Michael Lermontov

Born in Moscow in a noble family, the poet spent his youth at Tarkany, his grandmother's estate in the province of Penza.

In 1830 Lermontov entered Moscow University, but very soon he had to leave it. Then he entered St. Petersburg school of Cavalry Cadets. He finished it in 1834 and was given a commission in the Hussar Regiment of the Imperial Guard.

In 1837 the poet was exiled to the Caucasus for his poem on Pushkin's death in which Lermontov put the blame for it on the ruling circles of Russia under Nicholas I. In 1841 Lermontov was sent into exile to the Caucasus for the second time. As a result of intrigues by the officers he was provoked into a personal quarrel with an old schoolfellow, which led to the dual. On July 15, 1841 the poet was killed. He was not even twenty seven years old.

Lermontov began writing when he was very young. One of his first writings to be published in 1835 was his tale verse "Hadji Abrek". But Lermontov became famous after his poem on the death of Pushkin. Whether Lermontov chose to write poetry, prose or drama, the stamp of his genius was always to be found on it.

Lermontov's poems "The Demon", "Mtsyri" and the "Lay of the Merchant Kalashnikov", his innumerable lyrics, his novel "A Hero of Our Time" and his play "Masquerade" are masterpieces of Russian literature. Lermontov was tremendously influenced in his writings by the ideas of the Decembrists. Lermontov's poems are the profession of faith of an independent and free man.

As a poet and a thinker Lermontov exerted an immense influence on all the literature that followed.