Lermontov’s plays, but also unrealized is romantic love. The desire for the love of a woman inevitably meets with frustration, and usually tragedy. Each play tells a story of unfulfilled love: Emilia and Fernando inIspantsy, Yury and Lyubov in Menschen und Leidenschaften, Natasha and Arbenin in A Strange One, Nina and Arbenin in Masquerade, and Alexander and Yury for Vera in Two Brothers. The beloved woman is usually idealized, and she seems to represent either the mysterious Natalia Fedorovna Ivanovna or Varvara Lopukhina in Lermontov’s own youth. Yet at the same time, the woman is either unfaithful or suspected of infidelity. The most striking example is Masquerade, in which the loss of a bracelet leads Arbenin to suspect his wife’s involvement with his rival Zvezdich at a masquerade party.

Here the demoniac element comes into play. It is linked with a desire for vengeance, which seemed to characterize Lermontov himself, described by his friends as someone who always needed a victim. In their desire to avenge the betrayal—supposed or real—of a woman, Lermontov’s heroes either destroy the woman or ruin themselves. Sorrini, the villain in Ispantsy, plans to trick Emilia for her refusal of his attentions, and she is actually killed by her real lover, Fernando. In A Strange One, Arbenin, suspecting Natasha’s infidelity and distraught by his father’s curse, poisons himself. Masquerade again remains the most violent example of vengeance, with the sadistic poisoning of Nina and the cruel revelation of the truth by the Stranger in Lermontov’s second version of the play.

There is little variety in Lermontov’s plays. He frequently borrowed from himself, and Menschen und Leidenschaften and A Strange One are merely variations on the same theme, the desire for paternal love. While very romantic in tone, his plays never reach a general subject, nor are they detached from their author. This is probably attributable both to Lermontov’s youth and inexperience and to the fact that he had no Russian models. Most Russian theater in the 1830’s consisted of vaudeville and melodrama of French origin, Lermontov, however, was strongly influenced by Shakespeare and Schiller. Ispantsy was inspired in large measure by Schiller’s Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien (pr., pb. 1787; Don Carlos, Infante of Spain, 1798) and to some extent by Victor Hugo’s Hernani (pr., pb. 1830; English translation, 1830). Lermontov’s sympathetic treatment of the Jews was inspired by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Nathan der Weise (pb. 1779; Nathan the Wise, 1781) and Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe (1820).

Lermontov’s first play, Ispantsy, is a historical melodrama, with long speeches, declamations, ponderous language, and a lack of decisive action. Although Lermontov abandoned foreign themes in his later works, he never fully lost his taste for melodrama, which is especially evident in the ghoulish death scene in Masquerade. He invariably sought a melodramatic ending for his plays: suicide, poisoning, or madness. The juxtaposition of a wedding and a funeral in A Strange One is a rather stylized but effective literary device. In most cases, the speech of the characters is bookish rather than natural, although the servants in Menschen und Leidenschaften and A Strange One do speak in a more informal style.

As Lermontov’s plots are all similar, so his characters tend to resemble one another. They may be reduced to the autobiographical Byronic hero, the ideal woman, the unfaithful friend, and the father or mother figures. The fact that Lermontov uses the same names produces some confusion. Arbenin is the hero in two tragedies; Yury, in another two. Frequently the speeches of the characters do not flow from their personalities but are used by Lermontov to develop his ideas. In Ispantsy, the characters are arbitrarily stereotyped into heroes (the Jews) and villains (the Spanish Inquisition). The servants, however, seem to be more individualized and present a rather sympathetic portrait, attractive to Soviet literary critics who are anxious to emphasize Lermontov’s social tendencies and hatred of serfdom.

The themes chosen by Lermontov—love and hate, jealousy, suspicion, murder, and violence—are rather Dostoevskian in nature, but they do not attain quite the same grandeur in Lermontov’s hands because of his lack of integration and his narrow scope. In the works of Fyodor Dostoevski, the themes gain metaphysical stature. Lermontov indeed addressed philosophical issues in his mature works, especially dualism and the problem of evil, yet he did not attain to this level in his dramas, except in rare intervals, because he himself is the center of each one, and he did not learn to universalize autobiography.

Lermontov’s plays show progress in dramatic technique. He shows greater control of his characters and his plot in Menschen und Leidenschaften and A Strange One than in Ispantsy. He varies the style and level of speech, places some important actions offstage, and widens the scope of his scenes. In Masquerade, he had an audience in mind for the first time, hoping to present the play before the St. Petersburg society he both admired and scorned—hence the satiric scenes that refer to them. More at home with Russian than with foreign themes, he was thus better in his later dramas. He was able to write in both poetry and prose, thus foreshadowing the dominance of prose in Russian literature, a development that was to mark its greatness. Unfortunately, Lermontov did not pursue his dramatic talents, which showed promise. His contribution to the Russian stage is what B. M. Eikhenbaum terms “theoretical experimentation.”

While Lermontov’s first full-length play, Ispantsy, is considered largely imitative and unoriginal, his next two, Menschen und Leidenschaften and A Strange One, are much more promising. They are called the autobiographical plays and were written in prose rather than poetry, as was Ispantsy. Because they are similar in tone and theme, they are usually considered together. Lermontov’s first attempt at the theater, an opera based on Pushkin’s play of the same name, called Tsigany, remained a fragment of a few pages.

