SOURCE: Ekshtut, Semyon. “Pushkin's Heir.” Russian Life 42, no. 6 (30 November 1999): 19-32.

[In the following essay, Ekshtut explores the influence of Pushkin on Lermontov's life and work.]

The Lermontov family cherished their links to the 13th century Scottish poet Sir Thomas Learmont, dubbed “The Rhymer.” According to Scottish legend, Sir Thomas was enchanted by a beautiful Elfin princess and spent seven years in her fairy kingdom, where he could not utter a word, lest he never return home again. He endured the silence and so the princess rewarded him on his departure with an apple from the Tree of Knowledge. This enchanted apple bestowed upon him “a tongue that could never lie.” It was a gift, the queen said, “not to be taken lightly by any man. Greater than you imagine, it will bring you lasting fame …” Learmont used his gift wisely and did indeed gain lasting fame, yet this did not lessen the heavy burden of truth-telling …

In the 17th century, Georg (Yuri) Learmont, reputedly a descendant of Thomas the Rhymer, served at the court of Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov. For his service, Learmont was awarded lands in the Volga region. Eight generations later, the “Learmonts” became “Lermontovs” and Lermontov's father, Yuri Petrovich, a retired 27-year-old captain, owned the modest village of Kropotovo in the Tula region.

Despite his modest situation, Yuri married well—to an extended member of the rich and mighty Stolypin family. But his marriage to Mariya Arsenieva was unhappy, first because of the two families' unequal financial situations, and more importantly, because Yuri and his authoritarian mother-in-law, Elizaveta Arsenieva, did not get along.

After Mariya gave birth to a son in Moscow on October 3, 1814 (October 15, new style), Elizaveta insisted that the boy be baptized “Mikhail” at St. Mikhail's church in Tarkhany (where the Arsenieva family lived). Archangel Mikhail, after all, was considered the mightiest of guardian angels. This flew in the face of the Lermontov family tradition of naming their sons Yuri or Pyotr in turn. But Yuri acquiesced.

When, less than three years later, little Misha's frail and beautiful mother Elizaveta died of tuberculosis at age 22, Elizaveta of course blamed Yuri. She amended her will so that her beloved grandson Mikhail would inherit all her property only if she remained in charge of his upbringing and education. If Yuri interfered at all, Mikhail's fortune would be lost.

It was all or nothing with Lermontov's grandmother. And Yuri Petrovich was in no position to argue. As it was, he was having a hard time supporting his mother and three unmarried sisters, in addition to his young family. He swallowed his pride for the sake of his son's financial future and lived out the rest of his life as a recluse at Kropotovo. His health rapidly diminished and he died in 1831 at the age of 44. Mikhail was just 17 at the time.

A POET'S EDUCATION

The young Mikhail spent his childhood at his grandmother's estate at Tarkhany, located in the Chembarsky uezd of the Penza region. He was not a very healthy child and was emotionally traumatized by the incessant quarrels between his relatives and by the premature death of both his parents. To bolster Mikhail's health, Elizaveta Arsenieva took him to the Caucasus three times during his childhood (in 1818, 1820 and 1825). Lermontov was profoundly influenced by these journeys, mesmerized by the wild nature of the region. “To remember forever, one needs go there just once,” he would later write about the Caucasian mountains. Later in life, Lermontov returned to the Caucasus as an officer of the Hussars; much of his prose and poetry would be inspired by the region.

Elizaveta Arsenieva spared nothing on Lermontov's education. He became fluent in several languages, excelled at painting, drawing, writing verse and playing the violin and piano. Interestingly, one of Mikhail's tutors was Jean Capais, an officer of the Napoleonic Guards who had been taken prisoner in Russia, but who did not leave after the war was over. Loyal to Napoleon to the end, Capais regaled the young Lermontov with stories about the war.

Later, Lermontov the poet wrote his famous martial ballad “Borodino” (1837), which surely would not have pleased his French tutor. The poem, written in the form of a dialog between a youth and a veteran, focuses on patriotism—even today it is required reading for Russian students—singing praises to ordinary Russians who fought for their homeland. In a poignant stanza, the youth asks why the Russians temporarily surrendered Moscow to Napoleon:

.....

But tell me, uncle, why our men
Let Moscow burn, yet fought again
To drive the French away?

