Demon, not excluding even the last ones: within the walls of the holy monastery, he forces the demon to seduce his beloved.

Russian poet. Studied at Moscow University (1830-32). He graduated from the St. Petersburg School of Guards Ensigns and Cavalry Junkers (1834). In 1837, for the poem "The Death of a Poet" (about the death of A. S. Pushkin), he was exiled to the army in the Caucasus. Killed in a duel in Pyatigorsk. Disappointment in reality, characteristic of the post-December mood, skepticism, striving for the ideal of a free and rebellious personality nourished his early romantic poems, and in mature lyrics, the dream of peace of mind (“Thought”, “And boring and sad”,

“Prayer”, “Prophet”, “I go out alone on the road”; poem "Mtsyri", 1839; drama "Masquerade", 1835). Many of Lermontov's works are permeated with civic pathos, patriotic feeling [an unfinished socio-historical novel. "Vadim" (1832-34), poems "Borodino", "Poet", "Motherland"]. The poem "The Demon" (completed in 1839) is a symbolic embodiment of the idea of ​​rebellion against the "world order", the tragedy of loneliness. Lermontov introduced into Russian poetry a verse marked by the energy of thought and melody. The novel A Hero of Our Time (1840), saturated with deep social reflection and psychological content, is the pinnacle of Lermontov's realism.
LERMONTOV Mikhail Yurievich, Russian poet.
Unknown chosen one
The marriage of Lermontov's parents, the wealthy heiress M. M. Arsenyeva (1795-1817) and army captain Yu. P. Lermontov (1773-1831), was unsuccessful. The early death of his mother and the quarrel between his father and grandmother E. A. Arsenyeva had a serious impact on the formation of the poet's personality. Lermontov was brought up by his grandmother on the Tarkhany estate in the Penza province; received excellent home education (foreign languages, drawing, music). The romantic cult of the father and the corresponding interpretation of the family conflict were later reflected in the dramas Menschen und Leidenschaften (“People and Passions”, 1830), “The Strange Man” (1831). Significant for the formation of Lermontov and legends about the legendary founder of his family, the Scottish poet Thomas Lermontov. Trips to the Caucasus (1820, 1825) belong to strong childhood impressions.
From 1827 Lermontov lived in Moscow. He studied at the Moscow University Noble Boarding School (September 1828 March 1830), later at Moscow University (September 1830 June 1832) in the moral-political, then verbal department.
Lermontov's early poetic experiments testify to the gambling and unsystematic reading of pre-romantic and romantic literature: along with J. G. Byron and A. S. Pushkin, F. Schiller, V. Hugo, K. N. Batyushkov, the philosophical lyrics of the philosophers of wisdom are important to him; in verse there are a lot of borrowed lines (fragments) from the works of various authors from M. V. Lomonosov to contemporary poets. Not thinking of himself as a professional writer and not seeking to be published, Lermontov keeps a secret lyrical diary, where strange, sometimes contrasting formulas serve as an expression of the hidden truth about a great and misunderstood soul. The passions of E. A. Sushkova, N. F. Ivanova, and V. A. Lopukhina experienced in 1830-32 become material for the corresponding lyric-confessional cycles, where eternal, tragic conflict is hidden behind specific circumstances. At the same time, work is underway on romantic poems from the frankly imitative "Circassians" (1828) to the quite professional "Izmail Bey" and "Litvinka" (both 1832), testifying to Lermontov's assimilation of the genre (Byron-Pushkin) canon (the exclusiveness of the protagonist, "the pinnacle of "compositions, "understatement" of the plot, exotic or historical flavor). By the beginning of the 1830s. the “main” heroes of Lermontov’s poetic system were found, correlated with two different life and creative strategies, with two interpretations of one’s own personality: a fallen spirit who deliberately cursed the world and chose evil (the first edition of the poem “Demon”, 1829), and an innocent, pure-hearted sufferer dreaming of freedom and natural harmony (the poem "Confession", 1831, which was the prototype of the poem "Mtsyri"). The contrast of these interpretations does not exclude internal kinship, which ensures the intense antithetical nature of the characters of all the main Lermontov's heroes and the complexity of the author's assessment.
Time of Troubles
Leaving the university for reasons that are not entirely clear, Lermontov moved to St. Petersburg in 1832 and entered the School of Guards Ensigns and Cavalry Junkers; released by the cornet of the Life Guards Hussar Regiment in 1834. The place of high poetry is occupied by unprintable poetry (“Junker Poems”), the place of the tragic chosen one is a cynical breter, a lowered double of the “demon”. At the same time, work is underway on the novel “Vadim” (not finished), where ultra-romantic motifs and stylistic moves (kinship between “angel” and “demon”, “poetry of ugliness”, linguistic expression) accompany a thorough depiction of the historical background (the Pugachev uprising). The "demonic" line continues in the unfinished novel from modern life "Princess Ligovskaya" (1836) and the drama "Masquerade". Lermontov attached particular importance to the latter: he submits it to censorship three times and redoes it twice.
