A portrait against the background... or forgotten episodes of a family drama.” documents, letters and diaries from the archives of the Raevsky family

Tatyana Nikolaevna TATYANA NIKOLAEVNA (1897-1918), second daughter of the Emperor. Nick. II. IV, 121, 122,

PROSPER MERIMET (1803–1870), French writer Master of the short story, also worked in the genres of romantic drama, historical chronicle, and travel essays. The most famous are “The Jacquerie”, “Chronicle of the Times of Charles IX”, the collection of plays “Theater of Clara Gasoul”, the play “Cromwell”; from short stories -

Sofya Alekseevna Raevskaya (1769–1844) Wife of General N. N. Raevsky. Her father, A. A. Konstantinov, was the librarian of Catherine II, a Greek by birth. Mother - only daughter the famous M.V. Lomonosov. Sofya Alekseevna was a brunette, with large black eyes and swan neck. Traits

Ekaterina Nikolaevna Raevskaya-Orlova (1797–1859) The eldest daughter of General N. N. Raevsky. During those blessed three months for Pushkin, which he spent in the fall of 1820 in Gurzuf with the Raevsky family, she helped Pushkin in learning English. She was a beauty, powerful, with a hard

Maria Nikolaevna Raevskaya-Volkonskaya (1805–1863) Was an uninteresting dark-skinned teenager. “Little by little,” recalled Count Gustav Olizar, who was in love with her, “from a child with undeveloped forms, she began to turn into a slender beauty, whose dark complexion was

Sofya Nikolaevna Raevskaya (1806–1881) The youngest of the sisters. In her old age, she proudly wrote to one of her nephews: “I am Raevskaya in heart and mind, our family circle consisted of people of the highest mental development, and daily contact with them was not good for me.”

Amalia Riznich (1803–1825) Tall, slender beauty with fiery eyes, a white, amazingly beautiful neck and a thick black braid down to her knees. According to some sources, she was an Italian born in Florence, according to others, she was half-Italian, half-German, with perhaps some Jewish admixture.

Alexandra Alexandrovna Rimskaya-Korsakova (1803–1860) Daughter of Mar. Iv. Korsakova. Tall and slender, with velvet eyes. She was, according to her mother, “with character.” For fourteen years, throughout the six weeks of Lent, I stubbornly ate only empty cabbage soup and porridge, although everyone in the house also ate fish.

Prince Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky (1803–1869) A cramped room filled with unusual tables with mysterious drawers and recesses; on the tables, on the sofas, on the windows, on the floor - tomes in ancient parchment bindings; human skeleton with the inscription: sapere aude (dare

Sergei Dmitrievich Poltoratsky (1803–1884) From a wealthy landowner family. Served in military service. In 1827 he retired. He was a passionate card player. In April 1827, Fyodor Tolstoy the American and Islenev beat him in Moscow by seven hundred thousand. Poltoratsky was taken into custody.

Sergei Aleksandrovich Sobolevsky (1803–1870) The bastard son of the wealthy landowner A. N. Soimonov from the widow of the foreman A. I. Lobkova. Raised by my mother, got good home education, lived in luxury. He studied at the St. Petersburg University Noble Boarding School.

Nikolai Mikhailovich Yazykov (1803–1846) From a wealthy Simbirsk landowner family (about twenty thousand acres of land). IN early childhood lost his father and grew up in the care of two older brothers, Peter and Alexander, for whom he retained filial and respectful feelings throughout his life. In 1814

On the southern side of the Italian cemetery Testaccio (Testaccio), forty kilometers from Rome, there are many graves with sonorous and brilliant Russian names. The most famous among them, of course, is the grave of the “genius of the Russian brush” - the painter Karl Bryullov. But there are two more quiet places a resting place that every Russian soul, who knows at least a little bit of history and the “glorious times of our forefathers”, overshadowed by the shadow of Pushkin, the Patriotic War of 1812 and the blizzard December rebellion at the end of the “Alexander era,” would probably want to bow to.

These are the graves of Sofia Alekseevna and Elena Nikolaevna Raevsky. Mother and daughter were buried together, as they themselves wished: both the imperious, unyielding widow of the general - the hero - and her quiet shadow: beloved daughter Elena, glorified by the flying romantic stanza of Pushkin himself.

Mine last resort they were found far from their homeland. And if Sofia Alekseevna had almost nothing to regret - for the outline of her life, albeit tough and harsh, driven by various winds and storms of Fate and circumstances, was full and bright, then Elena, quietly withering on a foreign land filled with the merciless light of the sun and bright spicy aromas of flowers, she could probably regret a lot... Or maybe she didn’t regret anything.

After all, by the will of fate and time, she sadly outlived almost everyone who once so tenderly loved and cherished her: her father, older brothers, Alexander and Nikolai, her mother, the adamant and proud granddaughter of Lomonosov. Elena bitterly mourned even the untimely death of the ardent romantic and family friend Pushkin, the same one who once in Gurzuf, under the warm southern sun and splashes of the sea, mourned her in advance. She buried alive in the Siberian snowstorms her “sweet black-eyed” younger sister Maria, to whom, together with her other sister, the maid of honor of the court, “the restless governess of the family” - Sophie - they sometimes dared to write long letters, hiding them from the stern gaze of their mother. She outlived almost all of them, her loved ones... So what did she have to regret, standing at the gravestone with gravestone made of black marble - the mother's last refuge?.. Only about the fact that the moments of life drag on too slowly? And it’s too cold and painful to be alone on earth... Probably so. Maybe..

2.

Unfortunately, we know very little about Elena Nikolaevna Raevskaya! It was as if she was completely obscured by the shadow of her older sister, Maria, “Black-eyed Mashenka,” the “dark-skinned maiden of the Ganges,” who instantly became the national heroine of Russia from the distant Siberian “cold shroud of the desert,” where the gray-haired and cruel “Decembrist blizzard” of one thousand eight hundred brought her twenty-fifth year! Elena was almost the same age as the curly-haired, dark-skinned Masha, so they grew up and studied together, learning everything jokingly, frolicking and playing, and not always submitting to the strict tutelage of governesses and nannies, who were indisputable authorities in the family, along with their parents. Aliona studied (*This is how her loving and mocking father always called her, a little more colloquially, throwing away any secular gloss. This name became a family name. - author.) easily, but Elena liked the odes of the French language and art history, unlike the funny Mashenka and Byron's elegies, which she translated into Russian with passion and persistence at night. However, she did not value her translations, she immediately mercilessly smeared them with ink, tore them up and threw them into the trash, although her English was impeccable! The sisters often jokingly rhymed: “Aliona is the daughter of Albion” and, picking up her crumpled papers, carefully straightened them and hid them in their bureaus and closets to read at their leisure.

The dark-brown “English rose - Aliona” loved to play music and sing in the evenings with her sisters, a duet, although the doctors forbade her to do this because of her weak throat.

