GAYDEBUROV Pavel Pavlovich 15(27).2.1877 – 4.3.1960Artist, poet, theater critic, entrepreneur, creator and director of the “Public Theatre” (together with N. Skarskaya). Numerous roles in plays by Pushkin, Gogol, A. Ostrovsky, L. Tolstoy, Chekhov, M. Gorky, Moliere,

DYAGILEV Sergei Pavlovich 19(31).3.1872 – 19.8.1929Theatrical and artistic figure, one of the founders and editors of the magazine “World of Art”. Organizer of the “Russian Seasons” in Paris. “Elegant, not quite, but almost a “master”, with an admixture of something else, with a heavy and rather

ZONOV Arkady Pavlovich 1878 (?) – July 25, 1922 Dramatic actor, director. On stage since 1898. Since 1902 - director in the troupe of Meyerhold and Kosheverov in Kherson, in 1907–1908 - director of the troupe of F. Komissarzhevsky, the Mobile Theater of P. Gaideburov, since 1914 - in the theater. V. Komissarzhevskaya in Moscow.

IVANOV Evgeniy Pavlovich 7(19).12.1879 – 5.1.1942 Publicist, children's writer, memoirist. Publications in magazines " New way", "Questions of Life", "World of Art", in the newspapers "Country", "Morning Dawn", in the children's magazine "Tropinka". Book of stories “In the forest and at home” (M., 1915). Author

CHEKHOV Anton Pavlovich 17(29).1.1860– 2(15).7.1904 Prose writer, playwright. Publications in the magazines “Alarm Clock”, “Northern Herald”, “Russian Thought”, “Oskolki”, in the newspapers “Dragonfly”, “New Time”, etc. Collections of stories “Motley Stories” (M., 1886), “Innocent Speeches” "(M., 1887), "At Twilight" (M., 1887),

YUTANOV Vladimir Pavlovich 1876–1950Writer, translator, editor-publisher of the almanac “Flashes.” “Vladimir Pavlovich Yutanov, having married a Zamoskvoretsk merchant’s wife in his youth, received a house as a dowry. This was one of the strangest and most amazing homeowners in Moscow. In the house,

Yuri Pavlovich Annenkov was an exceptionally talented artist, writer and generally a prominent figure in the Russian avant-garde of the early 20th century. In 1924, he left Russia and settled in France, but before that he illustrated many books and magazines published in revolutionary Petrograd. One of his works was the design famous poem Alexander Blok’s “The Twelve,” and after publication Annenkov and Blok became friends.

Mid-autumn 1919 in Petrograd turned out to be cold and hungry. In fact, Petrograd was under siege, and there was a curfew, which was dangerous to violate - the city was constantly patrolled, and all the more or less suspicious citizens who did not have the appropriate document were detained and taken to the police station to find out their identity.

Once Yuri Annenkov invited Alexander Blok and several other friends to his place. He invited him for a reason - one of his acquaintances presented Yuri Pavlovich with a whole bucket of potatoes, a huge wealth at that time. While the potatoes were boiling, the guests were arguing about possible directions Soviet art, hidden reserves cubism and new styles of poetry. No one wanted to talk about the war and its possible outcome.

When the guests had dinner and were about to leave, it turned out that the curfew had already arrived. No one wanted to take risks, and Annenkov offered to spend the night with him.

By that time, Blok had dozed off right at the table, and the others began to slowly settle down for the night - some in a chair, some on the sofa, and some on the floor. However, an unpleasant surprise awaited Yuri Annenkov's guests. Either the smell of boiled potatoes irritated one of the neighbors, or some vigilant comrade was completely sincere in his impulse - but the Cheka reported about the artist’s late guests. The time was such that such a signal about the gathering of intelligent people in one place and a possible conspiracy was checked without fail. And in the middle of the night, three armed and leather-clad men rang the doorbell of Annenkov’s apartment.

What's happened? - Yuri Pavlovich asked, opening the door and rubbing his sleepy eyes.

“Nothing yet,” one of the security officers answered meaningfully. - Is your apartment?