Poet of a generation
By the beginning of 1837, Lermontov had no literary status: numerous poems (among them recognized as masterpieces in the future "Angel", 1831; "Sail", 1831; "Mermaid", 1832; "The Dying Gladiator", 1836; the poem "Boyar Orsha", 1835 -36) were not given to the press, the novels were not finished, “Masquerade” was not censored, the poem “Khadzhi Abrek” (1834) published (according to unconfirmed information without the knowledge of the author) did not cause a resonance, there are no connections in the literary world (the “non-meeting” is significant) with Pushkin). Glory to Lermontov comes overnight with the poem "The Death of a Poet" (1937), a response to Pushkin's last duel. The text is widely distributed in lists, is highly appreciated both in Pushkin's circle and among the public, who heard their own pain and indignation in these verses. The final lines of the poem with sharp attacks against the highest aristocracy angered Nicholas I. On February 18, Lermontov was arrested and soon transferred as an ensign to the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment in the Caucasus.
The link lasted until October 1837: Lermontov traveled the Caucasus, visited Tiflis, was treated at the waters (here he met the exiled Decembrists, including the poet A. I. Odoevsky, as well as V. G. Belinsky); studied oriental folklore (recording of the fairy tale "Ashik-Kerib"). The publication in 1837 of the poem "Borodino" strengthened the fame of the poet.
From April 1838 to April 1840, Lermontov served in the Life Guards Hussars, confidently conquering the “big world” and the world of literature. Relations with the Pushkin circle were established with the Karamzin family, P. A. Vyazemsky, V. A. Zhukovsky (thanks to the mediation of the latter, the poem “The Tambov Treasurer” was published in Sovremennik in 1838) and A. A. Kraevsky (the publication of “Songs about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich ... ”in the Literary Supplements to the Russian Invalid, edited by Kraevsky, 1838; systematic collaboration with the journal Domestic Notes, headed by Kraevsky in 1839). Lermontov is a member of the Fronder-aristocratic "circle of sixteen".
Lermontov's mature lyrics are dominated by the theme of his contemporary society, weak-willed, reflective, incapable of action, passion, and creativity. Not separating himself from the sick generation (“Duma”, 1838), expressing doubts about the possibility of the existence of poetry here and now (“Poet”, 1838; “Do not trust yourself”, 1839; “Journalist, reader and writer”, 1840), skeptically evaluating life as such (“Both boring and sad ...”, 1840), Lermontov seeks harmony in the epic past (“Borodino”, “Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich ...”, where the demonic hero-oprichnik is defeated by the guardian of moral principles), in folk culture (“Cossack lullaby”, 1838), in the feelings of a child (“How often he is surrounded by a motley crowd ...”, 1840) or a person who has retained a childish worldview (“In memory of A.I.O”, 1839;, 1840) . Theomachism (Gratitude, 1840), motifs of the impossibility of love and destructive beauty (Three Palm Trees, 1839; The Cliff, Tamara, Leaf, Sea Princess, all 1841) coexist with the search for spiritual peace associated sometimes with a de-ideologized national tradition (“Motherland”, “Dispute”, both 1841), sometimes with a mystical exit beyond the bounds of earthly doom (“I go out alone on the road ...”, 1841). The same tense oscillation between the poles of world-denial and love of being, between earthly and heavenly, curse and blessing, is inherent in Lermontov's top poems of the last edition of Demon and Mtsyri (both 1839).
In 1838-40, the novel A Hero of Our Time was written: the novels of different genres that originally composed it were published in Otechestvennye Zapiski and, possibly, did not imply cyclization. The novel closely examines the phenomenon of modern man; the antinomies inherent in the poetic world of Lermontov are carefully analyzed. The appearance of a separate edition of the novel (April 1840) and the only lifetime collection "Poems of M. Lermontov" (October 1840; included "Mtsyri", "Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich ...", 26 poems) became key literary events of the era, caused critical controversy, a special the place in which belongs to Belinsky's articles.
Unexpected ending
Lermontov's duel with the son of the French ambassador, E. de Barante (February 1840), led to his arrest and transfer to the Tengin Infantry Regiment. Through Moscow (meetings with the Slavophiles and N.V. Gogol at his birthday dinner), the poet departs for the Caucasus, where he takes part in hostilities (the battle on the Valerik River, described in the poem “I write to you by chance, right ...”), for what is presented for awards (crossed out from the lists by Emperor Nicholas I). In January 1841, he departs for St. Petersburg, where, having overstayed his two-month vacation, he stays until April 14, rotating in literary and secular circles. Lermontov is considering plans for resignation and further literary activity(the idea of ​​a historical novel is known; there is information about the intention to start publishing a magazine); in St. Petersburg and after leaving it, brilliant poems are written one after another (including those mentioned above).

