A Kern biography. "The genius of pure beauty" - the fate and love of Anna Kern

211 years ago, on February 22, 1800, Anna Petrovna Kern (Poltoratskaya), a contemporary of the poet Alexander Pushkin, was born, addressee lyric poem Pushkin "I remember wonderful moment...". In the photo: portrait of Anna Petrovna Kern (1800-1879). Work by an unknown artist. Drawing by Nadya Rusheva Anna Kern (1800 - 1879) Her parents belonged to the wealthy bureaucratic nobility. Father - a Poltava landowner and court adviser - the son of the head of the court singing chapel, M.F. Poltoratsky, known back in Elizabethan times, married to the wealthy and powerful Agafoklea Alexandrovna Shishkova. Mother - Ekaterina Ivanovna, nee Wulf, a kind woman, but sickly and weak-willed, was under the supervision of her husband. Anna herself read a lot. The young beauty began to “go out into the world”, looking at the “shining” officers, but her father himself brought the groom to the house - not only an officer, but also General E.F. Kern. At this time, Anna was 17 years old, Ermolai Fedorovich - 52. The girl had to put up with it and on January 8, 1817, the wedding took place. In her diary, she wrote: “It is impossible to love him - I have not even been given the consolation to respect him; To be honest, I almost hate him." Later, this was also expressed in relation to children from a joint marriage with the general - Anna was rather cool towards them (her daughters Ekaterina and Anna, born in 1818 and in 1821, respectively, were brought up at the Smolny Institute). Anna Petrovna had to lead the life of the wife of an army serviceman of the Arakcheev times with the change of garrisons “according to the purpose”: Elizavetgrad, Derpt, Pskov, Old Bykhov, Riga ... In Kyiv, she draws closer to the Raevsky family and speaks of them with a sense of admiration. In Dorpat her best friends become Moyers - a professor of surgery at a local university and his wife - "Zhukovsky's first love and his muse." Anna Petrovna also remembered the trip to St. Petersburg in early 1819, where she heard I. A. Krylov in the house of her aunt, E. M. Olenina, and where she first met Pushkin. S. Gulyaev. I remember a wonderful moment However, in 1819 a certain man flashed into her life - from the diary you can find out that she called him "rosehip". Then she began an affair with a local landowner, Arkady Gavrilovich Rodzianko, who introduced Anna to the work of Pushkin, whom Anna had encountered fleetingly earlier. He did not make an "impression" on her (then!) He even seemed rude. Now she was completely delighted with his poetry. Anna Petrovna Kern. Reproduction of a portrait by Ivan Zherin In June 1825, having already left her husband, on her way to Riga, she looked into Trigorskoye, the estate of her aunt, Praskovya Alexandrovna Osipova, where she again met Pushkin (the Mikhailovskoye estate is located nearby). Pushkin flared up with that passion that was given to him by God and was reflected in the famous "I remember a wonderful moment ...". I remember a wonderful moment: You appeared before me, Like a fleeting vision, Like a genius of pure beauty. In the languor of hopeless sadness In the anxieties of the noisy bustle, A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time And sweet features dreamed. Years passed. A rebellious storm has dispelled former dreams, And I forgot your gentle voice, Your heavenly features. In the wilderness, in the darkness of confinement My days dragged on quietly Without a deity, without inspiration, Without tears, without life, without love. The soul has awakened: And here again you appeared, Like a fleeting vision, Like a genius of pure beauty. And the heart beats in ecstasy, And for him resurrected again And the deity, and inspiration, And life, and tears, and love
But Anna at that moment was flirting with the poet's friend (and Osipova's son?) Alexei Wulf, and in Riga between Anet and Wulf there was a passionate romance. Pushkin, on the other hand, continued to suffer, and Anna only two years later descended to a brilliant admirer. But, having achieved his goal, Pushkin discovered that from that moment on, the poet's feelings quickly disappeared, and their connection ceased. However, after Pushkin's marriage and Delvig's death, the connection with this social circle was severed, although Anna had good relationship with the Pushkin family - she still visited Nadezhda Osipovna and Sergei Lvovich Pushkin, "Lion, whose head I turned", and of course, with Olga Sergeevna Pushkina (Pavlishcheva), "confidante in matters of the heart." Anna continued to love and fall in love, although in "secular society" she acquired the status of an outcast. Already at the age of 36, she fell in love again - and it turned out to be true love. The chosen one was a sixteen-year-old cadet of the First Petersburg Cadet Corps, her second cousin Sasha Markov-Vinogradsky. She completely stopped appearing in society and began to lead a quiet family life. Three years later she gave birth to a son, whom she named Alexander. All this happened outside of marriage. A little later (at the beginning of 1841) old Kern dies. Anna, as a general's widow, was entitled to a decent pension, but on July 25, 1842, she officially married Alexander and now her last name is Markova-Vinogradskaya. From that moment on, she can no longer claim a pension, and they have to live very modestly. In order to somehow make ends meet, they have to live for many years in a village near Sosnovitsy in the Chernihiv province - the only family estate of their husband. In 1855, Alexander Vasilievich managed to get a place in St. Petersburg, first in the family of Prince S. A. Dolgorukov, and then as a head clerk in the department of appanages. It was hard, Anna Petrovna moonlighted as translations, but their union remained unbreakable until her death. In November 1865, Alexander Vasilyevich retired with the rank of collegiate assessor and a small pension, and the Markov-Vinogradskys left St. Petersburg. They lived here and there, they were haunted by horrendous poverty. Out of necessity, Anna Petrovna sold her treasures - Pushkin's letters - for five rubles apiece. On January 28, 1879, A.V. Markov-Vinogradsky died in Pryamukhino (“from stomach cancer in terrible pain”), and four months later (May 27) Anna Petrovna herself died, in “m :) corner of Gruzinskaya and Tverskaya (her son moved to Moscow). They say that when a funeral procession with a coffin passed through Tverskoy boulevard, the famous monument was just erected on it famous poet. Thus, for the last time, the genius met his "genius of pure beauty." Silhouette of Anna Kern (presumably), here she is 25 years old. She was buried on a churchyard near the old stone church in the village of Prutnya, which is 6 kilometers from Torzhok - the rains washed out the road and did not allow the coffin to be delivered to the cemetery, "to her husband." And after 100 years in Riga, near the former church, a modest monument to Anna Petrovna was erected with an inscription in an unfamiliar language.
Grave of Anna Kern

The Russian noblewoman is best known in history for the role she played in Pushkin's life.

Father - Poltoratsky, Pyotr Markovich. Together with her parents, she lived in the estate of her maternal grandfather I. P. Wolf, the governor of Oryol. Later, the parents and Anna moved to county town Lubny, Poltava province. Anna's entire childhood was spent in this city and in Bernov, an estate that also belonged to I.P. Wolf.

Her parents belonged to the circle of wealthy bureaucratic nobility. Father - a Poltava landowner and court adviser - the son of the head of the court singing chapel, M.F. Poltoratsky, known back in Elizabethan times, married to the wealthy and powerful Agafoklea Alexandrovna Shishkova. Mother - Ekaterina Ivanovna, nee Wulf, a kind woman, but sickly and weak-willed, was under the supervision of her husband. Anna herself read a lot.

