Apraksina, Sofya Osipovna

The daughter of a simple Cossack, later the general convoy, Osip Lukyanovich Zakrevsky , married in 1739 to Anna Grigoryevna Razumovskaya, sister of Counts Alexei and Kirill Razumovsky .

In 1746, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna invited all the nephews and nieces of Count Razumovsky to St. Petersburg. They were placed in the palace. They were assigned to Madame Schmitt, the wife of the court trumpeter, later the coffer. Not only Count Alexei Razumovsky, but the Empress herself loved and caressed them, which gave rise to various rumors about their origin. The empress especially fell in love with the daughters of Anna Grigoryevna Zakrevskaya, Marina ^[1] and Sophia.

In 1756, Sofya Zakrevskaya was taken to court and granted the maids of honor , and on December 18, 1758, on the Empress's birthday, she was engaged to the guards of the horse guard Count Nikolai Fedorovich Apraksin . The wedding took place in 1759 in a court church.

Razumovsky's niece

She gained a great influence on her uncle, Count Kirill Grigoryevich Razumovsky, and after the death of his wife in 1771 she moved to his house, where she lived for more than 30 years. Beautiful, smart, cunning, power-hungry, mean and greedy, she, taking advantage of the good nature and spinelessness of the old field marshal, Apraksina soon became a complete mistress in the house, leaving Razumovsky neither in Moscow , nor in St. Petersburg , nor in Baturin ^[2] .

Her position in the house, although sheltered by close kinship, was very ambiguous, and led to the distance from the field marshal of his children, especially the elder daughters, with whom Apraksina was in an open hostile relationship, turning her father against them. The flight from the palace of the empress to the field marshal’s daughter, maid of honor Elizabeth Kirillovna, to the married adjutant general Count P.F. Apraksin , brother-in-law Sofya Osipovna, who spoiled her reputation and the subsequent marriage against the will of Razumovsky and the empress only intensified the conflict. The youngest daughter of the field marshal, Praskovia, against her will, was married to Count I.V. Gudovich , to whose brother Mikhail Osipovna favored Mikhail .

Of all the children of the field marshal, only Andrei Kirillovich , who was always in need of money, sometimes sought out, albeit unsuccessfully, in front of his omnipotent cousin. “No matter how much I asked my dad, but he refused at all,” he said that he was not in a position to give any help, that he himself needed to pay and debt. You won’t believe how annoying I am! I reminded him that he had promised you before, but now he refuses. He is angry with me, and Mikhail Vasilievich witnessed how much I tormented him, but did not get any success, ”answered Sofia cousin. At the same time, together with her friend Gudovich , she worked on reducing the expenses of the generous Razumovsky, on supervising the managers, on reducing the Baturin manor.

In 1796, Razumovsky in Yagutin was visited by his old friend Count Sievers , who wrote to his daughter about this visit:

M.V. Gudovich was with Sofya Osipovna and in Baturin on January 9, 1803, when Kirill Razumovsky died. This led to a new round of conflict with the field marshal’s children. Andrei Razumovsky openly accused Apraksin of unlawful disposal of movable property remaining after his father.

Straightforward and independent in her judgments, Natalya Kirillovna Zagryazhskaya wrote to her brother: “The largest of all family stories is the story of Sophia. She is so outrageous that I barely have the courage to talk about her. This woman has never been impudent, shameless, and more open relations with some people, and they never accepted her better, no longer caressed, did not care for her more diligently. Potemkin is her friend; Korsakov invites her to her concerts, which are usually called the closest ones. She happens at small balls at the Empress and soon , I’m convinced of this, I’ll be constantly invited to the court. In vain you are looking for all this reason - unless there is an analogy of tastes. Every time I think about this woman, the verses from “ Fedra ” come to my mind:

Information about the life of Apraksina after the death of Razumovsky and the date of her death are unknown.

Countess S.O. Apraksina had two sons who died in childhood, and a daughter:

• Vera Nikolaevna (November 2, 1768 - November 22, 1845) - was married to Count P.V. Zavadovsky .
• Ippolit Nikolaevich (11.23.1771 - 02.21.1774) - buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra
• Orest Nikolaevich (01/17/1774 - 01/31/1774) - buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra

One of the heroines of the historical story by Mikhail Kazovsky, “Prisoners of Love” (“Feat”, 2015), the plot of which is based on the love story of Elizabeth Razumovskaya and Pyotr Apraksin.

• Russian portraits of the XVIII — XIX centuries . Ed. Led. Prince Nikolai Mikhailovich. SPb. 1906.V. II vol. III. Number 66.
• Apraxins // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.