I regret that I haven't got much to say on Shostakovich's Lermontov settings. There's nothing wrong with them, though my Russian isn't up to judging whether or not they are effective settings of the texts. One must attribute some of their lack of vigour to the the Communist Party Committee's resolution of 1948, which (according to the liner notes) "obliged the composer to make his music accessible to the broad masses of working people". The Lermontov poems were set in 1950.

On a brighter note, I have been informed of an interestingly Romantic note in Lermontov's ancestry:

In 1502 a scheme was laid to settle Scots, known as strong warriors, in the Belarusian and Ukrainian castles on Dnieper, devastated by the war - to defend the country from Muscovites and Turks. About the same time the first Scots appeared in the Muscovian army. From then on they fought for both sides, very frequently changing their master to the higher bidder. Famous poet of 19th century, Mikhail Lermontov, "Russian Byron," was a descendant of Scottish mercenary George Learmont who changed his sides several times in wars between Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia until he finally settled in Moscow ca. 1613.

Splendid! And here's an edition of A Hero of Our Time whose cover was drawn by Edward Gorey.