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

Russian poet, prose writer, playwright, artist

Mikhail Lermontov

short biography

- the pride of Russian literature, a Russian poet, prose writer, playwright - was born in 1814, on the night of May 14-15 (from May 2 to May 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 her conflict relations between her father and maternal grandmother, E.A. Arsenyeva. She took the boy to her estate, in the Penza province, p. Tarkhany, and the childhood of the future poet passed there. Mikhail grew up, caressed with love and care, received a good education, however, being an emotional, romantic, sickly child, developed beyond his years, he was, for the most part, in a sad mood, concentrating on the inner world.

As a ten-year-old boy, Mikhail Lermontov first came to the Caucasus, with which his entire further biography will be connected. From childhood, the future poet was imbued with special feelings for this land, especially since the impressions of staying there were adorned with the first love. He showed early abilities 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-grade half boarder at the Moscow University Noble Boarding School, where he received his education for about two years before the boarding school was converted into a gymnasium. Here, in a handwritten magazine, his first poem, "Indian Woman", was published.

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

Following the advice of a friend, on November 10, 1832, Lermontov entered the school of guards 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 guard, Lermontov was assigned to the hussar regiment located in Tsarskoye Selo.

His lifestyle is not much different from the previous one: Lermontov leads an active social life, becomes the soul of the company, 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, and without the knowledge of the author: a friend took the story "Khadzhi-Abrek" to the "Library for Reading". She was warmly received by readers, but dissatisfied Lermontov refused to publish his poems for a long time.

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

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

The 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 Valerka River, in which he demonstrated amazing bravery and courage. He was twice presented for awards, but the king did not give his consent.

In January 1841, Lermontov came to St. Petersburg on vacation for three months. They still show interest in him, he hatches new creative plans, dreams of retiring to devote himself to literature. When the vacation was over, friends procured him a small respite, and Lermontov, counting on the fact that he would still be given a full resignation, did not leave on time. However, the hopes were not justified: he was ordered to leave Petersburg at 48 o'clock. 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, belong 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 revolved in a circle of old acquaintances, young people who indulged in secular entertainment. Among them was the retired major Martynov, with whom Lermontov once studied at the school of the guards cadets. The sharp-tongued poet more than once caustically ridiculed his posturing, pomposity and dramatic mannerisms. The quarrel between them ended on July 27 (July 15, O.S.) 1841 with a duel in which the poet, who was in the prime of life and creativity, 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. The ashes of Mikhail Yurievich were brought to Tarkhany in the spring of 1842 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, dramatic works, was published mainly after the death of their author. In a short 13 years creative biography the poet made an invaluable contribution to Russian literature as the author of lyrics that were exceptional in terms of the variety of themes and motifs; his work completed the development of the national romantic poem, created the foundation for the realistic novel of the 19th century.

Biography from Wikipedia

A family

The Lermontov family came from Scotland and went back to the semi-mythical bard-prophet Thomas Lermontov. In 1613, one of the representatives of this family, the lieutenant of the Polish army Georg (George) Lermont (about 1596-1633 or 1634), was taken prisoner by the troops of Prince Dmitry Pozharsky during the surrender 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 ancestor of the Russian noble family Lermontov. In the rank of captain of the Russian Reitar system, he died during the siege of Smolensk. British company Oxford Ancestors, which compiled the pedigrees, carried out work to verify this version of Lermontov's origin using DNA analysis. However, it was not possible to find a relationship between the modern British Lermontovs and the descendants of Mikhail Lermontov.

Lermontov dedicated the poem "Desire" to his alleged Scottish roots. In his youth, Lermontov associated his surname with the Spanish statesman of the early 17th century, Francisco Lerma. These fantasies were reflected in the poet's imaginary 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 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 the local historian P. K. Shugaev (1855-1917), he " he was of medium height, a rare handsome man and beautifully built; in general, he can be called in the full sense of the word an elegant man; he was kind, but terribly quick-tempered". Yuri Petrovich had sisters, the poet's aunts, who lived in Moscow.

Maternal grandfather of the poet Mikhail Vasilievich Arseniev(November 8, 1768 - January 2, 1810), a retired guard lieutenant, married at the end of 1794 or the beginning of 1795 in Moscow Elizaveta Alekseevna Stolypina(1773-1845), after which he bought "almost for nothing" from I. A. Naryshkin in the Chembarsky 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 there serfs from among the fanatical schismatics, as well as "thieves and cutthroats" from their Moscow and Vladimir estates.

