A Strange Man (Russian: Странный человек, romanized: Strannyi tchelovek) is a play by Mikhail Lermontov, written in 1831 and published first in Saint Petersburg, in 1860, by Stepan Dudyshkin (with considerable cuts made in order to pass censorship), then, for the first time in its entirety, in 1880, by Pyotr Yefremov, in the compilation Early Plays by M.Yu.Lermontov.

[1] Later critics noticed that both Menschen und Leidenschaften and A Strange Man had certain resemblances to Vissarion Belinsky's early drama Dmitry Nikitin (1831).

An obvious point of reference for both might have been Alexander Griboyedov's comedy Woe from Wit, unpublished at the time but a popular salon read, circulating in handwritten copies.

[1] The similarity of some episodes of A Strange Man and Dmitry Nikitin could be explained by the fact that the two families, Lermontovs and the Belinskys, were neighbours in Tchembarsky Uyezd of Penza Governorate, according to Pavel Viskovatov.

[3][4] Vladimir Arbenin's love drama could be seen as reflecting Lermontov's feelings towards Natalya Ivanova whom he dedicated thirty poems in the early 1830s.