Kern psychologist biography. Anna Kern: biography, relationship with A
She went down in history as the woman who inspired Pushkin to write magnificent works. But the seductress left her mark not only in his soul, captivating many other male hearts.
Anna Petrovna Poltoratskaya was born on February 22, 1800 in the town of Orel into a noble family. Mother - Ekaterina Ivanovna - daughter of the Oryol governor Wolf, father - Pyotr Markovich - court adviser. The girl grew up in a circle of numerous noble and friendly relatives. Thanks to hired teachers and a governess, she received a good education.
Like many provincial young ladies, she had few temptations and opportunities for entertainment. Timid attempts at flirting and coquetry were strictly suppressed by their parents (at the age of 13, the girl even lost her long braid - her mother cut off her daughter's hair so that there was nothing to seduce the male sex). But there was plenty of time and prerequisites for naive girlish dreams. What was the disappointment of sixteen-year-old Anna when one day Poltoratsky conspired about the marriage of his daughter with Yermolai Kern. The 52-year-old general was an enviable match for any local marriageable girl. However, the girl submitted to the will of her father only out of fear that she had experienced for her parent all her childhood.
On January 8, 1817, Anna Poltoratskaya began to bear the surname Kern. Her husband was despotic, rude and narrow-minded. He could not achieve not only love, but even the respect of his young wife. Anna quietly hated and despised him. She treated the daughters born of the hateful general coldly. BUT own life with eternal moving after the military spouse seemed to her dull and joyless.
Anna Kern and Alexander Pushkin
The existence of a young woman was brightened up only by infrequent trips to relatives and friends, where parties were held with games and dances. She enjoyed them with rapture, basking in universal love and admiration. At one of these dinners in 1819, it happened to Alexander Pushkin. At first, Kern did not even notice the unattractive poet among the more eminent guests. But Alexander Sergeevich immediately noticed this sweet coquette, both shy and modest, and tried with all his might to attract Anna's attention. What caused some irritation in the well-bred beauty - the poet's remarks seemed to her painfully inappropriate and defiant.
Their next meeting took place in 1825 at the Trigorskoye estate. By this time, Kern appreciated Pushkin's talent, becoming a fan of his work, therefore she treated the poet more favorably than the first time. With age and experienced blows of fate, Anna herself has changed. The young woman was no longer as timid as before. Seductive, self-confident, mastered to perfection. And only some shyness, slipping from time to time, added to Anna a special charm. Pushkin was inflamed with passion, displaying the whole whirlwind of his experiences in the famous poems “I remember wonderful moment” (later he dedicated many more delightful lines to her), which, of course, flattered Kern, but mutual feelings did not give birth. Before leaving the estate, the beauty graciously allowed the poet to write letters to her.
For the next two years, an entertaining correspondence was conducted between Pushkin and Anna Kern, in which Alexander Sergeevich confessed his mad love for Kern. In refined terms, he deified his muse and endowed with unthinkable virtues. And then suddenly, in another fit of jealousy, he began to rage and scold, addressing her almost insultingly. His confidence in Anna's benevolence towards his cousin and friend of the poet, Wulf (who, by the way, retained fiery feelings for this woman all his life) drove Pushkin into a frenzy. Alexander did not write anything like this to any former or subsequent lady.
In 1827, Kern finally broke up with her husband. The unloved husband aroused not only disgust, but also hatred: either he tried to bring his own wife to his nephew, then he deprived her of maintenance, then he was fiercely jealous ... However, Anna paid for her independence with her own reputation, from now on becoming “fallen” in the eyes of society.
The same Pushkin, not seeing an object of adoration in front of him, but at the same time, regularly receiving news about Anna's incredible popularity with other men (among her admirers was even Alexander's brother, Leo), became more and more disappointed in her. And when he met his beloved in St. Petersburg, and Kern, drunk from the freedom she had finally gained, gave herself to him, he sharply lost interest in the beauty.
The woman who inspired famous poet one of his major masterpieces, had a bad reputation
First fleeting meeting Anna Petrovna Kern and young poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, which had yet to earn the status of "the sun of Russian poetry", happened in 1819. At that time, the young beauty was 19 years old and she had been married for two years.
