SOURCE: Scotto, Peter. “Prisoners of the Caucasus: Ideologies of Imperialism in Lermontov's ‘Bela’.” PMLA 107, no. 2 (March 1992): 246-60.

[In the following essay, Scotto discusses nineteenth-century notions of orientalism and imperialism evidenced in Pechorin's treatment of Bela as an exotic “other” in A Hero of Our Time.]

On 10 April 1837, Cornet Mikhail Iurevich Lermontov left Moscow for service with the Russian army in the Caucasus. As punishment for his incendiary verses on Pushkin's death, he had been transferred out of his prestigious Petersburg guards regiment and sent south to join the Nizhegorodsky dragoons stationed just outside Tiflis. In 1817, the Russian Empire had begun in bitter earnest a protracted campaign to pacify the fiercely independent Islamic tribes in the great mountain range to the north of its possessions in Transcaucasia. By 1837, the war was entering its third decade, and the hard-pressed mountain tribes, whose struggle against the Russians had become a genuinely Islamic holy war, were united under the charismatic leadership of the Imam Shamyl.¹ Though Lermontov would see little real fighting (he managed to spend most of his time recuperating from an illness at the spa town of Piatigorsk), he traveled extensively throughout the theater of war. When he returned to Russia in 1838, he put the impressions gathered during his tour of duty to good use in “Bela” (“Bela”), one of the finest examples of the then popular “Caucasian tale.” First published in 1839, “Bela” would appear as the first part of Lermontov's novel A Hero of Our Time (Girоj nasigо vrimini; 1840).

Russia's rich tradition of literature devoted to the Caucasus has long attracted the attention of scholars and critics of Russian letters. That this entire body of work is intimately bound up with the extended war waged by the Russian Empire to gain dominion over the Caucasus and its peoples is surely beyond question: with the notable exception of Pushkin, the important nineteenth-century contributors to this tradition either served with the Russian army in the Caucasus or worked as agents of the imperial administration.² Nevertheless, Russia's literary engagement with the Caucasus has yet to receive an adequate interpretation in the light of this manifest historical connection. Most commentators who have taken up the subject confine themselves within the bounds of literary history narrowly conceived (the Caucasian tale as the Russian reflection of European Romanticism's taste for exotica), while Soviet scholars with the inclination to read this literature historically were, until the advent of glasnost, effectively hobbled by the reigning pieties of Soviet historiography.³ The purpose of this article, then, is to read Lermontov's “Bela” within the cultural and historical context of Russian expansion into Caucasia during the first half of the nineteenth century. I contend that “Bela” can be profitably read as an interrogation of the discourse and practice of Russian imperialism as Lermontov knew it.

Though the Russian Empire had begun making inroads into the Caucasus as early as the beginning of the eighteenth century, the intensive appropriation of the region by Russian literature began somewhat later, with the publication of Pushkin's Prisoner of the Caucasus (Kavкazкij plinniк) in 1822. For the next ten years, narrative verse dominated the subject, gradually giving way in the 1830s to the prose romances of Aleksandr Bestuzhev-Marlinsky. By the time Lermontov wrote “Bela” in 1838, he had been cultivating the Caucasian theme in his work almost continually for over a decade: he began in 1828, at the age of fourteen, when, influenced by Pushkin and the impressions of visits to the South in 1820 and 1825, he wrote The Circassians (Cirкisk) and his own version of The Prisoner of the Caucasus.

Russian writers' fascination with the Caucasus during the 1820s and 1830s was, of course, entirely consistent with the passion for “the East” that permeated European Romantic culture. The Caucasus was Russia's Orient, and service there gave literate Russians the chance to get a close-up look at an alluring world known to them from their reading. It has been argued that the Russian writers who, like Lermontov, set pen to paper to write about the Caucasus were traveling a literary route that had been mapped out for them by the likes of Goethe, Byron, Chateaubriand, Nerval, and Hugo (Zhirmunskii 146; Austin 234).

None of this can be denied. However, in the light of the work done by Edward Said and other critics of colonialist literature, it is no longer tenable to understand Russia's Caucasian literature in a strictly literary-historical sense as a local variant of thematic material adopted from western European models. In Russia, as in France, Great Britain, and Germany, the Romantic discovery of the East may be situated within larger patterns of thought that were cultivated by an expanding Europe. I have in mind here two distinct but mutually supportive discourses: orientalism and speculation about the “savage” or “noble savage.” Whatever their other purposes may have been, both would serve among the enabling ideologies of Western imperialism during the nineteenth century.

In Russia, as in western Europe, the growth of literary interest in the Orient came together with the rise of “scientific” study of the subject. Between 1804, when the Ministry of Education mandated the teaching of Eastern languages in Russian universities, and 1854, when the Faculty of Oriental Languages was established at the University of Saint Petersburg, Russia put into place the whole panoply of scholarly and academic institutions that constituted nineteenth-century European orientalism.⁴ Like its French and British counterparts, Russian orientalism flourished in connection with what Said calls a “sustained national interest in Asia” (Orientalism 19). From the conquest of Kazan under Ivan the Terrible to the penetration of Turkestan in the middle of the nineteenth century, Russia had continually expanded its Asian dominions until they stretched from the Urals to the borders of India and China and to the shores of the Pacific. Russian orientalists keenly sensed their country's political stake in Asia and saw it as a legitimate source of support for their cause. Uvarov's “Projet d'une académie asiatique” (1810), perhaps the classic statement of purpose by an early-nineteenth-century Russian orientalist, combines a high-minded vision of orientalism's mission with a firm grasp of political realities:

The most elementary understanding of politics is sufficient for one to perceive the benefits that Russia will derive from the serious study of Asia. Russia, which has such close relations with Turkey, China, Persia, and Georgia, would be able not only to contribute immensely to the general progress of enlightenment but also to satisfy its most cherished interests; and never have reasons of state been so much in accord with the greater purposes of moral civilization.

Les plus simples notions de politique suffisent pour faire apercevoir les avantages que retirerait la Russie à s'occuper sérieusement de l'Asie. La Russie, qui a des relations si intimes avec la Turquie, la Chine, la Perse, la Georgie, serait à même, non seulement de contribuer immensément aux progrès des lumières générales, mais encore de satisfaire à ses intérêts les plus chers; et jamais la raison d'état n'a été aussi bien d'accord avec les grandes vues de la civilisation morale.

(8-9)⁵

By the end of the 1830s, what Said dubs “the imaginative geography” of orientalism was firmly established in the minds of educated Russians. Like Britain and France, Russia saw the Orient, if not as a blank on the map (Asia was perceived as having a history, unlike Africa), then as a faded spot that history, civilization, and enlightenment had long before passed by. This great cultural and historical vacuum offered Russia—among the enlightened nations of the earth—an arena for realizing its ambitions, energies, and desires. Just as the armies (and administrators) of imperialism would occupy Asia and extend the borders of civilization, so would the intellectual aims of orientalism render legible the texts of a lost culture and push back the frontiers of knowledge.⁶ As an educated Russian with a strong interest in the East, Lermontov was thoroughly conversant with the fundamental cultural and political assumptions of orientalism (Grossman; Lotman).

