To date Lermontov's creative work rarely has been interpreted as a literary historical fact. The traditional history of literature has regarded him only as a "reflection" of social moods, as a "confession of a member of the intelligentsia of the 30s and 40s"; other studies possess the character of impressionistic interpretations of a religio-philosophical or psychological type. Despite his extraordinary popularity, the revival of literary science begun some fifteen years ago in Russia has barely touched Lermontov. Apparently, this is explained by the fact that Lermontov does not stand in the rank of poets whose artistic influence has been clearly felt by the new generation and which once more has attracted the attention of critics and researchers. In the make-up of the literary traditions which formed Russian Symbolism, the name of Lermontov cannot stand alongside the names of Tyutchev and Fet, despite individual poet's attraction to him (especially Blok's).

Lermontov proved useful during the period of fascination with "Nietzscheanism" and "God-seeking" (Merezhkovsky, Zakrzhevsky), but that is all. This period passed and the question of Lermontov ceased to be immediate, although it remained unclear as before. The one-hundredth anniversary of Lermontov's birth, which coincided with the beginning of the European war (1914), did not introduce anything vitally new into the study of his creative work. The Academy edition of his work bypassed this literary historical problem, citing Belinsky's "brilliant appraisal" (as if the problem were a matter of a simple, aesthetic evaluation), and justified the omission by referring to the fact that posterity's conflicting opinions about the character and essence of Lermontov's poetry were "the best indicator of how much there is that is puzzling, unclear, and moot in the poet's multifaceted soul."

Lermontov cannot be studied until the question about him is posed concretely and literarily-historically in the real sense of the word. Religiophilosophical and psychological interpretations of poetic creativity always will be and inevitably must be debatable and contradictory because they characterize not the poet but that historical moment which produced them. Time passes, and nothing remains of them except "debatable and conflicting judgements" prompted by the needs and tendencies of the epoch. One must not confuse a history of the understanding and interpretations of artistic works with the history of art proper. To study a poet's creative work does not mean simply to evaluate and interpret it, because in the first instance it is examined historically on the basis of special theoretical principles, and in the second, impressionistically, on the basis of premises of taste and world-outlook.

The real Lermontov is the historical Lermontov. To avoid misunderstandings, I must make the reservation that in saying this I do not at all mean Lermontov as an individual event in time—an event which simply has to be restored. Time and, by the same token, the concept of the past do not comprise the bases of historical knowledge. Time in history is a fiction, a convention which plays an auxiliary role. We are studying not motion in time, but motion as such: a dynamic process which in no way can be fragmented is never interrupted, and precisely for that reason does not possess actual time within itself and cannot be measured by time. Historical study reveals the dynamics of events, the laws of which operate not only within the limits of a conditionally selected epoch, but everywhere and always. In this sense, no matter how paradoxical it sounds, history is a science about the constant, the immutable, the motionless, although it concerns itself with change and motion. It can be a science only to the extent that it succeeds in converting real motion into a schema. Historical lyricism, like being in love with one or another epoch for its own sake, does not constitute a science. To study an event historically does not at all mean to describe it as an isolated instance which has meaning only in the conditions of its own time. This is a naive historicism which renders science sterile. It is not a matter of a simple projection into the past, but of understanding the historical actuality of an event, of determining its role in the development of historical energy, which, in its very essence, is constant, does not appear and disappear, and therefore operates outside of time. A historically understood fact by the same token is removed from time. Nothing repeats itself in history precisely because nothing vanishes, but only mutates. Therefore, historical analogies are not only possible but even necessary; and the study of historical events outside the historical process as individual, "unrepeatable" self-contained systems is impossible because it contradicts the very nature of these events.

"The historical Lermontov" is Lermontov understood historically—as a force entering into the general dynamics of its epoch, and, by the same token, generally into history as well. We study a historical individuality as it is expressed in creative work, and not a natural (psycho-physical) individuality, for which completely different materials must be adduced. The study of a poet's creative work as an immediate emanation of his soul or as a manifestation of his individual, self-contained "verbal consciousness' leads to the destruction of the very concept of individuality as a stable unit. Encountering the variety and changeability or contradictoriness of styles within the limits of individual creativity, investigators are forced to qualify almost all writers as "dual" natures: Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, Tyutchev, Turgenev, Tolstoy Dostoevsky, etc., all have passed through this qualification. Together with "demonism" in Lermontov one finds "blueness" (see S. Durylin's article in Russkaya mysl, 1914, X), because in his work not only eyes, the sky and the steppes, but even the stars are "blue." On this path of "immanent" interpretations we have reached an impasse, and no compromises on a linguistic or any other basis can help. We must decisively reject these attempts which are dictated by world-view or polemical biases.