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

M. V. Arseniev " he was of medium height, handsome, stately in appearance, of strong build; he came from a good old noble family". He liked to arrange 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 awkward". She had a remarkable mind, willpower and business acumen. She came from the famous Stolypin family. Her father, Alexei Emelyanovich Stolypin, was elected the Penza provincial marshal of the nobility for several years. There were 11 children in his family; Elizaveta Alekseevna was the first child. One of her brothers, Alexander, served as an adjutant, two others - Nikolai and Dmitry - went to the generals; one became a senator and was friends with Speransky, two were elected marshals of the provincial nobility in Saratov and Penza. One of her sisters was married to a 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 female disease. As a result, Mikhail Vasilievich got along with a neighbor on the estate, a landowner Mansyreva, whose husband was abroad for a long time in the army. On January 2 (14), 1810, having learned during the Christmas tree arranged by him for his daughter that Mansyreva's husband had returned home, Mikhail Vasilyevich took poison. Elizaveta Alekseevna, stating: " dog death”, Together with her daughter, she went to Penza for the time 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, whom she had about 600 souls, in strictness - although, unlike other landowners, she never applied corporal punishment to them. The most severe punishment she had was to shave half the head of a delinquent peasant, or to cut off the braid of a serf.

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

The estate of Yuri Petrovich Lermontov - Kropotovka, Efremov district, Tula province (now the village of Kropotovo-Lermontovo, Stanovlyansky district, Lipetsk region) - was located next to the village Vasilevsky belonging to the Arseniev family. Marya Mikhailovna married Yuri Petrovich when she was not yet 17 years old, as they said then, “ ran out of heat". But for Yuri Petrovich it was a brilliant match.

Memorial plaque at the birthplace of M. Yu. Lermontov

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

Yuri Petrovich Lermontov (1787-1831), poet's father

On October 11 (23) in the Church of the Three Saints at the Red Gate, the newborn Mikhail Lermontov was baptized. The godmother was the grandmother - Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva. She, who did not like her son-in-law, insisted that the boy be called 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, Arsenyev'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 Arsenyev's grandson). There is a chapel with a crypt where the poet is buried. Over time, Mikhailovskoye merged with Tarkhany.

The first biographer of Mikhail Lermontov, Pavel Alexandrovich Viskovaty, noted that his mother, Marya Mikhailovna, was " gifted with the soul of music". She often played the piano, holding her little son on her knees, and allegedly Mikhail Yuryevich inherited from her " his extraordinary nervousness».

The family happiness of the Lermontovs was short-lived. " Yuri Petrovich cooled off towards his wife for the same reason as his father-in-law towards his mother-in-law; as a result, Yuri Petrovich started an intimate relationship with his son’s bonne, a young German woman, Cecilia Fedorovna, and, moreover, with the courtyards ... A storm broke out after Yuri Petrovich and Marya Mikhailovna went to visit their neighbors Golovnin ... going back to Tarkhany, Marya Mikhailovna became accuse your husband of treason; 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 a pretext for the unbearable situation that was established in the Lermontov family. Since that time, Marya Mikhailovna's illness developed with incredible rapidity, which later turned into consumption, which brought her prematurely to the 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 the chapel built over the crypt, crowns broken anchor- a symbol of an unhappy family life. The inscription on the monument: Under this stone lies the body of Marya Mikhailovna Lermontova, nee Arsenyeva, who died on February 24, 1817, on Saturday; her life was 21 years and 11 months and 7 days».

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

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

On December 1, 1974, next to the Arseniev 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 also 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 in childhood was not distinguished by good health. Energetic and persistent, she made every effort to give him everything that the successor of the Lermontov family can claim. She did not care about the feelings and interests of her father.

M. Yu. Lermontov at the age of 6-9 years.

Lermontov in youthful works very fully and accurately reproduces the events and characters of his personal life. A drama with a German title - "Menschen und Leidenschaften" - tells the strife 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 to her with the persuasion to bring him up to 16 years old, to make him his only heir and to consult with his father in everything. But the last condition was not fulfilled; 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 by love and care - but he did not have the bright impressions of childhood, characteristic of age.

In the unfinished youthful " Tale» Lermontov describes childhood Sasha Arbenina, the double of the author himself. Sasha from the age of six reveals a penchant for daydreaming, 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 in the child extraordinary moral energy. The sickness of the child demanded so much attention that the grandmother, who spared nothing for her grandson, hired a doctor for him. Anselm Levis(Levi) - a Jew from France, whose main duty was the treatment and medical supervision of Michael.

The "Tale" recognizes the influence of the disease on the mind and character of the hero: " he learned to think... Deprived of the opportunity to enjoy the usual amusements of children, Sasha began to look for them in himself. Imagination became a new toy for him... In the course of agonizing insomnia, suffocating between hot pillows, he was already getting used to conquering the sufferings of the body, carried away by the dreams of the soul... It is likely that early mental development interfered with his recovery…»

This early development became a source of grief for Lermontov: none of those around him was not only able to meet halfway " dreams of his soul' but didn't even notice them. This is where the main motives of his future poetry of "disillusionment" are rooted. In a gloomy child, contempt for the daily life around him grows. Everything alien, hostile to her aroused ardent sympathy in him: he himself is lonely and unhappy - all loneliness and other people's misfortune, which comes from human misunderstanding, indifference or petty egoism, seems to him his own. A feeling of alienation among people and an irresistible thirst for a kindred soul live side by side in his heart - just as lonely, close to the poet with his dreams and, perhaps, suffering. And as a result " In my childishness, the anguish of sultry love // ​​Already I began to understand with my restless soul».

