Lermontov

Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Lermontov in 1837
Born	Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov October 15 [O.S. October 3] 1814 Moscow, Russian Empire
Died	July 27 [O.S. July 15] 1841 (aged 26) Pyatigorsk, Russian Empire
Occupation	Poet, novelist, artist
Nationality	Russian
Period	Golden Age of Russian Poetry
Genre	Novel, poem, drama
Literary movement	Romanticism, pre-realism
Signature

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (/ˈlɛərmənˌtɔːf, -ˌtɒf/;Russian: Михаи́л Ю́рьевич Ле́рмонтов; IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil ˈjurʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈlʲɛrməntəf]; October 15 [O.S. October 3] 1814 – July 27 [O.S. July 15] 1841) was a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837 and the greatest figure in Russian Romanticism. His influence on later Russian literature is still felt in modern times, not only through his poetry, but also through his prose, which founded the tradition of the Russian psychological novel.

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov was born in Moscow into a respectable noble family, and grew up in the village of Tarkhany (now Lermontovo in Penza Oblast). His paternal family descended from the Scottish family of Learmonth, and can be traced to Yuri (George) Learmonth, a Scottish officer in the Polish-Lithuanian service who settled in Russia in the middle of the 17th century. He had been captured by the Russian troops in Poland in the early 17th century, during the reign (1613–1645) of Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov. Family legend asserted that George Learmonth descended from the famed 13th-century Scottish poet Thomas the Rhymer (also known as Thomas Learmonth). Lermontov's father, Yuri Petrovich Lermontov, like his father before him, followed a military career. Having moved up the ranks to captain, he married the sixteen-year-old Maria Mikhaylovna Arsenyeva, a wealthy young heiress of a prominent aristocratic Stolypin family. Lermontov's maternal grandmother, Elizaveta Arsenyeva (née Stolypina), regarded their marriage as a mismatch and deeply disliked her son-in-law. On October 15, 1814, in Moscow where the family temporarily moved to, Maria gave birth to her son Mikhail.