When Lermontov began work on “Bela,” fiction formed only a small part of an extensive literature on the Caucasus that had developed within the larger field of both Russian and western European orientalism (Miansarov; Kosven). Quite apart from stories and poems, the Russians who came to the region produced an abundance of cartographic and geological descriptions; ethnographic, linguistic, and historical studies; travel accounts; and even numismatic treatises. So large and varied a body of work could hardly be expected to be monolithic in its approach to its subject. To the extent that it touches on anthropology, however, it displays certain salient and relatively stable ideological features that occupy a crucial position in Russian literary representations of the Caucasus.

To the Europeanized Russians who undertook to describe them, the mountain tribes of the Caucasus could only appear “primitive.” They had no writing system and hence no written literature or history; such forms of government that did exist among them were rudimentary and decentralized; blood feuds and brigandage were accepted parts of their social customs; the agriculture and commerce of the region provided them with little more than what was necessary for survival. Even the fighting in the Caucasus had a less civilized tenor than did, for example, Russia's wars with Turkey or Persia. Instead of meeting massed formations on the field of battle, Russian troops fought an endless series of inconclusive engagements against an indigenous enemy supremely able to turn the rugged terrain of the region to advantage. In fact, Russia's long campaign to pacify the mountain tribes strongly resembled the European war against the native population of North America. For all these reasons, tales of the American frontier—notably Chateaubriand's Atala and Cooper's Leather-stocking Tales—powerfully influenced Russia's Caucasian fiction, and it was with no great difficulty that Russian observers applied to the tribes of the Caucasus that other great ideological construct of expansionist Europe: the “savage” and its polemical double, the “noble savage” or “natural man.”

To the Russians who saw them merely as savages, the mountaineers of the Caucasus appeared unenlightened, indolent, violent, treacherous, physically repellent, and libidinous. To those who perceived within them the lineaments of the noble savage, they seemed unspoiled by European civilization, childlike, poetic, naturally courageous, and supremely sensuous yet chaste. These categories were by no means mutually exclusive. It was entirely possible for one and the same Russian observer to ascribe features of both savageness and nobility to indigenous peoples. Thus, a Russian traveler who visited the Caucasus in 1837 could write:

On first impression, their seething passions instantaneously reveal both noble impulses and inner deficiencies or weaknesses: an unusual firmness of character combined with a weakness of the same; sound, lucid beliefs together with delusions. … Vengeful to the point of frenzy, they are true to their word and hold friendship sacred; they are suspicious and hospitable, both chaste and voluptuous; though very fond of children and quite tender in their family life, they consider murder a matter in no way out of the ordinary.

Kipucii strasti ik pri pirvоm vpicatlinii mgnоvinnо оbnaruzivayt i pоryvy blagоrоdnyi i nidоstatкi ili slabоsti dusivnyi: niоbycajnay tvirdоsts karaкtira i slasоsty; svitlyi, zdоrоvyi pоytiy i zabluzdiniy. … Mstitilsnyi dо istupliniy, оni virny v slоvi i svytо kranyt druzbu, gоstipriimny i nidоvircivy, цilоmudriny i sladоstrastny; buduci vissma cadоlybivny i кrоtкi v simijnоj zizni, smirtоubiijstvо scitayt dilоm оbyкnоvinnym.

(qtd. in Gadzhiev 33; ellipsis in the original)

The terms of this debate cannot be reduced to purely formal questions of literary style—that is, to a conflict between “romantic” and “realistic” modes of representation. What was crucially at stake were fundamental questions about the peoples Russia was bent on conquering. Were they in their essence a different species of humanity, a deformation of the human type that could have nothing in common with “civilized man”? Or were they essentially kindred to civilized humanity, endowed with the same intellectual, moral, and spiritual potentials as it and, under certain conditions, capable of exceeding it in unspoiled virtue?

That such questions were raised did nothing whatsoever to affect Russia's determination to subjugate the peoples of the Caucasus. To those who asked the questions, however, the answers seemed to have implications for the conduct of the war. If the Caucasian mountaineers were indeed savages, the most effective way to subjugate them appeared to be raw military force, terror, starvation, and, in the last resort, extermination. If, however, they were “natural men” and capable of a certain nobility, they might indeed be pacified by more humane means—firm yet benevolent administration, the development of commerce, and conversion to Christianity being the most discussed options.⁷

To divorce Russia's Caucasian literature from the ideological currents that flowed powerfully through the culture that gave it birth is to deprive it of a source of its vital energy. Russian writers who traveled to the Caucasus were keenly aware of their stake in the historical drama being played out before their eyes, and they incorporated that awareness into their work. Though much evidence could be mustered in support of this assertion, I confine myself to several examples from Pushkin before turning to Lermontov.

Pushkin made his first trip to the Caucasus in 1820, about three years after General Aleksei Ermolov had taken command of the Caucasian campaign. Ermolov proved to be a ruthless and energetic commander whose brutal but effective tactics earned him the respect of his troops and the fear of his enemies. While working on The Prisoner of the Caucasus, Pushkin wrote a letter to his younger brother in which, after paying ritual homage to the spectacular mountain scenery, he voices his hopes for Russia's immediate prospects in the region and for its larger ambitions in Asia:

Caucasia, the sultry border of Asia, is in all respects remarkable. Ermolov has infused it with his name and beneficent genius. The savage Circassians have been intimidated; their ancient audacity is vanishing. The roads are hourly becoming more secure; large armed convoys—superfluous. One must hope that this conquered land, which until now has brought no substantial benefit to Russia, will soon bring us closer to the Persians through secure commerce and will not present us with an obstacle in future wars—and it just may be that Napoleon's chimerical plan for the conquest of India will become a reality for us.

Kavкazкij кraj, znоjnay graniцa аzii, lybоpytin vо vsik оtnоsiniyk. Irmоlоv napоlnil igо svоim iminim i blagоtvоrnym giniim. Diкii cirкisy napugany; drivnyy dirzоstv ik iscizait. Dоrоgi stanоvytsy cas оt casu bizоpasnii, mnоzоcislinnyi коnvоi—izlisnimi. Dоlznо nadiytssy, ctо zta zavоivannay stоrоna, dо sik pоr ni prinоsivsay niкaкоj susistvinnоj pоlszy Rоssii, sкоrо sblizit nas s pirsiynami bizоpasnоy tоrgоvliy, ni budit nam prigradоy v budusik vоjnak—i, mоzit byts, sbuditsy dly nas kimiricisкij plan Napоliоna v rassuzdinii zavоivaniy Indii.

(10: 17-18)

The same vision of Russia's triumphant progress through the East brings down the curtain in the epilogue of The Prisoner of the Caucasus and provides ironic commentary on the tale of tragic romance that comes earlier.