Yes... I am Yuri Pavlovich Annenkov.

Okay, Yuri Pavlovich. Are there strangers in the apartment?

Yes. - Annenkov’s dream vanished. - We sat here... We discussed the publication of new books and my illustrations. I'm an artist... And then there's a curfew...

Well... - the security officer nodded. - We will check both you and your guests. Show your documents.

Almost everyone in the apartment woke up and began rummaging through their pockets in search of documents. Only Blok snored sweetly, resting his face with both hands.

What kind of sleeping citizen is this? - one of the security officers asked sternly.

This is Alexander Blok,” Annenkov answered. - I’ll wake you up now...

Stop! - the security officer became interested. - Isn’t that Blok... what’s his name?

The security officer thought for a moment, frowned, and then suddenly quoted:

- “In the evening above the restaurant... the hot air is quiet and dull...”

Yes! - Annenkov agreed in surprise with the original interpretation of “The Stranger”. - That’s almost exactly what Alexander Blok wrote... He’s the one.

Well, this is a poet! - the security officer said meaningfully. - Don't wake him. To hell with the check, keep sleeping...

And the authorities left the apartment with all possible caution. Annenkov bowed from the waist to the sleeping Blok and said:

A true poet! Even the security officers know him! Almost…

Annenkov Pavel Vasilievich, literary critic, memoirist, born 19.VI (1.VII). 1813 in Moscow in the family of a Simbirsk landowner of average income. Died 8(20). III. 1887 in Dresden.

He studied at the St. Petersburg Mining Institute until special classes, then was a volunteer student at the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University.

In 1833 he began serving in the office of the Ministry of Finance as a collegiate secretary, but decided to leave the service.

From October 1840 to March 1843, Pavel Vasilyevich spent abroad, visiting Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and France. It was on this trip in the summer in Rome that Annenkov, under Gogol’s dictation, copied out the first volume of “ Dead souls" His “Letters from Abroad” sent from the road were published in Otechestvennye Zapiski. Along with describing the beauties and sights of Venice, Rome, Naples, Paris, and art galleries, Annenkov casually made lively sketches of university life in Germany (lectures by Schelling, Werder), magazine fight in France, the debuts of the left-socialist (“Independent Review”), published by P. Leroux, J. Said and L. Viardot, the first successes of the essays, naturalistic “Physiology”, the excitement caused by the release of the novel by E. Xu “ Parisian secrets" But Annenkov’s views are still very confused, relative, and not settled.

From 1843-45 Annenkov P.V. lived in St. Petersburg. He became close to Belinsky (they had known each other since 1839), his entourage, and the editors of Otechestvennye zapiski. Annenkov now more clearly imagined the range of spiritual interests of Russian progressive people. He himself informed them about the books of Feuerbach, Leroux, and Cabet. Later, in memoir essays:

"Idealists of the thirties"

“A wonderful decade. 1838-1848,” Annenkov reproduced with encyclopedic completeness the atmosphere of passionate philosophical, political and moral quest Belinsky, Herzen, Ogarev, stages of the struggle around Gogol and the “natural school”, the battle between Westerners and Slavophiles. In his memoirs, Pavel Vasilyevich painted portraits of many contemporaries with whom he maintained contacts and correspondence (M. Bakunin, N. Gogol, V. Botkin, P. Kudryavtsev, etc.).

In the summer of 1847, he accompanied the sick Belinsky on a trip abroad (Salzbrunn, Paris) and witnessed the critic’s creation of the famous “Letter to Gogol.” There are precious pages about this in Annenkov’s memoirs. In the 40s he fully defined himself as a liberal-Westernist, a supporter of the Gogolian trend in literature.

