Segur, Sofya Fedorovna

Russia

The third child of the Moscow governor Rostopchin and Countess Ekaterina Rostopchina , nee Protasova. Baptized on August 9, 1799 in the Winter Palace ; her godmother is Paul I. Sophia's father fell out of favor at the court in 1801 and was sent into exile in the Moscow estate of Voronovo 3 weeks before the assassination of the tsar ; the family moved to the huge Voronovo estate near Moscow, where the childhood of the future writer passed. Children received an extremely harsh upbringing, as Sophia's sister Natalya Naryshkina wrote in her memoirs ^[1] : they were categorically forbidden to drink between meals even in the hottest weather and used corporal punishment. During the reign of Alexander I, the position of Rostopchin became even more complicated, however, in 1809 the emperor, faced with political difficulties, returned him to the court again and in 1812 appointed him the Moscow Governor-General. In May 1812 , the family moved to Moscow ; Sophia lives in the palace acquired by her father on Bolshaya Lubyanka , as well as in the palace in Sokolniki . During World War II, the family first takes refuge in Sergiev Posad , and then in Yaroslavl ; in November they return to Moscow, then go to St. Petersburg; the family spends the summer of 1815 in Tsarskoye Selo . Voronovo becomes Sophia Rostopchina's last Russian address, from where she and her mother, brothers and sisters leave for Paris in July 1817 (Count Rostopchin, accused of organizing a large Moscow fire in 1812 , was forced to leave Russia under the pretext of treatment on the water).

France

Once in Paris, Sophia plunges into social life, enjoys success with fans, visits the salon of Sophia Svechina . In 1818 , she met with the Count Eugene de Segyur ; their wedding took place in July of the following year. Now she lives in an aristocratic mansion on Varenna Street. A convinced Catholic, Sophia de Segur becomes a parishioner of the church of St. Sulpicius . In April 1820, her first-born, Louis-Gaston de Segur, is born. Relations between the spouses were extremely cool. Since life in the capital is extremely depressing to Sophia, a year later, her father acquires Nuette's estate in Normandy (36 leagues from Paris) for her, something elusively reminiscent of Voronovo. Fedor Vasilievich Rostopchin returns to Russia, where he dies in January 1826 ; his daughter never returned there again. But her son Louis-Gaston in 1841 made a trip to the land of his ancestors, visited Voronovo and brought back a number of interesting sketches. Most of her life in France was spent in Noett, but in 1872 Sofya Fedorovna unexpectedly sold the estate and spent the last years of her life in the castle of Cermadio (château de Kermadio), owned by son-in-law Arman Frenot and daughter Henrietta, in Brittany, Department of Morbihan . She was buried next to the castle in the city cemetery of Pluneret ( fr: Pluneret ). Above her grave is a statue of the Virgin Mary. Louis-Gaston de Segur ( fr: Louis-Gaston de Ségur ) and daughter of Henrietta (1829-1908) were buried with her ^[2] . In honor of the writer, streets are named in several French cities, an alley in the Parisian park of Monceau .

The Countess de Segur turned to literary work at the age of 57 and wrote a total of two and a half dozen books. Perhaps this happened under the influence of the author of " Paris Secrets " Eugene Sue and the Catholic writer Louis Vejo - both often visited the estate of Nouette ^[3] . Initially, she intended her works exclusively for her grandchildren (the writer had a total of 20), but her book “New Fairy Tales”, illustrated by the famous Gustave Dore and released in the Pink Library collection that later became famous, gained great success among readers. As a result, the Hachette publishing house invited the countess to publish her other works, and in 1859 Sofya Fedorovna transferred exclusive publishing rights to her books to this publishing house ^[4] . The small brochure “Children's Health” surprised some readers with the instructions and recipes contained in it (for example, the author recommended belladonna tincture as a remedy for whooping cough ^[5] ). Most of the countess’s prose writings were originally published in the magazine version (on the pages of the La Semaine des Enfants weekly ), in the form of a feuilleton novel . The most famous book of Countess de Segur - “ Sonina of Leprosy ” - became a bestseller in the second half of the century. “Sonny of leprosy”, “Exemplary girls” and “Vacation” form a kind of trilogy, saturated with autobiographical beginning. The trilogy is addressed primarily to young children, but it contains many cruel and tragic episodes that led some researchers to compare the Countess de Segur with the Marquis de Sade ^[6] . The novel " General Durakin ", along with the " Mikhail Strogov " by Jules Verne , for a long time remained for the little French the most important source of knowledge about Russia . In tsarist Russia, the book was not published, evaluating it as an insulting pamphlet ; the scene of exposing flogging in the police station was especially negatively perceived (in the original version, the execution took place in the presence of children, but the author eliminated this detail under pressure from the publisher ^[7] ). Meanwhile, the writer herself considered her main works not fiction at all, but pious books that had a predominantly catechetical purpose.

Countess de Segur's Writings and Critics' Assessment

The books of Sophia de Segur were highly valued by Marina Tsvetaeva , who wrote in her diary for 1920 : “All my Sonechka is exclusively in the spirit of Madame de Segur” ^[8] . Vladimir Nabokov much more critically evaluated the works of the writer, who reproached Countess de Segur for “vulgar sentimentality” ^[9] .

Modern French scholars find echoes between the works of Countess de Segur and Russian classical literature ( Gogol , Leo Tolstoy , Dostoevsky ) ^[10] . Of the French writers, she was influenced by Russo ^[11] , Georges Sand ^[12] and Balzac (she was sometimes even called Balzac for children ). The plot of the writer’s latest novel, “After the Rain,” is sometimes associated with the influence of “ Count Monte Cristo ” Dumas ^[13] and “ Uncle Tom ’s Huts ” by Harriet Beecher Stow ^[14] .

"Sonny of leprosy" was repeatedly filmed, including by means of animation (" Sophie's Tricks "). Feature films on “Sonya Leprosy” and the novel “Good Little Devil” were shot by the famous French actor Jean-Claude Brialie . There is also an animated version of Notes of the Donkey ( Kadishon, or Donkey Memoirs .). The adaptation of the novel Gaspard’s Happiness was carried out by the famous actor and director Gerard Blen .

• Segur (noble family)

• Francis Marcouin . La Comtesse de Ségur ou le bonheur immobile. - Arras: Artois Presses Université, 1999 .-- 379 p.
• Hortense Dufour . La comtesse de Ségur. - P .: Flammarion. - 2000. - 688 p.
• Patrick Pipet . Comtesse de Ségur. Les mystères de Sophie. - P .: L'Harmattan. - 2007. - 288 p.
• Michel Legrain . La Comtesse de Ségur. Mots, silences et stéréotypes. - P .: Champion. - 2011 .-- 313 p.
• Marie-Joséphine Strich . La comtesse de Ségur. Un destin romantique. - P., Via Romana, 2015 .-- 132 p.

• Segur, Sofya Fyodorovna // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Family stories, childhood memories and the family saga, set out in the form of a fantastic fairy tale by the great-great-grandson of Sofia Rostopchina Christian KATINO, Count ROSTOPCHINY
• Countess de Segur, life, creativity and era, in French
• The life and work of Countess de Segur, in French
• Family tree of the Countess de Segur