Mikhail Lermontov. Combat officer. Part of 1

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Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov is known primarily as a brilliant Russian poet and writer. His figure is romanticized, drowned in rumors and myths that always accompany the emblem of the era. Even now, mentioning the name of the poet and recognizing his literary grandeur, recall that Michael was also a fair joker capable of any tricks right up to the scandal. Against this background, the endless joy of the opportunity to rewrite the bones of Lermontov completely lost his military service in the Caucasus as part of the legendary Tenginsky regiment.

The future officer and poet was born in 1814 in the family of Yury Petrovich Lermontov and Maria Mikhailovna Arsenyeva. Michael's father came from the Scottish clan Lermontov, and mother had a direct relationship with the noble family of Stolypin and the boyar family of Arsenyev. However, this marriage was unhappy. Soon Yuri lost interest in Maria and began to look at other persons of the opposite sex. During one of the quarrels, Yury Petrovich just punched his wife with his fist, which was the beginning of the end of the family. Soon, Maria died, and Yuri was alone with his mother-in-law - Mikhail Yuryevich's grandmother Elizaveta Alekseevna.



Mikhail Lermontov. Combat officer. Part of 1

Misha Lermontov in childhood

Elizaveta Alekseevna, an old widow, kept the estate in her fist and was a strong and strong-willed woman, so the Scottish offspring had to almost run away from the mother’s great estate, leaving her son in the care of her grandmother. Thus, Mikhail Yurevich remained in the Tarkhany estate. Strict Elizabeth Alekseevna, surprisingly, didn’t like the soul in Misha. She spent huge sums on his upbringing, but her grandson, feeling all the tension in his formal family, was still unhappy. This situation aggravated Misha's extremely poor health. By the way, this is why, as a child, his grandmother took him to the Caucasus for treatment, who conquered the future poet.

All the time, Michael was surrounded by teachers and mentors, whom my grandmother periodically changed. One of the teachers was a colonel of the old French Guard, a certain Gendreau, a prisoner of the 1812 war of the year. Perhaps it was he who put the delight of the future officer in the soul of military glory with his stories about the era of that great war. In Tarkhany, through the efforts of the grandmother, an excellent library was assembled, and Mikhail, at the age of 11, engaged partly in self-education, while grandmother was looking for another worthy mentor. One way or another, but even before entering Moscow Noble University Boarding House, Lermontov knew, besides Russian, French, German and English.


Manor Tarkhany

In 1828, he entered the boarding house, immediately to the senior department, and in 1830, Michael moved to the university itself. Two years later, Mikhail the mischievous, having quarreled with Professor Malov, left the university at his own request (officially). Having gone to Petersburg under the influence of the Stolypin kin and partly of his own torments, Mikhail enrolled in the School of the Guards Secondary lieutenants and cavalry junkers. In 1834, Lermontov went out of the school gate as a cornet of the Life Guards Hussar Regiment. Despite his turbulent literary activity of that time, he recalled his studies at school as “deux annees terribles” (two terrible years). This melancholy, hidden under the touch of hussar bravado, went through almost all his life.


Monument to Lermontov next to the building of the former School of Guards Secondary Guards and cavalry junkers

This was followed by the first poetic takeoff, interrupted by the death of Pushkin. Bomond, buzzing with all sorts of nonsense to the deceased Alexander Sergeyevich, irritated the young hussar. In addition, some women with zero abilities and the same education (however, as now) openly sympathized with Dantes. In response to these worldly squabbles, Lermontov burst out with the poem “Death of a Poet.” Soon those representatives of the beau monde, whom he had touched for the great poet's talent, began scribbling numerous denunciations against Lermontov (again, as now). Mikhail was arrested and sent to the Caucasus in the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment with the rank of ensign.

Once in the Caucasus, he immediately began to "learn the Tatar language" (then the so-called Azerbaijani) and sprinkled ashes on his head, which did not have enough time to master it. The intercession of a well-born grandmother, which Michael did not ask for, returned Lermontov to the Grodno Hussars, and later in the Life Guards Hussars. So the first link was an easy voyage.

Returning to St. Petersburg, he was again mired in the life of the capital. And that same duel broke out that abruptly changed the life of the poet, as if fate itself was trying to “save” Lermontov from the meaninglessness of court life. The reasons for the duel between Mikhail Yuryevich and the son of the French ambassador, Ernest Barant, are many. This is the struggle for the heart of the court persona, and the sharp language of Lermontov, and his dislike for the French after the Pushkin duel, and so on. Anyway, 18 February 1840 of the year (old style) in St. Petersburg in the area Pargolovskoy road duel. At first, duelists fought with swords, when Lermontov's blade broke, they switched to pistols. Barant missed, and Mikhail Yuryevich, having spared the opponent, shot in the air.