In the family, due to her illness and fragility, Elena was generally closely looked after and did not make unnecessary comments for her addiction to serious books and thoughtfulness, unusual for a young lady of that time. They tried, as best they could, to help her resist the harsh, merciless verdict of the doctors: slowly developing tuberculosis in both lungs. They took her constantly, every spring and summer, along the coast of the Caucasus, then to the Crimea, then to Odessa, for sea swimming; They drank them into a stupor with warm milk and fed them with honeycombs, eggnog and herbal decoctions, which were prepared by the strict and slightly boring Miss Mathen, who was proud of her modest, quiet, blue-eyed and slender beauty student.

3.

Vladimir Romanov, writer - historian, researcher of the life and character of Princess Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya - and, therefore, her sister, because Elena was very close to her! - writes in his famous work– essay “I fly on my own wings”: “The family has always remained the main environment for the formation of personal appearance. The influence of parents and older brothers and sisters was enormous. Sofia Alekseevna Raevskaya grew up in a very educated family, (*How could it be otherwise - with the granddaughter of Lomonosov and the daughter of the librarian of Catherine the Great? - author.) She fully instilled a love of comprehensive knowledge in her children. All the Raevskys knew literature and philosophy, domestic and foreign, well.”

I will note - on my own behalf - that the general’s lovely daughters were also fluent in the Russian language; they could, unlike many young ladies of that time, not only speak it fluently, but also write letters, although they preferred, of course, on paper and in girls’ albums have lively and refined French - it’s easier to make jokes and jokes!

A little later, when the girls grew up, along with singing lessons, soft, rich and sunny Italian became firmly established in the family, in which Maria and Elena, in the words of their father, “chatted like two magpies.”

4.

In the large and friendly Raevsky family, the cult of the Father unofficially reigned, to whom the mother, Sofya Alekseevna, nee Konstantinova, devoted all of herself from a young age - all her thoughts, desires and every minute of her life. Leaving forever “the gaiety of the carefree world and the talk of fashionable living rooms,” where, it seemed, the position of her family and the upbringing she received could rightfully call her, Sofya Alekseevna tirelessly and fearlessly accompanied her beloved warrior in all bivouacs, battles, and in all his movements and vicissitudes, everyday and official, having learned to the bottom all the bitterness and sweetness of the lot of the wife of a Russian soldier, because Nikolai Raevsky, the eldest, did not become a general right away...

Nowadays, many “literary psychologists”, historians, novelists - ordinary people often say and write that in terms of her character, Sofya Alekseevna Raevskaya was more of a wife than a mother, if not to say more sharply: more of a “mistress”.

And her children grew up, left to themselves, to their whims and inventions, and it was precisely this “inner orphanhood” in family of origin, the desire to “invent love for yourself, to need someone” and subsequently inspired Maria Raevskaya to marry an unloved person, and later to the unappreciated feat of the “illustrious convict woman.” It is difficult to dispute this, since there is no significant evidence on hand: documents, letters, diaries... Only quotes, scraps of personal secrets and thoughts, reinterpreted by hundreds of souls and minds and re-read by thousands of eyes!

5.

In my opinion, only one thing is strictly certain, undeniable and invaluable in all these scraps of “secrets of the soul”* (*Expression of the historian E. Radzinsky - author.): if Sofia Alekseevna was “a woman to the tips of her nails,” then she managed to achieve this quality of nature to fully convey to my daughters: there is a lot of evidence about how captivatingly strong, soft, harmonious Elena Nikolaevna was, how quickly and vividly she could warm anyone with intimate conversation and unobtrusive care - truly feminine - the eldest Katenka, according to Alexander Pushkin - “an extraordinary woman "; how attentively the dark, laughing Maria could listen to everyone and guess the mood of anyone, and how the restless busybody Sofia, her mother’s namesake, tried to help everyone and teach everyone something.

In the four lovely young ladies of the Raevskys, the features of their mother were generously scattered everywhere, like sparkling diamond chips, diamond dust: a nature of ardent, proud, imperious, deep and disobedient, in essence, to nothing and no one, not even the impulses of her own suffering heart!

She was equal in everything to her hero - her husband, both in nobility of mind and in strength of character.. She herself raised her daughters like this: above all, Family, duty to her husband, and relatives should be a little aloof.

From century to century they write and talk about the fact that she could not forgive the princess - her daughter - for her departure to Siberia, perceiving it as a whim of the “last fool”! This is wrong. If you read the meaning of her letter to Maria Nikolaevna, it becomes clear why she did not completely forgive her daughter for her step into the Siberian abyss: according to her ideas, the true daughter, the woman of the Raevsky clan, should certainly have remained with her little son! Sofia Alekseevna was not the only one who thought so. All of Maria’s sisters and brothers thought so. Except, perhaps, Elena. But more on that later. In the meantime, let’s continue the necessary “family” explanations and reflections...

6.

“Little Nikolino,” as he was affectionately called in the family, was - in the eyes of his proud relatives and grandmother - the successor of the rich and ancient family name Volkonsky, suffering from honor suddenly trampled by its own recklessness, and desperately needed mother's love and affection. He should not have been an orphan, according to their common, firm concepts. But something else happened. Nikolino was only three years old small year, when his mother disappeared almost forever in the Siberian darkness and five less than five years when he died*. (*N. S. Volkonsky was born on March 22, 1822. - author.)

It was the death of a little grandson, death in someone else’s house - Nikolenka Volkonsky fell ill and burned out from a fever in a matter of days in the family of Maria’s brother-in-law, Prince N. G. Repnin - that the proud mother did not forgive either the willful heroine - her daughter, or her son-in-law - a shackler, whom she passionately accused in the ignobility of the soul! Means, to a loving heart For an ardent and domineering half-Greek woman, the most important thing in the world was family and the warmth of the hearth, cheerful laughter and the tramping of the feet of healthy children and grandchildren in the evenings in the living room, and not the whim of a character pampered by male passion? It seems so. She herself was with her husband everywhere and everywhere, but he never asked her to sacrifice her children, family, or the feelings of her loved ones...

Both of them and nightmare I wouldn't dream of this!

7.

If circumstances required it, for example, the health of Elena, Catherine or the education of her sons, other family affairs and worries, Sofia Alekseevna always chose in favor of children and affairs, and alone courageously traveled to the resorts and hospitals of the Caucasus and Crimea, lived for a long time in Moscow and Northern capital, and Nikolai Nikolaevich never thought of reproaching her for this, fulfilling the burden of commander of the battery and combined regiment and constantly worrying about herself and the children in his discreet and short letters. Thus, once and for all, by accepting the obligations, roles, and principles that seemed indestructible to them, they created their own, truly “heavenly,” human concept of Family, Home, and Ancestral honor.

And so, quite unexpectedly, their favorite, the singer-minx, the younger Maria, brought up in these previously completely undeniable, sacred traditions for all of them, understood her duty somewhat differently and preferred to be with the suffering rebel - her husband.. She preferred the holy feeling of motherhood to the feeling love. For the first time in the family, everything turned out the other way around.

