Shuvalova, Mavra Egorovna

From the Shepelevs' noble family, who considered one ancestor to be their ancestor. The great-granddaughter of a near- nothing Aggei Alekseevich Shepelev . Thanks to the patronage of a very distant relative of General Dmitry Andreevich Shepelev , whose wife was related to Pastor Gluck , in 1719 she became chamber jungfer of Tsarevna Anna Petrovna .

Thanks to its cheerful and lively disposition, the Mavrushka was the darling of the young courtiers and both princesses. An especially great friendship was struck between her and Tsarevna Elizaveta Petrovna . This is evidenced by the extensive intimate correspondence of both at the time when Anna, having married in 1727, took her youngffer with her to Holstein . There, Mavra Yegorovna became the mistress and kept woman of the Duke Karl of Holstein ; Anna Petrovna complained about the husband to her sister Elizabeth in a letter ^[1] :

After the death of Anna Petrovna in 1728, Mavra Egorovna returned to Russia.

With the reign of Elizabeth, Mavra Shuvalova became an influential person, on whom destinations and graces depended. The high position of Shepeleva's contemporaries explained the matchmaking to her of a brilliant young nobleman, who was then Peter Ivanovich Shuvalov . They did not see other motives, since Shepeleva was not particularly rich and, in addition, was small in stature and, unusually, moody by herself, according to Prince Dolgoruky, “rather disgusting”.

Mavra Egorovna was not a pleasant friend of life, according to the testimony of her contemporaries; “She was evil, like a devil, and accordingly self-serving,” one of them claims, adding that nothing could compare with her ugliness, “this is a witch cucumber”; Scherer speaks of her "fetid mouth" - I omit other repulsive details - and Lopital as follows defines in 1757 her unspoken duties: "Being day and night with the Empress, she gives her fleeting and secret pleasures."

- K. Valishevsky . Daughter of Peter the Great ^[2]

The wedding, with the personal participation of the Empress, was played in February 1742, even before Elizabeth's departure for the coronation in Moscow . The marriage was not particularly happy: the reports of foreign diplomats from Russia are full of relishing the stories of Shuvalov’s countless betrayals. However, with regard to obtaining and safeguarding power, privileges, wealth, the spouses understood each other perfectly and acted at the same time as a close-knit and energetic team. The influence of the Shuvalovs was finally strengthened after, with the decisive participation of Mavra Yegorovna as a pimp, it was possible to add Ivan Shuvalov as a favorite to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth, although between them there were times and chills, retained affection for the girlfriend of her youth for life. In particular, she loved and appreciated her for her clear and mocking mind, cheerful character, because she always had a funny joke in stock. Contemporaries, however, preserved the memory of another Shuvalova: being invariably cheerful, witty and searching with the powers that be, Shuvalova unbearably mocked at people below her position, was arrogant and rude. She willingly helped her protégés, but at the same time, legends went about her revenge: people who did not please her, she did not get tired of persecuting. She did not disdain to collect “compromising evidence”, so that even Kirill Razumovsky himself, knowing his sins, was sometimes forced to curry favor with her. At the same time, Shuvalova was a devoted and loving wife and mother; she loved to eat and drink well and gamble.

She possessed a penetrating mind, an excellent knowledge of people, especially human weaknesses. She had satirical talent, according to contemporaries, she could imagine any person in such a caricature form that for a long time he became the laughing stock of the whole court. She possessed a literary gift: she attributed a comedy written in Ukrainian and telling about the misfortunes of Princess Lavra. This comedy was presented during the reign of Anna Ioannovna at the home theater of Tsarevna Elizabeth, and, being considered a political demonstration, entailed the search for the Secret Chancellery .

In 1743-1759 Shuvalov family occupied a house on the river. Moika, 94, later rebuilt into the Yusupov Palace . Mavra Egorovna died on June 9, 1759 and was buried in the Nikolaev Malitsky Monastery , near Tver , where back in 1742 she received healing from the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker .

• Shuvalova, Mavra Egorovna // Russian Biographical Dictionary : in 25 volumes. - SPb. - M. , 1896-1918.