The young beauty began to “go out into the world”, looking at the “shining” officers, but her father himself brought the groom to the house - not only an officer, but also General E.F. Kern. At this time, Anna was 17 years old, Ermolai Fedorovich - 52. The girl had to put up with it and in January, on the 8th, 1817, the wedding took place. In her diary, she wrote: “It is impossible to love him - I have not even been given the consolation to respect him; To be honest, I almost hate him." Later, this was also expressed in relation to children from a joint marriage with the general - Anna was rather cool towards them (her daughters Ekaterina and Anna, born in 1818 and in 1821, respectively, were brought up at the Smolny Institute). Anna Petrovna had to lead the life of the wife of an army serviceman of the Arakcheev times with the change of garrisons "according to the appointment": Eli

Zavetgrad, Derpt, Pskov, Old Bykhov, Riga…

In Kyiv, she becomes close to the Raevsky family and speaks of them with a sense of admiration. In Dorpat, her best friends are Moyers - a professor of surgery at a local university and his wife - "Zhukovsky's first love and his muse." Anna Petrovna also remembered the trip to St. Petersburg in early 1819, where she heard I. A. Krylov in the house of her aunt, E. M. Olenina, and where she first met Pushkin.

However, in 1819 a certain man flashed through her life - from the diary you can find out that she called him "rosehip". Then she began an affair with a local landowner, Arkady Gavrilovich Rodzianko, who introduced Anna to the work of Pushkin, whom Anna had encountered fleetingly earlier. He did not make an "impression" on her (then!) He even seemed rude. Now she was completely delighted with his poetry.

In June 1825, having already left her husband, on her way to Riga, she looked into Trigorskoye, the estate of her aunt, Praskovya Alexandrovna Osipova, where she again met Pushkin (the Mikhailovskoye estate is located nearby). Pushkin flared up with that passion that was given to him by God and was reflected in the famous "I remember a wonderful moment ...". But Anna at that moment was flirting with the poet's friend (and Osipova's son?) Alexei Wulf, and in Riga between Anet and Wulf there was a passionate romance. Pushkin, on the other hand, continued to suffer, and Anna only two years later descended to a brilliant admirer. But, having achieved his goal, Pushkin discovered that from that moment on, the Poet's feelings quickly vanished.

and their connection was cut off. In her later life, Kern was close to the family of Baron A.A. Delvig, to D.V. Venevitinov, S.A. Sobolevsky, A.D. Illichevsky, A.V. Nikitenko, M.I. Glinka (Mikhail Ivanovich wrote beautiful music for the poem “I remember a wonderful moment”), but dedicated it to Ekaterina Kern, daughter of Anna Petrovna), F.I. Tyutchev, I.S. Turgenev.

However, after Pushkin's marriage and Delvig's death, the connection with this social circle was severed, although Anna remained on good terms with the Pushkin family - she still visited Nadezhda Osipovna and Sergei Lvovich Pushkin, "Lion, whom I turned his head", and of course , with Olga Sergeevna Pushkina (Pavlishcheva), “confidante in matters of the heart”, (in her honor, Anna will name her youngest daughter Olga).

Anna continued to love and fall in love, although in "secular society" she acquired the status of an outcast. Already at the age of 36, she fell in love again - and it turned out to be true love. The chosen one was a sixteen-year-old cadet of the First Petersburg Cadet Corps, her second cousin Sasha Markov-Vinogradsky. She completely stopped appearing in society and began to lead a quiet family life. Three years later she gave birth to a son, whom she named Alexander. All this happened outside of marriage. A little later (at the beginning of 1841) old Kern dies. Anna, as a general's widow, was entitled to a decent pension, but on July 25, 1842, she officially married Alexander and now her last name is Markova-Vinogradskaya. From that moment on, she can no longer claim a pension, and they come

to live very modestly. In order to somehow make ends meet, they have to live for many years in a village near Sosnovitsy in the Chernihiv province - the only family estate of their husband. In 1855, Alexander Vasilyevich managed to get a place in St. Petersburg, first in the family of Prince S. A. Dolgorukov, and then as a head clerk in the department of appanages. It was hard, Anna Petrovna moonlighted as translations, but their union remained unbreakable until her death. In November 1865, Alexander Vasilyevich retired with the rank of collegiate assessor and a small pension, and the Markov-Vinogradskys left St. Petersburg. They lived here and there, they were haunted by horrendous poverty. Out of necessity, Anna Petrovna sold her treasures - Pushkin's letters - for five rubles apiece. On January 28, 1879, A.V. Markov-Vinogradsky died in Pryamukhino (“from stomach cancer in terrible pain”), and four months later (May 27) Anna Petrovna herself died, in “furnished rooms”, on the corner of Gruzinskaya and Tverskoy (she was brought to Moscow by her son). They say that when the funeral procession with the coffin was passing along Tverskoy Boulevard, the famous monument to the famous poet was being erected on it. Thus, for the last time, the Genius met his "genius of pure beauty."

She was buried on a churchyard near the old stone church in the village of Prutnya, which is 6 kilometers from Torzhok - the rains washed out the road and did not allow the coffin to be delivered to the cemetery, "to her husband." And after 100 years in Riga, near the former church, a modest monument to Anna Petrovna was erected with an inscription in an unfamiliar language.

...1819. St. Petersburg. The living room in the Olenins' house, where the color of Russian writers gathered - from Ivan Andreevich Krylov to the very young but already famous Sasha Pushkin. Traditional readings - Krylov reads his fable "Donkey". The traditional "charades" of the Olenins. The role of Cleopatra fell to the niece of the mistress of the house - a young general. Pushkin absently glances at the "actress". Above the basket of flowers, just like a flower - a tender female face of amazing beauty ...
A.P. Kern: “After that, we sat down to dinner. At the Olenins’, they dined on small tables, without ceremony and, of course, without ranks. And what ranks could there be where an enlightened host valued and valued only sciences and arts? At dinner, Pushkin sat down with my brother behind me and tried to attract my attention with flattering exclamations, such as: "Est-il permis d" etre aussi jolie! (Is it possible to be so pretty! (fr.)). Then a playful conversation began between them about who is a sinner and who is not, who will be in hell and who will go to heaven. Pushkin said to his brother: "In any case, there will be a lot of pretty ones in hell, you can play charades there. Ask m-me Kern if she would like to go to hell?" I answered very seriously and somewhat dryly that I don't want to go to hell. "Well, how are you now, Pushkin?" the brother asked. "Je me ravise (I changed my mind (fr.))," replied the poet, "I don't want to go to hell, although there will be pretty women..."

A. Fedoseenko. Anna Petrovna Kern

...Anna Petrovna Kern was born on February 11, 1800 in Orel, in a wealthy noble family of court adviser P.M. Poltoratsky. Both her father and grandmother - Agafokleya Alexandrovna, from a very rich family of Shishkovs - were domineering, despotic people, real petty tyrants. The sickly and quiet mother - Ekaterina Ivanovna Wulf - was completely under the heel of her husband and mother-in-law. The impressionable girl for the rest of her life retained memories of the rather primitive environment in which she grew up - and this same environment had the most direct impact on her character and fate.