…. .

The literary epoch to which Lermontov belonged (the 1830s and 40s) had to resolve the struggle between poetry and prose, a struggle which clearly had developed by the mid-20s. It was impossible to proceed further on the basis of those principles which had shaped Russian poetry at the beginning of the 19th century and which had created the verse of Pushkin. It was necessary to find new aesthetic norms and expressive means for verse because nothing other than feeble imitation could appear on the former course. There came a period of a lowering of poetic style, a decline of the high lyrical genres, the victory of prose over verse, the novel over the poem. Poetry had to be given more "content," to be made more programmatic, the verse as such less noticeable; it was necessary to intensify the emotional and ideational motivation of poetic speech in order to justify anew its very existence. As always in history, this process develops not in the form of a single line of facts, but in the complex form of an interweaving and contrasting of diverse traditions and methods; it is the struggle between these elements which shapes the epoch. The supremacy of one method or style arises as the result of this struggle—as a victory—after which a decline invariably follows. Other poets are acting simultaneously with Pushkin, not only those who are associated with him but also those who proceed by different paths unrelated to Pushkin: not only Vyazemsky, Baratynsky, Delvig, Yazykov, etc., but also Zhukovsky, and Tyutchev, and Polezhaev, and Podolinsky, and Myatlev, and Kyukhelbeker, and Glinka, and Odoevsky, and Benediktov, etc. It is the same later also: alongside Nekrasov stands Fet, witnessing by his creative work that Nekrasov alone does not form the epoch and that beside Nekrasov's method there is another one, which it is true, is not fated to become the main, the pre-eminent one within the limits of its own epoch.

The sharp historical break separating the 30s from the 20s is felt already in Pushkin's creative work. People of the 40s, looking back at the recent past of Russian poetry, clearly felt its historical sense. Aksakov, who himself had experienced the force of this upheaval, speaks about it very clearly:

Poetic activity in Russia had to reach the limit of its tension, to develop its apogee. For this the highest poetic genius was necessary and an entire throng of poetic talents. It may appear strange why the setting down of speech in a particular meter and the binding of it with assonances becomes, for certain persons in a given epoch, an irresistible attraction from childhood on. The history of all the arts gives an answer to this question by analogy. In general, when in the spiritual organism of a people the need arises to manifest some special force, then, in order to serve this force, in some inscrutable way people are born into the world with a single common calling. However, they maintain all the diversity of the human personality, preserving its freedom and all the visible, external, accidental qualities of existence. Poetic creativity in its new (for us) measured speech was fated to arise in Russia at a historical turn: and so, you see, at the appointed hour, literally by a mysterious hand, the seeds of the necessary talent are scattered in the wind. They fall haphazardly, now on the Molchanovka in Moscow, on the head of the son of the Guard Captain-Lieutenant Pushkin, who consequently is born with an apparently unnatural inclination for rhymes, trochees, and iambs; now in the Tambov village of Mara on the head of some Baratynsky, now in the Bryansk backwoods on Tyutchev, whose mother and father never even attempted to delight their son with the sound of Russian poetry. It is evident that in these poets, as well as in others contemporaneous to them, unconsciously even for themselves, verse creation was the fulfillment not only of their personal but also of the historical summons of the epoch…. Their verse form breathes with a freshness that does not and could not exist in the verse creations of a later period; the fresh trace of victory gained over the material of the word still lies on their verse form; the exultation and joy of artistic possession is still heard. Their poetry and their very relationship to it is stamped with sincerity. Lermontov stands on the threshold of this period of sincerity in our poetry. Through the direct force of talent he is affiliated with this brilliant constellalation of poets, though remaining detached. His poetry is set off sharply from theirs by the negative character of its content. We see something similar in Heine (although we are not thinking of comparing them), who completed a cycle of German poets. Only one step separates a negative tendency from that tendentious point at which poetry turns into a means and recedes to the background. It has all but been taken. It seems to us that the imprint of this historical necessity and sincerity no longer lies on the verse of our time, because to our mind the very historical mission of verse creation has been concluded.