Unequal marriage
Down the aisle, a hereditary noblewoman, the daughter of a court councilor and a Poltava landowner, who belonged to an old Cossack family, Anna Poltoratskaya left at the age of 16. The father, whom the family unquestioningly obeyed, decided that the 52-year-old general would be the best match for his daughter. Ermolai Kern- it is believed that later his features will be reflected in the image of the prince gremina in Pushkin's Eugene Onegin».
The wedding took place in January 1817. To say that the young wife did not love her elderly husband is to say nothing. Apparently, she was disgusted with him on a physical level - but she was forced to portray a good wife, traveled with the general to the garrisons. At first.
In the diaries of Anna Kern, there are phrases that it is impossible to love her husband and that she “almost hates” him. In 1818 they had a daughter Katia. Anna Petrovna also could not love a child born from a person she hated - the girl was brought up in Smolny, and her mother took part in her upbringing to a minimum. Two of their other daughters died in childhood.
fleeting vision
A couple of years after the wedding, rumors began to circulate about the young wife of General Kern that she was cheating on her husband. Yes, and in the diaries of Anna herself, there are references to different men. In 1819, during a visit to St. Petersburg to his aunt, Kern first met Pushkin - at her aunt's. Olenina had its own salon, in their house on the Fontanka embankment there were many famous people.
But then the young 21-year-old rake and wit did not make a special impression on Anna - he even seemed rude, and Kern considered his compliments to her beauty flattering. As she later recalled, she was much more fascinated by the charades that Ivan Krylov, who was one of the regulars at the Olenins' evenings.
Everything changed six years later, when Alexander Pushkin and Anna Kern got an unexpected chance to get to know each other better. In the summer of 1825, she was visiting another aunt in the estate in the village of Trigorskoye near Mikhailovsky, where the poet was serving a link. Pushkin, who was bored, often visited Trigorskoye - it was there that the "fleeting vision" sunk into his heart.
At that time, Alexander Sergeevich was already widely known, Anna Petrovna was flattered by his attention - but she herself fell under the spell of Pushkin. In her diary, the woman wrote that she was “in awe” of him. And the poet realized that he had found a muse in Trigorsky - the meetings inspired him, in a letter to his cousin Anna, Anne Wolf, he reported that he was finally writing a lot of poetry.
It was in Trigorskoye that Alexander Sergeevich handed over to Anna Petrovna one of the chapters of "Eugene Onegin" with an enclosed sheet on which the famous lines were written: "I remember a wonderful moment ..."
At the last moment, the poet almost changed his mind - and when Kern wanted to put the sheet in the box, he suddenly grabbed the paper - and did not want to give it back for a long time. As Anna Petrovna recalled, she barely persuaded Pushkin to return it to her. Why the poet hesitated is a mystery. Perhaps he considered the verse not good enough, perhaps he realized that he overdid it with the expression of feelings, or maybe for some other reason? Actually, this is where the most romantic part of the relationship between Alexander Pushkin and Anna Kern ends.
After the departure of Anna Petrovna with her daughters to Riga, where her husband then served, they corresponded with Alexander Sergeevich for a long time. But the letters are more like light playful flirting than they speak of deep passion or the suffering of lovers in separation. Yes, and Pushkin himself, shortly after meeting Anna, wrote in one of his letters to her cousin Wulf that all this “looks like love, but, I swear to you, there is no mention of it.” Yes, and his “I beg you, divine, write to me, love me”, mixed with witty barbs towards an elderly husband and reasoning that pretty women should not have character, rather speaks of admiration for the muse than of physical passion .
The correspondence continued for about six months. Kern's letters have not been preserved, but Pushkin's letters have come down to posterity - Anna Petrovna took care of them very much and regretfully sold them at the end of her life (for a pittance), when she faced serious financial difficulties.
Whore of Babylon
In Riga, Kern started another romance - quite serious. And in 1827, her break with her husband was discussed by the entire secular society of St. Petersburg, where Anna Petrovna moved after that. She was accepted in society - largely due to the patronage of the emperor, but her reputation was damaged. However, the beauty, who had already begun to fade, seemed to spit on this - and continued to twist novels, sometimes - and several at the same time.
What is interesting - under the spell of Anna Petrovna fell younger brother Alexander Sergeevich a lion. And again - a poetic dedication. “How can you not go crazy, listening to you, admiring you ...” - these lines of his are dedicated to her. As for the "sun of Russian poetry", sometimes Anna and Alexander crossed paths in the salons.