Anna received a very good home education for those times, she read a lot, which, combined with her natural quickness of mind and curiosity, gave her a sensitive, romantic and, as they would say now, intellectual nature, while being sincere and intellectually very different from many young ladies of their circle ...

... But, having barely begun, her life turned out to be broken, "nailed to the flower." On January 8, 1817, a charming seventeen-year-old girl, at the insistence of her relatives, marries General Yermolai Kern, who was 35 years older than her. The petty tyrant's father was flattered that his daughter would be a general's wife - and Anna obeys in despair. A refined, dreaming of ideal romantic love girl was in no way suitable for a rude martinet, poorly educated, who had become a general from lower ranks. Her peers envied her - and the beautiful general shed tears, looking at her husband with disgust - clean water Arakcheev military - the provincial garrison environment and society were unbearable for her.
She later writes: “Against such marriages, that is, marriages of convenience, I have always been indignant. It seemed to me that when entering into a marriage, a criminal sale of a person as a thing is committed from the benefits, human dignity is violated, and there is deep depravity that entails misfortune ... "
... In 1817, during a celebration on the occasion of great maneuvers, Emperor Alexander drew attention to Anna - "... I was not in love ... I was in awe, I worshiped him! .. I would not exchange this feeling for any others, because it was quite spiritual and aesthetic.There was no ulterior motive in it about obtaining mercy through the favorable attention of the king - nothing, nothing like that ... All love is pure, selfless, self-satisfied ... If someone told me: "This person, before whom you pray and revere, fell in love with you like a mere mortal," I would bitterly reject such a thought and would only wish to look at him, to be surprised at him, to worship him as a higher, adored being! .. "For Alexander - an easy flirtation with a pretty, very similar to the famous beauty, the Prussian Queen Louise, a general. For Anna - the beginning of awareness of her attractiveness and charm, the awakening of female ambitions and - an opportunity to escape from the gray and terrible anguish of garrison life with a husband unloved to the point of suffering. The children were not happy either - in 1818, a daughter, Katya, was born, then two more girls. In her diary, which she addressed to her relative and friend Feodosia Poltoratskaya, she wrote with brutal frankness:
“You know that this is not frivolity and not a whim; I told you before that I did not want to have children, the thought of not loving them was terrible for me and now it is still terrible. You also know that at first I really wanted to have a child, and therefore I have a certain tenderness for Katenka, although I sometimes reproach myself that she is not quite great.Unfortunately, I feel such hatred for this whole family, it is such an irresistible feeling in me that I am not able to get rid of it with any effort. "This is a confession! Forgive me, my angel!". Fate did not give these unwanted children - except for Katya - a long life.
... She was 20 years old when she fell seriously in love for the first time - the name of her chosen one is unknown, she calls him in the Diary Immortel or Rosehip - and Kern seems to her even more disgusting.

"You're right: what could be more important
In the world of a beautiful woman?
Smile, the look of her eyes
More expensive than gold and honors,
More expensive than discordant glory ...
Let's talk about her again.

I praise, my friend, her hunting,
Having a rest, give birth to children,
like his mother;
And happy who will share with her
This pleasant care ... "

The relationship between Anna and Rodzianko was light and frivolous - she was resting ...

... And finally - Trigorskoe. Arriving at the house of his friends, Pushkin meets Anna Kern there - and for the whole month that Kern spent with her aunt, Pushkin often, almost daily appeared there, listened to her sing, read her his poems. The day before Kern's departure, together with her aunt and cousin, she visited Pushkin in Mikhailovsky, where they went from Trigorskoye in two carriages, the aunt and her son rode in one carriage, and the cousin, Kern and Pushkin - chastely in another. But in Mikhailovsky, they still wandered around the neglected garden for a long time at night, but, as Kern claims in his memoirs, "I did not remember the details of the conversation."

And the poet's outburst, when he grabbed the gift, was most likely associated with an outburst of jealousy - his friend and Anna's cousin, Alexei Wulf, turned out to be his happy rival, and much of his behavior was caused by this rivalry. Yes, and Anna had no special illusions about him: "Lively perceiving goodness, Pushkin, however, it seems to me, was not carried away by it in women; he was much more fascinated by their wit, brilliance and outer beauty. The coquettish desire to please him more than once attracted the attention of the poet more than the true and deep feeling inspired by him ... The reason that Pushkin was more fascinated by the brilliance than by the dignity and simplicity in the character of women was, of course, his low opinion of them, which was completely in the spirit of that time."

At that time, a young student Alexander Nikitenko, a future censor and professor at St. Petersburg University, who rented an apartment in the same house with her, met Anna Petrovna Kern. He almost fell into the net of an irresistible seductress. Kern struck him at the first meeting. In May 1827, he gave in his "Diary" a wonderful portrait of her:

“A few days ago, Madame Sterich celebrated her name day. She had many guests, including a new face, which, I must confess, made a rather strong impression on me. When I went down to the living room in the evening, it instantly chained my attention. It was the face of a young woman of amazing beauty. But what attracted me most of all was the touching languor in the expression of her eyes, smile, in the sounds of her voice ... This woman is very vain and capricious. The first is the fruit of flattery, which was constantly squandered on her beauty, her something divine, inexplicably beautiful in it - and the second is the fruit of the first, combined with careless upbringing and disorderly reading. In the end, Nikitenko fled from the beauty, while writing: “She would like to make me her panegyrist. To do this, she attracted me to her and kept me enthusiastic about her person. And then, when she had squeezed all the juice out of the lemon, she would have thrown the peel out the window ...”
... And at the same time, Pushkin finally had the opportunity to take "galant revenge." In 1828, in February, a year and a half after writing the lines "I remember a wonderful moment," Pushkin boasted in a letter to his friend Sobolevsky, not embarrassed in expressions and, moreover, using the lexicon of janitors and cab drivers (sorry for the ugly quote - but what is, is): "You don't write to me about the 2,100 rubles I owe you, but you write to me about m-me Kern, whom, with the help of God, I'm the other day..." Apparently, Pushkin wrote such a frank and rude message about intimacy with a once passionately beloved woman, because he experienced the strongest complex due to the fact that he had not been able to get this intimacy earlier, out of a sense of rivalry with the same Wulf - and he certainly needed to convey to friends that this fact happened, even if belatedly. In no other letter in relation to other women did Pushkin allow such rude frankness.
Subsequently, Pushkin would write to Alexei Vulf sarcastically: "What is Anna Petrovna, whore of Babylon, doing?" And Anna Petrovna enjoyed her freedom.

Her beauty became more and more attractive

This is how she writes about herself in her diary: “Imagine, I just glanced in the mirror, and it seemed to me something insulting that I am now so beautiful, so good-looking. I will not continue to describe my victories to you. - admiration."

Pushkin on Kern: "Do you want to know what Mrs. K ... is? - she is graceful; she understands everything; she is easily upset and just as easily consoled; she has timid manners and bold actions - but at the same time she is wonderfully attractive."
The poet's brother, Lev Sergeevich, is also fascinated by the beauty and dedicates a madrigal to her:

"How can you not go crazy?

