Mikhail Lermontov, perhaps Russia’s greatest poet after Pushkin, was an enormously talented and thoroughly unpleasant person whose life was cut short in an unnecessary duel, which bordered on suicide. He had cast himself in the role of the morose and black humored Byronic hero at odds with society and had succeeded in getting himself exiled to the Caucasus, where he died at the age of twenty-six.
In this well-researched work, the first major biography of Lermontov in English, Laurence Kelly covers the whole of the poet’s life, incorporating considerable background on the political and intellectual life of the time. His descriptions range from the court at St. Petersburg to the frontier life of the Caucasus, which appealed especially to that fiercely independent side of Lermontov that expressed itself in political opposition to the Czar and the autocratic regime. In addition to poetic genius, Lermontov was a gifted artist, and one of the more interesting features of this work is a collection of his drawings and sketches of scenes of villages, landscapes, battles, and native types, as well as other contemporary drawings that give a picture of the world that was so important in shaping Lermontov’s poetic work.
In his Preface, Kelly recounts the conception of this book on his own journey to the Caucasus and Georgia in 1971, retracing Lermontov’s steps. He has a strong feeling for this area, and some of the better parts of his book are those dealing with this little-known part of the world. This firsthand experience, along with exhaustive research, gives the work an important place in Lermontov scholarship. Among other finds, most important is the exhaustive account of the final duel, complete with eyewitness accounts, and a never before published report of Lermontov’s last words—an insult to his opponent that almost surely was responsible for the fatal outcome.
To be sure, this exhaustive research is at times exhausting to the reader, as Kelly shows a fascination with detailed accounts of the most minor matters, such as details of military life and weaponry—which, though they picture the life Lermontov knew, deflect attention from the poet himself. The book runs the danger of focusing more on the man of action than the poet, and thus reversing the actual values for which Lermontov is remembered. This is all the more the case, since the poetry itself is so difficult to translate, and the versions presented in an appendix in most cases fall short of the music and power of the originals, a fact which Kelly himself recognizes and regrets.
Even without really significant literary criticism, however, the book is valuable, and certainly the drama of Lermontov’s life should make him of interest to many who have no specific interest in Russian literature. The poet lived during a time of turmoil in Russia, as first Czar Alexander I and then Nicholas I attempted to clamp a lid on political expression in the years immediately following the invasion of Russia by Napoleon, years which throughout Europe were marked by an attempt to turn back the hands of the clock, to undo the liberalizing tendencies of the French Revolution. The Congress of Vienna, which ended in 1815, had attempted to restore toppled monarchies along with the privileges of the aristocracy, and throughout Europe the young generation of poets became spokesmen for nationalism and liberalism. They united political sentiment with the literary movement of Romanticism that had come to prominence in the “Storm and Stress” writers of Germany in the 1770’s, and in England with Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and, above all, Byron. Byron’s European reputation was enormous, and his persona, that of the moody outsider, satiric, mocking, feeding on his own emotions, became a model for a younger generation. Byron died in Greece in 1824, helping the cause of Greek liberty against the Turks. His work was already known in Russia and had cast a spell over Pushkin. The government, alarmed by the revolutionary sentiments of many of Byron’s works, which often celebrated outlaws and brigands while attacking conventional society, attempted to impose censorship. In Russia Byron became a political figure, since literature in general was a forum for the expression of political thought; Romanticism in Europe became equated with political liberalism.
It was into this world that Mikhail Lermontov was born. His young mother died of consumption in 1817, and his father, a member of the minor gentry, turned to a life of dissipation. Mikhail’s upbringing was therefore taken over by his grandmother, a woman of great determination. During his youth she took him three times to the Caucasus, and thus began the lifelong connection of Lermontov with what Kelly calls “the wild east.” He describes traveling conditions and circumstances in the Caucasus in considerable detail. Doubtless these early exposures to the grandeur of the landscape and the primitive life of the mountains had a profound impression upon the youngster, and Kelly evokes many of the impressions that must have struck the growing poet-to-be.
A second major influence on Lermontov during his youth was the Decembrist uprising in 1825, the year Nicholas I came to the throne. The uprising, an attempt to bring modern Western liberal political ideas to Russia, failed, and the leaders were executed or exiled to Siberia. Among these leaders were friends of the family, and the young Lermontov could hardly avoid awareness of the events, which reverberated among the liberal thinkers for years as Czar Nicholas sought to prevent any repetition of the movement.
