A Hero of Our Time

Lermontov's portrait of the bored, brilliant, destructive Pechorin plays out across the Russian Caucasus of the 1830s. Its heart is the spa society of Pyatigorsk and Kislovodsk, where Pechorin toys with Princess Mary and kills the vain Grushnitsky in a duel on Mount Mashuk, the very mountain where Lermontov himself would die in a duel a year after the book appeared. Two further tales range out to the smugglers' port of Taman on the Black Sea and to a frontier fort on the Georgian Military Road.

Pechorin

Pyatigorsk (the spa)

Princess Mary

At the wells and in the drawing rooms of Pyatigorsk, Pechorin sets out to make the young Princess Mary fall in love with him, less from desire than from boredom and the pleasure of power. Lermontov's spa, all gossip and vanity, is the ground on which the coldest self-portrait in Russian literature is drawn.

Princess Mary

explicit The central tale, 'Princess Mary', is set in Pyatigorsk, the real Caucasus spa town, whose mineral wells, promenades and idle high society give Pechorin his stage.

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Grushnitsky

Mount Mashuk (the duel)

Princess Mary

On a ledge of Mount Mashuk, Pechorin exposes Grushnitsky's cowardly plot and shoots him dead over a cliff, cool and unmoved. The scene reads as an eerie rehearsal of the author's own end, Lermontov falling in a real duel on the same mountain a year later.

Princess Mary

explicit Pechorin kills the posturing Grushnitsky in a duel on the slopes of Mount Mashuk above Pyatigorsk, the real mountain where Lermontov himself was killed in a duel in 1841, the year after the novel.

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Princess Mary

Kislovodsk (the springs)

Princess Mary

At Kislovodsk, among the sparkling narzan springs and the resort's walks, Princess Mary at last confesses her love, and Pechorin, having won the game, coldly rejects her. Her ruin, engineered for its own sake, is the clearest measure of the hero's hollow, corrosive brilliance.

Princess Mary

explicit The society of the tale moves between Pyatigorsk and Kislovodsk, the real neighbouring spa resort famous for its narzan mineral springs, where the drama with Princess Mary deepens.

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