In 1828 Lermontov entered the Noble's Pension at Moscow University—a sort of preparatory school for the university. At this time, as he later recalled, he “began scribbling verses.” He also wrote the first outline of his future poem “Demon.” However, his first efforts were immature and imitative of Byron and the limpid, melancholy Romanticism then prevalent among intellectuals. Still, in a few isolated pieces, he began to reveal his talents as a fine lyricist, i.e. in “The Cup of Life” (1831), “Desire” (1831) and especially “The Sail” (1832).

Indeed, Lermontov's prose and verse were so supple and light that his contemporaries called him “the Russian Goethe,” as the German poet was then believed to be unparalleled in his description of nature. In fact, Lermontov's many free, adapted translations of Goethe became masterpieces of Russian poetry, because he only rendered Goethe's mood, without trying to offer a literate translation. Lermontov's short poem “From Goethe” (1840) shows the very qualities that his contemporaries praised.

.....

Asleep are the mountain's peaks
Quiet are the valleys
Full of fresh haze
The dust on the road has settled
And the leaves unshaken by the wind
Wait a bit, and you, too, will rest.

In the fall of 1830, at the age of 16, Lermontov began his formal studies at Moscow University. He studied there for two years, participating in the student strikes sparked by conflicts with reactionary lecturers and professors. He also pursued the unrequited love of Natalya Fyodorovna Ivanova. Interestingly, he did not reveal these affections to any of his contemporaries; the fact was only revealed in the 1930s by the literary scholar Irakly Andronikov, who deciphered the simple dedication “NFI” in a cycle of verses the poet wrote at this time.

In 1832, Tsar Nicholas I decided to toughen discipline at Moscow University, cracking down on students who cut classes. This forced the freedom-loving Lermontov to leave the university (or be tossed out, it is not entirely clear) and move to St. Petersburg. There he became a junker (cadet) and joined the School of the Cavalry of the Guards, which he later described as “two terrible years,” filled with tiring exercises, incessant maneuvers and military reviews. Still, Lermontov continued to write, although he was often influenced by the frivolous mores of young officers. At this time, he wrote a cycle of Junker's Poems (namely “The Hospital”)—obscene yet talented verses meant to amuse his school mates. Even now, “The Hospital” is rarely included in Lermontov's collected works and is known only by scholars.

Upon his graduation in 1834, Lermontov joined the Hussars' Regiment of the Life Guards, which had its quarters at Tsarskoye Selo, near St. Petersburg. The young hussar often visited St. Petersburg, where he indulged in high-society distractions and studied “on-site” the life of the capital's salons and dining rooms. His observations of aristocratic life were later reflected in his drama “Masquerade” (1835) which was barred from the stage by censors. “Masquerade” is a merciless satire of a generation which has lost any notion of true spiritual values. It was Lermontov's first mature attempt to raise the problem of the “hero of our time.” Protagonist Yevgeny Arbenin is a precursor of Lermontov's future “superfluous man” (lishny chelovek) Pechorin in A Hero of Our Time, but also of Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov (Crime and Punishment) who violates the laws of humanity under his own, warped morality (in the play, Arbenin poisons his love Nina).

TURNING POINT

The tragic death of Alexander Pushkin in a duel in January 1837 radically changed Lermontov's fate. As Alexander Herzen wrote, “The shot which killed Pushkin awoke Lermontov's soul.”

Lermontov's poem, “Death of a Poet,” was distributed by way of thousands of handwritten copies. In it, Lermontov blamed Pushkin's death on the “greedy crowd standing by the throne”—it was the intrigue-loving high society of St. Petersburg that murdered Pushkin. At the poem's end, Lermontov makes a prophecy about the Russian court: “Never will you wash out the poet's righteous blood with your black blood!”

.....

His prophecy was self-fulfilling. For nearly a century and a half, the tenor of Lermontov's scathing denunciation—that the court was complicit in Pushkin's murder—prevented Russian historians from objectively appraising the historical roles of Nicholas I, Count Alexander Benkendorf, head of the tsar's secret police, Foreign Minister Karl Nesselrode and Leonty Dubelt, head of the gendarmes corps (Lermontov drew the latter's profile on a manuscript of “Death of a Poet”).

