A Hero of Our Time

So many literary heroes have lost their relevance and have been sent into literary oblivion over the last two centuries, yet the "superfluous man" Pechorin, a cold cynic who does not believe in high ideals, living "not with the heart,... but with the head", an egoistic squandering of life who abandons women and fearlessly tests fate, remains more alive than anyone else. This is a controversial and ambiguous figure, as Lermontov wrote the first psychological novel in Russian prose. Try to figure out impartially – do you agree with the critics who wrote that such a depraved hero is an insult to Russia, or are you on the side of Belinsky, who was confident that Lermontov showed the tragedy of educated people of that (or perhaps our?) time?