The novel "Hero of Our Time" was first published in 1840. Then no one could have imagined that the author’s life would end so soon, and many contemporaries predicted Mikhail Yuryevich a great future precisely as a prose writer. Gogol, in particular, remarked: "Lermontov the prose writer will be higher than Lermontov the poet." With his novel “The Hero of Our Time” Lermontov greatly expanded the scope of the literary tradition. Unusual was the composition of the work, consisting of five independent stories. A peculiar chronology of events and a constantly changing circle of heroes attracted...