Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov is the genius of the Russian poem. Much is known about his life and work, but much less about his mother and father. Lermontov's parents are not a simple people. Their life path and love was quite tragic.
Portraits of M. Yu. Lermontov's father and mother
It is known what the names of Lermontov's parents were, that they belonged to the nobility. Only a few portraits by unknown artists have survived to the present. In the pictures, a thin girl, sickly and surprisingly sad, and a young man are Lermontov's parents. The portraits left a memory of what these people were like who gave the world a great poet.
Maria Mikhailovna Arsenyeva (Lermontova)
The mother of Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov - the only daughter of Elizaveta Alekseevna and Mikhail Vasilyevich Arseniev - was born on March 17, 1795. The girl was a fragile, sickly child. Having experienced the death of her father at the age of 15, she more and more went into reading books and playing music. As people who knew her noted in their memoirs, she read sentimental novels with pleasure, which brought up amazing daydreaming in her, disturbedthe imagination of a young girl.
Maria Mikhailovna was very musical: she played the clavichord and performed sensitive romances, the words of which she wrote down in her albums, there were also sentimental elegies about love and separation, friendship and betrayal, French acrostics. It can be said that Maria Mikhailovna was an ordinary provincial young lady, one of those about whom many novels are written. In Tarkhany, the family estate of Maria Mikhailovna, she was remembered as an amazingly kind and sympathetic person. It was said that a thin, pale lady went to peasant houses and helped people.
Love of Maria Mikhailovna Arsenyeva (Lermontova)
A characteristic feature of Maria Mikhailovna's sensitive nature was emotional tension, expressed in impetuosity: the girl always sought to defend her desires, prove her case, sometimes even contrary to the opinion of her loved ones.
And so it happened when the future parents of Lermontov, the great poet, met. Maria Mikhailovna met a young, handsome officer, Yuri Petrovich Lermontov, who had recently retired. Firm in her decisions, Maria Mikhailovna immediately declared that this was exactly the person she was looking for, that it was he who should become her chosen one. The future parents of Lermontov fell in love with each other. Their biography is intertwined.
Relatives strongly objected to this marriage, and there were reasons for this: being descendants of the Stolypins, the Arsenyevs were proud of theirnoble family, their condition allowed them to have important connections at court. All this did not allow the mother to happily agree to the marriage of her daughter and Yuri Petrovich. But despite this, Lermontov's future parents did not give up.
Yuri Petrovich Lermontov
Lermontov's father, Yuri Petrovich, although he was a nobleman, did not belong to a noble family, did not have any special achievements in the service. This is what worried the relatives of Maria Mikhailovna. The only thing the chosen one could be proud of was his ancestor. Georg Andreev Lermont was a native of Scotland. In the autumn of 1613 he was accepted into the Muscovite state, where in 1620 he was granted an estate in Galich, Zabolotsky volost.
According to the tradition of his kind, Yuri Petrovich Lermontov chose a military career. He graduated from the First Cadet Corps, which was located in St. Petersburg, served in the Keksholm Infantry Regiment. Yuri Petrovich participated in the war with Sweden and France, was in battles. Due to a serious illness, he was dismissed from military service with the rank of captain. Despite his state of he alth, during the war with Napoleon, in 1812, he took part in the noble militia organized in the Tula province. Lermontov's father's he alth deteriorated noticeably, he had to be treated for a long time.
Marriage of Yuri Petrovich and Maria Mikhailovna
Indeed, the chosen one of Maria Mikhailovna, according to many, was surprisingly good-looking, well-read and "heard", charming, kind and a little quick-tempered, which especially gave his image of romance. Yuri Petrovich had a significantdisadvantage - he was poor: debts, constantly mortgaged estate, three unmarried sisters - all this did not make him an attractive groom, according to his mother. Elizaveta Alekseevna believed that the retired captain was not capable of any business, but could only look after young ladies. As it turned out, the mother's heart was not mistaken.
But Lermontov's future parents stood their ground. Their biography reports that they were firmly convinced of their intention to get married. In particular, Maria Mikhailovna confidently stood her ground. And Elizaveta Alekseevna allowed this marriage. In 1811, the engagement took place, and in 1814 in Tarkhany - a magnificent wedding of the young.
Lermontov family life
Mikhail Lermontov's parents were not happy for a long time. Maria Mikhailovna, not without reason, reproached her husband for numerous betrayals. Once, at the next scene, Yuri Petrovich lost his temper and, in a fit of anger, hit his wife very hard in the face with his fist. The nervous shock aggravated Maria Mikhailovna's illness: consumption began to develop, which prematurely brought the young mother to the grave.
Later, Lermontov-son recalled how much his father sobbed when his mother was buried. But nothing could be returned. Little Misha was left without a mother, his father - without a wife. Elizaveta Alekseevna, the grandmother of the great poet, did not forgive her son-in-law, all her life she considered him to be guilty of the death of her only daughter.
Separation of father and son
After the death of his wife, the fatherLermontov moved to his family estate in the Tula volost. He left little Misha in the care of his grandmother, Elizaveta Alekseevna, who made great efforts not to give his only grandson to his father. In her opinion, and not without reason, Yuri Petrovich was not able to raise his son the way his aristocratic relatives wanted: he could not spend several thousand a year on teaching a child languages, drawing, music and much more.
There is an unconfirmed version that Elizaveta Alekseevna offered her son-in-law 25 thousand rubles so that he would not interfere in the upbringing of little Michel. Indeed, the grandmother, having a huge fortune, thus made a will that the grandson would become her sole heir only if the father did not take part in his upbringing. With such a difficult condition, Yuri Petrovich had to agree, and since then the relationship between father and son has been limited to rare meetings.
Despite everything, the relationship between father and son was distinguished by mutual affection: they were hard to bear the separation, their brief meetings brought the joy of communication, but parting was tinged with hopeless bitterness. The father always followed the success of his son, was proud of what he was doing, believed that Misha had a bright future. And I was not mistaken.
Yuri Petrovich Lermontov died on October 1, 1831, he was buried in the village of Shipovo, Tula province. Later, in 1974, the ashes of the father of the great poet were transferred to Tarkhany.
Family tragedy
Lermontov's parents haddifficult fate. The family tragedy of a child who grew up without parents is reflected in his work. He spoke many times about his grief - the early death of his mother, about the "terrible fate" of living far from his father, not being able to communicate with those whom you love immensely. History has preserved not only the names of Lermontov's parents, but also the sad pages of their biography.
Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva was able to survive everyone: her only daughter Marya Alekseevna, who died early, the unloved son-in-law of Yuri Petrovich, whom she always considered guilty of her daughter's death. And the one who was the meaning of her life, her grandson Mishenka. The great poet Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov died in a duel on July 15, 1841.