Soon, intellectuals throughout the City on the Neva were quoting lines from Lermontov's poem. They were asking who this genius was, while consoling themselves with the fact that Pushkin had left behind a poetic heir. Lermontov became famous overnight. He heard that the poet Vasily Zhukovsky approved of his poem and that the whole family of the writer Karamzin admired him …

Needless to say, the reaction of those with “black blood” was less than positive. Benkendorf (a remote relative of Lermontov's grandmother) warned Elizaveta Arsenieva that her grandson would come to trouble if the tsar ever read the poem. At his grandmother's request, Lermontov stopped distributing copies of the poem. The tsar found out about the poem soon enough, however, and Lermontov was arrested.

Mikhail Yuriyevich's punishment was a two-rank demotion and exile to the Caucasus in the service of the Nizhny Novgorod Regiment of Dragoons. He left for the Caucasus on March 19, 1837. On his way, he visited Stavropol and the famous spa resorts of Pyatigorsk and Kislovodsk. He met some Decembrists exiled there and experienced first-hand the vacationers' high life—the so-called “vodnoye obschetsvo” (water society), referring to the local mineral springs. Later, he would describe this society vividly in what was arguably his best work, A Hero of Our Times.

During this period, Lermontov also wrote many poems and painted scenes from the Caucasian war in which he took part. Two of his most notable romantic works, “Demon” and “Mtsyri” (both completed in 1839, but the former was never published in his lifetime) were inspired by his time in the Caucasus. In fact, most of his best works were inspired by and take place in the Caucasus.

The Russian critic Vissarion Belinsky would later write of Lermontov's journey in the Caucasus: “It is really odd! It seems as if the Caucasus were destined to become the cradle of our poetic talents, the inspiration and patron of their muse, their poetic homeland! Pushkin dedicated one of his first poems, “The Prisoner of the Caucasus” to the Caucasus … Griboyedov wrote his Woe from Wit in the Caucasus … And now we see yet another great talent … finds his poetic Parnasus on the unattainable peaks of the Caucasus, covered with eternal snow …”

The poet's exile was not long-lived. Elizaveta Arsenieva was hard at work in the capital, expiating her grandson's “sins” in the eyes of the court. She worked successfully through her relative Benkendorf and even secured a personal solicitation by Zhukovsky, educator to the tsarevich. This got him transferred to the Hussar's Grodnensky Regiment, headquartered in Novgorod. In April 1838 he received a full pardon and returned to his former Hussars' Regiment of the Life Guards.

Before his return to the capital, Lermontov's epic folk poem “The Song of Tsar Ivan Vasilevich, a young Oprichnik, and the Valiant Merchant Kalashnikov” had begun circulating in handwritten copies. He actually wrote the poem—a stylized version of the Russian historical song—after first arriving in Pyatigorsk in 1837. The poem is a tale of revenge and machinations at court which was a thinly-veiled allusion to Pushkin's tragedy. In it, Kalashnikov avenges an insult to his wife by killing the oprichnik (bodyguard to the tsar) in a kalachny duel (with fisticuffs) in front of Ivan the Terrible. Kalashnikov stands before the tsar, knowing certain that he will die for this “dishonor.” Nonetheless, he speaks “the truth entire and sincere,” admitting that he killed the oprichnik “of his own free will, and not by chance.” Ivan, echoing Nicholas I's gesture to a dying Pushkin, promises to take care of Kalashnikov's wife and child after he is killed. The poem enjoyed tremendous success, but was not published until 1840, and then because of the support of Zhukovsky and only anonymously (as Lermontov's name was barred by censors).

So it was that Lermontov returned to St. Petersburg in triumph. “Russia,” Belinsky wrote, “was graced by yet another mighty talent: Lermontov. Many a poet writes verses these days—polished, harmonious and light; but only Lermontov's muse could remind us of Pushkin's verses.”

The young poet was welcomed at soirees as a new talent en vogue. His reputation as a rebel returned from exile only added romantic flavor to his personality. “… This entire society which I insulted in my verses now surrounds me with flattery,” Lermontov wrote at the end of 1838. But the feeling was far from mutual. As Ivan Turgenev would write later, “… deep down Lermontov must have been profoundly bored; he couldn't breath in that stiff atmosphere.” All who met him then took note of his “somber and disquieting gaze.”

Indeed, in March 1939, less than a year after his return to the capital, the poet's intellectual boredom and his disdain for Russian high society found literary expression in the serial publication of his novel A Hero of Our Time. The novel was published in its entirety only in April 1840.

