LERMONTOV
TRAGEDY IN THE CAUCASUS

LAURENCE KELLY

CONSTABLE: LONDON
1977

First edition.
Between the salons and marble and malachite palaces of St Petersburg and the savage splendour of the Caucasus — his 'country of marvels' — Mikhail Lermontov moved and lived his brief life uncompromisingly. A poet of freedom — moral, political and social — he found in the Caucasus the embodiment of his own embittered idealism.

Born in 1814, he is best known as the author of A hero of our time and The demon. He managed to be both and neither. His works indeed are a testimony to the conflicts and contradictions in his extraordinary life and character.

Frequently at odds with the authorities, and yet at ease on his own terms, he wrote as he fought, in protest and fierce independence. And he won through on both fronts, achieving a subversively strong literary reputation in St Petersburg and beyond while repeatedly commended for 'spirited bravery' in battle.

Lermontov's own paintings and sketches, mostly never published before outside Russia, give a further dimension to this lucid and vividly written account of Lermontov's flamboyant life. Having himself travelled in his subjects' path to the Caucasus, Laurence Kelly also presents original and dramatic evidence about Lermontov's fatal duel-including for the first time his last words before he fell to his challenger's bullet.

22 x 14 cm. 259 pp + colour frontispiece & b/w plates.

Very good + condition. Dust jacket slightly faded on the spine and with a short, closed tear to the front top edge. Page edges slightly age toned but otherwise very clean and tidy.