Novel
A Hero of Our Time
Герой нашего времени
Mikhail Lermontov · 1840
Synopsis
On a road in the Caucasus, a traveller meets old Captain Maxim Maximych, who tells him how a young officer, Pechorin, bored in a mountain fortress, had Bela, a prince's daughter, delivered to him in exchange for a stolen horse. The traveller then meets Pechorin himself, and later publishes his journal: a night at Taman among smugglers, a season at the waters of Pyatigorsk where he courts Princess Mary as a game, a discussion of fate in a Cossack village.
Context
Three of the tales first appeared in a magazine, in 1839 and 1840; the complete book came out in 1840 in St Petersburg, in two volumes, and the second edition, in the spring of 1841, added a preface by the author. The order of the tales is not that of the events: the hero is seen first through the eyes of others, then from within, through his journal, and the latest adventure is told first. The name Pechorin, taken from the Pechora, echoes that of Onegin, taken from the Onega.
Who it is for
A short novel in five stories, to be read in the order intended by the author, who first shows the hero from the outside.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first psychological novel of Russian prose and as a classic of its literature.