A HERO ARRIVES

“No one in this place has ever written such perfect, beautiful and fragrant prose,” wrote Nikolai Gogol of Lermontov's novel. Indeed, no one had ever written a novel in Russian like this, and it would affect all Russian fiction that followed it.

On the surface, A Hero of Our Time seems an unremarkable piece of 19th century romantic fiction. But in fact it is a beautifully composed novel that is both a social critique of a dissolute generation and the first example of psychological realism in Russian fiction—a thread that would be so vital in the works of Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Goncharov and others.

The novel is comprised of five tales about Grigory Pechorin, the first two based on hearsay and superficial appearances of this “hero,” the remaining three based on Pechorin's own travel journals. The result is a fascinating, gradual unmasking of this person Pechorin. The reader becomes attracted to Pechorin's adventurous, superior bearing, but put off by his arrogance, his lack of morals and his unbridled cruelty. And Lermontov makes no attempt to draw a moral at the story's end, to tell us how exactly we should feel about Pechorin. Indeed, that is part of the genius of the novel: we don't know whether to hate Pechorin for his baseness, or to revile society and fate for the monster it made of him.

Contemporaries—not without reason—associated Pechorin with Lermontov. But, in his introduction to the book, Lermontov made clear this was not the case. Pechorin, Lermontov wrote, is a collective portrait, embodying the vices of a whole generation “in their full development.” The intent of the novel, he said, was to provide a diagnosis of this generation that had no moral compass, not to provide a cure.

Lermontov's diagnosis was as merciless as it was accurate. His “hero” was “ready to love the whole world.” But his talent remains misunderstood and he “learns to hate” the world from which he feels so alienated. An egotistical, cynical lady's man, he becomes fed up with his love conquests and ends up “despising women, lest he love them, for otherwise life would be just a ridiculous melodrama.” Thus, Pechorin confesses to Countess Mary (whose affections he toys with to draw the ire of his unrecognized double, Grushnitsky) that he is “morally handicapped.” He seeks refuge from his boredom in card games, bitter jokes at the expense of vacationers and a pointless duel in which he kills Grushnitsky. In short, a Yevgeny Onegin in prose.

Ironically, and as if to confirm Lermontov's diagnosis, it became en vogue in the 1840s to play the part of Pechorin (or claim to be the inspiration for the beautiful Mary, whom Pechorin torments). Later, during the Soviet period, the official line diagnosed Pechorin as a “lishny chelovek”—one who simply couldn't find his place in life for lack of truly righteous, noble (i.e. revolutionary) ideals. But this didn't stop (some might even say it encouraged) Russian students from revealing a certain admiration for the unlikely hero Pechorin. His wit and courage, to say nothing of his good looks were, of course, wasted on superfluous distractions. But his looks—so artfully portrayed so that one could easily picture him his witty rich speech and his perfect knowledge of the smallest nuances of a woman's soul, made him an idol for young male and female readers alike.

Thus, the “superfluous” Pechorin, who lacks any social or spiritual compass, continues the lineage of heroes begun with Griboyedov's Chatsky (Woe from Wit) and Pushkin's Yevgeny Onegin. In fact, the parallel with Onegin is so obvious that Russian critics often call Pechorin “the younger brother of Onegin.” The link is undeniable. Both heroes' names derive from the names of northern Russian rivers: Onegin from the placid Onega, Pechorin from the turbulent Pechora. Yet, Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time stands on its own as a masterpiece of literature, a work all the more remarkable because it was written when the author was just 24.

For all his genius, for all his talent, for all the lightness and beauty of his verse, Lermontov was destined to always be “second best” after Pushkin, one who merely extended the Golden Age of Russian literature which peaked with Pushkin. For, as Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote, “a poet in Russia is more than a poet,” and Pushkin, whose poetry Russians can recite by heart “is our everything.” There simply is no room for other “first poets of Russia.”

Lermontov grasped this at the very dawn of his fame. His friend Andrei Kraevsky glowed with admiration for Lermontov's poetic obituary of Pushkin: “I told you!” he said, “I believed in you! You will replace Pushkin for us …”

“Nobody will replace Pushkin,” Lermontov said quietly and sadly.

And when an acquaintance, Nikolai Stolypin, argued that Lermontov should not have called Dantes a “murderer” in the poem, since it was Pushkin who insulted Dantes in public, Lermontov responded with wrath. “Stop it, will you? Just tell me Nikolai … would you fire at Pushkin yourself, even if he had insulted you? … For there could be only one answer coming from a Russian: I would tolerate any offense from Pushkin in the name of love for Russia's glory.”