At the beginning of 1846, Pavel Vasilyevich again traveled abroad, mainly living in Paris. In 1846-1847, Sovremennik published his “Paris Letters,” conveying the excited life in France. Pavel Vasilyevich gives apt characteristics of the leaders of that time, the propagandist of Christian socialism P. Leroux, the “restless” utopian communist E. Cabet, the bosses of the liberal-bourgeois press, such as Emile Girardin, talks about the literary and commercial litigation of A. Dumas, about popular lectures at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France, in particular about the lectures of Philaret Chals, about Proudhon’s noisy denunciations of property as “theft”, this foundation of the exploitative society that led to the persecution of the author of the “Philosophy of Poverty”, about the successes of the positivist philosophy of O. Comte, about the novels of J. Sand, about the crowds on the Parisian streets and boulevards, as if waiting for some kind of explosion.

In March - April 1846 in Brussels, he met K. Marx, entered into correspondence with him regarding the views of Proudhon, which continued until the end of 1847. Despite Marx’s profound explanations of Proudhon’s abstract-dogmatic approach to the criticism of bourgeois property, Pavel Vasilyevich remained with his superficial assessing the success of Proudhon's book. A.'s circle of interests and acquaintances (Leroux, Proudhon, Lelevel, Heine, etc.) expanded unusually.

The French Revolution, especially independent performance of the Parisian proletariat in June 1848, greatly frightened Annenkov, a witness to these events.

In September 1848, Annenkov returned to Russia recovered, having largely lost interest in topical theoretical and political problems.

In 1849-53, he retired to his Simbirsk estate, was engaged in household affairs, and recorded his everyday, ethnographic observations (see “Letters from the Province”, “Contemporary”, 1849-51).

Annenkov's literary interests at this time were limited to preparing the publication of Pushkin's Works and collecting primary sources for his biography.

In 1855-57, the “Annenkovsky” edition of the poet’s Works, which became famous for the wealth of documents involved and the textual work done, was published, and especially the “Materials...” for his biography, which amounted to an entire volume. Pushkin was a favorite topic of Annenkov, a literary historian. He was attracted to the “harmonious” genius of the poet, whom Annenkov increasingly began to regard as the “eternal” standard of “pure” artistry. He wrote another book - “A. S. Pushkin in the Alexander era" (1874), the article "The Social Ideals of A. S. Pushkin" (1880), in which the freedom-loving motives of the poet’s work turned out to be somewhat muted

Towards the end of the “terrible seven years”, especially after the death of Nicholas I, Pavel Vasilyevich began to act as a literary critic.

In the 50s Annenkov entered the “aesthetic triumvirate” (Druzhinin, Botkin), began to lean toward the theory of “pure art,” polemicize with Chernyshevsky, and condemn the “tendentiousness” of his aesthetics. At the beginning of his critical activity he published in Sovremennik (1849-55), then broke with him and moved to Druzhinin’s “Library for Reading”, Katkov’s “Russian Messenger”. Published in the St. Petersburg Gazette.

Since the late 60s. Annenkov was published in Stasyulevich’s moderate “Bulletin of Europe”.

In the first era revolutionary situation in Russia, Annenkov is a typical representative of a half-hearted, conciliatory liberal party. He welcomed the reform of 1861 (letters to Turgenev dated March 6 and 25 - “The next day” and “Three weeks later”). The friendly relations with the emigrants Herzen and Ogarev, which were renewed in 1856-61, were interrupted as soon as the publishers of the Bell took a critical, condemning position in relation to the tsarist reform. In "Russian Bulletin" Annenkov published a tendentious article "February - March in Paris 1848" and the reactionary-chauvinist “Letter from Kyiv” (1862). He reconsiders from a liberal perspective historical events in France as a bad precedent, although retrospectively it characterizes the struggle of the parties of that time more fully than in the “Paris Letters”.

The most important literary critical articles by Pavel Vasilyevich are as follows: “Notes on Russian literature of 1848” (the first review of literature in Sovremennik after the death of Belinsky, as if supporting his traditions). A clear revision of the great teacher’s precepts was clearly outlined in the article “Old and New Criticism” (its original title was “On the Significance of a Work of Art for Society,” 1856). It was also outlined in the article “Novels and Stories from Common People’s Life in 1853” (1854). Analyzing Grigorovich’s novel “Fishermen” and Pisemsky’s stories “Leshy” and “Piterschik”, he abandons the criteria of the “natural school”; he is attracted not by the democratic hero, but by the form of the story; he allows the depiction of conflicts only on condition of their subsequent reconciliation.

