A Hero of Our Time, novel by Mikhail Lermontov, published in Russian in 1840 as Geroy nashego vremeni. According to the Byronic tradition, Pechorin is a character of contradiction. He is both sensitive and cynical. He is possessed of extreme arrogance, yet has a deep insight into his own character and epitomizes the melancholy of the Romantic hero who broods on the futility of existence and the certainty of death.