When Pushkin returned to the South with the Russian army during the Turkish campaign of 1829, he displayed a rather more clear-eyed understanding of the real consequences of Ermolov's “beneficent genius.” In A Journey to Arzrum (Putisistvii v аrzrum), he notes: “The Circassians hate us. We have forced them from their pasturelands; their villages have been devastated, whole tribes destroyed” ‘Cirкisy nas ninavidyt. My vytisnili ik iz privоlsnyk pastbis; auly ik razоriny, цilyi nlimina unictоziny’ (6: 647). He does not, however, seem to have altered his conviction that the conquest of the Caucasian tribes was imperial Russia's legitimate prerogative. After considering the difficulties of completely disarming so warlike a people (“The dagger and the saber are natural extensions of their bodies …” ‘Kinzal i sasкa suts cliny ik tila …’) and the strategic benefits of encouraging trade with them (“The influence of luxuries may facilitate their taming …” ‘Vliynii rоsкоsi mоzit blagоpriytstvоvats ik uкrоsiniy …’), he concludes that to achieve Russia's ends, “[t]here is a means more powerful, more moral, more in accordance with the enlightenment of our age: the preaching of the gospel” ‘[i]sts sridstvо bоlii silsnоi, bоlii nravstvinnоi, bоlii sооbraznоi s prоsvisiniim nasigо viкa: prоpоvidanxii Ivangiliy.’ After all, Pushkin reasons, before they had been “lured away by the energetic fanaticism of the apostles of the Koran” ‘uvliciny diytilsnym фanatizmоm apоstоlоv Kоrana,’ the Circassians had been Christians and, as such, potential Russian allies (6: 648). The attitudes that Pushkin displays here belong to a set of ideological motifs that were familiar to educated Russians. I hope, therefore, to read Lermontov's “Bela” with regard to some of the moral problems raised by Russia's expansion into the Caucasus during the first decades of the nineteenth century.

Thanks largely to the impact of Boris Eikhenbaum's formalist studies of Lermontov's work (Lirmоntоv), a great deal of critical energy has been expended commenting on the multilayered narrative structure of “Bela.” The story of the abduction of a young Circassian princess (Bela) by a Russian officer (Grigoriy Pechorin) is told to another officer (unnamed but conventionally identified as “the traveling narrator”) by an older officer with long years of service in the Caucasus (Maksim Maksimich) as they travel through the mountains on the Georgian Military Highway from Tiflis to Vladikavkaz. The traveling narrator's account of their passage, which both frames and interrupts this story, constitutes a key compositional element in the work as a whole. While much has been made of how Lermontov's manipulation of the conventions of travel literature structures the narrative, little attention has been given to the manifest ideological content of the travelogue frame.

As the narrator describes his passage through the mountains, he continually shifts his focus between the landscape and its inhabitants—specifically, the Ossetian drivers who make a meager living by transporting Russians through the mountain passes. Marginalized as part of the scenery, the drivers, like their horses and oxen, apparently exist only to facilitate the Russians' travel. They have no real voices of their own and emerge from the background only to the degree they are spoken for by Maksim Maksimich, an old Caucasian hand whose commentary on the journey interprets the “oriental” world of the Caucasus for the less experienced traveling narrator.

The judgments Maksim Maksimich voices about the various “Asiatics” he has encountered in the Caucasus are quite definite and well developed. Ossetians are, he observes, “rascals” ‘bistii,’ “rogues” ‘pluty,’ and “swindlers” ‘mоsinniкi,’ who “love to squeeze money out of travelers” ‘lybyt dinsgi drats s prоiezzaysik’ (4-5; 10). They are an “extremely foolish people … incapable of any education” ‘priglupyj narоd … nispоsоbny ni к кaкоmu оbrazоvaniy’ (8; 12). Tatars are a little better than Ossetians because “at least, they don't drink” ‘ti kоts nipsysii’ (6; 11). Kabardans and Chechens, though “robbers” ‘razbоjniкi’ and “paupers” ‘gоlysi,’ earn a measure of his respect because they are “reckless daredevils” ‘оtcaynnyi basкi’ who display admirable prowess in a fight (8; 12). Though Maksim Maksimich's ethnic stereotyping is by no means monolithic, he nevertheless clearly feels that it is his special right to make these fine distinctions, to taxonomize and evaluate his “Asiatic” subjects. His observations are intended as useful information for a fellow traveler, but they also belong to a tradition—essential to orientalist practice—in which the West is authorized to speak for and about the people it considers.

An understanding of Maksim Maksimich's biases is essential because it can be argued that he, more than Pechorin, occupies the real emotional center of the text. He is the only character who figures in both the travelogue frame and the imbedded narrative, and it is in his words that the story of Bela's captivity and death is told. Maksim Maksimich also bears a weighty cultural burden. Since the publication of A Hero of Our Time, he has entered the critical canon as the embodiment of all that is good and decent in the native Russian character. Readers with political views as widely divergent as Belinsky (4: 205-20) and Nicholas I (qtd. in Gershtein 330-31) have lauded his plainspoken virtue, discovering in him the rough-hewn nobility of the simple Russian soldier.

I do not wish to imply that the nearly universal chorus of praise for Maksim Maksimich is unfounded. There is indeed something decent and humane at the core of his personality, which makes it all the more imperative to explain his palpable moral failure in the face of Pechorin's abduction of Bela. When Pechorin has her brought to the fort where he is stationed, Maksim Maksimich, his commanding officer, acquiesces to the misconduct. In doing so, Maksim Maksimich is derelict in his duty. By allowing Pechorin to keep Bela, by not compelling him to return her immediately, Maksim Maksimich risks turning her father from a passive, nominal ally of the Russian crown into an active enemy. More important, Maksim Maksimich and Bela's father are kunaki: according to local custom, they have sworn a solemn oath to aid, defend, and, if need be, avenge each other. When Maksim Maksimich gives his tacit consent to Bela's abduction and seduction, he reneges on a sacred debt of personal honor. If he is indeed a fundamentally decent human being, how are we to account for his utter helplessness when he is confronted with Pechorin's outrage? I would suggest that his behavior is the product of a profound moral confusion, a confusion generated by a dissonance between his real humane instincts and his articulated ideology. In a crucial exchange that takes place soon after Bela's abduction, Maksim Maksimich finds that his impulse to do what he feels to be right is effectively stymied by Pechorin's skillful manipulation of his beliefs.

Pechorin has had Bela brought to his quarters, where he holds her prisoner. Maksim Maksimich gets wind of what has happened and marches off to see him. Fully aware of the gravity of the situation and of his own responsibility, Maksim Maksimich clearly intends to order Pechorin to return Bela to her father. However, in the too familiar circumstances of the isolated fort, Maksim Maksimich has made the mistake of treating Pechorin as a friend and an equal and has thereby relinquished any real authority over his junior officer. Pechorin, who understands this only too well, responds with thinly disguised contempt to Maksim Maksimich's efforts to discipline him. The senior officer must, therefore, try to persuade him to give up his prize.