In the article “The Literary Type of a Weak Man” (1858), containing an assessment of Turgenev’s story “Asya,” the critic enters into an open polemic with Chernyshevsky as the author of the article “Russian man on rendezvous” (1858), Annenkov defends the soft-bodied liberal intellectual and even proclaims the motto : Russia does not need a “heroic element”. He preferred the quiet prosperity of the order that was strengthening in Russia after the reform. He considered Kalinovich from “A Thousand Souls” by Pisemsky and Potugin from “Smoke” by Turgenev (articles “Business Romance in Our Literature,” 1859, and “Russian Modern History in I. S. Turgenev’s Novel “Smoke,” 1867) to be heroes of the time. Pavel Vasilyevich wondered why Shchedrin still returned to criticism of serfdom, looking for its traces in the present (“Russian fiction and Mr. Shchedrin”, 1863). Annenkov’s obvious miscalculation was his critical attacks on the shortcomings of “romantic development”, the transmission of the “spirit of the times”, historical and everyday truth in Tolstoy’s epic “War and Peace” (“Historical and aesthetic issues in L. N. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” , 1868). A. clearly judges from the standpoint of a traditional novel and does not understand Tolstoy’s profound innovation.

But one should not completely identify Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov with other theorists of “pure art”. As part of the “triumvirate” he occupied somewhat special positions. Unlike Botkin and especially Druzhinin, Annenkov passed good school dialectical training. His research thinking did not follow a top-down line. He calmly and calmly, with only a few deviations, served the principles that he had developed in the 40s and 50s. It is not for nothing that at the end of his life he was attracted by the “wonderful decade” in Russian social development. He never parted with socio-historical criteria in art, no matter how moderate in politically neither were they. He continued to pose “moral” questions to literature and remained sensitive to realistic quests. It was A. who first introduced the term “realism”, albeit in a somewhat limited interpretation, as a reflection of everyday truth (Sovremennik, 1849, No. 1). Annenkov was interested benchmarking various realistic techniques, he conducted a subtle analysis of the work of Turgenev and Tolstoy in an article originally entitled “On Thought in Works of Fine Literature” (1854), later entitled “Characteristics: I. S. Turgenev and L. N. Tolstoy.” He defended Ostrovsky’s “The Thunderstorm” from the attacks of “New Time” and noticed characteristic details in Pomyalovsky’s work. But he made especially many valuable observations on the works of Turgenev, the general civic and aesthetic orientation of which deeply impressed Pavel Vasilyevich.

Poor health forced Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov from the mid-60s. live abroad with my family for a long time. He visited Russia only on short visits. He began to “lag behind” the ideological and political demands of the “nihilistic”, raznochinsky stage liberation struggle, did not agree with them. His main occupation is memoirs, which he began writing back in the 50s. The central figures in his memoirs were Gogol, Belinsky and Turgenev. His most valuable memoirs are the following:

"N. V. Gogol in Rome in the summer of 1841" (1857),

"A Wonderful Decade" (1880),

“The Youth of I. S. Turgenev” (1884),

“Six years of correspondence with I. S. Turgenev” (1885).

The memoirist Annenkov also developed many other topics: the sketch “Idealists of the Thirties” (1883) talks about the friendship and early ideological quests of Herzen and Ogarev, whose names were forbidden to be mentioned in Russia at that time. An entire monograph, although somewhat idealizing in nature, is dedicated to N.V. Stankevich (1857). In terms of the depth of penetration into the psychology of the writer’s creativity, strong and weak sides his work, the memoirs of Annenkov P.V. are remarkable. about A.F. Pisemsky “The Artist and the Common Man”, 1882.

The fate of the poet Inokenty Fedorovich Annensky (1855-1909) is unique in its kind. He published his first poetry collection(and the only one during his lifetime) at the age of 49 under the pseudonym Nick. That.