It turned out that the young Princess Maria was more of a wife than a mother. More of a friend than a teacher? Such an “inverted” perception of sacred things was strange and wonderful for a mother’s heart that loves completely, but no matter how hard it was for Sofia Alekseevna, she did not fully forgive with her mind! - nevertheless, with all her soul she tried in every possible way to understand her headstrong princess - daughter.

And, who knows, maybe it was with her active help that Nikolai Nikolaevich Raevsky wrote the lines farewell letter to his daughter, so unexpected against the backdrop of what is already familiar (and has become light hand historians - textbook!) conflict in the family of a general - a hero?! After all, it is now impossible to know anything for certain. Here they are, these bitter lines, breathing genuine pain, tenderness and suffering:

“Your husband is guilty before you, before us, before his family, but he is your husband, the father of your son, and the feelings of complete repentance, and his feelings for you, all this makes me sincerely regret him, and not keep any indignation: I forgive him and wrote him a forgiveness these days..."

8.

...To the eldest daughter Ekaterina Nikolaevna Orlova, also the disgraced wife of a disgraced general, (*suffered from the gusts of the Decembrist blizzard and locked for life on his remote estate! - author) exhausted by mental torment, but persistent in misfortune, a true “warrior of the Spirit”, constantly thinking about to his beloved daughter and about his involuntary guilt before her, N. N. Raevsky said dejectedly:

“Do you really think, my friend Katenka, that in our family it is absolutely necessary for some reason to protect Mashenka? Mashenka, who, in my opinion, acted unreasonably, because she acts not by her own movement, but by outside influence, but she is no less in misfortune, which is more difficult to find in the world, difficult to even invent. Do you really think that our hearts can close to her? No, that’s enough to talk about...”

It seems that Sofia Alekseevna shared all these bitter exclamations in her soul with her husband. But in one of the letters to her convict daughter, she wrote angrily and passionately: “You say in your letters to your sisters that it’s as if I died for you. Whose fault is it? Your beloved husband. It took a little virtue not to marry when one belonged to that damned conspiracy. Don’t answer me, I order you!”

Maria sighed, cried and... and did not answer. She understood and respected her mother’s pride. After all, she herself was simply - simply her mirror image, the fruit of her spirit, her proud nature. The whole mystery of their “mutual family rebellion” was resolved so simply. Maria certainly knew how to read between the lines. She knew how to write. She wrote multi-page letters - to Sofia, Catherine, Elena...

Knowing that they will certainly be read by all mothers. For example, here are these lines about a deceased son, on the next anniversary of his death: “My dear Elena, I am so sad today. It seems to me that I feel the loss of my son more and more every day...”

Yes, she could freely say a lot to her sweet, meek Elena, not like her inflexible maman. However, Maria also did this because she reverently spared the latter’s pride, she knew that it was not easy for her mother to come to terms with all the blows of Fate that had fallen on the family...

9.

The reflection of military valor, exploits and simply the civil courage of her husband fell, undoubtedly, on his widow and children, even after his death, but did Sofia Alekseevna take full advantage of this “blessed canopy”? Alas! What I know from the documents says just the opposite!

After the sudden death of her husband on September 16, 1829, the upset property affairs of the family, the unfulfilled careers of her sons - over all this, the shadow of fate lay the gust of the “December blizzard”, which carried away from the once famous family not only the favorite Maria, the eldest daughter Ekaterina Nikolaevna, their husbands, brother-in-law V.L. Davydova, but in general - the concept of “family peace and happiness” - Sofia Alekseevna Raevskaya was left practically without a means of subsistence. To the widow of the senator, member of the State Council of the Empire, hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, whose portrait hung in the Military Gallery Winter Palace, not even a pension was assigned!

Oh, Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich, “the ardent knight of all Rus',” knew how to punish his subjects - gradually, with the most kind smile on his lips...

10.

Sofia Alekseevna was forced to turn to family friends for help and advice, and first of all, she dared to direct her requests and gaze of hope to the one who seemed to her the embodiment of the honor and conscience of all of Russia at that time - to Alexander Pushkin. He took the most ardent part in the arrangement of her widowed, semi-disgraced fate. After all, he himself was “half-disgraced” for almost his entire life and understood everything perfectly... And, strange as it may sound, he knew how to be grateful.

Here is the Poet's letter to General A.H. Benckedorf dated January 18, 1830. It is little known to the general public. I give here the text translated from French:

“General!

It is very inopportune for me to resort to the favor of Your Excellency, but my sacred duty obliges me to do so. By bonds of friendship and gratitude I am connected with a family that is now in a very unhappy situation: the widow of General Raevsky turned to me with a request to put in a word for her before those who can bring her voice to the royal throne. The fact that her choice fell on me in itself already testifies to the extent to which she is deprived of friends, all hopes and help. Half of the family is in exile, the other is on the eve of complete ruin. The income is barely enough to pay the interest on the huge debt. Mrs. Raevskaya petitions for a pension in the amount of her late husband's full salary, so that this pension will pass to her daughters in the event of her death. This will be enough to save her from poverty. By resorting to Your Excellency, I hope that the fate of the widow of the hero of 1812 - a great man whose life was so brilliant and whose death was so sad - will interest a warrior rather than a minister, and a kind, sympathetic person rather than a statesman..."

11.

Well, it must be said that it is to their credit that the “statesmen” - the Tsar and his devoted friend - the Chief of Gendarmes of the Third Section - condescended to the requests of a deeply suffering, proud woman and the Great Poet of Russia. It was impossible, simply shameful, to answer negatively to a letter written so brilliantly, in a tone of the highest respect and at the same time great dignity!

S. A. Raevskaya, the widow of the hero of the most revered War in the history of Russia, was assigned a pension of twelve thousand rubles a year in gold - at that time a more than significant amount. Pushkin knew how to especially value friendship and be grateful for those “ happiest moments his life, which he spent among the family of the venerable Raevsky...” But, sending a letter to Count General Benckendorff, Pushkin probably recalled with trepidation other lines that he wrote in his youth, back in 1820, during his first exile in Chisinau, to his brother to his own, Lev Sergeevich.

They did not leave his memory all these years: “a free, carefree life in the circle of a dear family; the life that I love so much and which I have never enjoyed - a happy midday sky, a lovely land; nature that satisfies the imagination - mountains, gardens, sea; my friend, my beloved hope is to see the midday shore and the Raevsky family again.”

By the way, this entire very respectable and noisy family themselves passionately fell in love with the poet, because they were able, according to the historian and biographer P. I. Bartenev, to “discover in him a high mind, a tender, affectionate heart and a noble pride of soul”...

12.