Listening to you, admiring you;

Venus ancient sweetheart,
Showing off with a wonderful belt,
Alcmene, mother of Hercules,
With her in a row, of course, it can become,
But to pray and love
Them as hard as you
They need to hide you from you,
You broke their shop!”

... General Kern continued to bombard various authorities with letters, demanding assistance in returning the lost wife to the bosom of the family. The girls - three daughters - were with him before they entered Smolny ... Her Excellency the general, who had escaped from her husband-general, nevertheless used his name ... and, apparently, the money she lived on.
In 1831 Pushkin got married. Soon Delvig dies. Sofya Delvig gets married very quickly and unsuccessfully. All this radically changes the usual life of Anna Kern in St. Petersburg. "Her Excellency" was no longer so invited, or not invited at all to literary evenings, where talented people known to her gathered firsthand, she lost contact with those talented people with whom, thanks to Pushkin and Delvig, her life brought her together ... The specter of poverty perceptibly stood up before the beautiful general. The husband refused her monetary allowance, apparently in this way trying to bring her home. One by one, her two youngest daughters and mother die. Deprived of all means of subsistence, robbed by her father and relatives, she tried to sue her mother's estate, in which Pushkin unsuccessfully tried to help her, tried to earn extra money with translations - and Alexander Sergeevich also helped her in this, albeit grumbling.
In 1836 family circumstances Kern again acquired a dramatic turn. She was in complete despair, because by the time she graduated from the Smolny Institute, General Kern appeared as her daughter Ekaterina, who intended to take her daughter to him. The matter was settled with difficulty.
... On February 1, 1837, in the Stables Church, where Pushkin was buried, Anna Kern, along with everyone who came under the vaults of the temple, "wept and prayed" for his unfortunate soul. And at this time, she was already overtaken by an all-consuming mutual love...
..."I remember the haven of love, where my queen dreamed of me... where the air was saturated with kisses, where her every breath was a thought of me. I see her smiling from the depths of the sofa, where she was waiting for me...
I have never been so completely happy as in that apartment!!... She came out of that apartment and slowly walked past the windows of the building, where I, clinging to the window, devoured her with my eyes, capturing her every movement with my imagination, so that after, when the vision will disappear, indulge yourself with an intoxicating dream! ... And this gazebo in Peterhof, among fragrant flowers and greenery in the mirrors, when her gaze, burning me, ignited ... "

And flowed years of true happiness. A. Markov-Vinogradsky was, as they say, a loser, possessing no talents other than a pure and sensitive heart. He did not know how to earn his daily bread, so the family had to live in poverty and even live with various friends out of mercy. But he could not breathe in his Anette and filled the diary with touching confessions: “Thank you, Lord, for the fact that I am married! Without her, my darling, I would languish, bored. Everything bothers me, except for my wife, and I am so used to her alone that she has become my necessity! What a happiness to return home! How warm, good in her arms. There is no one better than my wife".And she wrote to her relative E. V. Markova-Vinogradskaya already more than ten years of their life together: "Poverty has its joys, and we are always happy, because there is a lot of love in us. For everything, for everything, I thank the Lord! Perhaps, under better circumstances, we would be less happy."

They lived together for almost forty years in love and in terrible poverty, often turning into poverty. After 1865, Anna Kern and her husband, who retired with the rank of collegiate assessor with a meager pension, lived in terrible poverty and wandered around in different corners with relatives in Tver province, in Lubny, in Kyiv, in Moscow, in the village of Pryamukhino. Anna wrote memoirs and sacredly preserved Pushkin's relics - letters. And yet they had to be sold - at a meager price. By the way, earlier the composer Mikhail Glinka simply lost the original poem "I remember a wonderful moment" when he composed his music on it (" he took Pushkin's poems from me, written by his hand, in order to set them to music, and he lost them, God forgive him!"); music dedicated, by the way, to Anna Kern's daughter Ekaterina, with whom (daughter) Glinka was madly in love. By the time of the sale, Ekaterina had married the architect Shokalsky, and she almost did not remember her passion for Glinka.
In 1864 Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev visited the Markov-Vinogradsky family: “I spent the evening at a certain Madame Vinogradskaya, with whom Pushkin had once been in love. He wrote many poems in honor of her, recognized as one of the best in our literature. In her youth, she must have been very pretty, and now, with all her good nature (she is not smart), she retained the habits of a woman who is used to being liked. The letters that Pushkin wrote to her, she keeps as a shrine. She showed me a semi-faded pastel depicting her at 28 years old - white, blond, with a meek face, with naive grace, with amazing innocence in her eyes, smile ... she looks a bit like a Russian maid a la Parasha. If I were Pushkin, I would not write poetry to her.
She seemed very eager to meet me, and since yesterday was her angel's day, my friends gave her me instead of a bouquet. She has a husband twenty years younger than her: a pleasant family, even a little touching and at the same time comical. (Excerpt from Turgenev's letter to Pauline Viardot, February 3 (15), 1864, letter No. 1567)".

In January 1879, in the village of Pryamukhino, "from cancer in the stomach with terrible suffering," as his son writes, A.V. Markov-Vinogradsky, husband of Anna Kern, and four months later, on May 27, 1879, in inexpensive furnished rooms on the corner of Tverskaya and Gruzinskaya in Moscow (her son moved her to Moscow), at the age of seventy-nine, Anna Petrovna Markova-Vinogradskaya ended her life path ( Kern).
... She was supposed to be buried next to her husband, but strong torrential rains, unusual for this time of year, washed out the road and it was impossible to deliver the coffin to her husband at the cemetery. She was buried on a churchyard near the old stone church in the village of Prutnya, located six kilometers from Torzhok. A well-known mystical story about how "her coffin met with a monument to Pushkin, which was imported to Moscow."
The son of the Markov-Vinogradskys, who had been in poor health since childhood, committed suicide shortly after the death of his parents. He was about 40 years old, and he was, like his parents, completely unadapted to life. Katenka Shokalskaya-Kern lived a long and quiet life and died in 1904.

The stormy and difficult earthly life of Anna Petrovna was over. Until now, people bring fresh flowers to her modest grave, and newlyweds from all over the area come here to swear eternal love to each other in the name of the one who, albeit not for long, was so dear to the great love of life Pushkin.
At the grave of A.P. A large granite boulder stone was installed on the core, a white marble board with carved four lines of the famous Pushkin poem was fixed on it ...

1) "SLIM AND LIGHT-EYE..."

"When slim and light-eyed
She stands in front of me
I think: the hour of the prophet
Brought down from heaven to earth!
The braid and curls are dark blond,
The outfit is casual and simple,
And on the chest of a luxurious beads
Luxuriously fluctuate at times.
Spring and summer combination
In the living fire of her eyes,
And the quiet sound of her speeches
Gives birth to bliss and desire
In my yearning chest."