10-year-old Mikhail was taken by his grandmother to the Caucasus, to the waters. Here he met a girl of nine years old - and for the first time an unusually deep feeling awoke in him, which left a memory for a lifetime; but at first it was unclear and unsolved for him. Two years later, the poet talks about a new hobby, dedicating the poem "To the Genius" to him.

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

Since the autumn of 1825, Lermontov's more or less permanent studies began, but the choice of teachers - the Frenchman Capet and the Greek who had fled from Turkey - was unsuccessful. The Greek soon gave up his pedagogical studies and took up furriery. The Frenchman, obviously, did not inspire Lermontov with particular interest in French 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, was engaged in self-education 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 childhood: “ in them, it is true, there is more poetry than in all French literature". He is captivated by the mysterious but courageous images of outcasts. 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 a mezzanine) mansion for living on Malaya Molchanovka. She began to prepare her grandson for admission to the university noble boarding school - immediately into the 4th grade. His teachers were Zinoviev (teacher of Latin and Russian in a boarding school) and the Frenchman Gondrot, a former colonel of the Napoleonic guards. The latter was replaced in 1829 by an Englishman Windson who introduced Lermontov to English literature. In the boarding school, the future poet learned literacy and mathematics. After studying, M. Yu. Lermontov mastered four languages, played four musical instruments (seven-string guitar, violin, cello and piano), was fond of painting and even mastered the technique of needlework.

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

The poet eagerly began to read; at first he is absorbed by Schiller, especially by his youthful tragedies; then he is mistaken for Shakespeare. In a letter to a relative, he "stands up for his honor", quoting scenes from Hamlet.

As before, Lermontov is looking for a soul mate, he is fond of friendship with one or another comrade, he is disappointed, indignant at the frivolity and betrayal of his friends. The last time of his stay in the boarding house (1829) is 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 term of his upbringing under the guidance of his grandmother was coming to an end. The father often visited his son in a boarding house, and his relationship with his mother-in-law escalated to an extreme degree. The struggle developed before the eyes of Mikhail Yurievich; she is depicted in detail in his juvenile drama. Grandmother, referring to her lonely old age and appealing to her grandson's gratitude, won him back from her son-in-law, threatening, as before, to sign off all her movable and immovable property to the Stolypin family if the grandson, at the insistence of his father, leaves her. Yuri Petrovich had to retreat, although father and son were tied to each other. The father, apparently, like no one else, understood how gifted his son was: this is precisely what his suicide letter to his son testifies to.

The poems of this time are a vivid reflection of the poet's experience. He develops a tendency to remember: in the present, obviously, there is little consolation. “My spirit has gone out and grown old,” he says, and only “a vague monument of the past lovely 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”, “son of nature”.

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

By 1829, the first essay on The Demon and the poem Monologue, foreshadowing the Duma, date back. The poet abandons his inspirations, comparing his life with an autumn day, and draws the "tortured soul" of the Demon, who lives 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 lot of the earth”: “you gave me life, but happiness is not given! ..”

The 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 Serednikovo, the estate near Moscow of his grandmother's brother, Stolypin. At present, a monument has been erected there with an inscription on the front side: "M. Y. Lermontov. 1914 This obelisk was erected in memory of his stay in 1830-31. in Srednikov". The back contains the words: "Singer of sorrow 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" that falls into two parts: in the first - a triumphant and mocking heroine, Sushkova, in the second - a cold and even cruelly vengeful hero, Lermontov.

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

Varvara Lopukhina-Bakhmeteva.
Watercolor by Mikhail Lermontov

That same summer of 1830, Lermontov's attention turned to Byron's personality and poetry; for the first time he compares himself with an English poet, realizes the similarity of his moral world with Byron's, 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 recognized as all-consuming and tragic, as the heroine herself draws it. But this did not prevent the "novel" from bringing new bitterness into the soul of the poet; this will later be proved by his really cruel revenge - one of his answers to human heartlessness, which frivolously poisoned his "childish days", extinguished the "divine fire" in his soul. In 1830, Lermontov wrote the poem "Prediction" ("The year will come, / Russia's black year, / When the crown of the kings falls ...").

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

By the summer of 1831, the key theme of treason and infidelity became the 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 causes of the heart drama of two people, in the first place is only the very feeling of unrequited love, interspersed with thoughts about the bitter fate of the poet. This feeling becomes 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 unwillingness to appreciate the rich spiritual world of the poet.

At the same time, the outcast hero is grateful to his beloved for the uplifting love that helped him to fully realize his calling as a poet. Heart anguish is accompanied by reproaches to her 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 a hindrance to poetic inspiration and creative freedom. The lyrical hero is overwhelmed by a contradictory gamut of feelings: tenderness and passion fight in him with innate pride and love of freedom.

Studying at Moscow University

Since September 1830, Lermontov has been listed as a student at Moscow University, first in the "moral and political department", then in the "verbal" department.