Maksim Maksimich's opening sally is essentially moral: “Look here, Grigoriy Aleksandrovich, you must admit that it was not a [good] thing to do” ‘Pоslusaj, Grigоrij аliкsandrоvic, priznajsy, ctо nikоrоsо’ (23; 24). By countering with a simple question—“Suppose I like her?” ‘Da коgda оna mni nravitsy?’ (24; 24)—Pechorin implicitly refuses to recognize that he is bound by any moral imperative in the matter. His reply leaves Maksim Maksimich dumbfounded. Why? Though not particularly well educated, Maksim Maksimich is neither unintelligent nor inarticulate. Had he been serving in Russia and had Pechorin abducted the daughter of a neighboring Russian prince, it seems safe to assume that he would have found a response to Pechorin's challenge. The point is, of course, that he is not in Russia and Bela is not a Russian princess. Pechorin's reply so disarms Maksim Maksimich because it is situated at precisely the point where Romantic fantasies of escape from the constraints of civilization intersect with the real prerogatives of imperial power.

Following the publication of Pushkin's Prisoner of the Caucasus, the “mountain maiden” became firmly fixed in the Russian male erotic imagination as a consummate object of desire (Manuilov 91). Living just outside the borders of European Russia and well beyond the reach of its civilization, she seemed to offer the tantalizing possibility of sensual gratification unfettered and unrestrained by social convention. In his “Tale of an Officer Captured by Mountaineers” (“Rassкaz офiцira byvsigо v plinu u Gоrцiv”; 1834), Bestuzhev-Marlinsky describes the adventures of a young Russian officer who finds himself the guest of a family of especially primitive mountain tribespeople. He is at first stunned, then delighted when, as a gesture of hospitality, his hosts offer him the use of their beautiful sixteen-year-old daughter. After three days of amatory bliss, he concludes that, although his hosts may be ignorant, unwashed, and impoverished, their world is as close to “Jean-Jacques's utopia personified” ‘оliцitvоrënnay Utоpiy Zan-Zaкa’ as he is likely to find (Marlinskii 58-82). As other native women did for the armies and administrators of imperial Europe, the women of the Caucasus embodied for the Russian male the almost irresistible fantasy of sexual adventure without responsibility, a fantasy that could be sublimated as a search for authentic human communion unavailable within the confines of civilization.⁸

Though these fantasies of erotic adventure were cultivated in literature, they were by no means confined to it. Belinsky, writing to Bakunin from Piatigorsk in 1837, vented his frustration at having to travel thirty versts to catch a long-awaited glimpse of some “dark-eyed Circassian girls” ‘cirnоокik cirкisinок’ (11: 138). From all indications, the same fantasies were a part of the barracks lore passed around by the young Russian officers serving in the Caucasus, and memoirs from the period contain several accounts of amorous encounters between Russian officers and native women (Durylin 135-38; Manuilov 91-92).

When Pechorin asserts that his abduction of Bela is made legitimate by his desire alone (“Suppose I like her?”), he merely gives voice to a pervasive cultural expectation. One of the pleasures the Caucasus held out to its conquerors was erotic involvement with its women, ranging from Belinsky's gentle voyeurism to more carnal pleasures.⁹ Maksim Maksimich, whatever his limitations, understands at least this much. Having served many years in the Caucasus, he also knows from experience that the women who live there can be treated in ways that would elsewhere be condemned: in the Caucasus, desire backed by power can make its own rules. Challenged by Pechorin on this very point, he understands the futility of his argument and abandons his efforts at moral suasion.

Checked in one direction, Maksim Maksimich attempts another line of attack: “I told him that if the father demanded her back, it would be necessary to return her” ‘y imu sкaeal, ctо isli оtiц stanit ië tribоvats, tо nadо budit оtdats.’ Behind this argument lies both the concern of Maksim Maksimich, as the local Russian commander, to maintain good relations with an ally and the obligation that he feels, as a kunak, to Bela's father. Pechorin blandly declares that there is no need whatsoever to return Bela, and when Maksim Maksimich asks what he thinks the consequences will be if her father finds out that she is being held prisoner in the fort, Pechorin simply answers: “How will he find out?” ‘а кaк оn uznait?’ (24; 24). Again Maksim Maksimich is left speechless. On the face of it, Pechorin's reply argues that as long as Bela's father remains unsure of his daughter's whereabouts, there can be no incident. On a deeper level, Pechorin is playing on Maksim Maksimich's conflicting loyalties. Behind his question lurks another: Only you and I know she is here, and how will her father find out unless you tell him? Pechorin, who knows full well that Maksim Maksimich and Bela's father are kunaki, is in fact asking him whether he is prepared to betray a fellow Russian officer out of loyalty to a native friend. Here again Pechorin has divined a weakness, and again his thrust has been precisely aimed. Though Maksim Maksimich clearly relishes his close relations with Bela's father, he is not entirely comfortable with them—especially when he must give an account of them to another Russian. His ambivalence comes through distinctly when, near the beginning of his tale, he feels he has to explain to his Russian traveling companion his reasons for going to the wedding celebration at which Pechorin first sees Bela: “One day the old prince himself came to invite us to a wedding: he was marrying off his eldest daughter, and [he and I were kunaki]: there was, therefore, no way to refuse, even though he was a Tatar” ‘Raz priizzait sam staryj кnyzs zvats nas na svadsbu: оn оtdaval starsuy dоcs zamuz, a my byli s nim кunaкi: taк nilszy zi, znaiti, оtкazatssy, kоts оn i tatarin’ (11; 15). Pechorin plays on this ambivalence, and when he forces the choice between a brother officer and a “Tatar,” Maksim Maksimich is again left feeling helpless.

Having gained the upper hand, Pechorin drives his point home in an appeal that both invokes Maksim Maksimich's sense of humanity and carefully contrives to undermine any loyalty the senior officer still feels for Bela's father: “Look here, Maksim Maksimich, … you're a kind man, aren't you? Now, if we give his daughter back to that savage, he'll either slit her throat or sell her” ‘Pоslusajti, Maкsim Maкsimyc! …—vids vy dоbryj cilоviк,—a isli оtdadim dоcs etоmu diкary, оn ië zarizit, ili prоdast’ (24; 24). In the ideological arsenal of nineteenth-century Russian imperialism, the mistreatment of women by Muslim men was a commonplace complaint that was regularly used to justify Russia's claims against its “less civilized” Islamic neighbors (Tornau 10; Durylin 187; Manuilov 108). Whatever else Maksim Maksimich thinks he knows about Bela's father, Pechorin's argument is in complete accord with what he believes to be true of “Asiastics” as a class, and he attempts no reply. He merely signals his defeat by asking that Bela be shown to him. With this apparently offhand gesture, Maksim Maksimich becomes, in effect, Pechorin's accomplice. He yields to his own curiosity and desire and becomes, like Belinsky, another voyeur of Eastern beauty.

