SOURCE: "Mikhail Yurevich Lermontov: A Hero of Our Time," in A Man of Letters: Selected Essays, Chatto & Windus, 1985, pp. 269-73.

Pritchett, a modern British writer, is respected for his mastery of the short story and for his judicious, reliable, and insightful literary criticism. In the following essay, originally published in 1942, he focuses on Lermontov's portrayal of his protagonist, Pechorin, as typical of "the fashion and idiosyncrasy of a generation" of young Russians.

Mikhail Yurevich Lermontov was born in the year before Waterloo and was killed in a duel twenty-seven years later, a year after the publication of the novel which brought him fame throughout Europe. The extraordinary duel in the last chapter but one of A Hero of Our Own Times is said to have been exactly prophetic of the manner of his death. Lermontov had declared through his chief character that life was a bad imitation of...