“BOLDNESS OF INVENTION” IN LERMONTOV'S A HERO OF OUR TIME

In the history of Russian and world literature, Lermontov’s novel A Hero of Our Time stands as an original development of Pushkin’s discoveries in genre, bringing the new variable of ‘historicity’ into the traditional domains of the novel ? “fictions of love adventures” and ‘private life’. Using the famous dictum by Pushkin, we can say that the conceptual design of A Hero of Our Time features the “higher boldness: the boldness of invention” ? the hallmark of a work of genius which sets it apart from the commonplace. By means of unique compositional choices and a juxtaposition of contrasting viewpoints, controversial remarks and actions of his characters, Lermontov has created a “set of mirrors” facing each other. Every story and novella, the preface to Pechorin’s diary and to the second edition of the novel reflects one another, setting up an endless semantic vista. The protagonist is shown to be inexhaustible, personality proved boundless, and thus the reader’s recognition becomes endless. We can denounce the protagonist as much as we want, but his own judgement of himself will always remain the harshest. In Lermontov’s novel, words have a second, hidden semantics. They mean more than it is actually said, or sometimes not quite what is being said. The protagonist is bigger than words and higher than others’ opinions of him. He is a riddle to be solved and impenetrable at the same time. The concept of the genre developed by Lermontov is built on the artistic discoveries of Pushkin and the theoretical ideas of A. I. Galich, N. I. Nadezhdin and V. G. Belinsky, anticipating the novels by Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. In suggesting his unique understanding of the genre, Bakhtin did not describe the novel as it was, but showed it as it might be, revealing its limitless artistiс capabilities. A Hero of Our Time is among the few exceptions which justify Bakhtin’s hypothesis of the novel of the new time as a new genre of world literature.