Unlike noble dignitaries and generals, Nikolai Nikolaevich Raevsky, despite all his European upbringing, was by nature a truly Russian person and perfectly understood with all his soul, noble and sincere, what a man of high intelligence is, a poet who persistently writes in Russian and seeks Russian rhymes and consonances in a country where French was more considered the literary and written language. And, of course, Alexander Pushkin also could not help but fully appreciate this. As well as the reverent attitude towards him of the thoughtful, gentle-voiced Elena - a romantic beauty in the English style with a rose in her hair. It was there, on her father’s estate in Gurzuf, that Elena Nikolaevna first met Pushkin, as a friend of her older brother, also Alexander. Both of them unobtrusively looked after the fragile sixteen-year-old young lady during walks, and tried to take everyone away from the seashore, where the cool breeze blew often , higher up, onto the terrace, into the rose garden: there the air was warm, fragrant and not so destructive for Elena’s lungs. Literary disputes did not cease between the girl and her older brother. “Not the poetic Alexander” mockingly scolded Pushkin “ Caucasian prisoner”, calling the poem romantic nonsense and grumbled angrily at his friend’s other elegiac trifles, for “such opuses” always made him blue. In his opinion, Pushkin, his friend, was doing something completely useless; it would be better if he went to serve in the hussars or wrote odes!

Elena got excited, worried, a blush filled her cheeks, she threw up her hands and invariably rushed to the defense of the “poetic Alexander,” accusing her brother of a complete lack of poetic taste!

13.

He laughed and waved it off, but he involuntarily listened to the subtleties of Elena’s remarks, for a sensitive, lively mind involuntarily slipped into them, although it was hiding behind girlish innocence. Pushkin, during arguments, often remained silent, supporting Elena only with an inconspicuous handshake or, somewhat detachedly, smiling mysteriously, winking at her, like a conspirator privy to some secret. The girl knew from her brother Nikolai that one day, having picked up a piece of paper with a translation of Byron’s elegy, written by Helen’s hand, in a wastepaper basket, Alexander the poet was amazed by his fidelity and did not hide his admiration for the talent of the young, fragile girl.. One day he met her early in the morning on the terrace , which offered a beautiful view of the Gurzuf valley, and handed her a piece of paper on which was written in flying handwriting:

Alas! Why does she shine

A moment of tender beauty?

She's visibly fading

In the bloom of youth alive...

It will fade! Young life

Don't enjoy it for long;

It won't take long to please yourself

Happy circle of your family.

Carefree, sweet wit

Enliven our conversations

And with a quiet, clear soul

To delight the soul of the sufferer...

I hasten in the excitement of heavy thoughts,

Hiding my despondency,

Listen to funny speeches

And look at her;

I look at all her movements,

I listen to every sound of speeches -

And a single moment of separation

Terrible for my soul.

A. Pushkin. 1820

Elena, having read this, flushed, bit her lip, wanted to say something in gratitude, but tears unexpectedly poured out of her dark blue eyes, and, choking on them, she hastily ran away to her place, leaving the poet in deep confusion. In subsequent meetings, they did not resume conversation about their feelings, although each of them, with a secret sinking heart, could and did think that they lived in the soul, even if not with flames, but at least with sparks. No more, alas!

14.

According to the understanding of a serious girl beyond her years, Pushkin could well have known from frank conversations with her father that “dear Aliona,” due to her ill health, positively decided not to torment anyone and remain a girl,” and, understanding everything, respected this difficult decision, ( *the original expression of N. N. Raevsky from his letter to his son Alexander. Given by B. L. Modzalevsky in his three-volume edition of A. S. Pushkin’s letters. - author) not allowing the emotional impulse of a hot, carried away heart to escape beyond the boundaries of light, beautiful flirtation or even just cordial friendships. The reverent, touching - admiring respect that, willingly or unwillingly, Pushkin showed in every possible way not only to Elena herself, but also to her sensitive, receptive soul, her heart wounded by illness, remained, perhaps, the hottest, most ardent and most romantic episode in her quiet, measured life. She understood that she was not given anything else, and maybe she didn’t want anything else? The secret of her feelings remained with her forever. And the curiosity of the idle man in the street and the painstaking researcher must come to terms with it, the bright Secret of the soul, albeit reluctantly.

15.

In the spring of 1827, Elena was suddenly wooed by the thirty-year-old Count Gustav Olizar, who had passionately and devotedly loved her sister Maria all his life.

Count Gustav even proposed to Maria Raevskaya, but she herself and her father firmly refused him.

Maria did not want to marry a divorced widower with two children, Nikolai Nikolaevich did not want to give his daughter to a Pole - a Catholic, even a count, even if he loved him to the point of oblivion! Soon after refusing the unlucky admirer, Maria married Prince Sergei Volkonsky and almost immediately drank the cup of bitter suffering of the rebel’s wife. Count Olizar was mortally upset by the failure of the matchmaking, but he continued to idolize the Raevsky family, so he occasionally came to visit: to find out news about the exiled Princess Maria, about the lives of people dear to him. He was invariably attentive to Elena, and once during a conversation, he unexpectedly did to her a somewhat confused, confused sentence, hands and hearth. But not hearts...

16.

Elena was already twenty-four then. According to the concepts of that time, she was almost an old maid and, after the magnificent flowering of her romantic beauty, surprisingly quickly fades, like some rare cactus flower, striking the eye with its brilliance and short-lived brightness of colors. Olizar's matchmaking was her last chance, she had to agree, but she also refused the count. Perhaps because she felt very well: she did not overshadow her sister, Masha, in his eyes, she attracted him only as a shadow, as a blissful memory. Elena's father bitterly admitted in a letter to his son Nikolai: "... I would not have refused him, but I am glad that this did not come true, because such an alliance would have confirmed an even more unfair relationship... which you can guess."

Nikolai Nikolaevich did not want to make the same mistake again. He now considered a lonely, independent life for his weak health, but very loved and cherished daughter, more suitable than the share of a respectable married lady, unloving and unloved... Well, he was undoubtedly right! At the cost of bitter parental experience and terrible separation from his youngest blood... He did not want to enter the same river twice. But only the quiet, thoughtful Elena understood, guessed, and appreciated all this. And outwardly she obediently followed her father’s wishes. It coincided with her desire, and she had not initiated anyone into the secrets of her tired heart for a long time.

17.

After receiving the “Sovereign Pension,” Sofia Alekseevna was finally able to pay off the debts on the estate and take her constantly ill daughter to Italy for treatment. They never returned home from warmer climes. Sofia Alekseevna habitually and imperiously took care of Elena, bringing down on her all the ardor of her irrepressible maternal energy, introducing her into the circle of the secular society of her compatriots, but, strangely, we know nothing at all about the life of “dear Aliona” in Rome, to shine at Roman carnivals and balls, she apparently never had the chance. Yes, she was used to silence and apparently did not want to exchange it for the “glitter of tinsel light.”

The family, disgraced in Russia, tried to live abroad and without attracting too much attention to themselves.

The Raevsky ladies also remained in the “blessed land” in proud spiritual loneliness: in Rome there was not even an Orthodox church, and in catholic church they did not dare to walk. Only before her death did Elena convert to Catholicism in order to be able to receive communion and receive absolution!

