SOURCE: An introduction to A Hero of Our Time, by M. Yu. Lermontov, translated by Paul Foote, Penguin Books, 1966, pp. 7-17.

In the following essay, Foote places A Hero of Our Time in the context of Lermontov's life and of Russian literature, and discusses Lermontov's portrayal of his protagonist.

Lermontov is best known as the greatest Russian poet after Pushkin. A Hero of our Time is his only novel, yet it might be claimed that Lermontov owes his importance in the development of Russian literature almost as much to this one short novel as to his verse.

Lermontov's literary career spanned a mere dozen years before his early death in 1841, and A Hero of our Time was written towards the end of this time, in the years 1838-40. The period in which he wrote—the 1830s—was an important transitional stage in Russian literature, when verse surrendered its...