Princess Evdokia or Avdotya Ivanovna Golitsyna , nee Izmailova ( August 4 [15], 1780 , Moscow - January 18 [30], 1850 , St. Petersburg ), known by the nicknames “ princesse Nocturne ” (“night princess”) and “ princesse Minuit ” ( "Princess of Midnight"), - one of the most beautiful women of her time, the mistress of the literary salon. The wife of Prince S. M. Golitsyn , the owner of the Kuzminki estate.
| Avdotya Ivanovna Golitsyna | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Birth name | Izmailova |
| Date of Birth | August 4 (15), 1780 |
| Place of Birth | |
| Date of death | January 18 (30), 1850 (69 years old) |
| Place of death | St. Petersburg |
| Citizenship |  Russian empire |
| Occupation | |
| Father | Ivan Mikhailovich Izmailov (1724-1787) |
| Mother | Alexandra Borisovna Yusupova (1744-1791) |
| Spouse | Sergey Mikhailovich Golitsyn (1774 - 1859) |
| Children | not |
Content
Young years
Evdokia was born in the rich noble Izmailov family, which was related to the highest aristocracy - Yusupov , Vyazemsky , Gagarin , Naryshkin . Her father, General I.M. Izmailov (d. 1787), began his service in 1740 and continued her service in cuirassier regiments; on the day of the coronation of Catherine II, he was expelled from service for loyalty to Peter III , but subsequently rose to the rank of senator. Alexander's mother (1744-1791) was the sister of the famous art expert Prince N. B. Yusupov .
Evdokia became orphaned early, and together with his sister Irina (1768–1848), married to Illarion Ivanovich Vorontsov , she was brought up in the house of her childless uncle - Senator M. M. Izmailov , who was in charge of all construction work in the Kremlin and the restoration of monuments of Moscow antiquity.
In the house of Uncle Evdokia received a brilliant education for the woman of that time. She was beautiful, smart, and a little freaking out. When it began to be taken into the light, it attracted the attention of many.
Marriage
On June 19, 1799 , at the request of Emperor Paul I , Prince Mikhail Golitsyn became the husband of Evdokia Izmailova. With his enormous wealth, the rustic, good-natured and ugly husband could not interest the brilliant, sophisticated Evdokia Ivanovna.
In 1800, Prince S. M. Golitsyn suffered the wrath of Paul I and left with his wife in Dresden . In 1801, Golitsyn returned to Russia, and Evdokia Ivanovna, staying in Dresden, wrote a letter to her husband, where she announced that since her marriage was forced, she no longer agreed to live together [1] . Together with her sister and her young son, Princess Golitsyna lived for several years abroad. A. Ya. Bulgakov wrote to his brother from Naples in 1803 [2] :
| Princess Golitsyna came here these days. She is beautiful: black hair, black eyebrows and black eyes, strange teeth, a mouth, a posture are beautiful, although they hold on badly, only their nose is not good; He dresses, says, looks - everything is strange and not like the others. All Naples says about her: she looks like the princess of my soul; all the local beauties from her fell and depressed. |
At the same time, Evdokia Ivanovna met Mikhail Petrovich Dolgorukov , the wing of the adjutant Alexander I. The beautiful appearance of Prince Michael, a keen mind, an ardent imagination and courtesy in circumventing captivated young Golitsyna. She fell in love and was true to her cordial affection for Dolgorukov for many years.
Mikhail Petrovich reciprocated with Princess Golitsyna, and they lived happily for several years. For him, Evdokia Ivanovna requested a divorce from her husband, but Prince Golitsyn did not give it. In 1808, during the war with Sweden, Prince Dolgorukov was killed. Evdokia was inconsolable. Many years later, she repaid her husband, refusing to divorce him, when he planned to marry the maid of honor A.O. Rosset .
The war of 1812 with Napoleon made Princess Golitsyn a bright patriot. She was engaged in wide charity work and printed brochures of high manly content. Defending everything Russian, she appeared at balls in a Russian sundress and kokoshnik, later declared war on potatoes entering into agriculture.
Mistress of the Salon
In 1816, after returning from Europe, Princess Golitsyna became the mistress of the St. Petersburg Salon. In the capital, the princess was nicknamed " Princesse Nocturne ". The fact is that the princess had some oddities and, for example, did not accept in her salon earlier than ten in the evening. According to the stories, she was afraid of the night, since once the famous fortune teller Lenormand predicted to her that she would die at night.