But at that time, Pushkin already had other muses. “Our harlot Anna Petrovna of Babylon,” he casually mentions the woman who inspired him to create one of the best poetic works in a letter to a friend. And in one letter he even speaks about her and their once-existing connection rather rudely and cynically.
There is evidence that the last time Pushkin and Kern saw each other shortly before the death of the poet - he paid Kern a short visit, expressing condolences on the death of her mother. At that time, 36-year-old Anna Petrovna was already in love with a 16-year-old cadet and her second cousin Alexander Markov-Vinogradsky.
To the surprise of secular society, this strange connection did not stop quickly. Three years later, their son was born, and a year after the death of General Kern, in 1842, Anna and Alexander got married, and she took her husband's surname. Their marriage turned out to be surprisingly strong, neither regular gossip, nor poverty, which eventually became simply catastrophic, nor other trials could destroy it.
Anna Petrovna died in Moscow, where her already adult son moved her, in May 1879, having outlived her husband for four months and Alexander Pushkin for 42 years, thanks to whom she remained in the memory of her descendants still not a Babylonian harlot, but "a genius of pure beauty ".
The lines "I remember a wonderful moment ..." are familiar to many from school. It is believed that Anna Petrovna Kern, the wife of an elderly general, whom Pushkin met in St. Petersburg, became a “fleeting vision”, a “genius of pure beauty” for the poet.
"Irresistible Hate"
At that time, Anna was 19, and she had been married to the hero of the Napoleonic War Yermolai Kern for two years. Her husband was much older than her: the age difference was 35 years. After marriage, it was difficult for a 17-year-old bride to fall in love with a 52-year-old warrior, whom her relatives chose as her husband. In her diaries, an entry has been preserved in which she confesses the feelings that she had for her “narrowed one”: “It is impossible to love him - I have not even been given consolation to respect him; To be honest, I almost hate him."
It is believed that in the future it was Ermolai Fedorovich who served as the prototype for Prince Gremin in Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin".
In 1818, Anna gave birth to a daughter, Catherine, whose godson was Emperor Alexander I himself. The dislike that Kern felt for her husband, she involuntarily transferred to her daughter. Due to frequent quarrels with her husband, she almost did not take care of her upbringing. Later, the girl was sent to the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens, from which she graduated with honors in 1836.
In her diary, which Kern addressed to her friend Feodosia Poltoratskaya, she confessed to that “irresistible feeling” of hatred for her husband’s family, which does not allow her to feel tenderness for the baby:
“You know that this is not frivolity or caprice; I have told you before that I do 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 big. 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 by any effort. This is a confession! Forgive me, my angel!" she wrote.
Anna Kern. Pushkin's drawing. 1829 Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
By the way, fate has prepared many trials for Katerina Kern. She was the illegal lover of the composer Mikhail Glinka. Upon learning that she was carrying a child under her heart, the composer gave her "compensation" so that she would resolve the issue in relation to the unwanted child. Even after the divorce from his first wife, Glinka did not want to marry Catherine.
"Would you like to go to hell?"
Then, in 1819, Catherine was only a year old, and her young mother Anna Kern was already actively leading a secular life. Visiting her aunt Elizaveta Olenina, she met Alexander Pushkin.
In her memoirs, Anna Petrovna noted that at first she did not even notice the poet, but during the evening he repeatedly made advances in her direction, which were hard to miss. He showered compliments on French and asked provocative questions, including "does m-me Kern want to go to hell":
“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 ainsi 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, in hell there will be many nice ones, there will be charades to play in. 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?" - asked the brother. "Je me ravise (I changed my mind (fr.).), - answered the poet, - I don't want to go to hell, although there will be pretty women ...".
Their next meeting took place 6 years later. In her memoirs, Kern wrote that over the years she had heard about him from many people and read his works with rapture " Prisoner of the Caucasus», « Bakhchisarai fountain”, “Robbers”. In June 1825 they met in Trigorskoye. It was there that Pushkin wrote Kern famous poem-madrigal "K ***" ("I remember a wonderful moment ..."). Leaving for Riga, Anna Petrovna allowed the poet to write to her. Their letters in French have survived to this day.