As we see, Aksakov sensed the movement of Russian poetry precisely as a historical process possessing its own dynamics and not conditioned by the psychic attributes of authors. He feels Lermontov's appearance is foreordained a historically necessary fact prepared by the previous movement of poetry.

The creation of new artistic forms is not an act of invention, but one of discovery, because these forms exist latently in the forms of preceding periods. To Lermontov fell the task of discovering that poetic style which had to appear to provide a way out of the poetic impasse created after the 20s and which already existed potentially among some poets of the Pushkin epoch. He had to pass through a complex period of school work in order to orient himself amidst the material accumulated and the methods developed to find a historically-actual path. Between the Pushkin and Nekrasov-Fetepochs a poetry had to be created which, while not breaking with the traditions and achievements of the previous epoch, at the same time would be something distinct from the style which had reigned in the 20s. The time had not yet arrived for a revolution, but the necessity of reform already was sensed very clearly. One had to know how to discard what had become obsolete, and to bring together what was left that still had not lost its vitality, notwithstanding certain inner contradictions occasioned by the struggle of various traditions. It was necessary to blend genres, to invest the poetic line with special emotional intensity, to weight it with thought, to impart to poetry the character of an eloquent, passionate confession, even if as a result of this the strictness of style and of composition suffered. An ornamental airiness of form ("silliness" in Pushkin's words) among the epigones degenerated into a monotonous pattern which repeated itself mechanically and was therefore no longer sensed. A crowd of poets appeared but "no one was listening to poetry when everyone started to write it" (Marlinsky, in the article "On the Novels of N. Polevoy," 1833).

Essentially Lermontov's course was not new; the same traditions remained and the basic principles characteristic for Russian poetry of the 20s underwent only slight modification. Lermontov was a direct disciple of this epoch and did not repudiate it in his creative work, as Nekrasov later did. He appeared at the moment of its decline, when the struggle between the various poetic tendencies had cooled down and a need for reconciliation and summation of results was felt. The struggle of the archaists with Pushkin and Zhukovsky, the quarrels about the ode and the elegy—none of this touched Lermontov. Having skirted this party struggle, which had developed toward the mid-20s and had given rise to Tyutchev's poetry along with Pushkin's, Lermontov weakened those formal problems which disturbed the poets of the older generation (mainly problems of lexicon and genre). He concentrated his attention on other things: on intensifying the expressive energy of the verse line, on imparting an emotional-personal character to poetry, on developing poetic eloquence. Poetry took the form of a lyrical monologue; the verse line once more was motivated as an expression of psychic and intellectual ferment, as a natural expressive means.

The period of high verse culture was ending; poetry had to gain for itself a new reader, one who would demand "rich content." Belinsky, who stood at the head of these new readers, in a contradistinction to other critics (Vyazemsky, Polevoy, Shevyryov) who represented literature, hailed Lermontov as a poet capable of meeting this demand. For him it was important that profound "content" had been introduced into poetry by Lermontov, something which was not to be found in Pushkin, but at the same time Pushkin had not been repudiated. "As the creator of Russian poetry Pushkin eternally will remain the teacher (maestro) of all future poets; but if any one of them, like Pushkin, should be concerned only with the idea of artistry, mis would be clear proof of a lack of genius or greatness of talent…. Pushkin's pathos lies in the sphere of art itself; Lermontov's pathos lies in the moral problems of fate and the rights of the human personality…. The poetic line for Lermontov was only a means for the expression of his ideas, profound and at the same time simple in their merciless truth, and he did not set too much store by it." (Otechestvennye zapiski, 1843, No. 2). In a letter to Botkin, Belinsky expresses his view of Lermontov even more definitely: "Lermontov is much inferior to Pushkin in artistry and virtuosity, in the musicality, elasticity, and versatility of his verse line; he yields even to Maykov in all this; but the content of his verse, drawn from the depths of a profound and powerful nature, the gigantic sweep, the demonic flight…—all this compels one to think that in Lermontov we were deprived of a poet who, in terms of content, would have progressed further than Pushkin." ("Pisma" V. G. Belinskogo, vol. II). While not resolving to renounce the past and still preserving complete respect for Pushkin, nevertheless Belinsky already is raising his hand against the "idea of artistry" and beginning to speak about "content" as something special and more important than Pushkin's "artistry." From this it is only one step to the situation which arose in the 60s when only Nekrasov was permitted to write poetry, if, after all, he was unable to express his thoughts in any other way, while Pushkin was ridiculed and discarded as mere verbiage. Lermontov stands on the boundary of these two epochs: while himself bringing the Pushkin epoch to a close, at the same time he is preparing an onslaught against it.