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

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

The main character - Vladimir - embodies the author himself; through his mouth, the poet frankly confesses 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!" Even more important is the drama as an expression of the poet's social ideas. A peasant tells Vladimir and his friend, Belinsky - opponents of serfdom - about the cruelties of the landowner and other peasant hardships. The story leads Vladimir into anger, pulls out a cry from him: “Oh, my fatherland! My fatherland! ”, - and Belinsky is forced to help the peasants.

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

They were ready to consider demonism and his disappointment - to consider it "drapery", "a cheerful, laid-back look" - to recognize it as a truly Lermontov property, and the burning "longing" and "anger" of his poems - a pretense and a conditional poetic masquerade. But it was poetry that was a sincere echo of Lermontov's moods. “Inspiration saved me from petty fuss,” he wrote, and gave himself up to creativity as the only pure and lofty pleasure. "Light", in his opinion, levels and vulgarizes everything, smooths out personal shades in people's characters, corrodes all originality, brings everyone to the same level of an animated mannequin. Having humiliated a person, the "light" teaches 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 himself undergoing such a fate; more than ever, he hides his intimate thoughts from people, armed with ridicule and contempt, sometimes playing the role of a good fellow or a desperate seeker of secular adventures. In solitude, he recalls Caucasian impressions - powerful and noble, not a single feature resembling the trifles and weaknesses of a refined society.

He repeats the dreams of the poets of the last century about a natural state, free from the "decency of chains", from gold and honors, from the mutual enmity of people. He cannot allow “impossible desires” to be put into our souls, so that we search in vain for “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 defined during Lermontov's stay at Moscow University, which he remembered precisely for this reason as a "holy place".

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 for two years; the certificate issued to him speaks of his dismissal "at the request" - but the petition, according to legend, was forced by a student story with one of the least respected professors Malov. From June 18, 1832, Lermontov was no longer listed as a student.

Commentaries on "Memoirs" by P. F. Wistenhof specify that Lermontov left Moscow University (applied?) in the spring of 1832. At the same time, out of the four semesters of his stay, the first did not take place due to quarantine on the occasion of the cholera epidemic, in the second semester classes did not improve partly due to the “Malov story”, and then Lermontov transferred to the verbal department. There, at the rehearsals of exams in rhetoric (P. V. Pobedonostsev), as well as heraldry and numismatics (M. S. Gastev), Lermontov, having discovered that he was well-read beyond the program and at the same time ignorant of the lecture material, entered into an argument with the examiners; after an explanation with the administration, a note appeared next to his surname in the list of students: lat. consilium abeundi ("advised to leave").

He left for St. Petersburg with the intention of re-entering the university, but he was refused to count the two years spent at Moscow University, offering to enter the 1st year again. Lermontov did not like such a long student life.

At the School of Guards Ensigns and Cavalry Junkers

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

Lermontov remained at school for two "ill-fated years," as he himself puts it. No one thought about the mental development of students; they "were not allowed to read books of purely literary content." A magazine was published at the school, but its character is quite obvious from Lermontov's poems included in this organ: "Ulansha", "Peterhof Holiday" ...

On the eve of entering the school, Lermontov wrote the poem "Sail"; the “rebellious” sail, “asking for storms” in moments of imperturbable peace - this is still the same restless soul of the poet from childhood. “He was looking for perfection in people, but he himself was not better than them,” he says through the lips of the hero of the poem “Angel of Death”, written back in Moscow.

In Lermontov studies, there is an opinion that for two Junker 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 is completely immersed in Junker 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 entirety. And this knowledge of life, the brilliant knowledge of the psychology of people, which he mastered during his Junker days, will be reflected in his best works.

The Junkerian revelry and bullying have now provided him with the most convenient environment for the development of any kind of "imperfections". Lermontov did not lag behind his comrades in anything, was the first participant in all the adventures - but here, too, the chosen nature affected immediately after the most apparently unaccountable fun. Both in Moscow society and in Junker revels, Lermontov knew how to preserve his "better part", his creative forces; in his letters one sometimes hears 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 unfailing friend, in the name of his talent conjured him to "keep firmly on his path." Lermontov described the fun of the junkers, 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 was in the infirmary, he was treated by the famous doctor N. F. Arendt. Later, the poet was discharged from the infirmary, 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 cornet of the Life Guards.

Leaving school (November 22, 1834) as a cornet in the Life Guards Hussar Regiment, Lermontov still lives among the hobbies and reproaches of his conscience; among passionate impulses and doubts bordering on despair. He writes about them to his friend Maria Lopukhina; but he exerts all his strength so that his comrades and the "light" 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 "good character" and "loving heart"; but Lermontov considered it humiliating for himself to appear kind and loving in front of the “haughty jester” - “light”. On the contrary, he wants to seem merciless in words, cruel in deeds, by all means pass for the inexorable tyrant of women's hearts. Then it was time for Sushkova to pay.

