Derzhavina, Daria Alekseevna

One of the five daughters of the Senate Ober-Prosecutor, State Counsel Alexei Afanasyevich Dyakov from his marriage with Princess Avdotya Petrovna Myshetskaya . One sister was the wife of the poet V. V. Kapnist , the other ( Maria ) was the architect and poet N. A. Lvov , the third was the count Ya. F. Stenbock .

Received a home secular education and upbringing, especially loved music and she played the harp . The relatives of the parents brought their daughters acquaintances in the highest Petersburg society. The beautiful sisters shone at the evenings of L. A. Naryshkin and were the quadrille of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich .

Upon the death of her father (in 1791), Daria Alekseevna lived in Reval with her sister, Countess Stenbock , with whom she arrived in St. Petersburg at the end of 1794, where she was soon offered the proposal by G. R. Derzhavin , widowed six months before. Darya Alekseevna was previously acquainted with Ekaterina Yakovlevna Derzhavina , the poet’s first wife (“Plenira”), and enjoyed the latter’s position as the daughter-in-law of his two closest friends, Lvov and Kapnist. January 31, 1795 her wedding took place, and the groom was 51, and the bride was 28 years old; they were not in love with each other, and this marriage, as Derzhavin himself confessed, was based more on a sense of long-standing friendship and prudence than on passion.

By her nature, Darya Alekseevna in many ways represented the exact opposite of the poet’s first wife: she was so cheerful, sociable, loved social life, so much Daria Alekseevna “was concentrated in herself, restrained and dry in circulation, even with close people, was often not kind to her husband’s friends, ”especially if it seemed to her that their presence could adversely affect his health, of which she took great care; however, she was “kind, charitable, fair, generous, and therefore, despite her shortcomings, she was loved and respected by those who lived with her; she did not tolerate slander and never allowed herself to speak ill of the absent.

There were inexplicable contradictions in it: with apparent coldness, she sometimes, amid a conversation, suddenly moved and stepped aside so that no one would see her tears. ” She did her best to eliminate and free her husband from impractical husbands from household chores, and, not having her children, she transferred all worries to him and to the household she managed; uncontrolledly managing her husband’s entire condition, prior to buying and selling land inclusively, she managed to significantly improve it, although she protected her peasants and did not burden them with spells. Her niece, recalling the year 1813, wrote: ^[1]

The death of her husband was for her a very heavy blow, she recovered from her hard and since then, for the most part, she lived alone and modestly in the “Zvanka”, bequeathed to her by her husband. Subsequently, she became friends with her neighbors — Count Arakcheev from the Georgian estate, Countess A. A. Orlova-Chesmenskaya, and Archimandrite Photius , who was inclined to ascribe to herself a great influence on Daria Alekseevna, believing that she “committed his daughter”. DA A. Derzhavina survived a spouse for a quarter of a century. She died on June 16, 1842 in the "Zvanka" and was buried next to her husband in the Khutynsky monastery .

Derzhavina left 30 thousand rubles of notes for scholarships at the University of Kazan and capital for the establishment of a shelter for the people released from custody with their spiritual testament. Wanting to perpetuate the existence of "Zvanki" and the memory of her husband, she bequeathed, in addition, 50 thousand banknotes to the establishment of the Znamensky Convent on this estate, for the maintenance of which she ordered 100 thousand rubles to be given. to the Board of Trustees. The Zvan Monastery with its female school, known as Derzhavinsky, was opened only in 1869.

The husband-poet dedicated several poems to his “Milena”, for example: “Dream”, “To the Museum”, “Desire”, “Dasha the Offering”, “To the Portrait”. According to the biographer, Darya Alekseevna “was a beautiful woman of tall stature and large forms, stately, but cold; the right features lacked animation and liveliness. "

• Russian portraits of the XVIII and XIX centuries. Edition of Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich . Volume 1. Number 40.