Ekaterina Golshtein-Bekskaya

The only daughter of Prince Peter-August-Friedrich Holstein-Beksky , an Estonian governor-general and field marshal, who entered the Russian service from her second marriage to Countess Natalia Nikolaevna Golovina. On her father she belonged to the Bek branch of the Holstein-Sonderburg line of the Oldenburg dynasty and was a distant relative of Peter III . From her half- brother in a direct male line descend the Danish king Christian IX and Empress Maria Fedorovna .

My mother was the great-granddaughter and heiress of Count F.A. Golovin . His son, Count Nikolai Fyodorovich Golovin, left a will, according to which he bequeathed all his fortune to his side-children who lived in Denmark. However, after his death, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna destroyed his will and ordered to give the village of Khovrino near Moscow with all the other inheritance to his daughter Natalya ^[1] .

Prince Holstein-Bek and his wife belonged to the supporters of the ousted Peter III. A twelve-year-old girl, Yekaterina Petrovna, together with her parents, was in one of the galleys that accompanied the emperor on the day of the coup, June 28, 1762 , during his flight to Kronstadt . A little earlier, in January 1760, the emperor granted the ten-year-old princess the Order of St. Catherine the Great Cross ^[2] .

Being the most notable bride in Russia, Ekaterina Petrovna was embraced by Empress Catherine II for Lieutenant Prince Ivan Sergeyevich Baryatinsky . The wedding took place on January 8, 1767 in Reval . One of his contemporaries wrote that the groom “is the happiest man, but on the other hand he should not be envious, knowing his good qualities” ^[3] .

For a rich bride, Baryatinsky received 4,000 serf souls, villages in the Kursk province: Ivanovskoye ^[4] , Snognost and others in Rylsky district, which Peter I presented to hetman Mazepa before his treason. The Empress gave him 100 thousand acres of land and about 35 thousand souls of serfs. Such was her gratitude that Baryatinsky saved her from the intrigues of Vorontsov ^[5] .

Having married, the young princess shone in St. Petersburg, where she was considered one of the first beauties. She was a huge success and many love affairs. Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich was in love with her, and her affair with Count Andrei Kirillovich Razumovsky ultimately led to a break with her husband. True, Prince Baryatinsky himself was not a faithful spouse, at the same time he had a relationship with the wife of the chamberlain , the beautiful Anastasia Nikolaevna Neledinskaya (1754-1803). According to Prince P. V. Dolgorukov ^[5] :

In 1774, Ekaterina Petrovna accompanied the deceived spouse to Paris , where he was appointed envoy, and attended the coronation of Louis XVI . It was said that Princess Baryatinsky went to Paris pregnant from Razumovsky, where she gave birth, covering her adventure with a seizure of water sickness . Having learned the whole truth from one of the maids, Prince Baryatinsky posed the question with an edge. Tears of his wife made him forget her misconduct, but in Poland began new adventures, again quarreling spouses.

Princess Baryatinsky returned alone to Petersburg, where she made a splash in the Parisian fashions and outfits she brought. But the empress did not approve of all her fashion and found it ridiculous, and therefore the yard and the whole city began to criticize them. The French diplomat Marie de Corberon , having met Princess Baryatinsky in 1776, wrote in his diary ^[6] :

Having settled separately from her husband, the frivolous beauty did not receive invitations to the small court of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich, which upset her very much. Sometimes her tone in society was indecent. Once, speaking of Count Nesselrode and his long visit, she added: "He will marry me . " Soon, quarreling with almost the whole of St. Petersburg society, Baryatinskaya with a friend, Ekaterina Alexandrovna Zinovieva , ur. Menshikova (1748-1781), the wife of the envoy to Spain , decided to establish her own small company of friends. But in the light of their meetings, many laughed, calling them a "club of love" or "academy . " Continuing to live separately from her husband, in 1783 Princess Baryatinsky bought a mansion at 22 Millionnaya from N. B. Yusupov . She occupied a very high position in the world where, although many did not like and condemned her, she was surrounded by fans. Getting into her house was considered a great honor; besides, she lived broadly and pompously, and the whole city spoke of her receptions and theatrical performances. Later, in his essay on Princess Baryatinsky, Prince I. M. Dolgorukov wrote ^[7] :

In 1786, Prince Ivan Sergeyevich Baryatinsky returned from Paris to Russia and settled in St. Petersburg with his brother-in-law, Marshal F. S. Baryatinsky . In 1789, Ekaterina Petrovna sold her mansion on Millionnaya E.P. Divova and went abroad. The purpose of the trip was treatment in Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), she was accompanied by the physician-in-chief of the Empress Adam Weikart, son Ivan, whom she intended to identify at a German university, and the young Countess Wittgenstein . Part of the route, along with Baryatinskaya, was passed by her daughter Countess Anna Tolstaya.

They traveled very leisurely, drove around Holland, Austria and Germany for a long time. In gratitude for the cure, Princess Baryatinskaya commissioned a French sculpture by E. M. Falconet for a bust of Weikart. In Vienna, Weikart treated Count I. G. Chernyshov . In December 1790, leaving revolutionary France aside, Princess Baryatinsky arrived in Rome , where in January 1791 she met the artist A. Kaufman . In her travel journal, she wrote ^[8] :

Visiting her workshop many times, she commissioned the artist a large portrait of herself, surrounded by family members with life-size figures. In this famous painting, Princess Baryatinsky is depicted sitting in an armchair by the table on which is a marble bust of her father by the German sculptor A. Trippel . In her hands she holds a medallion with a portrait of her husband, her children and son-in-law are standing nearby.

Princess Baryatinsky spent the last years of her life in Berlin, where she acquired a mansion in Paris Square in front of the Brandenburg Gate and the suburban castle of Friedrichsfelde . There she died on November 28, 1811 ^[9] . With the permission of the Prussian king, she was called, as before her marriage, Princess Holstein-Bek.

In marriage, she had two children who were raised by her father in St. Petersburg:

• Ivan Ivanovich (1767 / 1772-1825), Privy Councilor, Acting Chamberlain, Envoy in Munich.
• Anna Ivanovna (1772-1825), since 1789, married to the Chief Marshal, President of the Court Office Count Nikolai Alexandrovich Tolstoy (1761 / 65-1816).

• Russian portraits of the XVIII — XIX centuries . Ed. Led. Prince Nikolai Mikhailovich. T. 4 issue 1. No. 15. - St. Petersburg, 1906.