Razumovskaya, Sofia Stepanovna

Origin

Sofia Stepanovna was the daughter of the writer Stepan Fedorovich Ushakov , Novgorod, and then the Petersburg governor and senator, and his wife Anna Semenovna (the maiden name is unknown). Anna Semenovna had a scandalous reputation in the world. She was in the first marriage for Ivan Petrovich Buturlin, and when Ushakov fell in love with her, she left her husband and married a lover, “having publicly committed an amateur and nasty church marriage” ^[1] .

Metressa

In her first marriage, Sofia Stepanovna was married to Major General Mikhail Petrovich Chertoryzhsky (not a princely family), an aide-de-camp of Peter III , early widowed, and had no children from her sick, consumptive husband.

At court, Sophia was known for her panache, love of light and all kinds of entertainment, and had a reputation as a “little metress” ^[2] .

Before the marriage of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich , when Catherine II doubted whether “the Tsarevich’s marriage, due to his poor health, would be strengthened, the order of succession in the state was entrusted to Sofia Stepanovna to try the power of her charms over the Grand Duke’s heart” ^[3] . In 1772, her son was born Simon , whom the Empress took to her upbringing.

Second marriage

Shortly after the birth of her son, Sophia retired for Count Peter Kirillovich Razumovsky , the chief chamberlain, the second son of the hetman. The French diplomat Marie de Corberon, in May 1776, wrote in his diary ^[4] :

Sofia Stepanovna was five years older than her husband, and Count Kirill Grigorievich Razumovsky was very unhappy with this wedding, severely disliked his daughter-in-law, whom he called “a carte woman”, and reproached her for her extravagance. In this, however, she quite suited her husband, and with her indecision and changeable character was very similar to him; therefore, the couple probably loved each other dearly and lived very harmoniously.

Their marriage was childless; very poor health and incurable, according to the old hetman, the illness of the countess ( solitaire) required constant treatment, and the Countess lived with her husband almost continuously abroad: in Italy , Switzerland , Holland , as well as in Paris and in the south of France , in Montpellier , fashionable at the time the resort. This, in the words of the hetman, the "gypsy life" caused enormous spending and constant requests to the father and the father-in-law for benefits.

Upon appointment of Count Peter Kirillovich, upon the ascension of Paul I to the throne, present in the Senate , the Razumovskys returned to St. Petersburg and settled on the corner of the Embankment and Gagarinskaya Street ^[5] , in their home, which was decorated with many valuable things bought in France during the revolution ^{[ 6]} . Here Countess Sofia Stepanovna died, soon after arriving in Russia, on September 26, 1803 .

From the will she left (dated November 28, 1802), it can be seen that she was a narrow-minded woman, but simple, kind and religious, and before her death she tried to put her affairs in order, making an inventory of her personal debts, and assigning cash payments to her people, whom she asked her husband to let go. At the same time, it’s curious that she herself distributes the things that remain after her, “my little treasures,” as she puts it, among which, innocently, she renames the image and “Madonna” Carlo Dolcea .

Countess S. Razumovskaya was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery , at Lazarevskoye Cemetery ^[7] , where she was erected by a large white marble sarcophagus with the heads of jellyfishes and a weeping female figure mourning her husband; an epitaph is carved on the monument: