''Menschen und Leidenschaften'' (russian: Люди и страсти, en, Men and Passions, italic=yes) is an early drama by

Mikhail Lermontov Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (; russian: Михаи́л Ю́рьевич Ле́рмонтов, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ˈjurʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈlʲɛrməntəf; – ) was a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucas ...

, written in 1830 and first published in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

in 1880 by

Pyotr Yefremov Pyotr Alexandrovich Yefremov (russian: Пётр Александрович Ефремов; November 17, 1830 ( O.S., 2) in Moscow, Russian Empire – January 8, 1908 .S. December 26, 1907in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire) was a Russian literary ...

, as part of the compilation ''Early Dramas by Lermontov''.Commentaries to Menschen und Leidenschaften. The Works of M.Yu.Lermontov in 4 volumes. Khudozhestvennaya Literatura Publishers. Moscow, 1958. Vol. 3. Pp. 489-491.

Plot summary

Young Yuri Volin has to make a difficult choice between staying with his rich, overprotective grandmother and departing to

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

with his financially struggling father. Yuri is passionately in love with one of his two cousins, Lyubov, who loves him too. The scheming housemaid Darya has her own recipe for making the boy stay at home and spreads some vile rumours about him. Yuri's uncle finds out about his feelings and is outraged with the idea of two cousins being in love. As a result of Darya's machinations, the father curses Yuri, whom he believes to be treacherous and ungrateful. Yuri witnesses Lyubov's clandestine conversation with Zarutsky and mistakenly construes it as a sign of her infidelity. He first challenges his hussar friend to a duel, then commits suicide.

Background

Lermontov spent his childhood years with his grandmother Yelizaveta Arsenyeva and only on several occasions was allowed to see his father Yuri. His autobiographical second drama (which followed ''The Spanyards'', 1830) deals with the bitter family feud which by the late 1820s had come to a head. Still, while the plotline is based on real facts (archive documents corroborate this), similarities between characters and their prototypes are far from obvious. Grandmother Gromova is portrayed here as an egotistic 80-year-old religious hypocrite, which Arsenyeva wasn't. The poem features a dedication (a 20-line verse, starting with the words: "Inspired by you only / I was writing these sad lines...") but the addres