Clever Elena, in her desperate spiritual vacuum, was to some extent always consoled only by her correspondence with her beloved exiles - sisters: Maria and Catherine, who had already lost her husband in 1842 and lived with two children in Moscow. Elena knew from the letters and diaries of her Siberian sister that Maria, generally having a hard time enduring separation from her loved ones, barely survived the passing of her father and the early death of her second child, who was born in a prison cell. The girl was named Sofia, in honor of her proud grandmother, but the little one died after living only a few hours. Maria then almost went mad from grief and only the thought that she was the only moral support for her husband kept her from the abyss of madness. But the losses continued and continued.

The Raevsky family seemed to have forever and firmly forgotten what peace of mind was.

18.

In 1839, the eldest daughter-in-law, Ekaterina Petrovna, the wife of brother Alexander, died suddenly. Their only daughter Alexandrina, the crown of a late marriage, was left an orphan.

Stunned by the sudden loss, a proud egoist and proud man who loved his daughter immensely, Alexander Nikolayevich devoted all his thoughts, leisure time, the warmth of a heart broken by life, the remnants of unfulfilled hopes to her, cherished and raised her like a rare flower, and only calmed down by marrying her... However, “ “To the Siberian” None of the brothers wrote to Maria about their experiences in life. They had not maintained relations with their sister since 1826, refusing to forgive her and her convict - the husband, in their opinion, guilty of the early death of their father and the bitter fate of their sister, for whom they all predicted a brilliant future! There was no limit to the inflexibility of the will of the men of the Raevsky family, and here, in front of the stubborn silence and isolation of unforgiveness, even the imperious Sofia Alekseevna retreated... She did not insist on anything. She herself remained silent. As always, only Elena regularly informed Maria about all the frequent sorrows and rare smiles in the family. Sometimes, overly philosophizing, she was echoed by Sophie, the middle sister, maid of honor of the Imperial Court, (*since September 1826 - author) a little arrogant, and herself secretly afraid of this arrogance of hers, like a clumsy shell...

The Shadow of Death stubbornly did not leave the threshold of their once friendly and cheerful home. She, the lady in the black veil, seemed to enjoy collecting her terrible tribute here.

In 1843, the Raevsky clan lost another member: Nikolai Raevsky Jr. He died untimely on July 24, 1843, leaving two young children in the arms of his young widow, Anna Mikhailovna Borozdina, the daughter of a famous senator, a beauty and a singer.

Worries about orphans, daily thoughts about their daily bread shortened the earthly life of Sofia Alekseevna herself. She died a year and a half after the death of her son, on December 16, 1844.

19.

Yes, they all went beyond the horizon, to Heaven, and Elena still lived and breathed... Despite all the ridicule and blows of fate, frequent illnesses, insomnia, the icy cold of inner loneliness, poetic prophecies and dedications, reverently kept at the bottom of her soul. Sister Sofia, who faithfully looked after her after the death of her mother, made a bold decision in 1851: she went from Italy itself to distant Siberia to visit her sister Maria, to see her nephews - Mishenka (1832) and the beautiful Nellie (1834)

During the 25 years of separation, both sisters had changed so much that they could recognize each other only by their eyes!

Sofia, having returned from a long journey, spoke for a long time and in detail, with visible excitement, to the already terminally ill Elena about how worthily Maria had arranged her life in Irkutsk, how beautiful and hospitable her and Sergei Grigorievich’s house was, somehow subtly reminiscent of the warm parental shelter of the times their irrevocable youth. Maria has changed, after suffering losses and suffering, she has become tougher, more powerful, more secretive and is now completely obsessed with the idea - a fix - to return the children to their lost place in society. She managed to assign Michel, who graduated from the Irkutsk gymnasium with honors in 1849, to serve with the governor, and then transfer him to St. Petersburg. Mikhail's career was very successful. He married the granddaughter of Count A. Benckendorf, became a senator, chamberlain, and a respected person in the Empire. The wayward Princess Maria, not quite sixteen years old - on September 17, 1850 - married her beauty and clever Nellie to Dimitry Vasilyevich Molchanov, a minor official with great connections, a nobleman.

20.

Sergei Grigorievich did not like the young man with “velvet”, overly flattering manners and shifting eyes, he was decisively against Nelly’s early marriage, but could not do anything, because he looked at his wife as some kind of unearthly creature, and he never had the spirit to decide her seriously challenge. This marriage, of course, ended in tears: the husband of the beautiful Nelly was eventually put on trial for embezzlement of government money (the desire to live in grand style let him down!). From the shame he suffered, Dimitri Vasilyevich became seriously ill, was paralyzed, lost his mind and died without waiting for a court verdict.

All this time he was under house arrest and was looked after by a devoted young wife and friends of her father and mother, especially Alexander Viktorovich Poggio, whom evil talkers throughout Siberia called either Elena Sergeevna’s father or her secret admirer!

The Volkonsky family later had difficulty recovering from these family upheavals, the proud and withdrawn Maria Nikolaevna was especially tormented, blaming herself for all the misfortunes of “dear Nelly.” She somehow managed to persuade her depressed daughter to go to her father’s family in St. Petersburg, where she spent a long time recovering from her experience, occasionally appearing in secular society: at concerts and balls.. They immediately paid attention to her, but how could her semi-disgraced fate have worked out further?

21.

Sofia Nikolaevna, devoid of imagination, did not know how to make a guess at all, and the dying Elena Nikolaevna, losing her last strength, was no longer destined to find out that her niece, Elena Sergeevna Molchanova, nee Princess Volkonskaya, the daughter of an exiled prince - a Decembrist, rebel and rebel, would marry twice more, and that until her death, misfortunes will not leave her. (*Elena Nikolaevna Raevskaya died exactly a year after her sister Sophia returned from the Siberian desert - in the fall of 1852 - author.)

In 1863, Elena Sergeevna Molchanova will lose her second husband, Count N.V. Kochubey. He will suddenly die of consumption. Also in Italy. She will return to Russia with two orphans. On August 10 of the same year, her beloved mother died in the arms of Elena Sergeevna, and her father died on November 28, 1865. The hand of the Volkonsky family rock still remained too firm!

22.

Countess Elena Sergeevna, now twice a widow, will devotedly look after the graves in the family chapel, raise a huge The Cherry Orchard, carefully raise children, putting an end to personal happiness forever, but she herself will not notice how simply and easily she will be able to captivate the heart of the widower - the manager of his Kiev estate Voronka, A. A. Rakhmanov, who, in the end, will become her third married husband .

Alas, the third family life of Elena Sergeevna, the former Countess Kochubey, the former Princess Volkonskaya, will not succeed, by and large. She will be darkened by the all-powerful blindness of her love for Rakhmanov. The seducer-manager, faithfully looking into his eyes and constantly kissing his hands, will somehow be able to persuade Nelly, who is passionately in love with him (like her mother, she always surrendered to the feeling of love to the point of self-forgetfulness!) to transfer all the property to him and his son from his first marriage for inheritance management , depriving the direct heirs - the children of Count Kochubey - of the right to vote.

