Nikolay Solomonovich Martynov (1815 or 1816 — 1875 or 1876) was a Russian military officer who entered history as a participant in the duel in which the poet Mikhail Lermontov was killed. He was born in Nizhny Novgorod.[1] The son of a Penza landowner and colonel, he received an excellent education and wrote poetry and prose from an early age.[2]

Nizhny Novgorod Origins

Martynov was born in Nizhny Novgorod, although his family was connected with Penza Governorate, where his father's estate was located.[1] According to one version, his acquaintance with Lermontov may have begun in childhood: near Tarkhany, the estate of Lermontov's grandmother, by the Nizhny Lomov Monastery stood the Martynov estate; the Arsenyev and Martynov families were linked by distant kinship.[3]

Military Service and Relations with Lermontov

Martynov entered the School of Cadets at almost the same time as Lermontov, becoming the poet's regular fencing partner with the espadron (a type of broadsword). In December 1835 he was commissioned as a cornet in the Chevalier Guard Regiment — the very regiment in which Georges d'Anthès was serving at the time.[2] In 1837 he was sent to the Caucasus as a volunteer and took part in the expedition of the Caucasus detachment beyond the Kuban River.[1] In 1840 both men — Martynov with the rank of rotmistr (captain of cavalry) in the Grebensky Cossack Regiment — took part in the expeditions of Lieutenant General Apollon Galafeyev.[2]

Both contributed to the cadets' literary journal and at first were friends on equal terms. Martynov, who had literary taste, came in time to recognize the gulf between his own writings and Lermontov's work, which fed a hidden rivalry. Lermontov, for his part, mocked Martynov's romantic "pose" and his verses.[3] In 1841 the poet wrote an epigram on him that played on the patronymic "Solomonovich": "He is right! Our friend Martysh is no Solomon, / But Solomon's son…"[3]

The Duel and Its Circumstances

In February 1841, Martynov retired with the rank of major and in April arrived in Pyatigorsk, settling in the annex of the Verzilin house together with Mikhail Glebov — a friend of Lermontov and his second in the final duel.[2] According to the recollections of contemporaries, Martynov was handsome but insignificant, wholly preoccupied with success among women, and showed himself to be a pronounced egoist and an obtrusive flatterer; he was disliked in Pyatigorsk society.[2]

According to data collected by Prince D. D. Obolensky and to Martynov's papers published in the "Russky Arkhiv" (1893, no. 8), the true cause of the duel was an old incident: in 1837, Martynov's sisters gave Lermontov a packet containing a diary and three hundred rubles for their brother, and the poet, having opened the packet and read its contents, told Martynov that he had been robbed on the road, and returned the money out of his own funds. The fact that the packet had been opened came to light after a letter from their mother. The quarrel at the evening gathering at the Verzilins' in July 1841 apparently served merely as a pretext.[1]

It has been established that Martynov did not know how to shoot a pistol; the bullet that struck Lermontov down was fired without aiming.[1]

After the duel

By court sentence, Martynov was subjected to three months' arrest and church penance; for several years he endured a rather severe penance in Kiev.[1] He died in 1875 (according to the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, in 1876).[2][1]

Sources

  1. lib.rus.ec — Nikolay Solomonovich Martynov — Librusec
  2. rulex.ru — Lermontov, Mikhail Yuryevich
  3. rozamira.nl — Martynov N. S.
  4. rospisatel.ru
  5. baza.vgd.ru — MARTYNOV — Personal List
  6. ru.wikisource.org — ESBE/Martynov, Nikolay Solomonovich — Wikisource