 According to the Lermontov Encyclopedia, the poem's most obvious predecessors were Byron's "Don Juan" and "Beppo", but it was also continuing the Russian tradition of "A Dangerous Neighbour" by Vasily Pushkin, "Sashka" by Alexander Polezhayev and Alexander Pushkin's "Yevgeny Onegin" and "The House in Kolomna".The author's major intention was to create a portrait of a young man of his generation, a "common fellow" (not an exceptional "hero") and he did this in a jovial manner, using simple language.The subtitle, "The Moral Poem", anticipated, apparently, the criticism concerning the supposed "amorality" of love-making scenes (Sashka and Tirza, Sashka's father and Mavrusha, a cook's daughter).