23.

Elena Sergeevna realizes all the bitterness of what she did too late. A crazy step of love will lead her to a long-term cooling of relations with both her children and her relatives... Endless litigation in the courts (she will then try to legally challenge her own decision.) will deprive the former Countess Kochubey of her health and health for a long time. peace of mind, but not longevity. She will die as a very respectable old woman in the arms of her son only on December 23, 1916. On the threshold of a new era. After long for long years separation, she will simply be reunited with all her loved ones and relatives, patiently waiting for her outside the earthly circle. And he won't regret anything. Like all the women of the proud Raevsky family.

24.

Before her death, she will hand over to her son a carved walnut box, darkened by time, in which he will find yellowed sheets of numerous letters, written by the hand of a woman known to him only from a lovely watercolor by Lagrene, the Legendary Woman - the distant “Italian aunt” Elena, who once warmed her with the warmth of her hot, faithful and devoted Soul, the icy Siberian captivity of another famous woman their family, his own grandmother, Princess Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya.

Re-reading the lines, half worn out from the breath of years, Count Kochu Bey involuntarily sighed, thinking that now their legendary “Italian angel” - Aunt Elena Nikolaevna - had taken into his care another delightful, ardent soul from the Raevsky-Volkonsky family clan, a soul who had just who left her sorrowful earthly vale. And tired, tender and strong at the same time, this Soul will feel good under the protective canopy of the warm wings of the Solar Angel. Better than it was on the sinful and bright Earth, perhaps...

_____________________

Makarenko Svetlana.

Current page: 80 (book has 134 pages in total)

Elena Nikolaevna Raevskaya
(1803–1852)

Sister of the previous ones. She stood out as a beauty even among the beauties of her sisters; she was tall, slender, with beautiful blue eyes, very modest and bashful. She knew English well, translated Byron and Walter Scott in French, but secretly destroyed her translations. When Pushkin was visiting the Raevskys in Gurzuf, Nikolai Raevsky informed Pushkin about his sister’s activities. Pushkin began to pick up scraps of torn papers under Elena’s windows and discovered a secret. He admired these translations and assured that they were extremely correct.

Elena Nikolaevna was sickly, suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis, and had not danced at balls since she was twenty, although she loved to attend them. Didn't get married. There were rumors that Count Olizar, who had previously been in love with her sister Maria, was wooing her. A poem by Pushkin, written by him in Gurzuf, refers to Elena Raevskaya:

Alas, why does she shine?
Minute, gentle beauty?
She's visibly fading
In the bloom of youth, alive...
It will fade! Young life
It won't take long to enjoy it
It won't take long to please yourself
Happy circle of your family,
Carefree, sweet wit
Enliven our conversations
And with a quiet, clear soul
To delight the soul of the sufferer.
I rush into the excitement of heavy thoughts,
Hiding my despondency,
Listen to funny speeches
And look at her.
I look at all her movements,
I listen to every sound of speeches,
And a single moment of separation
Terrible for my soul.

Despite her illness, Elena lived to be almost fifty years old and outlived Pushkin for a long time. She was a maid of honor at the imperial court. She lived in Italy for a long time with her mother and sister Sophia, and died there. Before her death, in order to be able to receive communion, Elena had to convert to Catholicism: there was no Orthodox priest, and the priests refused to give communion to the Orthodox.

She was an uninteresting dark-skinned teenager. “Little by little,” recalled Count Gustav Olizar, who was in love with her, “from a child with undeveloped forms, she began to turn into a slender beauty, whose dark complexion was justified in the black curls of thick hair and piercing, full of fire eyes." Maria's maternal grandfather was Greek. Southerners mature quickly. When, at the beginning of the summer of 1820, Pushkin and the Raevsky family set off from Ekaterinoslav to the Caucasus, one might think that fifteen-year-old Maria was already a fully formed girl. She recalls this journey as follows: “Pushkin, as a poet, considered it his duty to be in love with all pretty women and young girls whom I met. During this trip, not far from Taganrog, I rode in a carriage with my sister Sophia, our Englishwoman, Russian nanny and companion. Seeing the sea, we ordered to stop, got out of the carriage and the whole crowd rushed to admire the sea. It was covered with waves, and, not suspecting that the poet was following us, I began to amuse myself by running after the wave, and when it overtook me, I ran away from it; I ended up getting my feet wet. It’s clear, I didn’t say anything to anyone about this and returned to the carriage.” Maria Nikolaevna refers to this incident the famous stanza of the first chapter of Onegin:

I remember the sea before the storm:
How I envied the waves
Running in a stormy line
Lay down with love at her feet!
How I wished then with the waves
Touch your lovely feet with your lips!
No, never on hot days
My boiling youth
I did not wish with such torment
Kiss the lips of the young Armids,
Or fiery roses kiss their cheeks,
Or hearts full of languor;
No, never a rush of passion
Never tormented my soul like that!

In the drafts for this stanza we come across the phrases: “I followed her along the slope of the mountains,” “you stood above the waves under a rock.” There are no mountains or rocks in the Taganrog steppe, and there was no impending thunderstorm at that hour. But it is characteristic that the modest Maria Nikolaevna relates this stanza to herself with complete confidence: obviously, Pushkin’s attitude towards her at that time gave her sufficient grounds for such a conclusion. Probably, the experience expressed in these verses was experienced by Pushkin a little later, when he and the Raevsky family arrived from the Caucasus to Gurzuf. The three weeks Pushkin spent in Gurzuf were the brightest, most joyfully easy days in Pushkin’s life. “My friend,” he wrote to his brother, “I spent the happiest moments of my life among the family of the venerable Raevsky... All his daughters are lovely. Judge whether I was happy: a free, carefree life in the circle of a dear family, the life that I love so much and which I have never enjoyed - a happy midday sky; a lovely land, nature that satisfies the imagination; mountains, gardens, sea; my friend, my beloved hope is to see the midday shore and the Raevsky family again.” Subsequently, during his southern exile, Pushkin met more than once with Maria Raevskaya in Kamenka, Kiev, Odessa, and, possibly, in Chisinau, where her married sister Ekaterina Orlova lived. Bartenev had to subsequently talk with Map. Nick. Volkonskaya and Ek. Nick. Orlova about Pushkin. Both of them spoke of him with a smile of some disdain and said that they admired his poetry, but did not attach any importance to him. Moreover, Maria Nikolaevna saw that Pushkin was interested in all her sisters, and probably observed his other hobbies. “In essence,” she says, “Pushkin adored only his muse and poeticized everything he saw.” She also did not see anything serious in Pushkin’s passion for her. And until her death she did not even suspect that she had inspired Pushkin with the deepest, brightest and purest love that he had ever known in his life. As always when strong love owned Pushkin, he was timid and shy with Maria Nikolaevna; maybe he talked about his love, but it remained unanswered. For many years, in Pushkin’s works, here and there, sweet and sad memories of unrequited love which he tries in vain to tear out of his heart. IN " Bakhchisarai fountain"(1822):

All the thoughts of the heart fly to her,
I miss her in exile...
Madman! full! stop doing that,
Do not revive the melancholy in vain!
To the rebellious dreams of unhappy love
The tribute you paid, -
Come to your senses, how long will it take, languid prisoner,
Kiss your shackles
And in the light of the immodest lyre
Should I divulge my madness?