In a sad irony of fate, Lermontov's life—and tragic end—is all too reminiscent of Pushkin. In 1840, at the height of his fame, Lermontov fought a pointless duel in St. Petersburg with Ernest de Barantes, the son of the French ambassador (in Pushkin's case it was the adopted son of a Dutch ambassador). Neither Lermontov or de Barantes were hurt. But the escapade cost the poet another exile to the Caucasus; a military tribunal ordered him to join the Tenginsky Infantry Regiment, which was to wage a bloody fight against the local mountain peoples.

Tsar Nicholas I seems to have had the same scorn for Lermontov as he did for Pushkin. In a letter written to the empress at this time, Nicholas analyzed A Hero of Our Time and ended it with the sarcastic phrase: “Bon voyage, Mr. Lermontov!”

By June 1840, just two months after A Hero of Our Time had been published in book form, Lermontov was fighting in the Caucasus.

Despite audacious, often daring, behavior under fire, Lermontov returned safely from all of the fierce battles into which he was sent. Lieutenant Lermontov became very close with a number of officers, who developed great affection for him and admired his bravery. As one eyewitness remembered, “He was desperate in his courage and stunned even the old warriors of the Caucasus with his intrepidity and audacity.” Lermontov covered himself with glory in a July 11, 1840 battle near the river Valerik. He later described the battle in verse (which could be written about the current situation in the Caucasus) …

.....

We were promised a fierce battle
Far away in the mountains of Ichkeriya(1)
Already in Chechnya to a brotherly cry
Valiant warriors were flocking.
The battle was so cruel, so long
Like animals we fought chest to chest
Til' corpses filled the stream.
I wanted to ladle up some water
For the heat and fight wore me out
But the muddy water was warm and red.

Lermontov's commander cited the youth's courage and bravery in this battle (“he was in the first ranks of the assailants to burst into the positions of the enemy”). And Lermontov was twice nominated to receive battle awards: first the Order of St. Vladimir (4th degree) and then the Golden Saber For Courage. But rewarding Lermontov the officer would have been tantamount to pardoning Lermontov the exiled poet. The emperor turned down the nominations; Lermontov's name was deleted from the lists.

By this time, Lermontov had authored 400 poems and a dozen ballads. But when, in October 1840, he published a small collection of his verses in a print run of 1,000 copies, he selected for inclusion just 26 poems and 2 ballads. Such self-criticism about one's own literary work is surely rare. Luckily, the full body of Lermontov's work survived, and one merely needs to read through his verses in chronological order to discern the facts of his life, his internal universe, his attitude towards reality and his presentiment of an early death. “Looking back at Lermontov's verses,” Belinsky wrote, “we see in them the force and the elements of which his life and poetry were made.”

FINAL DAYS

After insistent pleas by Elizaveta Arsenieva to the court, Lermontov was allowed to return to St. Petersburg in February 1841, for a 2-month-long leave of duty. Lermontov at this time conceived a romantic trilogy—three novels dedicated to three epochs in Russian society (Catherine the Great, Alexander I and his own time). So he petitioned to retire from military service. But his application was denied.

Lermontov prepared to leave St. Petersburg, making ominous statements about his imminent death. His friend Andrei Kraevsky remembered: “Lermontov ran into my house, singing some very strange song and dove onto the sofa and rolled over in a state of strong excitement. ‘What's the matter with you.?’ [I said] ‘Don't you see?! I was ordered to leave St. Petersburg within 48 hours.’”

Lermontov had been woken early in the morning of April 12 on personal orders of the tsar and Benkendorf. So, that evening an improvised farewell party was held at the Karamzins. The poet Zhukovsky, Countess Evdokia Rostopchina and Pushkin's widow, Natalya Nikolayevna, were all there. Sofia Karamzina presented Lermontov with a ring, but he dropped the gift on floor. It fell through the parquet, and was never retrieved. This was taken as a bad omen.

The next day, Lermontov had dinner with Rostopchina and Andrei Karamzin. “Throughout dinner,” Rostopchina later wrote, “Lermontov kept talking about his future death. I forced him to stop and made fun of his presentiments, which seemed empty yet which influenced me and made my heart break.” His grandmother Elizaveta Arsenieva wept all night. Lermontov accepted an icon from her and tried to console her: “When the tsarevich's wedding is held, I will be pardoned and will come back. And will never leave anywhere.”