Belinsky's judgment is characteristic for readers of his time. Belinsky is unable to say anything concrete about Lermontov's poetry, as well as about other literary phenomena. In these instances, as a typical reader, he speaks about Lermontov's verse in general phrases and vague metaphors ("a crack of thunder," "a flash of lightning," "the slash of a sword," "the whine of a bullet"). Much more interesting and valuable as material for a concrete, literary-historical study of Lermontov are the judgements of other critics from the writers' camp. Their opinions are notable for far greater restraint: Lermontov's poetry does not produce upon them the impression of a new course. They find "eclecticism" and imitativeness in him; they reproach him for prolixity and vagueness. Only the critic for the Severnaya pchela, V. Mezhevich, is close to Belinsky's opinion. In his article the decline in interest in poetry and verse-creation itself is emphasized (speaking about an 1840 anthology of Lermontov's work): "This is such a precious gift for our time, which has become almost unaccustomed to truly artistic works that it really is impossible to admire sufficiently this unexpected find…. One must possess a great deal of strength, uniqueness, and originality in order to rivet general attention to poetry at a time when verse has lost all of its credit and has been abandoned to the amusement of children" (Severnaia pchela, 1840, Nos. 284-285, signature L. L.). Shevyryov understood Lermontov's creative work differently. As a subtle critic and poet groping after new methods beyond Pushkin and standing on the same path as Tyutchev, his opinion is extremely important, the more so since it is distinguished by its sharp definition and concreteness. Shevyryov notes in Lermontov

an uncommon Proteanism of talent, truly remarkable, but nonetheless dangerous to original development … you hear in turn the sounds of Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Kirsha Danilov, and Benediktov. Even the form of their works is noticeable in everything, and not only in the sounds. Sometimes Baratynsky's and Denis Davydov's phrases flash by; sometimes the manner of foreign poets is evident. And through all this outside influence it is difficult for us to ascertain what properly belongs to the new poet and where he himself stands…. Does not the new poet appear to us as some kind of eclectic, who like a bee gathers to himself all the former sweets of the Russian muse in order to create from them new honeycombs? Eclecticism of this kind has occurred in the history of art after its well-known periods: it could also recur among us in accord with the unity of its laws of ubiquitous development…. As a poet Lermontov initially appeared as a Proteus with an uncommon talent: his lyre still had not revealed its special pitch; he brings it to the lyres of our best-known poets and with great art is able to tune it to an already well known pitch…. We hear the echoes of the lyres already familiar to us and read them as reminiscences of Russian poetry of the last twenty years." (Moskvitianin, 1841, pt. II, No. 4).

In Shevyryov's opinion "a certain personality peculiar to the poet" is revealed in some of Lermontov's poems ("The Gifts of the Terek," "Cossack Cradle Song," "Three Palms," "To the Memory of A.I. O-yi," "A Prayer"), but "not so much in the poetic form of expression as in the mode of thoughts and in the feelings given to it by life." Such things as "It is both boring and sad," "The Journalist, Reader and Writer," and "A Meditation" produce a "distressing impression" upon Shevyryov due not to the shortcomings of the verse or the style, but again because of the thoughts and feelings contained in them: "Poet! If indeed such thoughts visit you, it would be better to keep them to yourself and not entrust them to carping society…. It seems to us that faithful fragments from real life accompanied by an apathy of observation are unseemly for Russian poetry, and even less so are dreams of despairing disappointment flowing from nowhere." Shevyryov defends high poetry: "a poetry of inspired insights, a poetry of creative fantasy rising above everything essential." In Shevyryov's last reproaches his party position is revealed, but he correctly sensed the presence of a threat in Lermontov's poetry.