In “Conversation between a Bookseller and a Poet” (1824):

There was one - in front of her alone
I breathed pure ecstasy
Holy love poetry.
There, where there is shadow, where there is a wonderful leaf,
Where eternal streams flow,
I found heavenly fire
Burning with a thirst for love.
Ah, the thought of that withered soul
Could revive youth
And the dreams of seasoned poetry
Outrage the crowd again!
She alone would understand
My unclear poems
One would burn in the heart
A lamp of pure love...
Alas, vain desires!
She rejected the spell
Prayers, longing of my soul:
Outpouring of earthly delights,
As a deity, she doesn’t need them.

In his Kishinev notebook, Pushkin writes bitterly: “More or less, I was in love with all the pretty women I knew, everyone was pretty proud of me; everyone, with the exception of one, flirted with me.”

And you, whom I dare not name, wrote in the draft of that stanza of Onegin, where he recalls the waves that lay at the feet of his beloved. And all his life Pushkin did not dare to name her. In his famous “Don Juan list,” where Pushkin named all the women he loved, the name of this love is hidden under the letters N.N.

In January 1825, nineteen-year-old Maria Raevskaya married the rich and noble general Prince Sergei Grigorievich Volkonsky, seventeen years older than her. She had no love for him, she knew him little. The marriage was concluded at the insistence of the bride's father, General Raevsky; The power of her parents was very strong at that time, and even a strong-willed girl was not so easy to go against her. Volkonsky was an energetic, enthusiastic figure in the Southern Secret Society. There was so little spiritual intimacy between husband and wife that she didn’t even know anything about his participation in society. Soon after the wedding, Maria Nikolaevna fell ill and left for Odessa. Towards the end of autumn, Volkonsky came for his wife and took her to Uman, where his division was stationed. But even there they rarely saw each other. Volkonsky was busy with the affairs of society, constantly traveled to Tulchin, where the center of the conspiracy was, and was rarely at home. One day, in December 1825, Volkonsky returned home in the middle of the night and immediately woke up his wife:

- Get up quickly!

Maria Nikolaevna jumped up. She was in last period pregnancy, and this sudden return in the middle of the night frightened her. Volkonsky lit the fireplace and began burning papers. She asked what it all meant. He spoke briefly:

- Pestel has been arrested.

- Why?

Volkonsky did not answer. He was sad and very worried. Immediately he collected his wife and took her to her father’s estate Boltyshki in the Kyiv province. Immediately upon his return, Volkonsky was arrested and taken to St. Petersburg to the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Maria Nikolaevna's birth was difficult, she suffered from blood poisoning, and she lay in bed for two months in the heat. When asked about her husband, she was told that he was in Moldova. Having come to her senses, she persistently demanded an answer, and she was told that Volkonsky had been arrested. She immediately, despite all the excuses, got ready to go to St. Petersburg. A mug appeared on her leg, but that didn’t stop her. I brought my child-son to White Church, to see her father’s aunt, Countess Branitskaya, during the spring thaw, she drove day and night and arrived in St. Petersburg. I got a date with my husband in front of witnesses. Brother Alexander began to convince her to return to the child, pointing out that the investigation would drag on for a long time. She obeyed and left. Alexander arrived next. Both he and other relatives apparently knew what energy and willpower lay hidden in the gentle-looking and meek Mary; They were very afraid that she, “stupidly” and under the conspiracy of Volkonsky’s relatives, would follow her husband to Siberia. A formal conspiracy was formed, headed by the smart, cunning and heartless Alexander Raevsky. He intercepted letters to his sister, did not allow her friends to see her, and kept her completely in the dark about the progress of the trial. Only when the verdict took place and Volkonsky had already been sent to Siberia, did he inform his sister about this, hoping that now she would give up and come to terms with her situation. However, Maria immediately drove off to St. Petersburg and began to seek permission to follow her husband. But Emperor Nicholas did not like such harassment very much: wives also had to look at their convicted husbands as vile villains and break off all relations with them; they were even allowed to remarry. Those who decided to follow their husbands to Siberia were given a number of conditions that were monstrously cruel: the wife had no right to take children with her and was deprived of the right to return to Russia before death husband, was deprived of all privileges and had to be treated by the authorities as “the wife of an exiled convict.” Volkonskaya was not afraid of any of this. She decided to go. Her father was in St. Petersburg at that time. He was gloomy and unapproachable. Maria informed him of her decision and asked him to be the guardian of her boy, whom she had no right to take with her. The father flew into a rage, raised his fists above her head and shouted:

“I’ll curse you if you don’t come back in a year!”

She didn’t answer, threw herself onto the couch and hid her face in the pillow.

At the end of 1826, Maria Nikolaevna left St. Petersburg for Siberia. On December 26, she stayed in Moscow with Princess Zin. Nick. Volkonskaya, who was married to her husband's brother. Knowing how much Maria Nikolaevna loves singing, Princess Zinaida arranged a concert with Italian singers and amateurs. Maria Nikolaevna listened eagerly and asked:

- More more! Just think, I'll never hear music again!

Zinaida Nikolaevna, a wonderful singer herself, sang an aria from F. Paer’s opera “Agnes”, where the unfortunate daughter begs her even more unfortunate father for forgiveness. The singer’s voice trembled and broke off, and Maria Nikolaevna quickly left the room to hide the sobs that were rising in her throat. The brother of the poet Venevitinov, who was present at the evening, describes Maria Nikolaevna this way: “On the third day she was twenty years old; but so early a doomed victim of misfortune, this interesting and at the same time powerful woman is more than her misfortune. She overcame it, cried; she is already convinced of her fate and keeps her misfortune to herself.” Pushkin was also present at this evening. Here he is in last time I saw the one for whom love shone like a bright and pure star in the secret depths of his soul. He touched her hands, admired her feat, said that he would go to collect materials about Pugachev, cross the Urals and come to them in the Nerchinsk mines. Through her, I wanted to convey to the convicts the “Message to Siberia” he had just written: “Keep proud patience in the depths of the Siberian ores!” (The message was taken with A.G. Muravyova, the wife of another Decembrist).