As he recalls his conversation with Pechorin, Maksim Maksimich seems perplexed by his defeat. Apparently not quite sure how to account for what has happened, he offers an explanation that is as much for his own benefit as it is for his listener's: “What would you have me do? There are some people with whom you just must agree” ‘Ctо priкaziti dilats? Ists lyоdi, s коtоrymi nipriminnо dоlznо sоglasitssy’ (24; 25). On the basis of this comment, it has been suggested that Maksim Maksimich's sense of powerlessness results from the overwhelming force of Pechorin's will. In this view, the scene between the two men illustrates a Byronic cliché that Lermontov had cultivated beginning with his earliest literary efforts (Durylin 188; Manuilov 109).

I have no objection to this point—as far as it goes. Pechorin is indeed remarkable for the ruthlessness with which he presses the claims of his ego. There is certainly a genetic connection between him and the Byronic supermen who populate Lermontov's poetry. But to let the matter rest there is fundamentally to misunderstand Lermontov's achievement in A Hero of Our Time. What Lermontov's novel attempts—and what his poetry does not—is an understanding not only of the social, historical, and cultural forces that made Pechorin possible but of the way in which the same forces rendered an all-consuming egotism like Pechorin's devastating. As Tolstoy notes in the second epilogue to War and Peace, it is one thing simply to let the statement that someone is powerful explain his or her effect on others, and it is another thing entirely to explore the conduits through which power is transmitted.

The ideological forces that have been at play in the story are pointedly highlighted when the traveling narrator interrupts Maksim Maksimich at this moment with questions: “And what happened? … Did he actually tame her, or did she pine away in captivity from homesickness?” ‘а ctо? …—v samоm li dili оn priucil ië к sibi, ili оna zacakla v nivоli, s tоsкi pо rоdini?’ No longer displaying the tongue-tied helplessness of his conversation with Pechorin, Maksim Maksimich has his answer ready: “Oh come, why should she be homesick? From the fort one could see the same mountains as from her village—and that's all these savages need” ‘Pоmilujti, оtcigо zi s tоsкi pо rоdini? Iz кripоsti vidny byli ti zi gоry, ctо iz aula,—a etim diкarym bоlssi nicigо ni nalоbnо’ (24; 25). Against the traveling narrator's deployment of the clichés of a sentimental romanticism, he brings to bear the cultural commonplaces of a hard-nosed imperialism. Though Maksim Maksimich's reply can be read as a move to debunk Romanticism (especially the Marlinskian strain), it should be abundantly clear that it is no less ideologically constructed than the questions that provoke it; it is no closer to a realistic appraisal of Bela or her situation than is the traveling narrator's effusions. As I argue above, it is Maksim Maksimich's adherence to anthropological tenets of this kind that debilitates him when he confronts Pechorin: he cannot effectively defend the rights of someone whom he does not consider a fully human subject, whatever sympathy he feels for her.

Following the encounter with Maksim Maksimich, Pechorin tries to make good on his vow to bend Bela to his will. Though the stratagems he uses to overcome her resistance ostensibly form part of a seduction and cannot be reduced to a simple allegory of Russia's campaign to conquer the Caucasus, they are no less grounded in the ideologies of expansionism. In language that is conventionally melodramatic and at the same time resonant with pronouncements of Russia's historical destiny in Asia, he assures Bela that any resistance by her is pointless: “Listen to me, my peri. … You know very well that, sooner or later, you must be mine …” ‘Pоslusaj, mоy piri. …—vids ty znaiss, ctо ranо ili pоzdnо ty dоlzna byts mоiy …’ (25; 25). Whether willing or not, the East of Western fantasy (“my peri”) must succumb to the power of Western desire. That the voice of the conqueror closely merges with that of the seducer is not accidental. It is entirely consistent with Said's observation that “… Orientalism is a praxis of the same sort, albeit in different territories, as male gender dominance … : the Orient was routinely described as feminine, its main symbols the sensual woman, the harem …” (“Orientalism” 225).

Though Pechorin modifies his tactics as Bela continues to oppose him, they are all cast from the same mold. So as not to belabor the point, I cite just one example. Aware that in the Caucasus questions of faith had become preeminently political, Pechorin tries to subvert Bela's commitment to Islam: “[D]oes your faith forbid you to fall in love with me? … Believe me, Allah is the same for all races, and if he allows me to love you, why should he forbid you to return my feelings?” ‘Ili tvоy vira zaprisait pоlybits miny? … Pоvirs mni, аllak dly vsik plimën оdin i tоt zi, i isli оn mni pоzvоlyit lybits tiby, оtcigо zi zapritit tibi platits mni vzaimnоstsy?’ (25; 25). Pechorin does not try to sway Bela by converting her to Christianity—the method Pushkin seems to have preferred for ending the mountain tribes' opposition to Russian rule. Rather, his effort to win her over is essentially an attempt to redirect the political content of her belief. For the mountain tribes of the Caucasus, Islam was the single most important unifying force in their struggle against the Russians. Pechorin knows that it can support Bela in her continued refusal to submit. By invoking what might be called “the universal brotherhood of man under God,” he tries to convert her religion into an instrument that will serve his own ends.

That Bela appears open to this suggestion and is, in fact, attracted to Pechorin does nothing to alter either the essentially manipulative nature of his tactics or the unequal relations of power in which his approach is grounded. When Pechorin continues to press his claims against Bela, taking her hand and first requesting, then demanding a kiss, she infuriates him and sours what appears to be imminent victory by reminding him of the real conditions of their relationship: “I am your captive, … your slave; of course, you can compel me” ‘Я tvоy plinniцa, … tvоy raba; коnicnо ty mоziss miny prinudits’ (26; 26). Pechorin will not be satisfied with capitulation on these terms; for his victory to be complete, Bela must love him. In a way that is perhaps reminiscent of the self-conscious colonizers somewhat later in the nineteenth century, Pechorin wants more than submission to his sheer power to coerce: he wishes for the sincere admiration and respect of her whom that power has vanquished.¹⁰

Maksim Maksimich, who has been following Pechorin's progress closely, seems most concerned with maintaining his own reputation as a judge of native character. Though he confesses to feeling no little sympathy for Bela (25; 25), he only piques Pechorin's pride by suggesting that the junior officer's plan to win Bela over with gifts of expensive cloth betrays ignorance of the prize (“You don't know these Circassian girls. … It is not at all the same thing as the Georgian girls or the Trans-Caucasian Tatar girls …” ‘Vy cirкisinок ni znaiti. …—etо sоvsim ni tо, ctо gruzinкi ili zaкavкazкii tatarкi …’). When Maksim Maksimich expresses some doubt regarding Pechorin's prospects of ever winning Bela, Pechorin promptly offers him a wager on the matter. The senior officer accepts without hesitation (26; 26). More than Bela's will to resist, Maksim Maksimich's authority to speak for her in a discourse he controls is at stake in the bet. He and Pechorin are two combatants, each struggling in a different way for control of the same territory: Bela is the open ground over which they battle.