On his way to the Caucasus, Lermontov stopped briefly in Moscow to say goodbye to friends and relatives there. While there, he wrote the poem “Dream”, which saddened his friends and was an eerie prophecy of his death:

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Motionless, I was lying in the midday heat
Of a Dagestan valley
With a lead bullet in my chest

And yet, once Lermontov arrived in the Caucasus, nothing seemed to augur his tragic denouement. He found a pretext to stay in his beloved Pyatigorsk, where a local military commander, Vasily Ilyashenkov, informed the Stavropol Chief of Headquarters that Lermontov needed treatment in the waters. Lermontov's landlord in Pyatigorsk, Vasily Chilaev, recalled that “Lermontov's way of life in Pyatigorsk was ordinary and simple. Nothing reminded one of a poet, rather of an officer-landowner.” Soon after his arrival, he bought a race horse named “Cherkess” (Circassian) and hired a cook-aide-de-camp. The poet loved a meal of four or five courses and shared his fine wines and tasty food with his many guests. He also met up with a former school mate from his junker days, retired major Nikolai Martynov. Lermontov was glad to see him again and even spent the night at Martynov's house, talking to him at length, calling him “a friend.” Unfortunately, fate had cast Martynov to play the part of Lermontov's murderer.

Martynov had allegedly been forced to retire from the army to halt rumors about his losses at cards. He suffered from an inferiority complex and was very touchy about jokes at his expense. He constantly sought the respect of his comrades and the affections of local women, particularly a local 26-year-old beauty Emiliya Verzilina, dubbed the “rose of the Caucasus.” Martynov tried to look the macho warrior and donned a Circassian national outfit with a huge dagger hanging from his belt. A handsome man with a thick, dark moustache, Martynov won the hearts of many women, but his comrades, especially Lermontov, made him the butt of their jokes, poking fun at his ridiculously ferocious look, and especially at his ludicrous outfit.

In Pyatigorsk, Lermontov loved to indulge in late night walks with his fellow officers. During one such promenade, Lermontov confessed to his friend Pavel Gvozdev (a former junker demoted to private), “I feel that I have very little to live.” What was he thinking to himself on those nights? There is a hint in one of his finest poems, written at this time.

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I walk alone down that road;
A stony path shines through the fog.
Quiet is the night, the desert hears our Lord;
Two stars one to another talk.
It feels so solemn in the skies, so magic!
Under the blue light, the earth lies asleep …
Why does it feel so hard, so tragic
Why all these hopes? Why is my regret so deep?
From my life I expect nothing
And my past I do not mourn;
Freedom and peace I am seeking
I simply want to forget, to be alone.

(1841)

Despite such melancholy, Lermontov led an active life those two months in Pyatigorsk. He savored bareback races on Cherkess and enjoyed poking fun at Martynov and Emiliya Verzilina, believing his humor was all within the limits a friendly joke. And he of course wrote verse.

On July 13, Lermontov attended a soiree at the house of the Verzilins. He pointedly, in French, asked the beautiful Emilie Verzilin to waltz with him, as if to beg her pardon for his bitter jokes at her expense. “M-lie Emilie, je vous en prie, un tour de valse seulement, pour la dernière fois de ma vie” (Mademoiselle Emilie, please, just one tour of waltz, for the last time in my life.”)

Shortly after the waltz, Lermontov was joined by Lev Pushkin, notorious for his sharp tongue. They both began poking fun at the guests. Lermontov glanced at Martynov standing by the piano in his Circassian costume and could not help teasing him with a clever French rhyme: “Montagnard au grand poignard.” (Mountaineer with a big dagger). Martynov overheard the word “poignard” and his eyes flashed with ire. He came up to Lermontov and said: “I told you many times to stop your jokes in the presence of the ladies!” He abruptly turned away and Lermontov reassured the host that he and Martynov would be good friends again the next day. No one heard what they said to each other as they left the Verzilin house late that night, but a duel had been appointed for two days hence, July 15, 1841.