Vyazemsky wrote Shevyryov concerning this article (on the 22nd of September, 1841, that is, already after the death of Lermontov): "Apropos of Lermontov. You were too severe with him. Granted, recollections and borrowed impressions are reflected in his talent; but there was also a great deal that signified a strong and fundamental originality which subsequently would have overcome everything external and borrowed. A wild poet, that is, an ignoramus like Derzhavin, for example, could be original from the outset; but a young poet, educated by any learning, upbringing, and reading whatever, inevitably must make his way along well-trodden paths and through a series of favorites who awakened, evoked, and, so to say, equipped his talent. In poetry, as in painting, there must be schools" (Russkii arkhiv, 1885, Book 2). In essence Vyazemsky does not object to Shevyryov's basic thesis, but only softens its severity and this, seemingly, only under the fresh impression of Lermontov's tragic death. Later (in 1847, in the article "A Survey of Our Literature During the Decade after Pushkin's Death"), Vyazemsky expressed himself on Lermontov even more severely and decisively than Shevyryov: "Lermontov had a great gift, but he did not have time to develop himself fully and perhaps couldn't have. To the end Lermontov adhered to the poetic devices for which Pushkin had been celebrated at the beginning of his own career and by which he drew after him the ever impressionable and frivolous crowd. He did not go forward. His lyre did not resound with new strings. His poetic horizon did not expand. An entire, living world is reflected in Pushkin's creations. In Lermontov's works a theatrical world vividly stands out before you with its wings and prompter, who sits in his booth and prompts a speech euphoniously and fascinatingly repeated by a masterly artist" (Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, II).

Not to Shevyryov alone belongs the feeling that Lermontov's poetry is eclectic ("recollections of Russian poetry of the last twenty years"), that it had absorbed various, even contradictory, styles and genres struggling against one another. As early as 1824, speaking out against Zhukovsky's poetry (Mnemozina, part II) and defending the rights of "high" poetry, Kyukhelbeker expresses himself in the same vein, acknowledging only that the very process of collecting or fusing heterogeneous poetic tendencies is a serious and historically-necessary matter. In his diary for 1844 he notes: "Question: can the talent of an eclectically imitative writer, such as Lermontov is in the greater part of his pieces, rise to the point of originality? The simple or even best imitator of a great or simply gifted poet, of course, would have done better had he never taken pen in hand. But Lermontov is not such a person; he imitates or, rather, one finds in him echoes of Shakespeare, Schiller, Byron, Zhukovsky, and Kyukhelbeker…. But in his very imitations there is something of his own, if only the ability to fuse the most heterogeneous verses into a harmonious whole. And this is not a trifle" (Russkaia starina 1891, Vol. 72, Book X). Kyukhelbeker, who by this time already had withdrawn from direct participation in the literary struggle, apparently himself tended toward the thought of reconciling the parties and saw in Lermontov the possibility of such a reconciliation. Belinsky, too, expresses this same thought, saying that "we see already the beginning of a genuine (not joking) reconciliation of all tastes and all literary parties in the case of Lermontov's compositions." The special emphasis which Belinsky gives to the words "not joking" indicates that a need for reconciliation was sensed and stated even earlier; Lermontov's unique "eclecticism" arose in fulfillment of this need because it represented not a simple aping of one tendency but something different. Shevyryov turned out to be Lermontov' s most severe judge precisely because he continued to occupy a militant position and did not strive for "reconciliation." The struggle of the ode and the elegy had to lead to the disintegration of both these genres and, on the one hand, resulted in the lyrics of Tyutchev where the ode, while preserving its oratorical pathos, was condensed and transformed into a lyrical "fragment" (Tynyanov). On the other hand, this disintegration led to the poetry of Lermontov, where the elegy lost its airy classical features and appeared in the form of a declamatory meditation or "reflection." The admirers of strict lyrical genres, like Shevyryov, most acutely felt the instability and fluidity of this form. Gogol, in whose mouth "finished form" or "definitiveness" were the highest form of praise (see, for example, "The Portrait") also sided with him. He does not see this "finality" of form in Lermontov's creative work and explains this by the absence of love and respect for his own talent: "No one has played so frivolously with his talent, and no one has tried so hard to display an even boastful contempt toward it as Lermontov. Not one poem has gestated full term in him, has been lovingly and thoughtfully fussed over like one's own child, has "settled" and become concentrated in itself; the verse line itself still has not acquired its own firm personality and palely recalls now Zhukovsky's verse and now Pushkin's; everywhere there is excess and prolixity. There is much greater merit in his prose works. Among us no one has written such correct, fragrant prose."

