ical, is his greatest work in this genre. The main character, Pechorin, is an example of a disenchanted and superfluous man, and his story provides a bitter critique of Russian society. In this novel Ler-montov masterfully and realistically described the landscape of the Caucasus, the everyday life of the various tribes there, and a wide range of characters.
Lermontov was killed in a duel with a former classmate in 1841. See also: GOLDEN AGE OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE; PUSHKIN, ALEXANDER SERGEYEVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Garrard, John. (1982). Mikhail Lermontov. Boston: Twayne. Kelly, Laurence. (2003). Tragedy in the Caucasus. London: Tauris.
(1814-1841), leading nineteenth-century Russian poet and prose writer.
Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov became one of Russia’s most prominent literary figures. Based on the quality and evolution of his writing, some believe that if he had lived longer he would have surpassed the greatness of Alexander Pushkin. Lermontov’s reputation is rooted equally in his poetry and prose. Fame came to him in 1834 when he wrote Death of a Poet, in which he accuses the Imperial Court of complicity in Pushkin’s death in a duel.
The evolution of Lermontov’s poetry reflected a change in emphasis from the personal to wider social and political issues. The Novice (1833) is known for its tight structure and elegant language. The Demon (1829-1839) became his most popular poem. Taking place in the Caucasus, it describes the love of a fallen angel for a mere mortal. The Circassian Boy (1833) reflects his strong scepticism in regard to religion and admiration of premodern life. The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov (1837) is his greatest poem set in Russia. His best-known play is The Masquerade (1837), a stinging commentary on St. Petersburg high society.
Lermontov is considered to be the founder of the Russian realistic psychological novel, further developed by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy. A Hero of Our Time, which is partly autobiographLESKOV, NIKOLAI SEMENOVICH (1831-1895), prose writer with an unmatched grasp of the Russian popular mentality; supreme master of nonstandard language whose stories and novels often contrast societal brutality against the decency of “righteous men” (pravedniki).
Nikolai Semenovich Leskov spent his youth in part on his father’s estate and in part in the town of Orel, interacting with a motley cross-section of provincial Russia’s population. Although lacking a completed formal education, he later boasted professional experiences ranging from criminal investigator to army recruiter and sales representative. His first short stories appeared in 1862.
From the beginning, Leskov’s prose conveyed deep compassion for the underdog. Aesthetically, he brought the narrative tool of skaz-relating a story in colorful, quasi-oral language marked as that of a personal narrator-to a new degree of perfection. Among his best works are the novellas Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo uyezda (Lady Macbeth of Mt-sensk, 1865) and Zapechetlenny angel (The Sealed Angel, 1873); the former is a gritty tale of raw passions leading to cold-blooded murders, including infanticide, while the latter is the story of errant icon painters who encounter a miracle. Soboryane (Cathedral Folk, 1867-1872), a masterLEZGINS ful novel-chronicle, depicts the Russian clergy in a respectful manner uncommon for its time; however, a subsequent spiritual crisis caused Leskov’s ultimate break with the Orthodox Church. His fairytale “Levsha” (The Lefthander, 1881) became an instant popular classic, praising the rich talents of Russian rank-and-file folk while bemoaning their pathetic lot at the hands of an indifferent ruling class.
Leskov’s unique, first-hand knowledge of Russian reality, in combination with uncompromising ethical standards, alienated him from both the liberal and the conservative mainstream. Throughout his career, he opposed nihilism and remained a “gradualist,” insisting that Russia needed steady evolution rather than an immediate revolution.
Leo Tolstoy aptly called Leskov “the first Russian idealist of a Christian type.” See also: SKAZ Mogilev (now southeast Belarus), Peter brought up a flying corps of 5,000 infantry and 7,000 dragoons. Peter divided his forces into two columns, one commanded by himself, the other by his favorite, Alexander Menshikov. In a fortified camp made of the wagons, Lewenhaupt defended himself from noon on, until the Russian general Reinhold Bauer came up with another 5,000 dragoons. Around 7:00 P.M. the fighting stopped, and Lewen-haupt retreated south toward the main Swedish army, losing half his force and most of the supplies. Peter estimated the Russian losses at 1,111 killed and 2,856 wounded. The battle played an important role in sapping the strength of the Swedish army and provided Russia with an important psychological victory as well. To the end of his life Peter celebrated the day with major festivities at court. See also: GREAT NORTHERN WAR; PETER I
PAUL A. BUSHKOVITCH
Lantz, Kenneth. (1979). Nikolay Leskov. Boston: Twayne. McLean, Hugh. (1977). Nikolai Leskov: The Man and His Art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
The battle of Lesnaya, fought on October 9, 1708, between the Russian army of Peter the Great and a Swedish column under General Adam Ludvig Lewenhaupt, played an important role in the campaign of that year through its weakening of the Swedish army. Russia’s aim was to resist the attempt of Charles XII, King of Sweden, to invade Russia. Charles marched through Poland, reaching Grodno (now western Belarus) by January 1708, and resumed the march eastward toward Moscow the following June. Peter’s army retreated before him, laying waste the land and offering occasional resistance. At the Russian-Polish border, Charles realized that he could go no further east, as he was running out of supplies, so he turned south toward the Ukraine. At the same time, General Lewenhaupt was moving southeast from Riga to join his king with 12,500 men, sixteen guns, and several thousand carts filled with supplies for the Swedish army. As Lewenhaupt approached the village of Lesnaya, on the small river Lesyanka southeast of
LEZGINS
The Lezgins are an ethnic group of which half resides in the Dagestani Republic. According to the 1989 census they numbered 240,000 within that republic, a little more than 11 percent of the population. All told, some 466,006 Lezgins lived in the Soviet Union, with most of the rest residing in Azerbaijan. Of the total, 91 percent regarded Lez-gin as their native language and 53 percent considered themselves to be fluent in Russian as a second language. Within Dagestan the Lezgins are concentrated mainly in the south in the mountainous part of the republic.
The Lezgin language is a member of the Lez-gin group of the Northeast Caucasian languages. In Soviet times they were gathered in the larger category of the Ibero-Caucasian family of languages. The languages within this family, while geographically close together, are not closely related outside of its four major groupings. This categorization has become understood more as a part of the Soviet ideology of druzhba narodov (friendship of peoples). The other Lezgin languages are spoken in Azerbaijan and Dagestan. They are generally quite small groups, and the term “Lezgin” as an ethnic category has sometimes served to cover the entire group. Ethnic self- identity, calculated with language and religion, has been a fluid concept.
LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY
The Lezgin language since 1937 has been written in a modified Cyrillic alphabet. Following the pattern of other non-Slavic languages in the Soviet Union, it had a Latin alphabet from 1928 to 1937. Before that it would have been written in an Arabic script. A modest number of books have been published in the Lezgin language. From 1984 to 1985, for example, fifty titles were published. This compares favorably with other non-jurisdictional ethnic groups, such as their fellow Dagistanis, the Avars, but less so with some nationalities that possessed some level of ethnic jurisdiction, such as the Abkhazians.
The Lezgins long gained a reputation as mountain raiders among people to their south, particularly the Georgians. Again, precision of identity was not necessarily a phenomenon in naming raiders as Lezgins. The Lezgins and the Lezgin languages were likely a part of the diverse linguistic composition of the Caucasian Kingdom of
