After Lermontov: Translations for the Bicentenary

Mikhail Lermontov (1814–41) is best known to English-speaking readers as the author of A Hero of Our Time, whereas among Russian readers his poetry is equally cherished. Bursting into print with an impassioned poem on the death of Pushkin, he continued to attract unfavourable attention from the authorities while enjoying a high reputation in literary circles and beyond.Although he declared in one poem that he was ‘not Byron’, he was greatly influenced by his reading of Byron and of Walter Scott. His autobiographical lyrics and longer poems could be labelled as Romantic – Brodsky maintains – except for Lermontov’s ‘thoroughly corrosive self-knowledge’. Having served in the Caucasus, and taken part in dangerous engagements against the Chechens, like Pushkin he died in a duel of dubious legality.Lermontov was of Scottish descent, and this bilingual volume celebrates his bicentenary with new translations by 14 translator-poets, mostly Scottish.