Lermontov Mikhail

Lermontov Mikhail (1814–1841), Russian poet, born in the Tarkhany village of Penza Province. He received primary education at the home of his grandmother Yelizaveta  Arsenyeva, under the tutorship of invited teachers. In 1830 he entered the Ethical-Political Department of Moscow University; in 1832, he left the university and moved to Petersburg. As of 1832, he served as an officer of a Hussar regiment. In 1837, the Tsarist government interpreted M. Lermontov’s poem Death of the Poet, which was directed against A. Pushkin’s murder, as ‘a call for revolution’ and exiled him to Georgia. The Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon regiment, where M. Lermontov used to serve, was stationed in Kakheti. M. Lermontov spent three months in Georgia. Presumably in Tbilisi he used to stay at the officers’ boarding house (Lado Gudiashvili Square). According to another version, he lived in the house of his relative on the Garden Street (present-day Lado Asatiani Street). M. Lermontov was amazed by Tbilisi; he was fascinated by its architecture, its inhabitants and by Georgian culture and art in general. ‘People here think differently, live differently, love differently. Here they don’t speak about history despite the fact that every stone is permeated with history’. In Tbilisi, he was on friendly terms with Georgian public figures, especially, with the family of A. Chavchavadze. Nino Chavchavadze presented him with a dagger. Some sources say that he wrote the poem Dagger (initially titled Gift) in connection with that event.

Notable part of M. Lermontov’s works was devoted to Georgia (poems Georgian Song, Gift of the Terek, Appointment, Tamar). Georgia served as a background in his long poem Mtsyri (1839). After his arrival in Georgia, M. Lermontov revised the storyline of his long poem Demon: he incorporated Georgian legends in the poem, created the image of Tamar, a Georgian woman. The plot of his novel A Hero of Our Time unfolds in the North Caucasus. A number of M. Lermontov’s drawings display the places of interest of Tbilisi: The Square with the view of Metekhi Bridge, Women dancing on the Patio, Metekhi Citadel, etc.

In 1840, M. Lermontov was exiled again, this time – to the North Caucasus. In 1841, in Pyatigorsk, M. Lermontov got into an argument with Major N. Martinov, which proved fatal for the poet: Martinov challenged him to a duel and killed him.

M. Lermontov was buried in the village of Tarkhany, Russia.