Mikhail Lermontov wrote A HERO OF OUR TIME in 1839. The short novel romanticized the life on the frontier of the Caucasian kingdoms. Lermontov was a troubled soul and spent two exiles with the Army of the Don fighting the rebel mountaineers.
Lermontov painted and drew scenes from his service.
A world lost to time.
The kidnapping of Bela
‘Many fair maids in this village of mine,
Their eyes are dark pools where the stars seem to shine.
Sweet flits the time making love to a maid,
Sweeter’s the freedom of any young blade.
Wives by the dozen are purchased with gold,
But a spirited steed is worth riches untold;
Swift o’er the plains like a whirlwind he flies,
Never betrays you, and never tells lies.’
Cities of fables.
“Gentlemen, I beg of you not to move!” said Vulic, pressing the muzzle of the pistol to his forehead. We were all petrified.
The duel of Pechorin and Grushnitsky acts as a harbinger of Lermontov’s demise from later match with Nikolai Martynov, who had described his fellow officer and friend as “the young man who was so far ahead of everybody else, as to be beyond comparison.”
Thousands came to his funeral.
He was a man of his times.