Mikhail Lermontov

Mikhail Lermontov (1814 to 1841) was a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called the poet of the Caucasus. After the death of Alexander Pushkin in 1837 he was regarded as the most important Russian poet, and he is counted the greatest figure of Russian Romanticism. His prose, above all the novel A Hero of Our Time, founded the tradition of the Russian psychological novel. Raised by his grandmother at Tarkhany and educated in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, he began writing under the influence of Pushkin and Lord Byron. His poem Death of the Poet, written after Pushkin died, made him famous and led to his first exile to the Caucasus, where he later served again. He was killed in a duel in 1841 at the age of twenty six.