A Comparison of A Hero of Our Time and The Vampyre Anonymous College

Mikhail Lermontov’s only novel, A Hero of Our Time, chronicles the adventures of a young officer, Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin, through second and third-person narrative as well as through his own traveler’s journal. Like many other Russian authors, Lermontov found inspiration in work by Pushkin and Lord Byron, but his work on A Hero of Our Time also bears resemblances to a short story written by John William Polidori: The Vampyre. Lermontov even explicitly refers to the short story and the similarities between characters when Pechorin says that at times he “can understand the Vampire.” Pechorin and Lord Ruthven share physical characteristics, antisocial tendencies, a thirst for beautiful women, and the habit of spreading misery wherever they go, affinities which indicate that Pechorin, too, is a vampire. Polidori’s work also influences Lermontov’s other characters and situations Pechorin encounters.

As the chronological beginning of the novel, the short story “Taman” explains how Pechorin’s vampiric transformation occurred. In the seaside town of Taman, Pechorin and his Cossack companion stay in an “unwholesome” place, a hut perched upon a cliff over the sea, where Pechorin encounters an otherworldly smuggler girl who...