A Hero of Our Time

This is a psychological novel you learn about at school. However, at school age it’s hard to understand the problems of boredom and gloom—as well as the lack of meaning in life—that the main character experiences. Pechorin, being an “egoist by necessity,” has much in common with Pushkin’s Onegin.

But if you set aside the school curriculum, it turns out that M.Yu. Lermontov’s novel is, in itself, also fascinating, deep, and serious. It raises questions about the meaning of human existence, and it becomes clear that material and social disputes, small adventures, and lucky breaks cannot fill the inner emptiness…

By essence, Pechorin is an anti-hero. A fatal figure who involuntarily ruins other people’s destinies. The entire work consists of several stories, and each could be presented separately. The action unfolds against the backdrop of beautiful Caucasian mountains, which are just as cold and inaccessible as Pechorin’s heart. This novel is about an extraordinary, but unhappy person. He couldn’t find himself in the circumstances around him and didn’t try to make anyone else happy. Egoism is a disease of the human soul that will never lose its relevance.