The poet was initially going to title the book “From the Cave of Polyphemus” and choose the pseudonym Utis, which means “nobody” in Greek (this is how Odysseus introduced himself to the Cyclops Polyphemus). Later the collection was called "Quiet Songs". Alexander Blok, who did not know who the author of the book was, considered such anonymity questionable. He wrote that the poet seemed to be burying his face under a mask, which made him get lost among many books. Perhaps, in this modest confusion we should look for an overly “painful tear”?

Origin of the poet, early years

The future poet was born in Omsk. His parents (see photo below) soon moved to St. Petersburg. Innokenty Annensky reported in his autobiography that he spent his childhood in an environment in which landowner and bureaucratic elements were combined. He is with youth He loved to study literature and history, and felt antipathy to everything banal, clear and elementary.

First poems

Innokenty Annensky began writing poetry quite early. Since the concept of "symbolism" was still unknown to him in the 1870s, he considered himself a mystic. Annensky was attracted to the “religious genre” of B. E. Murillo, a 17th-century Spanish artist. He tried to “formulate this genre in words.”

The young poet, following the advice of his older brother, who was a famous publicist and economist (N.F. Annensky), decided that he should not publish before the age of 30. Therefore, his poetic experiments were not intended for publication. Innokenty Annensky wrote poems in order to hone his skills and declare himself as a mature poet.

University studies

The study of antiquity and ancient languages ​​during university years replaced writing for a time. As Innokenty Annensky admitted, during these years he wrote nothing but dissertations. “Pedagogical-administrative” activities began after university. According to fellow antique scholars, she distracted Innokenty Fedorovich from his scientific studies. And those who sympathized with his poetry believed that it interfered with creativity.

Debut as a critic

Innokenty Annensky made his debut in print as a critic. He published in the 1880-1890s whole line articles devoted mainly to Russian literature of the 19th century. The first “Book of Reflections” appeared in 1906, and the second in 1909. This is a collection of criticism, which is distinguished by impressionistic perception, Wildean subjectivism and associative-figurative moods. Innokenty Fedorovich emphasized that he was only a reader, and not a critic at all.

Translations of French poets

Annensky the poet considered the French symbolists to be his forerunners, whom he willingly and widely translated. In addition to enriching the language, he also saw their merit in increasing aesthetic sensitivity, in the fact that they increased the scale of artistic sensations. A significant section of Annensky’s first collection of poems consisted of translations French poets. Of the Russians, the closest to Innokenty Fedorovich was K. D. Balmont, who aroused awe in the author of “Quiet Songs.” Annensky highly valued the musicality and “new flexibility” of his poetic language.

Publications in the symbolist press

Innokenty Annensky led a rather solitary literary life. During the period of onslaught and storm, he did not defend the right to the existence of “new” art. Annensky did not participate in further intra-Symbolist disputes.

The first publications of Innokenty Fedorovich in the symbolist press date back to 1906 (the magazine "Pereval"). In fact, his entry into the Symbolist environment took place only in Last year life.

Last years

The critic and poet Innokenty Annensky gave lectures at the Poetry Academy. He was also a member of the “Society of Admirers of the Artistic Word,” which operated under the Apollo magazine. On the pages of this magazine, Annensky published an article that can be called programmatic - “On modern lyricism.”

Posthumous cult, "Cypress Casket"

His sudden death caused a wide resonance in Symbolist circles. Innokenty Annensky died near the Tsarskoye Selo station. His biography has ended, however creative destiny received after death further development. Among young poets close to “Apollo” (mostly of an Acmeist orientation, who reproached the Symbolists for not paying attention to Annensky), his posthumous cult began to take shape. 4 months after the death of Innokenty Fedorovich, the second collection of his poems was published. The poet's son, V. I. Annensky-Krivich, who became his biographer, commentator and editor, completed the preparation of the "Cypress Casket" (the collection was so named because Annensky's manuscripts were kept in a cypress box). There is reason to believe that he did not always follow his father’s author’s will punctually.

