Mikhail Lermontov

Mikhail Lermontov
Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov lived a short but very eventful life. At the age of 26, he was killed in a duel, leaving behind many remarkable works. He drew beautifully, was a real polyglot, differed from his peers in incredible sharpness and depth of mind. However, contemporaries argued that it was a destructive man, who had an unbearable, conflict character. He often squandered his remarkable mental abilities, on sharp, poisonous mockery of those around him.
People who knew Mikhail Yuryevich closely suspected that the poet's life would be short-lived, he did not hesitate to insult others for no reason, and this rarely goes unpunished. His consumerist, derogatory attitude towards women also deeply outraged his contemporaries; the poet was not at all a knight in relation to the weaker sex. Nevertheless, the legacy that Lermontov left us is deeply respected. Despite the peculiarities of his character, he was a brilliant poet and prose writer, the pride of Russia. And one can only deeply regret his short life, which could have been completely different, filled with love and bright colors.
CHILDHOOD
Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov was born in Moscow on October 15, 1814. On the maternal side, his family was very noble and wealthy. The grandmother of the future poet, Elizaveta Alekseevna, who had to raise the boy from early childhood, belonged to the well-known family of noble Stolypins. Mikhail Lermontov and Minister Pyotr Stolypin were second cousins.
Portrait of Lermontov as a child
Elizaveta Alekseevna from the very beginning did not approve of the choice of her daughter Maria. A girl at the age of 16 fell in love with a handsome military man, Yuri Lermontov. An experienced, observant mother dissuaded an enthusiastic young lady from this marriage. She did not like absolutely everything: the origin of the groom (Lermontov assured that he was the offspring of the Scot George Lermont), his poverty, his dubious reputation in the world. Yuri was known as a frivolous rake who broke many women's hearts.
Elizaveta Alekseevna was not mistaken, her naive daughter in love, having married, very soon felt deeply unhappy. Maria chose the wrong person for family life. Her ardent love was desecrated almost from the first days after the wedding. Yuri, accustomed to a free life, did not consider treason a sin. He simply did not love his wife, in front of the newlywed, he continued to drag behind the yard girls. But this was not enough, after the red tape, he started an affair with a German woman, the nanny of his little son. Maria was not going to put up with this state of affairs, she tried to explain to her husband that his behavior was unacceptable. But Yuri never considered himself guilty. Once, in order to silence his wife, he hit her hard in the face with his fist.
Maria already lived in constant stress, but this blow became fatal for the woman. She fell into a real depression and soon died of transient consumption. Two-year-old Misha was left without a mother. Elizaveta Alekseevna, who blamed her son-in-law for the early death of her daughter, was 44 at the time. She decided to raise the orphaned child herself. In order to expel the objectionable son-in-law from the Stolypin family estate, the woman had to give him a bill for 25 thousand rubles. Having got rid of the elder Lermontov, Elizaveta Alekseevna came to grips with raising her grandson.
Grandma did a lot for the boy. She did not spare any funds necessary for his education and restoration of health. Little Michel suffered from diathesis, scrofula, as the disease was called in those days. To cure the baby, the grandmother hired Anselm Levy, a doctor from France. However, despite the doctor's efforts, the boy suffered from scrofula throughout his childhood. The illness made him irritable and conflicted. In the children's society, he became a real outcast, no one wanted to play with little Misha.

The dominant grandma, not forgeting about the untimed death of the daughter, rarely allowed her son-in-law to see son. These meetings were short and introduced even more dissolve to the soul of the little boy. Michel noticed that adults treated him like prey, which they could not share in any way. He could not understand the reasons for the conflict of people close to him, and became more and more irritable, impudent and embittered. People around often complained to Alekseevna that her grandson Michel did not know how to love.