In Russia, Lermontov is widely held to be second only to Pushkin in the Romantic era. He attended school in Moscow, then the university, and then cadet school in St. Petersburg, becoming a junior officer in the Guards in 1834. By then he had dedicated himself to poetry and written a great deal of it; he was much under the influence of Byron and, of course, Pushkin. When Pushkin was shot in a duel with the Frenchman d’Anthès in 1837, Lermontov wrote “The Poet’s Death,” which circulated widely in hand-written copies; its bitter conclusion earned him expulsion from the Guards and exile to a military unit in the Caucasus. After a year he was pardoned and returned to the Guards, as well as lionized in St. Petersburg. A bloodless duel with the son of the French Ambassador sent him to the Caucasus again, where he distinguished himself as a brave and brilliant officer.