In the afternoon, Evdokia Ivanovna slept, and by midnight in her house on Millionnaya street at number 30, and in the summer at her dacha, at
Neve, gathered a selected circle of her friends. Golitsyna’s salon was visited by all the celebrities of that time, both visitors and domestic. Among them were A. S. Pushkin , V. A. Zhukovsky , N. M. Karamzin , K. N. Batyushkov , Prince P. A. Vyazemsky . The conversations with the princess were distinguished by great freedom and ease. The hostess received her guests in robes resembling paintings of ancient Rome. Here is what Prince P. A. Vyazemsky says about her:
| Princess Golitsyna was once a wonderful and peculiar person in St. Petersburg society. She was very beautiful, and her beauty expressed her own peculiarity. I do not know what she was like in her first youth, but both the second and the third youth were captivated by some freshness and chastity of virginity. Black, expressive eyes, thick dark hair falling on the shoulders with twisting locks, a matte southern face color, a good-natured and graceful smile: add a voice and pronunciation to it that are unusually soft and harmonious ... in general, her beauty responded with something plastic, reminiscent of an ancient Greek sculpture. In it, nothing showed deliberate concern, worldly female resourcefulness and fussiness. On the contrary, there was something clear, calm, rather lazy, impassive. |
After the death of Dolgoruky, the good name of Evdokia Ivanovna remained perfectly inviolable. Its independence was held in the framework of strict morality. Golitsyna in her lifetime inspired some deep affection. Among her loyal fans was Mikhail Fedorovich Orlov . Orlov found much in common with the princess in his views on Russian history, on the role of the people in it. Karamzin called her Pythia, and Pushkin sang it in verse.
A.S. Pushkin and Princess Golitsyna
In the years 1817-1820, young Pushkin, Alexander Sergeyevich, often visited the salon of the “Princess of the Night”. Karamzin on Pushkin’s passionate passion wrote the following: “The poet Pushkin in our house has mortally fallen in love with Pythia Golitsyna and now she spends evenings with her: she lies from love, gets angry from love, but she still doesn’t write from love ...”
Three poems of Alexander Sergeevich, addressed to Princess Golitsyna, are known.
" K *** ":
Do not ask why a dull thought
Amidst love, I am often clouded
Why raise my eyes gloomy,
Why didn’t my dream sweet life be sweet to me;
Do not ask why your soul is cold
I stopped loving fun love
And I don’t call anyone sweet:
He who once loved will not fall in love again;
Who knew happiness does not know happiness,
For a brief moment, bliss is given to us:
From youth, from neg and voluptuousness
There will be one gloom.
The second was attached to the Liberty ode in 1819:
A simple pupil of nature,
So I used to chant
Dream beautiful freedom
And she breathed sweetly.
But I see you, I’m listening to you, -
And what? .. A weak man! ..
Having lost freedom forever
I love captive heart.
The third "Kraev of strangers is an inexperienced lover ...":
Kraev strangers inexperienced lover
And his ever-present accuser,
I said: in my country
Where is the faithful mind, where is the genius we find?
Where is a citizen with a noble soul
Sublime and fiery free?
Where a woman is not with cold beauty
But with a fiery, captivating, lively?
Where can I find a conversation easy
Brilliant, funny, enlightened?
With whom can one be non-cold, not empty?
I almost hated the fatherland -
But yesterday I saw Golitsyn
And reconciled with my fatherland.
Recent years
In the last years of her life, Evdokia Ivanovna took up higher mathematics and metaphysics, she was friends with outstanding mathematicians and even published her own works on mathematics in French - “perfect folly,” according to A. Turgenev . Professor of Mathematics, Academician V. Ya. Bunyakovsky, noted:
| Golitsyna, the mistress, is clever, but in her works she does not find, unfortunately, nothing mathematical. |
In the 1830s, Golitsyn met with Prince V.F. Odoevsky V.V. Lenz and described her like this:
| Old and terribly ugly, she always wore dresses of sharp colors, was known as a scientist and, they say, kept correspondence with Parisian academicians on mathematical issues. She seemed to me just a boring blue stocking. |
In the 1840s, Evdokia Ivanovna left for Paris. There she continued her philosophical and mathematical studies, was still fond of literature. A. I. Turgenev, who visited Golitsyna in Paris in 1844 , doubted the normality of her mental abilities, and besides, time did its job; she did not spare her beauty, turning the "heavenly" princess into a "terrible" old woman. Under old age, Evdokia Ivanovna was distinguished by great piety.
Princess Golitsyna died on January 18, 1850 in St. Petersburg and was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery . According to her will, an inscription was made on her grave:
| I ask the Orthodox Russians and those passing here to pray for the servant of God, so that the Lord will hear my warm prayers at the throne of the Most High, in order to preserve the Russian spirit. |
Notes
- ↑ Famous Russians of the 18-19th centuries. Biography and portraits. - St. Petersburg: Lenizdat, 1996 .-- p. 779.
- ↑ Bulgakov brothers. Correspondence. T. 1. - M .: Zakharov, 2010 .-- 606 p.
Links
- Bondarenko V. Former Century Lionesses ... and Maidens. Literary salons in Russia in the first half of the 19th century
- Shumikhin S. Madrigal with a double bottom (hidden pun in the message of Pushkin Princesse Nocturne) . (Golitsyna at the excavations of the palace of Tiberius).
- Chistova I.S. Pushkin in the salon of Avdotya Golitsyna // Pushkin: Research and Materials. - L.: Science (Leningrad. Dep.), 1989. - T. 13. - S. 186-202.
- The Romanovs in painting (part 13 - Prince Mikhail Dolgorukov) A. I. Golitsyna in painting
- E. I. Golitsyna on the project “To Remember” (chtoby-pomnili.com/page.php?id=698)
- Article by Y. Moskalenko on the project "School of Life"