SOURCE: "Lermontov and Posterity," in Mikhail Lermontov, Twayne Publishers, 1982, pp. 145-50.

In the essay below, Garrard summarizes Lermontov's literary legacy, his politics, and his contributions to Russian literature.

Lermontov's Legacy

Lermontov left a remarkable legacy for one who died so young. Scholars have traced echoes of his poetry in the works of later Russian poets, and such men as Alexander Blok and Boris Pasternak greatly admired him as a poet. He made his greatest impact on Russian literature as a prose writer, however. Gogol was perceptive when he told his friend Sergey Aksakov that Lermontov would be a greater novelist than a poet. Had Lermontov lived longer, that might easily have been the case.

Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov were all influenced by Lermontov's prose. Tolstoy's descriptions of the Caucasus, his battle scenes, his satire against high society, all go back to Lermontov. Dostoevsky developed Lermontov's antihero and his...