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Life and works of Russian poet and novelist Mikhail Lermontov, one of Russia's best poets. Famous for his novel A Hero of our Time and poem The Demon.
Russian poet and novelist Mikhail Lermontov was one of the finest poets in Russia, known to be the best after the death of Aleksandr Pushkin. His work is about freedom and finding beauty in nature. He is best known for the novel A Hero of Our Time and the poem Death of a Poet. Early Years of Mikhail LermontovMikhail Lermontov was born on October 3, 1814 in Moscow, Russia. His mother died when he was three years old and he was brought up by his grandmother. He went to a boarding school, where he begun to write poetry by the age of 14. His early poems were Romantic and much influenced by the work of the English poet Lord Byron. The Young Poet and SoldierLermontov's first published poem, Spring, was written when he was 16, the year he entered Moscow University. After only two years he left and joined a military school. Upon graduation in 1834, he was immediately stationed in St. Petersburg. It was there he observed the social life of the wealthy people which he often criticized. Pushkin's InfluenceThe death in a duel of Aleksandr Pushkin, considered Russia's greatest poet, so upset Lermontov. He wrote about it in his poem "Death of a Poet," in which he denounced the killer. At the same time he blamed the artistocratic lifestyle at that time as a cause of social disease. For his beliefs, he was arrested and banished to a remote Russian region of Caucasus. Best Novels and PoemsHe was allowed to return a year later, in which he published his best known and influential novel, A Hero of Our Time (Geroy nashevo vremeni), whose hero is a young officer who lived an adventurous yet tragic life. This novel is regarded as a prose masterpiece. It was followed by his best-known poem, "The Demon," about an angel who falls in love with a mortal. Last YearsLermontov was banished for the second time after a duel with the son of the French ambassador, this time he was sent to a dangerous border area. In 1840, a year before his death, he feigned illness and returned to the town of Pyatigorsk, near Moscow. There he joined in the social life of the place. It was tragic that some of his acidic comments to a fellow officer caused another duel. He was killed this time and died on July 15, 1841, at a very young age of 26. Works by Mikhail Lermontov
Sources:Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una McGovern, Chambers, 2002 Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring, Larousse, 1994
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