A Hero of Our Time

A Hero of Our Time is a novel by Mikhail Lermontov, written in 1839, published in 1840, and revised in 1841. It is an example of the superfluous man novel, noted for its compelling Byronic hero (or antihero) Pechorin and for the beautiful descriptions of the Caucasus. There are several English translations, including one by Vladimir Nabokov and Dmitri Nabokov in 1958. Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin Pechorin is the embodiment of the Byronic hero. Byron's works were of international repute and Lermontov mentions his name several times throughout the novel. According to the Byronic tradition, Pechorin is a character of contradiction. He is both sensitive and cynical. He is possessed of extreme arrogance, yet has a deep insight into his own character and epitomizes the melancholy of the Romantic hero who broods on the futility of existence and the certainty of death. Pechorin's whole philosophy concerning existence is oriented towards the nihilistic, creating in him somewhat of a distanced, alienated personality. The name Pechorin is drawn from that of the Pechora River, in the far north, as a homage to Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, named after the Onega River. Pechorin treats women as an incentive for endless conquests and does not consider them worthy of any particular respect. He considers women such as Princess Mary to be little more than pawns in his games of romantic conquest, which in effect hold no meaning in his listless pursuit of pleasure. This is shown in his comment on Princess Mary: "I often wonder why I'm trying so hard to win the love of a girl I have no desire to seduce and whom I'd never marry."