Innokenty Annensky, whose poems were not very popular during his lifetime, gained well-deserved fame with the release of The Cypress Casket. Blok wrote that this book penetrates deep into the heart and explains to him a lot about himself. Bryusov, who had previously paid attention to the “freshness” of phrases, comparisons, epithets and even just words that were chosen in the collection “Quiet Songs,” noted as an undoubted advantage the inability to guess Innokenty Fedorovich’s next two stanzas from the first two verses and the end works at its beginning. In 1923, Krivich published the remaining texts of the poet in a collection entitled “Posthumous Poems of In. Annensky”.

Originality

His lyrical hero is a man who solves the “hateful puzzle of existence.” Annensky thoroughly analyzes the “I” of a person, which would like to be the whole world, to spread out, to dissolve in it, and which is tormented by the consciousness of the inevitable end, hopeless loneliness and aimless existence.

“Cunning irony” gives Annensky’s poems a unique uniqueness. According to V. Bryusov, she became the second person of Innokenty Fedorovich as a poet. The writing style of the author of "The Cypress Casket" and "Quiet Songs" is sharply impressionistic. Annensky called it associative symbolism; he believed that poetry does not depict. It only hints to the reader what cannot be expressed in words.

Today, the work of Inokenty Fedorovich has received well-deserved fame. IN school curriculum included such a poet as Innokenty Annensky. “Among the Worlds,” which schoolchildren are asked to analyze, is perhaps his most famous poem. Let us also note that in addition to poetry, he wrote four plays in the spirit of Euripides based on the plots of his lost tragedies.

Pavel Annenkov

LIFE AND WORKS OF PUSHKIN

The best biography of a poet

Ancestors and relatives. The era of birth. 799–1811

Boyar Pushkin, Hannibals. - Father and mother. - Nanny Arina Rodionovna. - Poem “Friend of my harsh days...”. - Zakharovo. Vyazyomo. - Poem “I see my village...” - The character of the father, S. L. Pushkin. - Uncle V.L. Pushkin. - The play “The Journey of V. L. Pushkin” and I. I. Dmitriev.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was born in Moscow, in 1799, on May 26, Thursday, the day of the Ascension of the Lord, on Molchanovka.