Portrait of Lermontov by Peter Zabolotsky

After a duel, Mikhail Yuryevich was arrested a few weeks later and put on trial. Due to great wisdom and traditional fear of offending the high overseas guests, the son of the French ambassador was not attracted to the proceedings at all, even the convictions were not shown. Some officers at the court began to look at Barant, to put it mildly, disapprovingly. While the French dandy continued to enjoy the high society, the guard officer was first detained in the Petersburg officer's prison, and later in the Arsenal guardhouse. Therefore, Barant began to assert, in order to raise his reputation, that the poet was aiming at him, but he missed.

The effect was the opposite. First, the poet could miss, but now the officer is unlikely. Secondly, and this is important, even if we imagine that Lermontov lied, there were no reasons for this lie. This would not have made his fate easier, because he was tried not for participating in a duel, but for “failing to report.” If, of course, Mikhail Yuryevich had shot the Frenchman, he would have been convicted of murder, and the rest of the participants - for aiding. In addition, after learning of the gossip spreading by Barant, Lermontov insisted on a personal meeting with the French, during which he offered to shoot again, hinting that he would now precisely send pardoned Barant to the coffin.

But the son of the French ambassador did not have to sweat, thinking about the new duel. The authorities quickly found out about this and demanded Mikhail Yuryevich to apologize to Barant. Lermontov flatly refused. As a result, the young officer was sent to the Caucasus in the Tengin regiment, i.e. on one of the hottest sections of seemingly everlasting war. This was done, of course, as instructed above, because the duel became known in Europe and exposed the gossip Barant, and, accordingly, the prestige of France to ridicule.


Small sketches devoted to military service, brushes of Lermontov himself

On June 10, 1840, Lermontov arrived at the House of the Commander of the Caucasus Line in Stavropol. Stavropol in comparison with other settlements of the North Caucasus was a real center of life. Officers from central Russia and from outposts of the empire in the Caucasus came here to await a new appointment. The trade with mountain residents was in full swing. Every evening, friends, relatives and acquaintances who had not seen each other for months, or even years, preparing for the next long separation, arranged revels. Luxurious by those standards and conditions, the Naytaki Hotel (named after the main tenant of the Greek Petr Naytaki) even received the code name "officer club", where Lermontov lived for some time. Now historical the building is rented by merchants of all stripes, introducing a unique touch of savagery into architecture.

Finally it was time to go and Michael, but the distribution annoyed him to the extreme. The officer was supposed to go to the Black Sea coastline. And it completely deprived him of at least some even the slightest freedom of action. No, not the gravest service frightened 26-year-old Lermontov, but the fact of constant waiting on the spot. Therefore, Mikhail Yuryevich, having learned that a military expedition was being prepared against the detachments of Shamil himself, immediately began writing petitions to send him to this inferno.

At the same time, Muridism entered into force. This Sufi teaching from Persia began to conquer the minds of ordinary people with its doctrine of the equality of the faithful. The leaders of the Highlanders, having understood this simple truth of the temptation of the promise, took Muridism into service, uniting the nations. However, democracy did not even smell here. Muridism quickly became political and military. weaponsbecause rallied people instantly sent to war with the Russian Empire, declaring gazavat. Soon the naibs (governors) of the imam and their entourage overlaid the peoples with such high requisitions and introduced such harsh courts that Muridism no longer smelled. As a result, in our history, Muridism is associated exclusively with bloody wars.


General Galafeev

As a result, on the wave of, so to say, “political muridism” Avar Shamil began to rise. Immediately for the start of the war, the new leader set about administering the territory in order to rally various tribes and ethnic groups into a single army. Ichkerians, Kakkalykites, Galashevs, Karabulaks and Chechens flocked to the call of Shamil. To counter this army, an expeditionary detachment was formed under the command of General Apollon Vasilievich Galafeev, who already had awards for the victory over Imam Tashev-Khadzhi and for a successful but bloody assault on the mountain fortified village of Ahulgo in Dagestan.

The detachment assembled by Galafeev, like all other detachments that went to war with the militant imams of Chechnya and Dagestan, was called Chechensky, and it was formed in the fortress of Grozny, founded by General Alexei Petrovich Yermolov (now the city of Grozny). Having persistently requested his transfer here, Lermontov entered the fortress of Grozny by the end of June (beginning of July) and joined the expeditionary detachment with the rank of lieutenant.

To be continued ...
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40 comments
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  1. +5
    28 February 2019 05: 52
    Thank you for the interesting article. I remember I was very surprised at school when I found out that Mikhail Yuryevich was not only a great poet (I’m not afraid of the word), but also a worthy military officer. Such a bright and short life ...
    1. +1
      28 February 2019 09: 07
      Well, actually, not sons live and serve in the Caucasus. Years so ... many.
  2. 0
    28 February 2019 06: 45
    In the first lines I cannot but note, for Lermontov’s father, that life on the estate of the mother-in-law, especially the wealthy one, does not lead to good.