The openness of the exotic is precisely what is at issue when the travel narrative that frames Maksim Maksimich's story intrudes to break up his tale. He and his companion, the traveling narrator, are back on the Georgian Military Highway, about to ascend to the summit of Mount Gud. In a much discussed passage—both literally and figuratively the high point of their journey—the narrator voices his belief in the recuperative powers of nature:

[T]he air was becoming so rare, that it was painful to breathe; the blood kept rushing to our heads every moment, but despite all this, a delightful kind of feeling spread along all my veins, and I felt somehow elated at being so far above the world—a childish feeling, no doubt, but, on getting away from social conventions and coming closer to nature, we cannot help becoming children: all the things that have been acquired are shed by the soul, and it becomes again as it was once, and as it is surely to be again some day.

(29)

[V]оzduk stanоvilsy taк ridок, ctо bylо bоlsnо dysats; кrоvs pоminutnо prilivala v gоlоvu, nо sо vsim tim кaкоi-tо оtradnоi cuvstvо rasprоstranilоss pо vsim mоim zilam, i mni bylо кaк-tо visilо, ctо y taк vysоко nad mirоm:—cuvstvо ditsкоi, ni spоry, nо, udalyyss оt uslоvij оbsistva i priblizayss к prirоdi, my nivоlsnо stanоvimsy ditsmi: vsë priоbritënnоi оtpadait оt dusi, i оna dilaitsy vnоvs taкоy, кaкоj byla niкоgda i virnо budit коgda-nibuds оpyts.

(29)

This is, of course, the common coin of high Romanticism, and sentiments similar to these can be found elsewhere in Lermontov's prose and in his poetry and correspondence. While there is no reason to doubt the lyrical authenticity of the moment that is described here, the narrator's giddy sense of freedom and his dream of escape from society do not resist questioning in the novel.

In “Bela,” the dream of getting out of society, while perhaps plausible as long as the escape route remains nature in the strict sense, proves to be untenable as soon as the category “nature” is extended to cover human beings or a human community perceived as primitive. This expanded view of nature is, in fact, a relativistic illusion made possible by the centrifugal thrust of imperial expansion. As Pushkin realizes in The Gypsies (Tygany; 1824), Russians who left their country for less civilized parts may have believed they were freeing themselves from the strictures of society, but they were all too likely to forget that they were moving into another kind of society, whose way of life they did not understand. Their mistake was that of the Europeans who ascribed openness or emptiness to anything that was not theirs. The rhetoric of imperialism, with its “unclaimed” land, its “unenlightened,” “uncivilized,” “un-Christian” peoples, its “dark” and “undiscovered” continents, draws its life from this illusion; in “Bela,” the fantasies of freedom it sanctions are no less harmful than the ethnic stereotyping assimilated by Maksim Maksimich.

Like the narrator, who hopes to “shed” in the open bosom of nature “all things that have been acquired” and return to a childlike state of grace, Pechorin admits that he abducted Bela in the hope that the “love of a [savage] girl” ‘lybоvs diкarкi’ would help free him from the spiritual infirmities acquired in the course of a lifetime in polite society. When he grows bored and disillusioned on discovering that such love is “little better than that of a lady of rank” ‘nimnоgim lucsi lybvi znatnоj baryni’ (40; 36-37), he makes new plans to escape to wide-open spaces: “As soon as I can, I shall set out—but not for Europe, God preserve! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India” ‘Kaк tоlsко budit mоznо, оtpravlyss,—tоlsко ni v Ivrоpu, izbavi Bоzi!—pоidu v аmiriкu, v аraviy, v Indiy’ (41; 37). What utterly fails to make any impression on him is that in acting out his fantasies with Bela, he brought disaster on the human community that he invaded.

As a direct result of the tensions unleashed by Pechorin's actions, Bela's brother is forced to leave his family, her father is murdered, and, eventually, Bela herself falls victim to the knife of a jealous admirer. Pechorin, concerned only with his own disillusionment, does not seem to appreciate the magnitude of the catastrophe, nor is he prepared to accept any moral responsibility for what has happened. His profound indifference, while rooted in the overarching egotism that afflicted a generation of Romantic antiheroes, is again made effective by the particular historical circumstances in which it is manifested. Bela and her family are “savages” and simply not fully vested subjects of moral, ethical, or even legal concern. They can be freely disposed of by Pechorin as he stages his drama of self-realization.¹¹

As the tragedy of “Bela” plays itself out, the force of ideological illusion is equally manifest in the actions of the story's “positive hero,” Maksim Maksimich. Unlike Pechorin, he can feel sympathy for Bela, and, when Pechorin begins to grow bored with her, Maksim Maksimich makes a genuine effort to comfort her. But even as he grows closer to her, the limits of his understanding and concern are set by his sense of her as unalterably alien. One evening, as he and Bela walk together on the ramparts of the fort, they catch sight of her father's murderer riding toward them from out of the woods just on the other side of a nearby river. When her “eyes flash” and she begins to “shake like a leaf,” Maksim Maksimich immediately attributes the violence of her response to her Circassian “robber blood”: “Oho! … in you, too, my dear girl, the robber blood is not silent!” ‘аga! …—i v tibi, dusinsкa, ni mоlcit razbоjnicsy кrоvs!’ Then, apparently unaware of any irony between what he has just thought and what he is about to do, he casually orders a sentry to check his rifle and “knock that fellow out of his saddle” ‘ssadi mni etоgо mоlоdцa,’ offering the man a silver ruble if he hits his mark (38; 35). In Maksim Maksimich's eyes, Bela's anger provides him with just another bit of evidence to confirm what he knows to be her essentially savage nature; his deadly game with the sentry is no more than a moment's diversion for “civilized men.”

When Bela dies, Maksim Maksimich is deeply affected. Yet even her death cannot close the space that separates them. He recalls:

I possessed a piece of heavy silk, and with this I lined the coffin and adorned it with Circassian silver braid which Pechorin had bought for her, anyway.

Early the next day we buried her behind the fort, by the river, near the place where she had sat for the last time; around her little grave, bushes of white acacia and elder have spread since then. I wanted to set up a cross, but somehow, don't you know, it did not seem right; after all, she was not a Christian.

(48)

U miny byl кusок tirmalamy, y оbil iy grоb i uкrasil igо cirкissкimi siribrynnymi galunami, коtоryk Grigоrij аliкsandrоvic naкupil dly nië zi.

