Aleksandr Blok (1880-1921) lived through his country's savage wars and radical traumas trying to welcome the new order. Trotsky wrote, `Certainly Blok is not one of us, but he came towards us. And that is what broke him.' Pasternak said, `He is as free as
Mikhail Lermontov (1814–41) is best known to English-speaking readers as the author of A Hero of Our Time, whereas among Russian readers his poetry is equally cherished. Bursting into print with an impassioned poem on the death of Pushkin, he continued
