SOURCE: "A Hero of Our Time, "in The Rise of the Russian Novel: Studies in the Russian Novel from "Eugene Onegin" to "War and Peace," Cambridge at the University Press, 1973, pp. 38-73.

Freeborn is a Welsh critic, educator, and translator who has written and edited numerous studies of Russian history, literature, and literary figures. In the following essay, he examines the central theme of vengeance in A Hero of Our Time, as well as the novel's chronology, plot, and psychological portrayal of character.

The angry poem 'Death of a Poet', directly inspired by Pushkin's death in January 1837 as a result of a duel, first brought Lermontov to the attention of the public. Herzen neatly makes the point: 'The pistol shot that killed Pushkin awoke the soul of Lermontov. He wrote a vigorous ode in which, having branded the base intrigues preceding the duel—intrigues engineered by ministerial litterateurs...