Menschen und Leidenschaften

The plot of Menschen und Leidenschaften takes place on two levels, a family intrigue and a love triangle. The hero is Yury Nikolaevich Volin, whose father has come with his uncle to claim him after he has spent his youth with his grandmother, Marfa Ivanovna Gromova, whose violent personality corresponds to her name, which means “thunder.” She rules her household with an iron hand and will stop at nothing to retain her grandson. Meanwhile, Yury decides to leave his grandmother and go with his father, who, he maintains, has the first claim on his affections. He is also in love with his cousin Lyubov, and addresses her as his consoling angel. His friend Zarutsky loves Lyubov’s sister, Eliza, a rather flighty and unsteady young woman. Yury sees Lyubov in the company of Zarutsky and suspects infidelity. Actually, Zarutsky has come only to request Lyubov’s assistance in arranging a meeting with Eliza.

As Marfa plots to keep her grandson with the collaboration of her servant Darya, Vasily Mikhailovich, Yury’s uncle, tries to undermine the love of father and son by slander. Yury’s father, believing his brother, curses his son. Yury is unable to bear the double burden of unrequited love and a father’s curse, and so swallows poison. When death is imminent, he overhears Lyubov and Eliza talking and learns that Lyubov is innocent—and that his death is in vain.

Although the plot is overtly autobiographical, it lacks true unity. The character of Marfa Ivanovna is very powerful, and is probably inspired more by Denis Fonvizin’s landowners than by Elizaveta Arsenieva, Lermontov’s grandmother. In a charming scene before Yury swallows the poison, he inquires about his valet Ivan’s family and children, and he advises him never to curse them. Thus Lermontov portrays the serfs with humanity and compassion, a point extolled by Soviet critics. Yury is a typical Byronic hero: melancholy, overwhelmed by a strange premonition, highly ebullient, and suspicious.

A Strange One

In the second play, A Strange One, Lermontov calls the hero Vladimir Arbenin. He also is torn by a family conflict, this time between his mother and his father, and an unfortunate love affair, but here the woman is actually guilty of infidelity. Arbenin’s father is a cold, unsympathetic man, who has divorced his wife for a youthful flirtation of which she has long since repented. Arbenin pleads with him to visit his mother on her deathbed, but he consistently refuses. When she dies, he accuses his father of murder.

Meanwhile, Arbenin is in love with Natasha, modeled on Natalia Ivanova. Her cousin Sophia also loves him and by her slander succeeds in convincing Natasha to accept instead Arbenin’s best friend Belinskoy, who knowingly betrays him and courts Natasha in order to make a rich marriage. Natasha accepts Belinskoy, and Arbenin, unable to endure the double tragedy, goes mad. As a final irony, Natasha and Belinskoy’s marriage will take place on the day of Arbenin’s funeral.

The hero of A Strange One also has a dual personality, tender yet cruel and vengeful. There is a tender scene in which the serfs ask Belinskoy and Arbenin to save them from their cruel mistress. On the whole, this play has a wider scope than Lermontov’s other plays and shows his talent for satire and his use of varied styles because the servants are clearly distinguished from their masters. Again, Soviet critics see in the play an attack on serfdom. As dramatist, Lermontov is much better in A Strange One. His characterization has improved, his staging is varied, with some important actions taking place behind the scenes, and his control of his material is much tighter. Yet neither Menschen und Leidenschaften nor A Strange One is considered highly successful drama.

Masquerade

Lermontov placed his highest hopes on Masquerade, planning it for the St. Petersburg stage, where he wished both to impress and to criticize the aristocracy of the times. In this play, he returned to poetry, using the volny iamb, or free iamb, an iambic meter with a varied number of feet. The hero is once again Arbenin, but this time the conflict of mother and father has disappeared, and only the love motif remains. Lermontov was by now quite familiar with St. Petersburg high society, so he used it as his setting and interspersed a highly emotional plot with satire.

At the beginning of the play, Arbenin generously uses his own mastery at cards to help a friend, Zvezdich, out of an embarrassing situation. Arbenin, a former dandy of loose morals, has married for money and surprisingly finds himself in love with his wife, Nina, modeled on Varvara Lopukhina, Lermontov’s consoling angel. At a masquerade ball, Zvezdich meets a woman whom he believes to be Nina and tries to win her affection. When Nina’s bracelet is missing, Arbenin accuses her of infidelity, although she steadfastly protests her innocence.

Meanwhile, the Baroness Stahl, who is actually guilty of soliciting Zvezdich’s attention, spreads abroad the story of Nina’s supposed guilt. She is in love with Zvezdich, “out of boredom, frustration, or jealousy.” Arbenin tries to kill Zvezdich but is unable to do so. He does, however, humiliate Zvezdich at a card game by accusing him of cheating. Now convinced that his wife is guilty, Arbenin poisons her ice cream and then sadistically watches her die, cruelly repeating his accusations. She dies, protesting her innocence.

When Lermontov presented the play to the censors, in 1835, it was flatly rejected on the grounds of immorality. He then added a fourth act, in which Arbenin meets a man whom he had once humiliated at cards, who informs him of the truth about his wife and accuses him of murder. Arbenin goes mad as a result. This version, however, had no more success than the previous version. Lermontov then emasculated the entire play, but the censors still refused approval. Not until 1852 was the play approved, and it was not staged until 1917 by Vsevolod Meyerhold’s theater. Lermontov, disappointed, abandoned the theater and became the author of other works that were to assure his fame, especially narrative and lyric poems and prose fiction.