In his daily behavior, in his beliefs, in his fiction and criticism, and in his political code, Aleksandr Bestuzhev was an extreme representative of the Romantic generation. His stories feature dashing young men quick with wit, short on patience, practiced with a sword and pistol, and ready for dramatic and violent action, preferably of their own design. His literary criticism espoused European models of the Romantic aesthetic code and in no uncertain terms belabored the older generation's classical orientation. He was a renowned literary critic in the debates of the early nineteenth century, a passable poet in the Golden Age of Russian verse, and the most popular writer of prose fiction in the 1830s. His renown lasted well into the 1840s and 1850s, although he was ignored by later generations.

Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Bestuzhev was born in St. Petersburg to Aleksandr Fedoseevich Bestuzhev and Praskovya Mikhailovna Bestuzheva on 23 October...