    And what he reacted to was muridism.
    The word "murid" is constantly encountered.
    But I didn’t even think about this direction in Sufism.

    That's interesting.
    1. +1
      28 February 2019 15: 37
      Corsair, do you know a lot of cases when my mother-in-law loves her son-in-law? Although there are exceptions. For example, a man lives with us; he was raised by the mother of his future wife from 3 years old. Although he grumbles his mother-in-law took out and other, but he loved her and she loved even more than her daughter
  3. -7
    28 February 2019 07: 16
    M.Yu. He was not a joker, but a hefty crank for the 13th letter of the alphabet.
    1. +5
      28 February 2019 07: 18
      Only poems are still read to him, and songs are sung.
      1. 0
        28 February 2019 07: 21
        Yes, the poet and writer was !!!!
        I write to you by chance; right
        I don’t know how and why.
        I have already lost this right.
        And what can I tell you? - nothing!
        Four lines, but as it is written !!!!!
    2. 0
      28 February 2019 14: 23
      Justify your opinion, otherwise it does not decorate you
      1. -1
        28 February 2019 14: 52
        Very briefly, he insulted your friend, Martynov, it is unlikely that you will restrain the insults from a comrade. .
        1. +2
          28 February 2019 15: 58
          In fact, Lermontov and Martynov were not friends. Familiar yes, but they have never been friends.
          Usually close friends know each other's "pet peeve" and try to bypass it
          1. -1
            28 February 2019 19: 18
            Everyone has their own information, Lermontov was not a pleasant person.
            1. +1
              28 February 2019 21: 42
              Lermontov was not a pleasant person

              I was in Pyatigorsk, in the house-museum of Lermontov. The tour guide said that Lermontov wrote epigrams about his colleagues, sometimes caustic and satirical, which caused a corresponding reaction. Pushkin, by the way, also often sinned with this. Therefore, Lermontov rather often "crossed the boundaries" of secular humor.
              1. 0
                28 February 2019 23: 08
                Whatever the poet, but some borders cannot be crossed, Lermontov crossed, the result is known.
  4. +3
    28 February 2019 08: 02
    Yes, Lermontov military officer
    Caucasian
  5. 0
    28 February 2019 08: 55
    Lermontov was raised by a spoiled granddaughter, from childhood he was accustomed to disobedience and ridicule of adults and even his grandmother, who so madly loved him and so rashly raised him.
    And so unbridled, Mikhail Yurievich entered adulthood, making permanent enemies.
    The poet Lermontov was certainly good, but if you reread it Prayer (1829), then everything becomes clear.
    1. -1
      1 March 2019 17: 53
      What do you want from a dashing "special forces", "hussar"? officer in the Caucasian war? looking for a saint? so he's not on that part ...
  6. +4
    28 February 2019 10: 23
    Poet Lermontov was a genius, a man, probably so-so. But how he was an officer, I somehow did not think. The more interesting it will be to find out the author’s version.
    1. +2
      28 February 2019 11: 23
      A good officer will not insult his companion with the ladies. Martynov challenged Lermontov to a duel quite deservedly.
      1. +1
        28 February 2019 11: 34
        Quote: AS Ivanov.
        A good officer will not insult his colleague at the ladies.

        "Good man" you probably meant to say.
        The officer must be loyal oath defender of the fatherland. About jokes or insults at the ladies in the oath does not say anything.
        The fact that Lermontov was probably not a very good person has already been repeatedly discussed and I don’t want to touch on this topic.
        1. +1
          28 February 2019 11: 39
          There is such a concept: "the honor of an officer" Poisoning your fellow soldier is a dishonorable act, regardless of all military merits.
          1. +1
            28 February 2019 12: 28
            Quote: AS Ivanov.
            There is such a concept: "the honor of an officer"

            I remember there was a dispute about the concept of "honor", what it is and what it is eaten with. "The honor of an officer", "the honor of a nobleman", duels ... The concepts of "officer" and "man of honor" (not in a complementary sense, but in the sense of "attaching importance to such a concept as honor") are not identical. Even in those days, there were those among the officers who denied dueling as a way of resolving conflicts - they, being noblemen, often hereditary, did not consider themselves "people of honor", while they were absolutely clean before the oath and respected by their colleagues.
            In short, you can not be a poet at all, you can be a disgusting, mean-spirited and dishonest person, but still be an excellent professional officer, a brave and resourceful commander.
            I wonder if Lermontov was a good officer, that is, a soldier in a certain rank, and how he showed himself precisely as a soldier who was taking the oath given to them in combat conditions.
            1. 0
              28 February 2019 15: 14
              A dishonest person cannot be an officer. This is about the same as the teacher - a pervert.
              1. +2
                28 February 2019 15: 20
                Quote: AS Ivanov.
                A dishonest person cannot be an officer. This is about the same as the teacher - a pervert.

