Lermontoff, MIKHAIL YUREVITCH, one of Russia's greatest poets, called the 'poet of the Caucasus,' was born, of Scotch extraction (Lermont; probably traceable back to Thomas the Rhymer), in Moscow on 15th October 1814. He was educated at Moscow and in the school of pages at St Petersburg, and, entering the army, was sent on active service in the Caucasus. There he was shot dead in a duel on 15th July 1841. The death of Pushkin gave him his first poetic inspiration, which took shape in an impassioned appeal for vengeance on Pushkin's slayer. But it was the sublime scenery of the Caucasus that inspired his best poetic pieces, such as The Novice, The Demon, Ismail Bey, Valerik, &c. One poem from his pen, The Song of the Czar Ivan Vasilievitch, is highly praised as a successful attempt to reproduce the spirit of the Little Russian popular poetry. A Byronic note runs through most of Lermontoff's poetic work. In 1839 he published a good novel, A Hero of Our Time; this is said to have occasioned the duel that cost him his life. See Turner, Studies in Russian Literature (1883);
Blackwood's Magazine (1884); and George Brandes, Impressions of Russia (1890).