Mikhail Lermontov

Mikhail Lermontov was a Russian Romantic poet, novelist, and dramatist whose brilliant, brief career reshaped Russian literature after Pushkin. A cavalry officer as well as a writer, he fused Byronic passion with sharp social insight. His poetry and prose—most famously the novel A Hero of Our Time—probe themes of freedom, fate, honor, and the masks people wear in society. Exiled twice for his incendiary verse and critical stance toward court life, Lermontov died at twenty-six in a duel, leaving a legacy that influenced generations of Russian and European writers.