A Hero of Out Time (1840) is the first major prose novel in Russian literature, one of the cheif sources of the great tradition of Russian Novels that fourished in the nineteenth century and a work of overwhelming power and fascination in itself.
In his preface to the vovel, Lermontov describes his hero as composed of all the vices of our generation. But Pechorin, the romantic yoiur Hero of Our Time is much more than that. He is the fictional descendant and the Russain counterpart of those passionate young men who had preceded him in the works of Roussear, Chateaubriand, Constant and Byron. He is the immmediate heir of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Pechorin, nearly at the end of this tradiion, set down in the Caucasian wilderness amid bandits and adventureres, beurtiful ladies and treacherous comrades, becomes in his own right one of the great roamntic heroes in modern literture, a blend of cynicism and passion, brutality and elegance, perceptiveness and impetuosity. In many respects the novvel prefigures the great masterpieces of later nenteenth century Russian Literature.
In his preface to the vovel, Lermontov describes his hero as composed of all the vices of our generation. But Pechorin, the romantic yoiur Hero of Our Time is much more than that. He is the fictional descendant and the Russain counterpart of those passionate young men who had preceded him in the works of Roussear, Chateaubriand, Constant and Byron. He is the immmediate heir of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Pechorin, nearly at the end of this tradiion, set down in the Caucasian wilderness amid bandits and adventureres, beurtiful ladies and treacherous comrades, becomes in his own right one of the great roamntic heroes in modern literture, a blend of cynicism and passion, brutality and elegance, perceptiveness and impetuosity. In many respects the novvel prefigures the great masterpieces of later nenteenth century Russian Literature.