Na drugоj dins ranо utrоm my ië pоkоrоnili, za кripоstyо, u ricкi, vоzli tоgо mista, gdi оna v pоslidnij dins sidila; кrugоm ië mоgilкi tipirs razrоsliss кusty bilоj aкaцii i buziny. Я kоtil bylо pоstavits кrist, da, znaiti, nilоvко: vsë-taкi оna ni byla kristianкa. …

(42-43)

Every one of his gestures and observations carries a heavy burden of ambivalence and irony. The silk (the Russian term for it denotes a type manufactured in Turkey or Iran) and the Circassian braid with which he decorates her coffin are emblems of who she was. In Pechorin's hands, however, expensive gifts and luxurious fabrics became the instruments of her “taming.” Her grave, even as it returns to nature and, presumably, to the freedom that nature is supposed to represent, remains in the shadow of the Russian fort that held her captive. Maksim Maksimich's desire to erect a cross on her grave is a measure of his affection for Bela. His decision against the gesture gauges the distance that still separates them. Despite the fondness Maksim Maksimich clearly feels for her, she embodies the irremediable alterity of the East. Finally, his decision leaves her grave unmarked, lost to history. He becomes her historian, but, again, he speaks for her: if she is remembered at all, it will be as part of his tale of the adventures of two Russians. In death she remains trapped by the same discourses of power that held her captive in life.

Captivated by a teleological view of literary history that sees Russian literature as inexorably advancing to its fulfillment in the psychological realism of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, critics of A Hero of Our Time have usually hurried past “Bela” and concentrated their attention on “Princess Mary” (“Knyzna Miri”)—that segment of the novel in which the inner workings of Pechorin's character are fully and directly revealed. This view reduces “Bela” to a preamble to the essential novel, a prelude to be sounded mainly for hints of what is to follow. A serious reconsideration of the connection between Lermontov's story and its ideological contexts, however, provides the basis for reevaluating the place of “Bela” in A Hero of Our Time. If, as William Todd argues, “Princess Mary” looks inward to scrutinize the pervasive social ideologies that shaped relations among the members of Russia's cultural elite,¹² “Bela” gazes outward to the ideologies that governed relations between Russians and the peoples whom an expanding empire was bringing under its control. Seen in this light, “Bela” seems no longer a prelude but a counter-weight whose outward focus balances the inward focus of “Princess Mary.” By combining these two perspectives in a single novel, Lermontov encompassed the life of imperial Russia in a way unmatched by any of his great successors.¹³

Notes

1. Although the Russian Empire began its expansion into Caucasia and Transcaucasia under Peter I, 1817 is generally accepted as the beginning of what is known as “the Caucasian War” (1817-64)—i.e., the beginning of General Aleksei Ermolov's campaign to pacify the North Caucasus, an objective that the Russian Empire pursued until the war's conclusion. The most comprehensive account in English of Russian expansion into the Caucasus remains Baddeley. More recent surveys include Kazemzadeh; Brooks; and Atkin.

   For a detailed chronology of Lermontov's visit to the Caucasus in 1837, see Lirmоntоvsкay enцiкlоpidiy 647.

2. These writers all served with the Russian Army of the Caucasus: Lermontov (1837 and 1841), Aleksandr Bestuzhev-Marlinsky (1829-37), Aleksandr Polezhaev (1829-33), Aleksandr Odoevsky (1837), and Lev Tolstoy (1851-53). Between 1818 and his death in 1829, Aleksandr Griboedov served in Persia and Transcaucasia with the College of Foreign Affairs and as a member of General Ermolov's staff; Yakov Polonsky served four years in the governor general's office in Tiflis (1846-50).

3. See Svirin's “Russкay коlоnialsnay litiratura” for a provocative discussion of the literary-historical approach to Caucasian fiction in Russian criticism (51-53). Susan Layton offers a fair characterization of what had, before glasnost, been the accepted Soviet approach to literary treatments of the Caucasus:

   “In discussions which replicate the dialectical pattern woven by [orthodox Soviet] historians, … literary critics maintain that Pushkin, Griboedov, Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, Lermontov and all the other major writers concerned with the subject welcomed the annexation of the Caucasus as a ‘historically progressive’ phenomenon, while at the same time regarding Russia as a repressive state and feeling a sense of solidarity with the Muslim tribes' war for ‘national liberation.’ This body of criticism … posits an absolute gulf between the writers, on the one hand, and the imperialist Russian state on the other.

   (15)

   Notable exceptions to this orthodoxy include Vel'tman and Svirin. Standard but useful Soviet studies include Iusufov; Vinogradov (Kavкaz; “Nacalо”); and Gadzhiev. For a postglasnost treatment of this topic by a Soviet scholar, see Eidelman. American scholars who offer readings that place Russia's Caucasian fiction within its larger historical context include Layton and Sandler (see Sandler's discussion of Pushkin's “Southern Poems,” 145-83).

4. Frye suggests that 1804 marks the beginning of the intensive institutionalization of oriental studies in Russia (30). However, the foundations of Russian orientalism were laid during the reign of Peter I. Frye argues that the establishment of this discipline in Russia was an important stage in the process by which the elite came to view the country as “different from the Orient” and as a “part of Europe” and, thus, was an essential component of Peter's drive to westernize Russia (34-35).

5. All translations are my own except for those of passages from “Bela.” For this work, I cite the Nabokov translation of A Hero of Our Time, which I have changed in a very few places. In documentation of citations from “Bela,” the first number refers to the translation and the second to the Russian text.

6. Much of the credit for introducing the educated public to the tenets of orientalism belongs to Osip Senkovsky. Best remembered by literary scholarship as the editor of the popular encyclopedic monthly Library for Reading (Bibliоtiкa dly ctiniy), Senkovsky was a brilliant linguist who, from 1822 to 1847, served as professor of oriental languages at the University of Saint Petersburg. This combination of careers proved beneficial to the cause of Russian orientalism. Senkovsky used his journal to keep his readers abreast of developments in the great European recovery of the East. On Senkovsky as an orientalist, see Grossman (678); Pedrotti (49-53); Bartol'd (275); and Weisensel. For discussions of nineteenth-century Russian orientalism, see Bartol'd; Frye; Riasanovsky; and Grossman.

7. This vision of “the native” as both savage and noble, as both repellent and attractive, belonged to the general European cultural baggage picked up by Russia during the eighteenth century. As Hayden White writes: “From the Renaissance to the end of the eighteenth century, Europeans tended to fetishize the native peoples with whom they came into contact by viewing them simultaneously as monstrous forms of humanity and quintessential objects of desire. Whence the alternative impulses to exterminate and redeem the native peoples” (194). A classic statement of this debate can be found in an exchange between the anonymous author of “A Trip to Georgia” (“Pоizdкa v Gruziy”; 1833) and Pavel Bestuzhev in his “Remarks on the Article ‘A Journey to Georgia’ …” (“Zamicaniy na statsy «Putisistvii v Gruziy» …”; 1838). Infuriated by the anonymous author's assertions that the Caucasian mountaineers were savages who could be pacified only by military force, Bestuzhev argues that they could indeed be appealed to by humane means and might, in fact, be the forebears of Europeans. On the basis of internal evidence in “Bela,” Eikhenbaum argues that it is almost certain that Lermontov knew Bestuzhev's article (“Girоj” 312). Gadzhiev offers a useful and wide-ranging discussion of Russian attitudes toward the Caucasus and its peoples (9-66).