This poem is dedicated to Anna Petrovna Kern, an extraordinary woman who inspired Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin to his immortal message "I remember a wonderful moment."
A masterpiece, familiar to all of us from childhood also thanks to the enchanting romance of Mikhail Glinka. The short and sonorous surname Kern also belonged to Anna Petrovna's daughter Ekaterina Ermolaevna, to whom the composer, who was in love with her, dedicated this truly magical romance.
However, Anna Petrovna herself, after her second marriage, signed only as "Anna Vinogradskaya", i.e. by the name of her beloved second husband. She ran away from the glorious military general Kern at the age of 26, being pregnant.

What do we know about her? Quite a lot, and at the same time very little. The life of this woman did not freeze in one direction for a minute, changed from year to year. Numerous transfers across different cities countries have left little to commemorate her. It is especially unfortunate that there are very few of her images left, and even those that remain are being questioned by numerous researchers.
But this bright woman left behind the most interesting memoirs, she was familiar with many famous people of his time.
Here is what is written about her in the encyclopedic reference book "Tver Region":

"KERN Anna Petrovna (1800-79), memoirist. Granddaughter of the owner of the village of Bernovo Staritsky u. I. P. Wolf, daughter of P. M. and E. I. Poltoratsky. district), in 1808-12 she was brought up and studied at the estate of I. P. Wolf Bernove. These years are reflected in the memoirs "From the Memoirs of My Childhood" (1870). Later, K. (in her second marriage, Markova-Vinogradskaya) lived in Petersburg, Moscow, the Bakunin estate Pryamukhino Novotorzhsky, Pushkin dedicated a message to her "I remember a wonderful moment ..." (1825). , "Memories of Delvig and Glinka", "Delvig and Pushkin" (1859), which preserved the living features of his contemporaries, especially Pushkin and his entourage. Buried in the churchyard of Prutn near Torzhok. "

In my opinion, it is interesting that Anna Petrovna, like the beautiful Natalya Goncharova, has Ukrainian roots. Mark Poltoratsky, the owner of the estate in the village of Sosnitsy, Chernihiv region, where he was born, was her grandfather.
In this small estate, which was already in the possession of Alexander Vasilyevich Vinogradsky, her second cousin and second husband, Anna would later spend eleven years of her life, but then the couple would be forced to sell it. The once brilliant general Anna Petrovna Kern had to live very modestly, to say the least, with her second husband, Alexander Vasilievich Vinogradsky. She published her memoirs in magazines for very little money. And she even had to sell Pushkin's letters addressed to her because of the constant need for money ...
Probably because of such a more than modest life and strife in the first marriage, so few portraits of Anna Petrovna have been preserved, and even those that have been preserved are being questioned.
The reference book "Tver Region" contains a portrait of Anna Petrovna in 1829, or rather a photograph from a lithographed portrait of the French artist Ashil Deveria. The same portrait is given by Larisa Kertselli in her book "The Tver Region in Pushkin's Drawings".
I wanted to know something about this artist and about the possibility of painting a portrait of Anna Petrovna by him.

2) ARTIST ASHIL DEVERIA.

And here is what information about this artist I got:

"Achille Jacques-Jean-Marie Deveria; (February 6, 1800, Paris - December 23, 1857, ibid) - French painter, watercolorist and lithographer. Brother of Eugène Deveria.
Pupil of Girodet-Trioson. In 1822 he began exhibiting at the Paris Salon.
By 1830, he became a successful book illustrator (his illustrations for Faust by Johann Goethe, Don Quixote by Cervantes, fairy tales by Charles Perrault are known), while gaining fame with erotic miniatures. Deveria's work was dominated by light, sentimental or frivolous subjects.
Deveria was also a prominent portrait painter. He, in particular, depicted Alexandre Dumas père, Prosper Merimee, Walter Scott, Alfred de Musset, Balzac, Victor Hugo, Marie Dorval, Alphonse de Lamartine, Alfred de Vigny, Vidocq and others. Charles Baudelaire said of Deveria's portraits that they reflected "all the mores and aesthetics of the era."
In 1849, Deveria was appointed head of the engraving department of the National Library and assistant curator of the Egyptian department of the Louvre.
In the last years of his life, Deveria taught drawing and lithography to his son Theodule, and they worked together on an album of portraits.
Deveria's work is exhibited at the Louvre, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Paul Getty Museum, the Norton Simon Museum, and the collections of the University of Liege.

This is short biography French artist, the same age as Anna Petrovna.
If you believe the dating of the alleged portrait of Anna Petrovna, then it was written in 1828-29. The artist Ashil Deveria himself did not visit St. Petersburg, where Anna Petrovna lived at that time.
What Anna Petrovna looked like in those years, gives an idea of ​​her verbal description, which was given by Podolinsky, an admirer of Anna Petrovna, in his "Portrait".
In the same years, Anna Petrovna, who left her husband-general in 1826 and lives separately, maintains acquaintances with many famous people, including with the Frenchman Bazin, who at that time was her fan.

Brief information about this interesting person:
"Bazin Petr Petrovich (1783-1838) - a Frenchman, accepted into the Russian service by Alexander I; in 1826 - lieutenant general-engineer, director of the Institute of Railway Engineers."
Anna Petrovna calls him in her memoirs: "Memories of Pushkin, Delvig, Glinka" - "my good friend." Petr Petrovich Bazin was not only an outstanding engineer, but also knew several foreign languages. In 1834 he published one of his works on linguistics in Paris.
While in the Russian service, he maintained relations with his home country, visited Paris many times and could well know the artist Ashil Deveria, as an outstanding portrait painter and lithographer. It is possible that on his order a lithograph was made from a watercolor portrait of Anna Petrovna of those years.
At that time, Anna Petrovna had not been abroad, but much later, in 1861, with her second husband Markov-Vinogradsky, she went for treatment to Baden in 1861 and to Switzerland in 1865. She was in her sixties...
Ashil Deveria died in 1857 in Paris, that is, much earlier than Anna Kern's visit to Europe. It remains only to assume that in 1829 he created a lithograph with a portrait of her brought by one of Anna's friends. It could well be Bazin Petr Petrovich, associated with Anna with an ambiguous relationship.

3) MINIATURE ON IVORY.

"The only reliable pictorial portrait of her (Anna Petrovna) is considered to be a miniature by an unknown artist, transferred in 1904 to Pushkin House granddaughter of Anna Petrovna A. A. Kulzhinskaya and now on display at the All-Russian Pushkin Museum in St. Petersburg. However, this portrait, painted in the late 1820s and early 1830s by a poorly skilled master, not only does not convey the beauty of the model, but even disappoints. There is nothing dazzling and charming in the woman depicted on it, the artist failed to convey either the “touching languor in the expression of the eyes”, or her lively mind, or the poetry of nature.
So writes in his book "Life in the name of love" Vladimir Sysoev.
But I don't agree with him. Just this portrait conveys the prettiness of Anna's appearance, which was mentioned by all the people who knew her. "Lovely features" and "tender voice" recalls Pushkin in his immortal poem.
When it was written, Anna was twenty-six years old. At that moment, as you know, she visited Trigorskoye and won the heart of the poet, performing Kozlovsky's romance.
"Lovely features" Alexander Sergeevich depicted on her profile image, which he made on October 20, 1829, on the day of memory of St. Anna of Kashinskaya, on a draft of an article containing a protest against the unauthorized publication of his poems by M. A. Bestuzhev-Ryumin in the almanac "Northern Star" .
This silhouette is considered a portrait of Anna Petrovna Kern.