In her memoirs, Kern wrote about Pushkin: “He was very uneven in his manner: sometimes noisily cheerful, sometimes sad, sometimes timid, sometimes impudent, sometimes endlessly amiable, sometimes tediously boring, and it was impossible to guess in what mood he would be through minute ... In general, it must be said that he did not know how to hide his feelings, he always expressed them sincerely and was indescribably good when something pleasant excited him ... "
"Our Whore of Babylon"
The poet, judging by his letters, treated the loving general's wife rather ironically. In letters to his friend Aleksei Vul'f, whom Kern was at one time infatuated with, he called her "our Babylonian harlot Anna Petrovna." When, in 1828, the poet managed to achieve intimacy with his muse, he did not hesitate to report this in a message to his friend Sergei Sobolevsky.
A. P. Kern in the 1840s. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
As a result, the "genius of pure beauty" was awarded only the second column of "Pushkin's Don Juan List", in which, according to experts, the women with whom he was only fascinated were named, nothing more.
After his marriage to Natalya Goncharova, their communication was reduced to a minimum. Once Kern turned to him with a request to show the publisher Alexander Smirdin her translation of the book by George Sand, to which the "genius of Russian poetry" reacted rudely.
“You sent me a note from M-me Kern; the fool has taken it into her head to translate Zand, and asks me to pair her with Smirdin. Damn them both! I instructed Anna Nikolaevna (Anna Wolf - a friend of the poet - approx.) to answer for me that if her translation is as true as she herself is the correct list with M-me Sand, then her success is undoubted ... "
In Anna's mind, however, it had a more romanticized connotation. In her memoirs, she described one of their last meetings, which took place after the death of her mother:
“When I had the misfortune to lose my mother and was in a very difficult situation, Pushkin came to me and, looking for my apartment, ran, with his characteristic liveliness, through all the neighboring yards, until he finally found me. On this visit, he used all his eloquence to console me, and I saw him the same as he had been before ... And in general he was so touchingly attentive that I forgot about my sadness and admired him as a genius of kindness.
"Looks like a Russian maid..."
A new stage in Anna's life began in 1836, when she began an affair with her second cousin, 16-year-old cadet Alexander Markov-Vinogradsky. The result of their passion was the birth of their son Alexander. Soon, in 1841, her lawful husband died, and Anna was able to connect her life with her young lover. Accustomed to living in abundance, Anna Petrovna was forced to lead a modest lifestyle.
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
Ivan Turgenev described his meeting with her years later: “I spent the evening with a certain Madame Vinogradskaya, with whom Pushkin had once been in love. He wrote in honor of her many poems, 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. She keeps the letters that Pushkin wrote to her like a shrine. She showed me a semi-faded pastel depicting her at 28 - white, blond, with a meek face, with naive grace, with amazing innocence in her eyes and smile ... she looks a bit like a Russian maid a la Parasha. If I were Pushkin, I would not write poetry to her ... "
Anna Kern was born on February 22, 1800 in the city of Orel. Her childhood was spent in county town Lubny in the Poltava province and in the family estate of Bernovo. Having received an excellent home education, having grown up in the French language and literature, Anna at the age of 17 was married against her will to the elderly General E. Kern. In this marriage, she was not happy, but she gave birth to three daughters to the general. She had to lead the life of a military wife, wandering around the military camps and garrisons where her husband was assigned.
Anna Kern entered Russian history thanks to the role she played in the life of the great poet A.S. Pushkin. They first met in 1819 in St. Petersburg, when Anna was visiting her aunt. Here, at a literary evening, the intelligent and educated beauty Kern attracted the attention of the poet. The meeting was short, but memorable for both. Pushkin was told that Anna was a fan of his poetry and spoke very flatteringly about him.
Their next meeting took place only a few years later in June 1825, when, on the way to Riga, Anna stopped by to visit the village of Trigorskoe, her aunt's estate. Pushkin was often a guest there, since it was a stone's throw from Mikhailovsky, where the poet "languished in exile." Then Anna struck him - Pushkin was delighted with the beauty and intelligence of Kern. Passionate love flared up in the poet, under the influence of which he wrote Anna his famous poem “I remember a wonderful moment ...”. He had a deep feeling for her for a long time and wrote a number of letters, remarkable in strength and beauty. This correspondence has an important biographical value.
Kern herself is the author of memoirs - "Memoirs of Pushkin", "Memoirs of Pushkin, Delvig and Glinka", "Three meetings with Emperor Alexander I", "One hundred years ago", "Diary". In subsequent years, Anna maintained friendly relations with the poet's family, as well as with many famous writers and composers. She was close to the family of Baron A. Delvig, to S. Sobolevsky, A. Illichevsky, M. Glinka, F. Tyutchev, I. Turgenev and others. However, after Pushkin's marriage and Delvig's death, the connection with this social circle was severed, although Anna had a good relationship with Pushkin's parents.