The next day Volkonskaya moved on. Enduring hardships, obstacles and bullying, she traveled six thousand miles and finally reached the Blagodatsky mine, where her husband was located. She was led into a darkened cell. “Sergei rushed towards me,” she says, “the clang of his chains struck me. I didn't know he was shackled. Such a severe punishment gave me an idea of ​​the full extent of his suffering. The sight of his shackles excited and upset me so much that I threw myself on my knees in front of him and kissed first his shackles, and then him. The commandant, standing on the threshold, was dumbfounded with amazement at the sight of my delight and respect for my husband, to whom he called “you” and whom he treated like a convict.”

Two years later, Volkonskaya’s father, old general N.N. Raevsky, died. Dying, he pointed to the portrait of his daughter and said:

“Here is the most amazing woman I have ever known.”

In the dedication to Poltava, Pushkin once again remembered Volkonskaya, still not daring to mention her name.

To you - but the voice of the dark muse
Will it touch your ear?
Will you understand with a humble soul
The yearning of my heart?
Or the poet's dedication
As his love once was,
Before you without an answer
Will the unrecognized pass again?
At least recognize the sounds
Sometimes you were dear -
And think that in the days of separation,
In my changing fate,
Your sad desert
The last sound of your speeches
One treasure, a shrine,
One love of my soul.

In the draft, instead of the verse “Your sad desert,” Shchegolev read the crossed out line: “Siberia is a cold desert.” This finally confirmed his guess as to who exactly was the object of Pushkin’s “hidden love.”

Princess Volkonskaya was firmly imprinted in the memory of the Russian reader in the form in which Nekrasov portrayed her in the poem “Russian Women”. Ascetic of duty, loving wife, who followed the hero-husband to share his suffering in hard labor. But this image requires some very significant amendment, since we know that she did not love her husband. But she didn’t love him or loved him very little. She confessed more than once to her brothers and sisters that her husband was unbearable to her. But she saw him during her marriage for only three months with long breaks. What, in this case, prompted her to abandon the joys of life and, with exceptional tenacity, through all obstacles and humiliations, fight her way to sharing his fate with her husband? Apparently, her ardent and small soul was delighted with the feat that, unknown to her, her husband was accomplishing while carrying out revolutionary work, and was shocked by the suffering that befell him for this. Admiration for his heroism and suffering is what pushed Volkonskaya to share his fate unloved husband. This can only explain the nature of their first meeting in the prison, which Volkonskaya talks about. Nekrasov has this very strongly:

Involuntarily I bowed before him
Knees - and before you hug your husband,
She put shackles to her lips...

This is very good for a poem, it would be even better for the theater. But in life! In life: after a long separation, to see a loved one, exhausted by suffering, and not to rush into his arms, but to kneel down and kiss the shackles! Such purely French theatricality is completely inconsistent with the strict simplicity of Volkonskaya’s character. Obviously, her soul was not filled with love for a loved one, but with reverent respect for his feat and suffering. And if she was so capable of admiring the feat, then the thought comes to mind: what would have happened if her husband had involved this fiery and energetic woman in his revolutionary work? Then, perhaps, Volkonskaya would have gone down in history not as the selfless wife of a revolutionary husband, but would have started a series of Russian female revolutionaries, shining with the names of Sofia Perovskaya, Vera Figner, Lyudmila Volkenstein and others. And one might think that during interrogations she would have behaved with more dignity than her husband and most other Decembrists.

Volkonskaya was tall, slender, with clear black eyes, a semi-dark face, a slightly upturned nose, and a proud and smooth gait. The Decembrists in Siberia called her the “Maiden of the Ganges.” She never showed sadness, behaved affably with her husband’s comrades, but was proud and demanding with the commandants and commanders of the prisons. Long years While Volkonsky was serving hard labor, Maria Nikolaevna lived near the prison where he was kept. When he was released into settlement, they lived in a village near Irkutsk. The son of the Decembrist Yakushkin, who observed family life Volkonsky in the fifties, this is what he writes about her: “This marriage, due to completely different characters, was supposed to subsequently cause a lot of grief to Volkonsky and lead to the drama that is now playing out in their family. Whether Maria Nikolaevna ever loved her husband is a question that is difficult to resolve, but be that as it may, she was one of the first to come to Siberia to share the fate of husbands exiled to hard labor. The feat, of course, is small if there is a strong attachment, but almost incomprehensible if this attachment is not there. There are a lot of rumors that are unfavorable for Maria Nikolaevna about her life in Siberia. They say that even her son and daughter are not Volkonsky’s children.” Other messages definitely say that Maria Nikolaevna’s son Mikhail was born by her from the Decembrist A.V. Podokno, and her daughter, the famous beauty Nelly, from I.I. Pushchin (son Nikolai, born by her in Russia after Volkonsky’s arrest, died two years later after birth, away from his mother; she, as said, was deprived of the right to take him with her). In the fifties, Dr. N.A. Belogolovy, as a child, happened to see Volkonskaya in Irkutsk. He describes her this way: “I remember her as a tall, slender, thin woman, with a relatively small head and beautiful, constantly squinting eyes. She carried herself with great dignity, spoke slowly, and in general, to us children, she gave the impression of a proud, dry, as if icy person, so we were always somewhat embarrassed in her presence.”

In 1856, Volkonsky received an amnesty, and the couple returned to Russia.

The youngest of the sisters. In her old age, she proudly wrote to one of her nephews: “I am Raevskaya in heart and mind, our family circle consisted of people of the highest mental development, and daily contact with them was not fruitless for me.” There was indeed a smart and educated girl, but by temperament she was an ineradicable “governess”: she loved to read lectures and lectures to everyone. Her sister Maria Volkonskaya wrote in the fifties: “Sophia has a way of schooling you, treating you like a little girl, which is very tiring, just like her eternal agitation. She tirelessly makes you happy with sermons, without having either a reason or an invitation.”

Sophia did not get married and remained a maiden. She was a maid of honor at the imperial court. She lived in Italy for a long time with her mother and sick sister Elena. Before her mother’s death, Sophia told her something very bad about her sister Maria, who was living at that time in Siberia with her exiled husband (did the girl tell her mother rumors about her sister’s connection with Poggio and Pushchin?). Apparently, Sophia was not guided by any evil motives; she was a kind girl; This was probably her usual tendency to give everyone very strict marks for their behavior. But the result was that the mother changed her will, made in favor of Volkonskaya. After the death of her mother, Sophia lived in Italy with her sister Elena until her death in 1852. But in 1850 she went to Irkutsk to visit her sister Maria specifically to make amends for her actions with her. There was an explanation with Volkonskaya and her husband. Relations remained cold. “We understand each other,” Volkonskaya wrote after returning to Russia, “and we cannot love each other, although we maintain the appearance of good relations. But she treats my children wonderfully, perhaps to calm her conscience, and I am deeply grateful to her for that.”

After the death of her sister Elena, Sofya Nikolaevna returned from Italy to Russia, lived either in Moscow with relatives, or completely alone on her Sunki estate in Kiev, where she had 800 acres of arable land and 1,500 acres of forest.