All the judgements cited clearly show that for Lermontov's contemporaries there was nothing unexpected or mysterious in creative work; on the contrary, many of them hailed him precisely because they saw in him the fulfillment of their desires and aspirations. The struggle, of course, had not ended. Belinsky indicates that of all Lermontov's pieces the poem "It's both boring and sad" "attracted the special hostility of the old generation." As we have seen, precisely this piece among others produced a "distressing impression" upon Shevyryov, and provoked a long tirade as to what Russian poetry ought to be like. It is not just a matter of generations here. Shevyryov correctly perceived in these poems of Lermontov the beginning of a course leading to a lowering of the high lyric and to the triumph of verse as an emotional "means of expression" over verse as a self-sufficient, ornamental form. As an archaist and fighter for "a poetry of inspired insights," he did not wish to yield first place to a poetry reduced to the level of an album meditation or to the topical publicistic essay. He was obliged to yield, for precisely that kind of poetry was victorious and became predominant for a time. But "high" lyric poetry, of course, not only did not disappear in Lermontov's time, but even in Nekrasov's time—only the interrelation of these styles changed, which exist and more or less bitterly struggle with one another in every epoch. Nekrasov displaced Fet, but later, in turn, Balmont, Bryusov, and V. Ivanov appeared, and the Nekrasov principle modestly found refuge in "The Satyricon" ("Sasha Chyorny" and others) in order later to blare forth with new strength in the verse of Mayakovsky. A prevailing tendency does not in itself exhaust an epoch and taken in isolation characterizes not so much the state of poetry as readers' sensibilities. In reality the movement of art always is expressed in the form of a struggle for co-existing tendencies. Every literary year accommodates within itself works of various styles. The victory of one of them is a result of this struggle and at the moment of its complete expression is no longer typical for the epoch because behind this victor stand new conspirators whose ideas recently seemed antiquated and worn-out. Every epoch is characterized by a struggle between at least two tendencies or schools (in fact, many more) of which one, gradually triumphing and thereby transforming itself from a revolutionary to a peaceably ruling tendency, becomes encrusted with epigones and begins to degenerate, and another, inspired by a rebirth of old traditions, begins anew to attract attention to itself. At the moment of the disintegration of the first, yet a third tendency usually is formed which attempts to occupy a middle position and, demanding reform, attempts to preserve the main achievements of the victor without condemning itself to an inevitable fall. On the secondary paths, fulfilling temporarily the role of reserves, tendencies remain which do not possess sharply expressed theoretical principles while in practice they develop non-canonized, little-used traditions and, since they are not distinguished by a defmiteness of style and genres, work out new literary material.

I return to Lermontov in order to conclude this introductory chapter. "It's both boring and sad" must have disturbed Shevyrynov because here the elegy had sunk to the level of a "keepsake" meditation. There is a "low" conversational-melancholic intonation ("Desires! … what's the use of eternally and vainly desiring? … To love … but whom?") and a prosaic phraseology ("it's not worth the effort," "and when you look at life"), which threatened the high lyrical style with such consequences as the poetry of Nadson. On the other hand, it is only one step from "A Meditation" and "The Journalist" to the poetry of Nekrasov. But all the same Lermontov himself does not take this step, remaining on the boundary of two epochs and not breaking with the traditions which formed the Pushkin epoch. He does not create new genres, but on the other hand unhurriedly moves from one to another, blending and smoothing out their traditional particularities. Lyric verse becomes "prolix" and takes the most diverse forms from album notes to ballads and declamatory "reflections"; the poema, so advanced by Pushkin in descriptive and narrative portions, is shortened, acquiring a conventionally decorative character and developing its monologic portion. The genre becomes unstable, but then emotional formulae acquire an extraordinary strength and keenness, which, as will be seen further on, Lermontov carries over from one piece to another without paying attention to distinctions of styles and genres. While not permitting the publication of verses written earlier than 1836, at the same time he constantly employs ready-made formulae coined as early as the period 1830-31. His attention is directed not toward the creation of new material, but to the fusion of ready-made elements. Put somewhat differently, in Lermontov's poetry there is no genuine, organic constructiveness in which the material and the composition, mutually influencing one another, make up the form; this is replaced by a tense lyricism and emotional eloquence which is expressed in fixed verbal formulae. All Lermontovian forms tend equally toward their formation, linking the lyric with the poema, the poema with the story (povest'), the story with the drama. This, of course, is not a peculiarity of his soul, of his temperament, or, finally, of his individual "verbal consciousness" but an historical fact characteristic of him as an historical individuality who was fulfilling a specific mission required by history. Therefore, neither here nor elsewhere in this book should my words be understood as a simple aesthetic evaluation. This is not an aesthetic but a literary-historical evaluation, whose basic spirit is an enthusiasm for the assertion of fact.