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move through the book and its mountain story. Yes, he tends to repeat words and phrases in this book, and yes, he seems to have a very simplistic palette when it comes to describing colors, and yes, the sun appears from behind cold, snowy, or dark-blue peaks many times over the course of the novel. But his is a feat of narrative, a romping story about a dislikable man who captures your whole attention with his manifold contradictions.
    NATASHA RANDALL

Acknowledgments

    I am particularly grateful to the following people and institutions for their invaluable support of this translation: Nikoloz Japaridze, Eugene Ostashevsky, Adrian Pascu-Tulbure, James Potts, Jane Tozer, and Donald Rayfield, with particular thanks to Katie Kotting, Gordon Wallace, and the Hawthornden Writer’s Retreat.

Suggestions for Further Reading

    Barratt, Andrew, and A. D. P. Briggs. A Wicked Irony: The Rhetoric of Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time (Bristol Classics Press, Bristol, 1989).
    Eikhenbaum, Boris. Lermontov: A Study in Literary-Historical Evaluation (trans. Ray Parrott and Harry Weber, Ardis, Ann Arbor, 1981).
    Freeborn, Richard. “ A Hero of Our Time ” in The Rise of the Russian Novel (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1973).
    Garrard, John G. Mikhail Lermontov (Twayne Publishers, Boston, 1982).
    Gifford, Henry. The Hero of His Time; A Theme in Russian Literature (Edward Arnold and Co., London, 1950).
    Gilroy, Marie. Lermontov’s Ironic Vision (Birmingham Slavonic Monographs No. 19, published by the Department of Russian Language and Literature, University of Birmingham, 1989).
    Kelly, Laurence. Lermontov: Tragedy in the Caucasus (Constable and Company, London, 1977).
    Lavrin, Janko. Lermontov (Bowes and Bowes, London, 1959).
    Lermontov, Mikhail Yurievich. “The Demon” in Narrative Poems by Alexander Pushkin and by Mikhail Lermontov (trans. Charles Johnston, Random House, New York, 1983).
    Lermontov, Mikhail Yurievich. “The Novice” in Narrative Poems by Alexander Pushkin and by Mikhail Lermontov (trans. Charles Johnston, Random House, New York, 1983).
    Mersereau, John. Mikhail Lermontov (Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1962).
    Reid, Robert. Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time (Bristol Classical Press, Bristol, 1997).

Foreword

    A foreword is both the first and the last thing to a book: it serves either to explain the aims of the work, or to justify it and respond to its critics. But usually, the reader is not involved in moral purpose or journalistic offensives, and hence they don’t read forewords. This is a shame, especially for our country. Our audience is still so young and simple-hearted, it wouldn’t recognize a fable if there weren’t a moral at the end of the story. It doesn’t anticipate jokes, it doesn’t have a feel for irony; it is simply badly educated. It doesn’t yet know that overt abuse has neither a place in proper society, nor in a proper book; that the contemporary intellect has devised sharper weapons, almost invisible, but nonetheless deathly, which, under the clothing of flattery, deliver an irresistible and decisive blow. Our audience is like a provincial person, who overhears a conversation between two diplomats belonging to enemy sovereignties, and is left convinced that they are both betraying their governments for the sake of mutual, affectionate friendship.
    Not long ago, several readers, and some journals even, succumbed to the misfortune of believing in the literal meanings of the words in this book. Some were awfully offended, in all seriousness, at the fact that they were presented with such an unprincipled person as the “hero of our time”; indeed, others very shrewdly observed that the author had painted his own portrait and the portraits of his acquaintances . . . That sorry, old ruse! But, apparently, Rus’ 1 is a creature in whom everything is constantly being renewed except nonsense such as this. The most magical of our magical fairy tales can barely escape the