The Russian writer Mikhail Iur’evich Lermontov was born on 15th October 1814. As a poet he is ranked with Pushkin as one of Russia’s greatest and as a novelist and playwright he is regarded as one of the earliest exponents of Russian psychological realism. He was born in Moscow into an aristocratic family, his mother being a Stolypin and his father being descended from the Scottish family of Learmonth that had settled in Russia in the 17th century.  

Portrait of Lermontov from A.G. Bil’derling, Lermontovskii Muzei Nikolaevskogo Kavaleriisskogo Uchilishcha (St Petersburg, 1883) 11926.bb.17.

His early poetry shows the influence of Pushkin, German Romanticism and the works of the English poet Lord Byron. The most famous of these is Demon which he started in 1829 and worked on for 10 years.  It tells the story of the Demon, a fallen angel who attempts to seduce Tamara, a Georgian princess. After finally yielding to him she dies from his fatal kiss and he is left alone again at the end. The poem was banned for its carnality and for being sacrilegious by the Russian censors and was only published for the first time in full in Berlin in 1856. The British Library holds this edition.

Illustration from an English translation of The Demon (London, 1875). 11585.g.28

It was first translated into English by A. C.  Stephen in 1875 and in the same year was made into an opera with music by Anton Rubinstein  (libretto: Pavel Viskovatov).  The opera was popular in its day and ha been revived several times in recent years (notably in a performance given by the Mariinsky Theatre conducted by Valery Gergiev at the Barbican, London in 2009). The British Library holds the original score of the opera (St Petersburg, 1876;  H.754.e), and the 1974 recording conducted by Boris Khaikin, just released on CD, will soon be acquired. The Demon was also the subject of  The Demon Seated (1890), one of the most powerful and influential paintings by the Russian painter Mikhail Vrubel.

Costume designs for Masquerade by Aleksandr Golovin from Maskarad Lermontova v teatral’nykh eskizakh A. IA. Golovina. (Moscow, 1941). 11797.f.44.

Lermontov’s most famous dramatic work is Maskarad (Masquerade), a play in verse written in 1835. The main character is Arbenin, a wealthy aristocrat who after a fit of jealousy at a masked ball has to face the consequences of murdering his innocent wife – the result is his descent into madness. This play also had a difficult time getting past the censors and it was only staged after Lermontov’s death in a revised version in 1852 at the Aleksandrinsky Theatre.  At the time of the February Revolution in 1917 a landmark production of the play took place in the Aleksandrinsky Theatre with designs and costumes by Aleksandr Golovin.  Produced by Vsevolod Meyerhold  with music by Glazunov it featured innovatory theatrical devices such as “tall mirrors that flanked the proscenium opening in order to break down the barriers between stage and audience” (see Meyerhold, On Theatre, translated by Edward Braun; London, 1969; X.900/4423.). This production was revived frequently until 1941.  In that year Aram Khachaturian wrote his famous incidental music for a production of the play at the Vakhtangov Theatre, Moscow. In 1954 Khachaturian recorded the waltz, nocturne and mazurka from the Suite conducting the Philharmonia orchestra for Columbia (BL Shelfmark 1CD0058649). The Kondrashchin version from 1958 (1CD0149609) is also recommended.  

 Title page and illustration “The Princess Mary” from Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of our own Times (London, 1854). 12590.f.14

For a period of his life Lermontov was exiled to the Caucasus, the scenery, people and customs of which provided a background to many of his works including his great novel Geroi nashego vremeni (A Hero of our Time). Pechorin, the hero (or rather anti-hero) of the title is an example of the psychological type in Russian literature known as “the superfluous man” (Lishnii chelovek). This type, usually a well-educated young man from the upper echelons of society who has no outlets for his talents in contemporary life, is condemned to roam the world cynically playing with the ambitions and emotional lives of others just out of boredom and a sense of the futility of life (an embryonic existentialist in fact!).  However like his forerunner Eugene Onegin, this Byronic hero is not only manipulative and pleasure- seeking, but also sensitive and intelligent and deeply aware of his own contradictions. The novel consists of five interlocking stories with Pechorin as the main protagonist. In  the longest story, Princess Mary, Pechorin not only flirts with Princess Mary (whom he doesn’t really desire) at the same time as having an affair with his ex-lover Vera, but in the process also manages to kill his best friend in a duel. Even at the end when he believes his true feelings lie with Vera, he gives up chasing after her when his horse collapses. Perhaps the key to the meaning of the title of the novel is in Lermontov’s foreword “A Hero of our Time … is in fact a portrait, but not of an individual; it is the aggregate of the vices of our whole generation in their fullest expression”.

The British Library holds the first part of the original publication of Geroi nashego vremeni and the second part in the third edition (St Petersburg 1840, 1843; 12590.e.2.) It was first translated into English as Sketches of Russian Life in the Caucasus (London, 1853; 12590.f.18), and as A Hero of our own Times (London, 1854; 12590.f.14). A notable later translation was made by Vladimir Nabokov in 1958 (the British Library holds an edition published Oxford, 1984; X.958/21060).

The British library also holds two rare early editions and two fine art editions of Lermontov’s poetry:

Stikhotvoreniia. (St. Petersburg, 1840, 1842). C114.h.13 and C.114.h.14.

Kaznacheisha. With a frontispiece, title page and vignettes by M. V. Dobuzhinsky. (St Petersburg, 1913). Cup.501.g.19.

A song about Ivan Vasilyevich … translated by John Cournos. With decorations by Paul Nash. (London, 1929). C.98.h.30.

Peter Hellyer, Curator Russian Studies