In the mid-1830s, she became close to the sixteen-year-old cadet Sasha Markov-Vinogradsky. This was the love that Kern had been searching for so long. She stopped appearing in society and began to lead a quiet family life.
In 1839, their son was born, and in the early 1840s, after the death of General Kern, their wedding took place. Having married a young cadet, Anna went against the will of her father, for which he deprived her of all material support. In this regard, the Markov-Vinogradskys settled in the countryside and led a very meager life. But, despite the difficulties, their union remained unbreakable, and all the years they were happy.
In January 1879, Alexander died, Anna survived her beloved husband by only four months.
Anna Petrovna Kern died on June 8, 1879 in Moscow. She was buried in the village of Prutnya near Torzhok, which is halfway between Moscow and St. Petersburg - the rains washed out the road and did not allow the coffin to be delivered to the cemetery "to her husband", as she bequeathed.
...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". Over a basket of flowers, just like a flower - tender female face 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 quite, 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 - pure 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, Queen Louise of Prussia, 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. 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 Katya, 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.
Describing his behavior, she pleads with a relative:
"After this, who will dare to assert that happiness in marriage is possible without deep affection for your chosen one? My suffering is terrible."
union and, of course, will not wish my death, but in such a life as mine, I will certainly die. "..."... my parents, seeing that even at the moment when he marries their daughter, he cannot forget his mistress, allowed this to happen, and I was sacrificed."Inevitably, a riot was brewing. As Anna Petrovna herself believed, she had a choice only between death and freedom. When she chose the latter and left her husband, her position in society turned out to be false. Since 1827, she actually lived in St. Petersburg with her sister in the position of a kind of "straw widow".
... And shortly before that, she came to visit Trigorskoye, to her aunt Praskovya Alexandrovna Osipova, with whom she was very friendly, and whose daughter - also Anna - was her constant and sincere friend. And not long before that, she was visiting her friend-neighbor, the landowner Rodzianko, and together with him wrote a letter to Pushkin, to which he vividly responded: "Explain to me, dear, what is A.P. Kern, who wrote a lot of tenderness about me to your cousin? They say she's a pretty thing - but glorious Lubny is beyond the mountains. Just in case, knowing your amorousness and extraordinary talents in every respect, I suppose your work is done or half done. Congratulations, my dear: write an elegy on this, or at least an epigram ". And then he writes jokingly:
"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 the departure, Kern, together with her aunt and cousin, 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."
There is still debate about whether this poem is really dedicated to Anna - so much the nature of their relationship with the poet and his subsequent very impartial reviews about her do not correspond to the highly romantic tone of admiration for the Ideal, the Genius Pure Beauty- but in any case, this masterpiece in the subsequent reader's perception is associated ONLY with her.
And the outburst of the poet, when he grabbed the gift, was most likely associated with an outburst of jealousy - his happy rival turned out to be his friend and Anna's cousin - Alexei Wulf, 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 rather 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."
“You assure me that I don’t know your character. What do I care about him? I really need him - do pretty women have to have a character? The main thing is eyes, teeth, arms and legs ... How is your husband doing? I hope "He had a major attack of gout the day after your arrival? If you knew what disgust... I feel for this man!... I beg you, divine, write to me, love me"... "... I love you more than you think ... You will come? - won't you? - and until then, do not decide anything about your husband. Finally, be sure that I am not one of those who will never advise decisive measures - sometimes it is inevitable, but first you need to think carefully and not create a scandal unnecessarily. It is night now, and your image rises before me, so sad and voluptuous: it seems to me that I see ... your half-open lips ... to me it seems that I am at your feet, I squeeze them, I feel your knees - I would give my whole life for a moment of reality.
He is like a timid, naive young man, realizing that he did something wrong, trying in vain to return the moments of missed opportunities. Poetry and real life, alas, did not intersect ...
At that moment, 
in July in Mikhailovsky (or Trigorsky) their thoughts did not coincide, he did not guess the moods of an earthly real woman who for a moment escaped from the bosom of her family to freedom, but Alexei Wulf caught these moods ...
... Pushkin understood this - later. Self-esteem - a poet, a man - was wounded. 