Ever the bretteur, Lermontov sought to turn the duel into a farce. But his jokes only enraged Martynov more. The duel was held at the foot of Mashuk mountain. The poet declared loudly that he would not fire at Martynov and shot into the air. Alexander Vasilchikov, Lermontov's second at the duel, recalled the event. “Lermontov remained motionless, and, upon cocking his gun, raised the pistol in the air, protecting himself with his hand and his elbow like an experienced duelist. At this very moment I looked at him for the last time and will never forget the serene, almost joyful expression of the poet's face while a pistol was aimed at him.”

Martynov later coldly recalled that “under the specific rules of the duel, each of us had the right to shoot at his discretion … I was the first to approach the barrier. I waited for some time for Lermontov's shot, then pulled the trigger … He fell as a result of my shot …”

Russia lost Pushkin to petty jealousies and court intrigues. It lost his heir to an innocuous joke. Of course, some suspected that there was more to it than a sarcastic remark about a dagger and Martynov's wounded pride. Some speculated that Martynov was encouraged “from the top.” Subsequent interrogations of Martynov and the seconds proved none of this and only complicated the case further. To this day, scholars analyze the duel in excruciating detail. The Investigative Commission was lax enough to allow Lermontov a church funeral (“just as it was in the similar case with kammerjunker Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin”)—church law normally forbade church services for those killed in duels. They were considered as Godless as those who took their own lives.

Lermontov was buried at the foot of Mashuk mountain. Hundreds of representatives of regiments where he served came to pay homage. But, within a year, Elizaveta Arsenieva had obtained permission to disinter Lermontovs' ashes. They were reburied in the family tomb in Tarkhany on April 23, 1842.

The poet's murderer expected a severe punishment—exile to Siberia and a demotion to the rank of private at the least. But Tsar Nicholas I condemned him to just three months of arrest at a fortress in Kiev and subsequent religious repentance. Orthodox authorities ruled that Martynov had to repent for 15 years (he had to live near a monastery and daily attend religious services and meet with a confessor). However, following insistent pleas from Martynov, his term of repentance term was cut to just five years.

Elizaveta Arsenieva, the strong-willed, authoritarian grandmother who had devoted her life to the poet's education, was shattered by Lermontov's death. She suffered a stroke, nearly lost her sight and passed away three years later.

Mikhail Yuriyevich Lermontov's legendary ancestor, Sir Thomas Learmont, had reputedly spent seven years in the Elfin kingdom, enchanted by a beautiful princess who bestowed on him the gift of a truthful tongue. This gift may well have passed down to Mikhail Lermontov, but he had only a few short years in which to make use of it. Indeed, this “second greatest” of all Russian poets had only written fine poetry from 1832-1841, and he died at the all-too-young age of 27, proving, if nothing else, as Anna Akhmatova wrote, that great writers need not be aged to be wise.

Perhaps it is the link to the Learmont legend, or perhaps it is the apocryphal significance often attached to a genius' life cut short, but many have found prophetic connections between the poet's words and life and events that followed. The centenary of his birth, 1914, coincided with the outbreak of WWI, the centenary of his death with Hitler's attack on Russia in 1941. In neither case were celebrations deemed in order. Even the 150th anniversary of Lermontov's birth was marred by the dethroning of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, marking the end of a thaw in the arts. In 1991, just a month after the 150th anniversary of Lermontov's death, Russia was shaken by a putsch that ended with the dissolution of the USSR. One can only speculate what the summer of 2014, Lermontov's bicentenary, may hold, but even 1999, the 185th anniversary of his birth, looks tumultuous.

Perhaps it is not surprising, therefore, that some have attributed to Lermontov the qualities of a 19th century Nostradamus. In the first waves of glasnost', Russia's poetic legacy was reinterpreted in the spirit of new “capitalist times.” An overzealous liberal Russian literary scholar even went so far as to interpret Lermontov's poem “Prediction,” written in 1830, as a presentiment of the October revolution.

.....

There comes for Russia that black year
When the tsar's crown will fall;
The dark masses will feel no love, no fear …
Death and blood will feed them all …

Of course, this was simply opportunistic revisionism. The 16-year-old Lermontov wrote the lines after witnessing a series of peasant revolts (caused by an outbreak of cholera) at the estate of his grandmother Elizaveta Arsenieva. Yet it is a measure of Lermontov's fame and prestige that successive generations have sought validation of their ideas in the truthful tongue he inherited from his Scottish ancestor.

Notes

1. Ancient name of Chechnya which is now used again by the leaders of this breakaway republic of Russia.