Lermontov the hussar, the heir to a large fortune, did not have to fill the heart of the once mocking beauty, upset her marriage to Lopukhin. Then the retreat began: Lermontov took such a form of addressing Sushkova that she was immediately compromised in the eyes of the "light", falling into the position of the ridiculous heroine of a failed novel. Lermontov had to finally break with Sushkova - and he wrote an anonymous letter in her name with a warning against himself, sent a letter to the relatives of the unfortunate girl and, in his words, produced "thunder and lightning."

Then, when meeting with the victim, he played the role of an astonished, upset knight, and in the last explanation he directly stated that he did not love her and, it seems, never loved her. All this, except for the parting scene, is told by Lermontov himself in a letter to Vereshchagina, and he sees only the "fun side of history." The only time Lermontov will allow himself not to compose a novel, but to "live it" in real life, playing the story by notes, as Pechorin will do it 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, the Mother of God, now with a prayer ...".

Until now, Lermontov's poetic talent was known only in officer and secular circles. His first work, which appeared in print, "Khadzhi Abrek", ended up in the "Library for Reading" without his knowledge, and after this involuntary but successful debut, Lermontov did not want to print his poems for a long time. The death of Pushkin revealed Lermontov to the Russian public in all the strength of his poetic talent. Lermontov was ill when a terrible event happened. Contradictory rumors reached him; "Many," he says, "especially the ladies, justified Pushkin's adversary," because Pushkin was bad-looking 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 ill Lermontov, told him the details of the duel and the death of Pushkin.

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

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

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

Arrest and trial followed, overseen by the Emperor himself; Pushkin's friends stood up for Lermontov, first of all Zhukovsky, close to the Imperial family, in addition to this, the grandmother, who had secular connections, did everything to mitigate the fate of her only grandson. Some time later, the cornet Lermontov was transferred "with the same rank", that is, an ensign, to the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment, which operated in the Caucasus. The poet went into exile, accompanied by general attention: there were both passionate sympathy and hidden enmity.

The 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 His Majesty's Hussar Regiment. With the regiment, Lermontov also traveled through the territory of Azerbaijan (Shusha (Nukha?), Kuba, Shamakhi). Despite the short duration of service in the Caucasus, Lermontov managed to change greatly in moral terms. Impressions from the nature of the Caucasus, the life of the highlanders, Caucasian folklore formed the basis of many of Lermontov's works.

Nature riveted all his attention; he is ready to sit and admire her beauty for “a lifetime”; society seemed to have lost its attractiveness for him, youthful cheerfulness disappeared, and even secular ladies noticed “black melancholy” on his face. The instinct of the poet-psychologist attracted him, however, to the environment 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 formed in his imagination.

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

"A few years ago,
Where, merging, they make noise,
Hugging like two sisters
Jets of Aragva and Kura…”

Both that and other poem were conceived for a long time. The poet thought about the "Demon" back in Moscow, before entering the university, later he began and reworked the poem several times; the origin of "Mtsyra" is undoubtedly hidden in the youthful note of Lermontov, also from the Moscow period: "to write notes of a young monk: 17 years. Since childhood, he has not read in the monastery, except for the sacred books ... A passionate soul languishes. Ideals.

At the heart of the "Demon" is the consciousness of loneliness among the entire universe. Features of demonism in the work of Lermontov: a proud soul, alienation from the world and contempt for petty passions and cowardice. For the demon, the world is small and miserable; for Mtsyra, 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 outcome for the mighty flame that lives in the chest from a young age. "Mtsyri" and "Demon" complement each other.

The Georgian military road near Mtskheta (Caucasian view from the hut). 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 been observing humanity for centuries - and has learned to despise people consciously and indifferently. Mtsyri dies in blooming youth, in the first impulse to freedom and happiness; but this impulse is so decisive and powerful that the young prisoner manages to rise to the ideal height of demonism.

Several years of painful 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 Mtsyra 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 real this mood is expressed and the chord is decomposed into more particular, but also more definite motives.

At the heart of the "Duma" are the same Lermontov feelings about "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 also the meaning of the New Year's greeting for 1840.

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

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

While in Tiflis, Lermontov began to learn the Azerbaijani (“Tatar”, according to the then terminology) language. In 1837, in his letter to S. A. Raevsky, Lermontov writes: “I started studying in 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 my studies, but later it could come in handy ...”. Azerbaijani Lermontov was taught 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 the 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 in a completely different way. Lermontov entered the circle of Pushkin's friends and is finally beginning to be published, almost every issue of A. A. Kraevsky's journal "Domestic Notes" comes out with new poems by the poet.

On February 16 (28), 1840, Lermontov was at a ball with 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 fired first, but missed. Lermontov, in turn, discharged his pistol, firing to the side, after which the participants dispersed.