In a letter to her aunt, he writes: "But still the thought that I mean nothing to her<(курсив мой>that, having occupied her imagination for a moment, I only gave food to her cheerful curiosity - the thought that the recollection of me will not overtake her absent-mindedness in the midst of her triumphs and will not darken stronger face her in sad moments - that her beautiful eyes would stop at some Riga veil with the same piercing and voluptuous expression - oh, this thought is unbearable for me ... Tell her that I will die from this ... no, better do not speak, otherwise this delightful creature will laugh at me. But tell her that if there is no hidden tenderness for me in her heart, if there is no mysterious and melancholy attraction in it, then I despise her - you hear - I despise, not paying attention to the surprise that such an unprecedented feeling will cause in her. .
The poet is offended, angry, caustic - the beauty is impregnable - or rather, she is available to everyone except him. Wulf follows her from Trigorsky to Riga - and their stormy romance unfolds there. By modern standards, such a relationship is incest, but then marrying cousins was in the order of things, respectively, and having them as mistresses. However, Anna nowhere and never uttered the word "I love" in relation to Pushkin - although to flirt with famous poet she was certainly pleased.
In 1827, she finally separated from her husband for good, broke free from the prison confinement of her disgusted marriage and, probably, experienced an upsurge of feelings, an unquenched thirst for love, which made her irresistible.
Anna's appearance, apparently, does not convey any of her known portraits, and yet she was a universally recognized beauty. And in St. Petersburg, “in freedom”, she blooms incredibly. She captivates with sensual charm, which is beautifully conveyed in the enthusiastic poem of the poet A. I. Podolinsky “Portrait”, written by her in an album in 1828::
"When, slender 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-haired,
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."
On May 22, 1827, after being released from exile, Pushkin returned to St. Petersburg, where, as A.P. Kern writes, they met every day in his parents' house on the Fontanka embankment. Soon, Anna Kern's father and sister left, and she began to rent a small apartment in the house where Pushkin's friend, the poet Baron Delvig, lived with his wife. On this occasion, Kern recalls that "once, introducing his wife to one family, Delvig joked:" This is my wife, "and then, pointing to me:" And this is the second.
She became very friendly with Pushkin's relatives and with the Delvig family, and, thanks to Pushkin and Delvig, she entered the circle of people who make up the color of the nation, with whom her living subtle soul always dreamed of communicating: Zhukovsky, Krylov, Vyazemsky, Glinka, Mickevich, Pletnev, Venevitinov , Gnedich, Podolinsky, Illichevsky, Nikitenko.
Anna Petrovna played her part in introducing the young Sophia Delvig, with whom she became very friendly, to gallant amusements. Pushkin's mother Nadezhda Osipovna called these two ladies "inseparable". Delvig's brother Andrey, who at that time lived in the poet's house, frankly disliked Kern, believing that she "wants to quarrel with Delvig with his wife for an incomprehensible purpose."
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: 
... And at the same time, Pushkin finally has the opportunity to take a "gallant revenge." In 1828, in February, a year and a half after writing the lines "I remember a wonderful moment," Pushkin bragged 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 loved woman, because he experienced the strongest complex due to the fact that he had not been able to get this closeness 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 will write to Alexei Vulf with sarcasm: "What does Whore of Babylon Anna Petrovna?" But 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 ... "
The young man for the sake of love lost everything at once: a predetermined future, material well-being, a career, the location of his relatives. This was the love that Anna Kern had been looking for for so long. In 1839, their son Alexander was born, to whom Anna Petrovna gave all her unspent maternal tenderness. In 1841, Anna Kern's husband, General Ermolai Fedorovich Kern, died at the age of seventy-six, and a year later Anna Petrovna formally married A.V. Markov-Vinogradsky and becomes Anna Petrovna Markova-Vinogradskaya, honestly refuses a decent pension assigned to her for the deceased General Kern, from the title of "Excellency" and from the material support of her father.
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 more than ten years later. 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 in honor of her many poems, 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. She keeps the letters that Pushkin wrote to her like a shrine. She showed me a semi-faded pastel depicting her at the age of 28 - 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 for 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. died. 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 to Moscow), at the age of seventy-nine, she completed her life path and Anna Petrovna Markova-Vinogradskaya (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 ...
Uncle Vanya the plot of the play. "Uncle Ivan. Attitude towards the professor of others
Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober
Maikov, Apollon Nikolaevich - short biography