The well-known art critic and researcher of the poet’s drawings A. M. Efros, who attributed this portrait, wrote: “The sheet shows the bowed head of a young lady, with a smooth hairstyle covering her temples and a high chignon on top of her head. In the ears are long earrings on pendants. The drawing is made in a stingy and strict outline. He conveys the rounded features of a pretty, almost beautiful woman, in her prime and therefore somewhat plump. She has large, disproportionately wide eyes, as if close to a thin, straight nose, slightly short, but gracefully outlined; on the lower part of the face - large soft lips and a slightly heavy, but gently rounded chin.
Mikhail Glinka, the author of the famous romance and admirer of Anna Petrovna's daughter Ekaterina Ermolaevna Kern, in his "Notes" recalls her as "a kind and pretty lady."
Apparently, Anna Petrovna was such, which is proved by another image of her: a drawing by Ivan Zheren, made in 1838, when Anna Petrovna was expecting her son Alexander.
At this time, she had already become close to her second husband, second cousin Alexander Markov-Vinogradsky. General Kern died only in 1841, and in 1842 Anna married a second time. In 1838, i.e. at the time of painting the portrait, she was pregnant, she gave birth to her son Alexander in 1839.
During these years, Anna Petrovna lived in St. Petersburg, like the artist Ivan Zheren.
But the dates of his life indicate that the portrait, or rather, a pencil drawing, was made by his son, also an artist and draftsman, Ivan Zheren.

4) ARTIST IVAN ZHEREN.

Here is the little information I could find about this artist:

" Jean (Ivan Mikhailovich) Gerin (Second half of the 18th century -1827)
Gerin's parents are from France. He himself was born in Moscow. In 1809 he received the title of academician of painting. By order of the Military Society at the Main Guards Headquarters, he created a series of drawings depicting the events of the Patriotic War of 1812. Was a drawing teacher in Moscow. Died in Petersburg.
The artist's son Ivan Ivanovich Zheren, also an artist, died in 1850.
Here is such brief information we have about these artists, father and son. If you follow the dates, then in 1838 only a son could make a pencil portrait of Anna Petrovna.
Interestingly, it is in this picture, it seems to me, that Anna is most similar to the Prussian Queen Louise, the resemblance to which she mentions in her memoirs Three Meetings with the Emperor.

Here is what Granovskaya writes in the book "Pushkin's Friends in Portraits of the Serf Artist Arefov-Bagaev":

“In his memoirs “Three Meetings with Emperor Alexander Pavlovich,” A.P. Kern, recalling the first meeting with him in 1817, writes: “It was widely discussed that he (Alexander I, - N. G.) said that I look like a Prussian queen<...>the resemblance to the queen was indeed, because in St. Petersburg one officer, who was a chamber-page in the palace when the queen arrived, said this to my aunt when he saw me.
Further, Anna Petrovna Kern writes that the resemblance to the Prussian queen even influenced the disposition of Emperor Alexander towards her. And, by the way, helped in the affairs of her husband ...
In his article “Anna Petrovna Kern”, B. L. Modzalevsky also wrote: “That there really was a resemblance to Queen Louise, this is proved by both the portrait of A. P. Kern and the words of the famous Vera Ivanovna Annenkova, who in 1903, telling Yu. M. Shokalsky about his grandmother, recalled this, conveying that the emperor then said about Anna Petrovna that she was “a completely Prussian queen.”

5) BEAUTIFUL QUEEN.

Such persistent mention of the resemblance to Queen Louise undoubtedly flattered Anna Petrovna both in her younger years and during the period of writing her memoirs.
But after all, there was something to be proud of! The Prussian queen Louise, who won many hearts, was a beauty. Moreover, this beauty was sweet, gentle, some truly "angelic", judging by her portraits.
Here brief information about the beautiful Queen Louise:

"Princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wife of Friedrich Wilhelm III and Queen consort of Prussia. Grandmother Russian emperor Alexander II. In the descriptions of contemporaries, Queen Louise appears as a beauty with a laid-back manner of communication, more characteristic of representatives of the third estate than of a prim aristocracy.
Born 10 March 1776 in Hannover, Brunswick-Lüneburg, Holy Roman Empire
Died 19 July 1810 (age 34), Hohenziritz, Prussia
Married to Friedrich Wilhelm III (since 1793)
Parents: Charles II, Frederick of Hesse-Darmstadt
Children: Karl of Prussia;, Alexandrina of Prussia, Alexandra Feodorovna, Louise of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, Wilhelm I."

It is worth adding that both the French emperor Napoleon and the Russian emperor Alexander I were admirers of Louise's beauty. Comparison with such a beauty could simply stun a young woman! After all, she was only seventeen years old at the time of the meeting with the emperor. Anna Petrovna danced with the emperor at a ball in Poltava in 1817, and at the birth of Anna Petrovna's first daughter Ekaterina Ermolaevna, Alexander I (in absentia) became the godfather of the child. In 1818, the emperor gave Anna Petrovna a beautiful diamond clasp for her christening. The last meeting with Alexander I took place in 1819. By the way, she helped professional activity General Kern, who at that moment was in trouble at work ...
But did Anna really look like a Prussian queen? There are many portraits of the queen, and the most beautiful of them, in my opinion, is the portrait by the artist Joseph-Maria Grassi.
But the most similar is not the image of Anna by Gerin, it seems to me a portrait by the French artist Vigée-Lebrun, who at one time worked in Russia. This portrait dates from 1801, the queen at that time was twenty-five years old.
But it looks like, it seems to me, a drawing-portrait of Anna Petrovna by Ivan Zheren, made in 1838. Anna at that time was thirty-eight years old, but she looks very sweet and youthful ...

6) PROPOSED PORTRAIT OF ANNA.

And about one more portrait of Anna Petrovna, the most, in my opinion, controversial ...
Granovskaya, in the already mentioned book "Pushkin's Friends in Portraits of the Serf Artist Arefov-Bagaev", suggests that the portrait of an unknown woman, located in the Russian Museum and dated 1840, may be a portrait of Anna Petrovna Kern. Could this happen? Theoretically, yes.

In 1840, Anna Petrovna, with her pregnant daughter Ekaterina and her one-year-old son, set off for Lubny, intending to visit Trigorskoye along the way and visit her relative Praskovya Osipovna Wolf.
In 1841, the serf artist Bagaev painted portraits of Evpraksia and Alexei Wulf.
But according to another attribution, this portrait belongs to Begicheva, a relative of the Wulfs and the mistress of the serf artist at that time. It was redeemed from serfdom with the assistance of the famous architect Stackenschneider only in 1850.

