Mikhail Lermontov was born in Moscow, on October 15, 1814. At the (0) A of three, he lost his mother and his grandmother, Yelizaveta Arsenyeva, took him to Tar-khany, Penzenskaya guberniya. The little boy was very talented. He learnt to read early and read many books in his (1) ________. Mikhail studied French, English, German and read Byron, Walter Scott, Goethe and Schiller in the original. When he was fourteen, Mikhail went to Moscow with his grandmother, where he entered the gymnasium. At the gymnasium he was (2) ________ by the poetry of A. Pushkin and V. Zhukovsky, and began writing poems himself. In 1830, Lermontov's first poem The Spring was (3) ________. The same year he entered Moscow University. By 1832, he had (4) ________ 200 lyric poems, 10 long poems and 3 plays. In 1832, Lermontov left the university and went to St Petersburg, where he studied in the cadet school till 1834. At that time, while he was working (5) ________ the novel Vadim, he wrote his famous poem The Sail. In 1837, Lermontov wrote his (6) ________ poem The Death of the Poet, where he (7) ________ the tsar's role in Pushkin's murder. It was published and was a huge (8) ________. Because of that poem he was sent to the Caucasus. The Caucasus (9) ________ Lermontov to write his wonderful poems: The Demon and Mtsyri. In 1840, Lermontov published his (10) ________ novel A Hero of Our Time, where he gave a (11) ________ picture of the life of his (12) ________. The great writer died in 1841, at the age of 26. He was (13) ________ by his contemporaries as a remarkable poet and novelist.