His mother, as you know, was from the Hannibal family. Common features The genealogy of the Pushkins and Hannibals was conveyed by Alexander Sergeevich himself in his “Notes”. You can only add a few notes to them. Of all his ancestors, the Pushkins, Alexander Sergeevich especially respected the boyar Grigory Gavrilovich Pushkin, who served under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich as ambassador to Poland, with the title of Nizhny Novgorod governor, and died in 1656. Alexander Sergeevich descended from him in a direct line and in his honor gave his youngest son the name Gregory. Of his ancestors, the Hannibals, A.S. Pushkin often mentions the ancestor of this family, the black man Abram Petrovich. We will also see that Pushkin dedicated several excellent lyrical stanzas to the memory of his famous son, Lieutenant General Ivan Abramovich Hannibal, famous for the founding of Kherson, where a monument was erected to him, and the first Battle of Navarino, in which he was a participant and hero. This Hannibal, who died in St. Petersburg at the beginning of this century, played important role in your family. He was the benefactor of Alexander Sergeevich’s grandmother, Marya Alekseevna Hannibal, née Pushkina, in that difficult and romantic era of her life, when her husband, Osip Abramovich Hannibal, during her lifetime, married Ustinya Ermolaevna T[olstoy], having forged a false death certificate his wife. Marya Alekseevna found herself a protector in her husband’s brother, Ivan Abramovich. His influence dissolved the illegal marriage, gave her a young daughter, Nadezhda Osipovna, the mother of our poet, and gave her possession of one of her husband’s ancestral villages - Kobrino, 60 versts from St. Petersburg. The same village of Mikhailovskoye, where Alexander Sergeevich spent two years of secluded life, was assigned the permanent residence of his grandfather, Osip Abramovich. He died there in 1806. Death united the warring spouses in the cemetery of the Svyatogorsk Assumption Monastery, which lies not far from Mikhailovsky, where, as is known, their grandson is also buried. In close proximity to St. Petersburg, Marya Alekseevna Hannibal, together with her daughter, often visited the capital. The poet's father, Sergei Lvovich, then served in the Izmailovsky regiment. His and Nadezhda Osipovna’s wedding probably took place in St. Petersburg, because their first-born, daughter Olga Sergeevna, was born in 1798 precisely while Sergei Lvovich was still in the service in St. Petersburg. The family's benefactor and Nadezhda Osipovna's guardian, Lieutenant General Ivan Abramovich Hannibal, was then the baby's adoptive father. He still lived to see the birth of Alexander Sergeevich (the death of this famous sailor dates back to 1800), but he no longer saw him. In 1798, Sergei Lvovich retired; the next year, 1799, Marya Alekseevna sold the village of Kobrino, and the entire Pushkin family moved to Moscow, where, with the money raised from the sale of the estate, Marya Alekseevna acquired the village of Zakharyino, about forty miles from Moscow. On May 26, as we said, our poet was born there, and Count Artemy Ivanovich Vorontsov was his successor. When selling the St. Petersburg estate, the common nanny of all the young Pushkins, the famous Arina Rodionovna, recorded according to Kobrin, received a vacation pay along with her two sons and two daughters, but did not want to take advantage of her freedom. When selling (1811) Zakharyin, or Zakharov, as Alexander Sergeevich himself simply called him, she rejected the offer to buy out the family of one of her daughters, Marya, who married a peasant in Zakharov, saying: “I was a peasant myself, so free for that!” » Assigned first to the poet's sister, then to him and, finally, to his brother, Rodionovna nursed the entire new generation of this family. Everyone knows what a touching relationship the second of her pets, who glorified her name in Rus', had with her.

Rodionovna belonged to the typical and noblest persons of the Russian world. The combination of good nature and grumpiness, a tender disposition towards youth with feigned severity left an indelible memory in Pushkin’s heart. He loved her with a kindred, unchanging love, and in the years of maturity and glory he talked with her for hours at a time. This is also explained by another important advantage of Arina Rodionovna: the entire fabulous Russian world was known to her as briefly as possible, and she conveyed it in an extremely original way. Sayings, proverbs, sayings did not leave her tongue. Most folk epics and songs that Pushkin knew so much, he heard from Arina Rodionovna. It can be said with confidence that he owes his first acquaintance with the sources to his nanny folk poetry and her impressions, which, however, as we will soon see, were noticeably weakened by subsequent upbringing.

Among the letters to Pushkin, from almost all the celebrities of Russian society, there are also notes from the old nanny, which he treasured along with the first. This is what she wrote around 1826. The thought and the very form of the thought apparently belong to Arina Rodionovna, although she borrowed a hand to present them.

“My dear friend Alexander Sergeevich, I received the letter and money that you sent me. For all your mercies, I am grateful to you with all my heart - you are constantly in my heart and on my mind, and only when I fall asleep do I forget you. Come, my angel, to us in Mikhailovskoye - I’ll put all the horses on the road. I will wait for you and pray to God that he will let us meet. Farewell, my father Alexander Sergeevich. For your health, I took out the bread and served a prayer service - have a good time, my friend, - will fall in love himself. I, thank God, am healthy - I kiss your hands and remain your much-loving nanny Arina Rodionovna (Trigorskoye, March 6).” What a wonderful response to this letter is the unpublished passage from Pushkin, which we present here:

Friend of my harsh days,
My decrepit dove!
Alone in the wilderness of pine forests
You've been waiting for me for a long, long time.
You are under the window of your little room
You're grieving like you're on a clock,
And the knitting needles hesitate every minute
In your wrinkled hands.
You look through the forgotten gates
On the black, distant path:
Melancholy, premonition, worries
They squeeze your chest all the time.
It seems to you...

The venerable old lady died in 1828, at the age of 70, in the house of her pet, Olga Sergeevna Pavlishcheva.