News
A Journey into the World of Lermontov
19.11.2013
The residents and guests of Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya, who came to the vernissage of the exhibition “A Wanderer with a Russian Soul”. M.Y.Lermontov. The Fate of the Poet-Warrior” in the Excursion-Exhibition Centre “The People’s House” of the National M.A.Sholokhov Museum-Reserve on November, 15, got to a real ball.
Nicely dressed ladies and elegant gentlemen were dancing, small-talking and playing rhymes. The participants were immersed in the atmosphere of the XIX century, the time, when Mikhail Lermontov lived and worked. This way, travelling with the guests into the past, the workers of the State Lermontov Museum-Reserve “Tarkhany” presented their exhibition devoted to the great poet, an artist and warrior.
The exhibition is dedicated to the 200th anniversary of M.Y.Lermontov (1814–1841, which will be celebrated in 2014. The exposure tells about a short, but a very bright life of a man, who left a significant mark on the literature.
The poet’s childhood spent in Tarkhany, his youth spent in Moscow, military service in Petersburg and the Caucasus, and the posthumous literary destiny of Lermontov are the main sections of the exhibition. The central theme of the exposure is the life journeys of the poet-warrior, which are revealed in drawings and pictures by Lermontov the artist, and in his lifetime publications of literary writings by “the wanderer driven by the world”. In his travellings the poet covered 41500 versts, which is greater than the length of the equator of the globe.
The writing career of M.Lermontov was short, but extremely effective. All his literary activity – from the first attempt at writing to the novel “The Hero of Our Time” – lasted a little more than 12 years, but during this time he wrote over 400 pieces of poetry, about 30 poems, 6 dramas and 3 novels. His creative work, mainly devoted to eternal problems of life and deep thoughts of the poet about the meaning of life, loneliness, thirst for spiritual freedom and search for harmonious relations with the world, reflected the social situation in Russia of the 1830-s.
Lermontov was killed in a duel, when he was not 27 yet. At his age, Gogol, Turghenev and Tolstoi only entered upon their literary career, but the young Lermontov stands alongside with the greatest classics of our literature, the pride of the national culture. V.G.Belinsky wrote: “A deep and powerful spirit! How correctly he views the art, what a deep and genuinely exquisite taste!... Oh, it will be the poet after Ivan the Great! A wonderful natura!”
Having visited the exhibition most of you will discover Lermontov not only as a great poet, but also as a gifted artist. The exhibition will display unique lifetime and posthumous editions of the poet’s works, books by A.S.Pushkin, I.F.Shiller, I.V.Goethe, published in the first half of the XIX century and making a circle of the poet’s reading, as well as duelling pistols, items of the manor life, conveying the atmosphere of the era.
The exhibition runs from November, 15, 2013 till February, 24, 2014.
Elena Tolstopyatenko
