Михаил Лермонтов

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov was born in Moscow in 1814 and grew up in the shadow of the Decembrist uprising, which shaped his rebellious and disillusioned worldview. He studied at Moscow University and later at the Imperial Guard Cadet School, serving as an officer in the Caucasus, where he was exiled multiple times for his politically charged poetry. His major works include the narrative poem 'The Demon,' the verse drama 'Masquerade,' and the novel 'A Hero of Our Time' (1840), which introduced the 'superfluous man' archetype through the character Pechorin. Lermontov's lyrical poetry, marked by intense emotion and fatalism, influenced later Russian literature, including Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. He died in a duel in 1841 at the age of 26, leaving a legacy as one of Russia's greatest Romantic writers.