8. With the exception of Karlinsky, who suggests that homoerotic desire may have been a factor motivating the great Russian explorer Przhevalsky to undertake his expeditions to central Asia and the Far East, scholars have given very little attention to the role of sexual desire in Russian imperialism. The place of sexual adventure in British imperialism has been extensively treated by Hyam and others.

9. Voyeurism appears as a motif in Russian orientalia at least as far back as the end of the eighteenth century. Bobrov's Tauris; or, My Summer Day in the Tauric Chersonese (Tavrida; ili, Mоj litnij dins v Tavricisкоm Kirsоnisi; 1798) contains a scene in which the poet secretly observes a khan's daughter bathing naked in the company of her attractive young companions (154-55). In the corpus of Caucasian literature proper, a striking example is provided by Bestuzhev-Marlinsky's “Tale of an Officer Captured by Mountaineers.” When Marlinsky's narrator-hero first spies the native woman soon to be his mistress, she is bathing in a mountain spring. Attempting to describe his delight, he remarks: “I turned completely into vision” ‘Я viss privratilsy v zrinii’ (Marlinskii 72).

   In A Journey to Arzrum, Pushkin coyly observes that the Ossetian women living along the Georgian Military Highway were “quite beautiful and, as I hear, very well inclined toward travelers” ‘priкrasny i, кaк slysnо, оcins blagоsкlоnny к putisistvinniкam’ (6: 649).

10. Pechorin's other stratagems include plying Bela with luxurious Persian fabrics and donning full Circassian battle dress to bid her a “final farewell” if she does not relent. While the gender-based assumptions behind the first are obvious, it brings to mind Pushkin's remarks on the possible usefulness of “luxuries” in “taming” the Circassian tribes, as well as the widespread Russian belief that the material benefits of commerce would assist in pacifying the mountaineers. Note also that in displaying the material he purchased for this purpose Pechorin remarks, “What do you think, Maksim Maksimich, … could an Asiatic belle withstand such [a battery]?” ‘Kaк vy dumaiti Maкsim Maкsimyc! … ustоit li аziatsкay кrasaviцa prоtiv taкоj batirii?’ and that he begins “to whistle a march” ‘nasvistyvats mars’ as he sets about his work (26; 26). Pechorin's ploy of dressing in Circassian costume to weaken Bela's defenses also falls within the compass of orientalist practice. The putative ability of Westerners to assume freely the visage of Easterners was one of the great conceits of orientalism—Burton's and Lawrence's masquerades are only two cases in point. Closer to Lermontov's time and place, the memoirs of Fyodor Tornau, an officer who served in the Caucasus in 1837, contain accounts of Russian officers who disguised themselves as natives in order to gather intelligence in enemy territory (13-15).

11. Several readers who commented on drafts of this article asked me to what extent I think that Lermontov might share my moral evaluation of Pechorin's actions. Does he condemn them, or does he to some degree endorse Pechorin's puerile behavior? The question of Lermontov's sympathy for Pechorin has been at issue in one form or another since A Hero of Our Time was published 150 years ago (see Todd). I will certainly not be able to resolve it here—if indeed it is resolvable—to anyone's satisfaction. I agree with Garrard (133) that “Pechorin is not presented as a model for emulation but as a warning” and that Lermontov must be taken seriously when he writes in the preface to his novel that it is “a portrait composed of all the vices of our generation in the fullness of their development” ‘pоrtrit, sоstavlinnyj iz pоrокоv vsigо nasigо pокоliniy, v pоlnоm ik razvitii’ (2; 8). Indeed, that Lermontov may have identified and sympathized with Pechorin—and at times may even have behaved rather like him—does not necessarily mean that, as a novelist, Lermontov was blind to the character's very serious failings. In fact, the elaborate system of narrative lenses in Hero suggests that Lermontov was trying to get some distance from his character.

    Whether Lermontov would endorse my reading of “Bela”—as an examination of the moral problems entailed by imperial power—is hard to say. It is obvious that Pechorin behaves destructively. That he operates within the cultural and ideological framework I detail seems to me to be no less clear. These considerations are what to me, a modern reader, seem important.

12. In his important work Fiction and Society in the Age of Pushkin: Ideology, Institutions, and Narrative, Todd argues persuasively that A Hero of Our Time must be read not only as a case study in the psychology of the extraordinary individual (represented by Pechorin) but as a study of the relation of this character type to the social and cultural ideologies that operated within Russian society during the first part of the nineteenth century. Precisely because he concentrates on ideologies within Russian society, however, Todd follows established critical practice in directing most of his attention to “Princess Mary,” which, despite its Caucasian setting, depicts the exclusively Russian world of the spa society at Piatigorsk (137-62).

13. Work on this project was supported in part by grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and Mount Holyoke College. Special thanks to Kuang-Tien Yao of the Mount Holyoke interlibrary-loan department for her efforts on my behalf.

Works Cited

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Austin, Paul M. “The Exotic Prisoner in Russian Romanticism.” Russian Literature 16 (1984): 217-74.

Baddeley, John F. The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus. 1908. New York: Russel, 1969.

Bartol'd, V. Istоriy izuciniy Vоstокa v Ivrоpi i Rоssii [History of the Study of the Orient in Europe and Russia]. 2nd ed. Leningrad, 1925.

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Bobrov, S. “Kirsоnida; ili, Kartina lucsigо litnigо dny v Kirsоnisi Tavricisкоm” [“Chersonida; or, A Picture of a Most Fine Summer's Day in the Tauric Chersonese”]. Pоety 1790-1810-k gоdоv [Poets of 1790-1810]. Leningrad: Sovetskii Pisatel’, 1971. 132-58. (Excerpt from Tavrida; ili, Mоj litnij dins v Tavricisкоm Kirsоnisi: Liriко-epicisкоi stikоtvоrinii [Tauris; or, My Summer Day in the Tauric Chersonese: A Lyrico-Epic Poem].)

Brooks, E. Willis. “Nicholas I as Reformer: Russian Attempts to Conquer the Caucasus, 1825-1855.” Nation and Ideology: Essays in Honor of Wayne S. Vucinich. Ed. Ivo Banac et al. New York: Columbia UP, 1981. 227-63.

Durylin, S. Girоj nasigо vrimini M. Y. Lirmоntоva [M. lu. Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time]. 1940. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1986.

Eidelman, N. Ia. Byts mоzit za kribtоm кavкaba: Russкay litiratura i оbsistvinnay mysls pirvо j pоlоviny XIX viкa: Kavкazкij коntiкst [Perhaps beyond the Peaks of the Caucasus: Russian Literature and Societal Thought of the First Half of the Nineteenth Century: The Caucasian Context]. Moscow: Nauka, 1990.

Eikhenbaum, Boris M. “Girоj nasigо vrimini” [“A Hero of Our Time”]. Istоriy russкоgо rоmana v dvuk tоmak [History of Russian Literature in Two Volumes]. Vol. 1. Moscow: ANSSSR (IRLI), 1962. 277-322.

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