Who is Begicheva and what is known about her?
Here is a brief summary:

"Ivan Matveevich Begichev (1766 - December 23, 1816) - Major General of the Russian imperial army from the Begichev family.
The eldest of the two generals in 1812 - the sons of Matvey Semyonovich Begichev.
Participated in Russian-Turkish war 1787-1791, Polish events, Russian-Turkish war of 1806-1812, Patriotic war 1812 and the War of the Sixth Coalition.
January 3, 1813 Begichev was awarded the Order of St. George 3rd class.
Married to Ekaterina Nikolaevna Vyndomskaya (died in 1840), cousin of P. A. Osipova. The couple had two daughters:
Anna Ivanovna (1807-1879), since 1844 married to Admiral Pavel Andreyevich Kolzakov (1779-1864).
Pavla Ivanovna (1817-1887), married to diplomat Yakov Andreevich Dashkov (1803-1872)."
Here and below, we are talking about Anna Ivanovna, a relative of the Wulfs and the owner of a serf artist. It was from her that he was redeemed from captivity.
Further fate the artist was unsuccessful, the portraits of his work were not recognized.
But on the other hand, he became famous for depicting people close to Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin!
In my opinion, this image is precisely Bibikova. As a distant relative, she could have some resemblance to Anna, but the shape of the eyes in the portrait is completely different...
At the time of writing the portrait, Anna Ivanovna was thirty-three years old, which is more consistent with the age of the depicted model than the age of Anna Petrovna, who turned forty in 1840.

Vladimir Sysoev in his book "Life for the sake of love" cites the opinion of the Pushkinist Stark, however, disagreeing with him:

"However, the prominent modern Pushkinist academician V.P. Stark, based on the fact that the woman in the portrait of Arefov-Bagaev is depicted in a mourning dress - a black silk dress (on a color reproduction the dress looks brown) and a crepe cap with black ribbons, suggested that here depicts the owner of a serf artist, landowner A. I. Begicheva (1807-1879) in mourning for her mother, who died on January 19, 1840. It seems that this insufficiently substantiated assumption cannot be the basis for the reattribution of the portrait ... "

And I would like to agree with Stark, if only because it is difficult to imagine Anna Petrovna Kern in a cap. She was too proud of her beautiful blond (or light brown) hair to hide it under a cap ...
This confirms the wonderful verbal portrait her second husband, Alexander Markov-Vinogradsky, who was in love with her, which he left in his Diaries.

7) "DARLING".
Here is how he writes about his beloved wife (from the book of Vladimir Sysoev):

"In 1841, the second husband of Anna Petrovna A.V. Markov-Vinogradsky created her incomparable verbal portrait:

"Camp near Lubny. May 24, 1841 Evening illuminated by the moon. Saturday. “She will rise, the star of captivating happiness ...” And these shining eyes - these gentle stars - will be reflected in my soul with joy. Their bright beauty will sparkle in me with delight, so warm from them! Their gentle color, their gentle light kiss my heart with their rays! From them it is so clear in the soul, with them everything lives with joy.

My darling has brown eyes. They, in their wonderful beauty, luxuriate on a round face with freckles. Hair, this chestnut silk, tenderly outlines it and sets it off with special love. The cheeks are hidden behind small, pretty ears, for which expensive earrings are an extra decoration: they are so rich in grace that you will admire. And the nose is so wonderful, such a charm; with exquisite regularity, gracefully stretched out between plump cheeks and mysteriously sets off lips, these pink leaves ... But then they began to stir. Melodic sounds, sadly leaving their luxurious altar, fly straight into my enchanted heart and pour out pleasure. Even the lips tremble with sweet speech, and already the eyes want to admire the teeth ... And all this, full of feelings and refined harmony, makes up the face of my beautiful.

How best to say about the woman you love, given that Anna was twenty years older than her husband!
I will only add that, unfortunately, I could not find a photograph of the granddaughter of Anna Petrovna and Alexander Vasilyevich Aglaya Alexandrovna Vinogradskaya, after Kulzhinskaya's husband. The one who gave the only reliable portrait of her grandmother to the museum: a miniature on ivory.
Aglaya Alexandrovna was an actress with the pseudonym Daragan. Her portrait was painted by the famous artist Gundobin Vasily Vasilievich and it is kept in the Samara Art Museum.

ON THE COLLAGE: PORTRAIT OF ANNA PETROVNA-MINIATURE ON IVORY-LEFT

RIGHT: TOP ROW PORTRAIT OF ANNA KERN BY IVAN ZHEREN
NEXT-PORTRAIT OF LOUISE PRUSIAN WORK VIGEE-LEBRUN.
BOTTOM ROW PORTRAIT OF ANNA KERN BY ASHIL DEVERIA (IMPLIED)
NEXT-IMPLIED PORTRAIT OF ANNA? (BIBICHEVA) BY AREFOV-BAGAEV.

T.1 - XV-XVIII centuries. – M.: Book, 1976.
T.2. Part 1 - 1801-1856 - M .: Book, 1977.
T.2. Part 2 - 1801-1856 - M .: Book, 1978.
T.3. Part 1 - 1857-1894 - M .: Book, 1979.
T.3. Part 2 - 1857-1894 - M .: Book, 1980.
T.3. Part 3 - 1857-1894 - M .: Book, 1981.
T.3. Part 4 - 1857-1894 - M .: Book, 1982.
T.4. Part 1 - 1895-1917 - M .: Book, 1983.
T.4. Part 2 - 1895-1917 - M .: Book, 1984.
T.4. Part 3 - 1895-1917 - M .: Book, 1985.
True, there are only links to publications, but not the publications themselves. But there are a lot of references, to everything conceivable and unthinkable. And it will take a couple of days to unearth the necessary sources in these deposits. But on the other hand, having accurate target designations at hand, it is much easier to find and download from historical sources, such as electronic library Old books or Runivers. Are you interested in such things? Anyway take a look at the link
http://uni-persona.srcc.msu.ru/site/ind_res.htm
Here is just a resource on the works of Zayonchkovsky. To tell the truth, I do not use it, my work is stored in the form of 12 volumes PDF format. If you are interested, I can send it through a file sharing service.
I'll ask other questions later.
Sincerely,

Thank you, Nikolay! First of all, I had in mind the memories of the heroines of my works: Anna Kern, Doli Ficquelmont, Alexandra Osipovna Smirnova Rosset, Olga Nikolaevna Romanova, and also translated something from German.
It is interesting to read them both from a cognitive and artistic point of view.
If you do not give generally accepted points, then you can find something new.
And I find a lot of interesting things in the materials about the artists who painted portraits of my heroines. Sometimes it is these materials that reveal them from an unusual side.
Sincerely,

Be that as it may, one can talk endlessly about Pushkin. This is just the same little one who managed to “inherit” everywhere. But this time we have to analyze the topic "Anna Kern and Pushkin: a love story." These relationships could have gone unnoticed by everyone, if not for the emotionally tender poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment”, dedicated to Anna Petrovna Kern and written by the poet in 1825 in Mikhailovsky during his exile. When and how did Pushkin and Kern meet? Their love story, however, turned out to be rather mysterious and strange. Their first fleeting meeting took place in the Olenins' salon in 1819 in St. Petersburg. However, first things first.