There is no unequivocal version of the reason for 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 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, Teresa 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 a quarrel in Laval's house could also lie in strained Russian-French relations due to the political situation of those years. It is worth considering the anti-French mood of Lermontov himself due to the assassination of Pushkin by the Frenchman Georges Dantes. Taking advantage of this, Lermontov's ill-wishers informed Ernest Barant and his father back in 1839 that there were lines in the "Death of a Poet" 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, everything together could serve as the basis for a quarrel: both the biased attitude towards each other of Barant and Lermontov, and the intrigue involving Shcherbatova and Baherakht.

Lermontov was arrested on March 11 (23) for "failure to report the duel"; the case was heard by a military court. Barant, by the will of Nicholas I, was not brought to trial. Upon learning of Lermontov's testimony, Ernest was offended and claimed in the light that the poet did not shoot at all to the side, but aimed 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. Kh. Benckendorff, personally demanded that the poet apologize in writing to Barant for his 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 ask for forgiveness for having unfairly testified in court that I shot in the air. I could not agree to that, because it would be against my conscience ... There could be an error or misunderstanding in the words of mine or my second, I had no personal explanation at the trial with Mr. Barant, but I never stooped to deceit 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 the letter to Nicholas I, as a result of which Benckendorff withdrew his request.

By decision of the court, adopted on April 13 (25), Lermontov was transferred back to the Caucasus, to the Tenginsky Infantry Regiment, in fact, to the front line of the Caucasian War, where the poet left in the first days of 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. The personal hostility of Nicholas I to the poet, which was preserved even after the first trial of Lermontov, also played a role. In fact, the court was forced by decree 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 battle of Valerik. Palen D. P. July 23, 1840

The second link to the Caucasus was fundamentally different from what awaited him in the Caucasus a few 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 go from the first line and to involve him in military operations. Arriving in the Caucasus, Lermontov plunged into military life and at first distinguished himself, according to the official report, "courage and composure." In the poem "Valerik" and in a letter to Lopukhin, Lermontov does not say a word about his exploits.

Lermontov's secret thoughts have long been given over to the novel. It was conceived during the first stay in the Caucasus; Princess Mary, Grushnitsky and Dr. Werner, according to the same Satin, were copied from the originals as early as 1837. Subsequent processing, probably, focused mainly on the personality of the protagonist, whose characteristics were associated for the poet with a 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 journal "Domestic Notes". But soon a novel came out, supplemented by new chapters and thus completed.

The first edition of the work was quickly sold out, and almost immediately there was criticism of it. 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 a 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 this, as his grandmother was against it, she hoped that her grandson would be able to make a career for himself and did not share him passion for 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 a former fellow soldier A. G. Remy, 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 Remy, who was assigned to Novocherkassk, Lermontov went to visit the officer of the Life Guards of the Hussar Regiment A. L. Potapov, in his Voronezh estate Semidubravnoe - 50 km from Voronezh and 10 km south-west of Zemlyansk.

He left 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. For the first time, Lermontov met Martynov at the school of guards ensigns, which Martynov graduated a year later than Lermontov. In 1837, Lermontov, transferred from the Guards to the Nizhny Novgorod Regiment for the poems "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. 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 the linear Cossack regiment and had just left the service. He was very good-looking and had a brilliant secular education. Wearing a Circassian costume out of convenience and habit, he exaggerated the tastes of the highlanders and, needless to say, thereby incurring the ridicule of his comrades, among whom Lermontov, by his turn of mind, was the most inexorable of all. As long as these jokes were within the bounds of decency, everything went well, but water and stone wear away, and when Lermontov allowed himself inappropriate jokes in the company of ladies ... these jokes seemed offensive to Martynov's vanity, and he modestly remarked to Lermontov all their inappropriateness. But the bitter 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 the general attention, Lermontov could not give in and answered that he was not afraid of anyone's threats, but would not change his behavior.

From the testimony of N. S. Martynov, given on July 17, 1841, during the investigation into the duel case (the spelling of the original has been 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. Wits, taunts, ridicule at my expense in one word, everything that can 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 took his jokes. About three weeks ago, during his illness, I spoke to him frankly about this; I asked him to stop, and although he promised me nothing, laughing it off and suggesting that I, in turn, laugh at him, he really stopped for several days. Then, he took up again the former. At a party in a private house, two days before the duel, he challenged me out of patience, attaching himself 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 would walk beside me; the rest were already ahead. Here, I told him that I had previously asked him to stop these unbearable jokes for me, but now I warn you that if he once again decides to choose me as an object for his witticism, then I will make him stop. He did not let me finish and repeated over and over: - 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, therefore you will not frighten anyone with this. At this time we approached his house. I told him that in that case I would send my Second to him, and returned to my room. Undressing, I told the man to ask Glebov to come to me when he comes home. A quarter of an hour later Glebov came into my room, I explained to him what was the matter; I asked him to be my Second, and after receiving his consent, I told him to go to Lermontov the very next day at dawn. Glebov, tried to persuade me, but I resolutely announced to 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 therefore, it was not possible for me to take the first step towards reconciliation.