SOURCE: Golstein, Vladimir. “Heroism and Individualism: The Russian Context.” In Lermontov's Narratives of Heroism, pp. 1-27. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1998.

In the following essay, Golstein asserts that while individualism was valued in the West in the nineteenth century, it was routinely discouraged in Russia, accounting for his country's often negative appraisal of Lermontov's representations of the individual hero.

Misreadings of Heroism

“I want a hero: an uncommon want / When every year and month sends forth a new one.” So declared Byron in his immortal satire Don Juan. This statement from the creator of what later became known as the “Byronic hero” highlights the paradoxical situation that existed during the Romantic period, when a burgeoning cultural demand for new heroes was met by a correspondingly growing supply.

Lermontov's own celebrated novel A Hero of Our Time (1839) underscores his readiness to meet Byron's challenge and reveals his own concern with...