Anna Kern and Pushkin: a love story

Anna was a relative of the inhabitants of Trigorsky, the Osipov-Wulf family, who were Pushkin's neighbors in Mikhailovsky, the poet's family estate. Once, in a correspondence with her cousin, she reports that she is a big fan of Pushkin's poetry. These words reach the poet, he is intrigued, and in his letter to the poet A. G. Rodzianko asks about Kern, whose estate was in his neighborhood, and besides, Anna was his very close friend. Rodzianko wrote a playful reply to Pushkin, and Anna joined this playful friendly correspondence, she added a few ironic words to the letter. Pushkin was captivated by this turn and wrote her several compliments, while maintaining a frivolously playful tone. He expressed all his thoughts on this subject in his poem "To Rodzyanka".

Kern was married, and Pushkin knew her well, not very happy marital status. It should be noted that for Kern Pushkin was not a fatal passion, as, indeed, she was for him.

Anna Kern: family

As a girl, Anna Poltoratskaya was a fair-haired beauty with cornflower blue eyes. At the age of 17, she was given in marriage for a 52-year-old general, a participant in the war with Napoleon. Anna had to obey the will of her father, but she not only did not love her husband, but even hated her in her soul, she wrote about this in her diary. In marriage, they had two daughters, Tsar Alexander I himself expressed a desire to be the godfather of one of them.

Kern. Pushkin

Anna is an undeniable beauty who attracted the attention of many brave officers who often visited their house. As a woman, she was very cheerful and charming in communication, which had a devastating effect on them.

When for the first time Anna Kern and Pushkin met at her aunt Olenina's, the young general's wife had already begun casual romances and fleeting relationships. The poet did not make any impression on her, and at some points seemed rude and shameless. Anna liked him immediately, and he attracted her attention with flattering exclamations, something like: “Can you be so pretty ?!”

Meeting in Mikhailovsky

Anna Petrovna Kern and Pushkin met again when Alexander Sergeevich was sent into exile to his native estate Mikhailovskoye. It was the most boring and lonely time for him, after the noisy Odessa he was annoyed and morally crushed. “Poetry saved me, I was resurrected in soul,” he would later write. It was at this time that Kern, on one of the July days of 1825, came to Trigorskoye to stay with her relatives. Pushkin was incredibly happy about this, she became for him for a while a ray of light. By that time, Anna was already a great admirer of the poet, she longed to meet him and again struck him with her beauty. The poet was seduced by her, especially after the song “Spring Night Breathed”, which was popular at that time, was sincerely sung by her.

Poem for Anna

Anna Kern in Pushkin's life for a moment became a fleeting muse, an inspiration that flooded him in an unexpected way. Impressed, he immediately takes a pen and dedicates his poem “I remember a wonderful moment” to her.

From the memoirs of Kern herself, it follows that on the evening of a July day in 1825, after dinner at Trigorskoye, everyone decided to visit Mikhailovskoye. The two crews set off. In one of them went P. A. Osipova with her son Alexei Wulf, in the other A. N. Wulf, her cousin Anna Kern and Pushkin. The poet was, as ever, kind and courteous.

It was a farewell evening, the next day Kern was supposed to leave for Riga. In the morning Pushkin came to say goodbye, brought her a copy of one of the chapters of Onegin. And among the uncircumcised sheets, she found a poem dedicated to her, read it and then wanted to put her poetic gift in the box, when Pushkin convulsively grabbed it and did not want to give it away for a long time. Anna did not understand this behavior of the poet.

Undoubtedly, this woman gave him moments of happiness, and perhaps brought him back to life.

Relations

It is very important to note in this matter that Pushkin himself did not consider the feeling he experienced for Kern to be in love. Perhaps this is how he presented women for their tender caress and affection. In a letter to Anna Nikolaevna Wulf, he wrote that he wrote a lot of poems about love, but he had no love for Anna, otherwise he would have become very jealous of her for Alexei Wulf, who enjoyed her favor.

B. Tomashevsky notes that, of course, there was an intriguing outburst of feelings between them, and it served as an impetus for writing a poetic masterpiece. Perhaps Pushkin himself, handing it over to Kern, suddenly thought about the fact that it could cause a false interpretation, and therefore resisted his impulse. But it was already too late. Surely at that moment Anna Kern was beside herself with happiness. Pushkin's opening line "I remember a wonderful moment" remained engraved on her tombstone. This poem really made her a living legend.

Connection

Anna Petrovna Kern and Pushkin broke up, but their further relationship is not known for certain. She left with her daughters for Riga and jokingly allowed the poet to write letters to her. And he wrote them to her, they have survived to this day, however, on French. There were no hints of deep feelings in them. On the contrary, they are ironic and mocking, but very friendly. The poet no longer writes that she is a “genius of pure beauty” (the relationship has moved into another phase), but calls her “our whore of Babylon Anna Petrovna.

Ways of fate

Anna Kern and Pushkin will see each other again in two years, in 1827, when she leaves her husband and moves to St. Petersburg, which will cause gossip in high society.

Kern, together with his sister and father, after moving to St. Petersburg, will live in the very house where he first met Pushkin in 1819.

She will spend this day in the company of Pushkin and his father. Anna could not find words of admiration and joy from meeting him. It was, most likely, not love, but a great human affection and passion. In a letter to Sobolevsky, Pushkin openly writes that the other day he slept with Kern.

In December 1828, Pushkin met his precious Natalie Goncharova, lived with her for 6 years in marriage, she would bear him four children. In 1837 Pushkin was killed in a duel.

freedom

Anna Kern was finally freed from the bonds of marriage when her husband died in 1841. She will fall in love with cadet Alexander Markov-Vinogradsky, who will also be her second cousin. With him, she will lead a quiet family life, although he is 20 years younger than her.

Anna will show Pushkin's letters and poem as a relic to Ivan Turgenev, but her beggarly position will force her to sell them for five rubles apiece.

One by one, her daughters will die. She will outlive Pushkin by 42 years and keep in her memoirs the living image of the poet, who, as she believed, never truly loved anyone.

In fact, it is not clear who Anna Kern was in Pushkin's life. The history of the relationship between these two people, between whom a spark flew, gave the world one of the most beautiful, most elegant and heartfelt poems dedicated to beautiful woman, which were only in Russian poetry.

Outcome

After the death of Pushkin's mother and the death of the poet himself, Kern did not interrupt close relations with his family. The poet's father, Sergei Lvovich Pushkin, who felt acute loneliness after the death of his wife, wrote Anna Petrovna quivering cordial letters and even wanted to live with her "the last sad years."

She died in Moscow six months after the death of her husband - in 1879. She lived with him for a good 40 years and never emphasized his failure.

Anna was buried in the village of Prutnya near the city of Torzhok, Tver province. Their son Alexander committed suicide after the death of his parents.

Her brother also dedicated a verse to her, which she read to Pushkin from memory when they met in 1827. It began with the words: "How can you not go crazy."

This review of the topic "Pushkin and Kern: a love story" can be completed. As it has already become clear, Kern captivated all the men of the Pushkin family, they somehow succumbed to her charm in an incredible way.