                It would be nice. Only here it is not, unfortunately. Examples of dishonest officers in the Russian Imperial and Soviet Army, unfortunately, are not so few. As, however, and teachers perverts.
              2. 0
                1 March 2019 17: 51
                personally, I'm not so naive ...
      2. 0
        28 February 2019 13: 40
        "Insult" is a loud saying. Yes, Lermonotov made fun of him, however, like all the others. Martynov said that Lermontov, in modern terms, "got" him. The decisive word was "dagger", which, as it seemed (!), In the circle of ladies said Lermontov. This offended the obviously already twisted Martynov, who knew that the poet called him "a highlander with a dagger" for his inappropriate desire to look like a mountain. Without specifying, he immediately decided that this nickname had been repeated. Here it seems to me personally that Martynov just went to aggravation, saying that he would make (!) Him to be silent.
      3. 0
        28 February 2019 14: 28
        It is known that M. Yu. That evening said: "my tongue is my enemy."
      4. 0
        1 March 2019 17: 50
        the story is actually muddy and in those days
  7. 0
    28 February 2019 10: 42
    Monument to Lermontov next to the building of the former School of Guards Secondary Guards and cavalry junkers

    And opposite this monument, across the road, is now the former Higher Naval School of Diving named after the Lenin Komsomol (VVMUP). And this monument for all submariners became a native, a kind of unofficial visiting card of the school. Not a single meeting of graduates of the Higher Institute of Industrial Engineering does not take place without photography at Mikhail Yuryevich ... And we have always been proud of such a neighborhood.
  8. BAI
    0
    28 February 2019 12: 53
    the Naytaki hotel (named after the main tenant of the Greek Peter Naytaki) even received the code name "officer club", where Lermontov lived for some time. Now the historical building is rented by merchants of all stripes, making a unique touch of savagery in architecture.

    Something with this building is incomprehensible. One side:


    and on the other hand:

    Above the building, which stands on the site of the Naytaki Hotel, in which all the famous guests of the city stayed. Here were the Decembrists, here M. Lermontov met with A. Odoevsky. In the 90s of the 19th century this house was built, in which a restaurant was opened in Soviet times, which existed here until the 90s of the last century, periodically changing its name to "Elbrus", then to "Evening Restaurant", then to "Cossack Restaurant".
  9. +3
    28 February 2019 15: 22
    Below, comrade Mikhail "Trelobit" correctly noted that we all know Lermontov as a talented poet, but we COMPLETELY FORGET that he was an officer. I hope the author will fill this gap. And everyone can retell the biography of the poet
  10. +1
    1 March 2019 01: 38
    Something was recalled:
    "His real image is skewed -
    Everyone writes how he composed poems ...
    But he was during his lifetime - not by the way! - lieutenant of the Tenginsky regiment!
    And he is not in breaks of inspiration
    Chopped infantry, hanging from the saddle -
    The power that was in the poems
    And she led him fearlessly into battle! "
    Yu. Belash, "Lieutenant Lermontov" (fragment).
    1. 0
      1 March 2019 14: 29
      I did not know such an author. I’ll look at my leisure, if I don’t forget, but about "chopping down the infantry" here the author "bent", after all, Lermontov was not a cavalry officer
      1. +1
        1 March 2019 15: 51
        At one time he was the head of a horse-hunting team (a cavalry reconnaissance company in modern terminology). So "not everything is so simple" (c)
        1. 0
          1 March 2019 17: 48
          or even special forces, they were not inferior to the abreks in their thugs and only "hunters" - volunteers served there
      2. 0
        1 March 2019 17: 47
        um ... this is the North Caucasus :) and to the officer and infantry the horse relied :)
  11. 0
    1 March 2019 17: 46
    the nobleman and the warrior were still synonymous then ... service to the Fatherland was the norm, not a liberal howl, as in the years of the Great Patriotic War .... then both there and there ....
    1. 0
      1 March 2019 21: 08
      But already at the beginning of the 20th century this was not so. The bulk of the officers were immigrants from the middle class and peasants. The nobles began to ignore the service.
      1. +1
        2 March 2019 15: 12
        In fact, Peter 1, composing the "Table of Ranks", provided for a kind of "social lift", when the nobility was awarded for service. If you look ANY "Velvet Book", where the nobles were listed, you saw that: the BASIC army was the so-called "service nobility". And Denikin writes about it
        1. 0
          2 March 2019 15: 20
          Denikin's father was from serfs. The recruit has reached the major.
  12. 0
    2 March 2019 20: 55
    Quote: AU Ivanov.
    Denikin's father was from serfs. The recruit has reached the major.

    Yes. I remember this. I do not remember the Table of Ranks well, but it seems then the hereditary nobility was with the captain, and then with the colonel

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