On his travels through the wild mountainous terrain of the Caucasus, the narrator of A Hero of Our Time chances upon the veteran soldier & storyteller Maxim Maximych, who relates to him the dubious exploits of his former comrade Pechorin. Engaging in various acts of duelling, contrab&, abduction & seduction, Pechorin, an archetypal Byronic anti-hero, combines cynicism & arrogance with melancholy andsensitivity. Causing an uproar in Russia when it was first published in 1840, Lermontov`s brilliant, seminal study of contemporary society & the nihilistic aspect of Romanticism
- accompanied here by the unfinished novel Princess Ligovskaya
- remains compelling to this day.