Film: “Bela”: Tragedy of a Circassian Princess Andrey A. Gromov’s (silent) film of 1913, based on Mikhail Lermontov’s “A Hero of Our Time”. Plot of “Bela” An anonymous Russian soldier (the narrator), who is travelling through the Caucasus Mountains, encounters Maxim Maximych, an old officer. They converse and travel through the mountains together. When they seek shelter due to a blizzard, the old officer tells the unnamed narrator a story about Grigoriy Pechorin, a young Russian officer serving