In 1828, Lermontov was enrolled in the “Noble Pension,” a school for the aristocracy. It was during this period that he wrote his first verses, and Kelly stresses the role played in these earliest works by the lasting impressions of the Caucasus, mingled with Romantic sentiments of solitude, tragedy, sublime nature, and love of the primitive life. Also during this period, Lermontov began to draw the sketches illustrating his poetry. These tendencies continued through his years at Moscow University, beginning in 1830. After only two years, Lermontov dropped out and entered a military school in St. Petersburg, an atmosphere hardly conducive to the development of his artistic talent, if only by its sheer lack of privacy. Nevertheless, the loss of a former sweetheart whom he had left in Moscow produced an emotional reaction expressed in two plays, Masquerade and The Two Brothers, the first of which Kelly quotes at length. The entrance of Lermontov into the social and literary scene of the early 1830’s in St. Petersburg shows further the development of some of the leading themes of his life and work: social and political criticism, conflict with the censors, personal disillusionment, and depression. These years were dominated in literature by Alexander Pushkin, whose Evgeny Onegin and Queen of Spades appeared between 1833 and 1836, and the still immature work of Lermontov went relatively unrecognized. It was the death of Pushkin in a duel in 1837 which brought Lermontov to prominence: in a single day he composed “The Death of a Poet,” and later added a passionate postscript which was circulated privately, but which came to public attention and outraged the censors. As a result of these hastily written, overwrought lines, Lermontov was transferred into virtual exile—in the Caucasus.
The next years of Lermontov’s life Kelly titles “The Grand Tour.” His exile was to a region that he loved; he remained an officer, and his family had friends in all the frontier towns. Kelly details his life there, again describing the region in considerable detail and evoking the scenes that must have struck the poet, quoting as well from Lermontov’s works to register his own impressions. His first months were spent at Pyatigorsk, where he took the mineral waters at the spa, having developed rheumatism on his journey east. He fell into social as well as literary circles there and met many of the exiled Decembrists who were serving their time in the Caucasus rather than Siberia. Lermontov sketched, wrote, visited, and traveled, stopping for some weeks in Tiflis and again adding to his store of impressions and experiences. Kelly interweaves Lermontov’s poetry, notebook and diary excerpts, other contemporary accounts, and his own observations to create another vignette of an aspect of Lermontov’s work. It is in these vignettes, rather than a thorough-going analytic approach, that the book has its greatest strength.
Following his brief return to the Caucasus, which was a crucial event in Lermontov’s life, a pardon by the Czar brought him back to St. Petersburg, where his literary career blossomed. He joined the circle of the noted historian Karamsin and the editor Andrei Krayevsky, through whose influence much of his work escaped the censors. It was this period that produced the two works on which Lermontov’s fame rests, the novel A Hero of Our Time and the poem “The Demon.” A Hero of Our Time is actually not a novel, but a group of five short stories, each touching upon the character of the central figure, Grigory Pechorin, a young officer in the Caucasus. The stories rest heavily on Lermontov’s own experiences, and thus the Caucasus becomes not merely the scene of his own childhood, exile, and death, but a key element in his literary work. This novel, which contains so much of Lermontov’s own character and thought, is also, as its title indicates, a portrait of the post-Decembrist generation. It was even read by the Czar, who found it disgusting. Nevertheless, this novel, with “The Demon,” established Lermontov’s reputation. A number of significant works appeared in succession.
The poet’s character, however, was not suited to the demands of St. Petersburg society and the guarded atmosphere of the royal court. He was prone to indiscretions, and at last ended in jail for dueling. The punishment once again was exile to the Caucasus, which was now embroiled in a war between the fiercely independent highland tribes and the occupying Russians. Again, the narrative blends Lermontov’s poetry with his own accounts of his experiences and with a thoroughly researched depiction of the life of the area and the events and relationships which Lermontov encountered. This section is particularly well developed with all the background information to give one a good picture of the soldiers’ life in the war—details of the procedure of running the gauntlet, of Russian and tribal tactics, of major personalities. At times, Lermontov seems to get lost in the welter of secondary information.
The second exile was broken by a two-month leave in 1841, and Lermontov returned once again to the capital. His literary career was assured; poems had continued to appear in his absence through the influence of Krayevsky, and a second edition of A Hero of Our Time was published. Lermontov hoped to remain, but his efforts to secure permission for a permanent return failed, and he returned to the Caucasus for the last time. His indiscretion brought about a chain of events which led to his death in a duel, which is recounted at length, including important previously unpublished information.
The literary evaluation of Lermontov as a poet is difficult for the Englishspeaking reader. By the leading writers of his day, he was regarded as second only to Pushkin, and that estimate is still held by many. That his life was tragically enmeshed in the political struggles of the time is clear; the role played by his own arrogant and intemperate character in his misfortunes is equally evident. Laurence Kelly provides a vivid picture of the poet and his times; the works themselves are woven into the narrative. While specialists may seek a more analytic treatment of the literary aspects of Lermontov’s life, for the general reader this biography provides a glimpse of a fascinating era and of one of its leading figures.