Anna Kern. The scandalous life and tragedy of Anna Kern

"If your spouse is very tired of it, leave it ... You say: "What about the publicity, what about the scandal?" Hell! When a husband is abandoned, this is already a complete scandal, the future does not mean anything, "he writes to her in one of the letters. Soon she leaves her elderly husband, the general, and goes to live in St. Petersburg. He is Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, she is Anna Petrovna Kern, the daughter of a Poltava landowner, whose name remains in our memory only thanks to the inspired lines of the poem "I remember a wonderful moment ...", confirming the prophetic words of the lyceum student Illichevsky: "... rays of glory Pushkin will be reflected in his comrades. As it turned out, not only in comrades ... Who is she, this Anna Kern? Nobody! Just the one that at the right time in the right place was next to the Poet and the Man. Who would know about you, dear Anna Petrovna, if it were not for... From the only portrait (miniature) that has come down to us, a woman is looking, by modern standards, completely ineffectual: expressionless eyes, a straight fold of her lips, a parting of blond hair, half-naked shoulders ... You look away - and you can’t remember the faces. Oh, those poets...

Anna Petrovna Kern (miniature).

Perhaps the portrait is simply unsuccessful: Turgenev, after meeting with the sixty-four-year-old A.P. Kern, writes in a letter to Pauline Viardot: "In her youth, she must have been very pretty."

At the age of 17, having submitted to the will of her parents, Anna Petrovna married the fifty-two-year-old General Kern, and gave birth to three daughters from him ... (And what? Not an old man at all by today's standards ... three children at this age! .. well done! True! the martinet is narrow-minded ... and in our time there are enough of them. Well, the girl was not lucky ...)

In 1819, in St. Petersburg, in the house of her aunt E.M. Olenina, she listened to I.A. Krylov and met Pushkin for the first time, and, as she writes in her memoirs: "... did not notice him. it was strange to see anyone but the hero of the occasion."

He had not yet become the Pushkin that Russia admired, and perhaps that is why the ugly, curly-haired youth did not make any impression on her.

When she left, "...Pushkin stood on the porch and followed me with his eyes," writes Kern in his memoirs.

Later, her cousin wrote to her: "You made a strong impression on Pushkin .., he says everywhere:" She was dazzling. ""

She was nineteen years old, Pushkin was twenty.

Six years passed, and the "southern poems" of Pushkin, exiled into exile in the village of Mikhailovskoye, thundered throughout Russia.

And she is already delighted with him ... Here it is, the magical power of art. An ugly curly-haired young man turned into a desired idol. As she writes, "I longed to see him."

She goes to her aunt in Trigorskoye, which was located near Mikhailovsky, to meet the FIRST Russian poet (well, like modern fans, she wanted to, and rushed from Tmutarakan to a pop star concert in the regional center; she made her way behind the scenes behind the stolnik ... but she achieved it. .. I saw!., and maybe even achieved something ...), and stays there from mid-June to July 19, 1825 (normally, more than a month without a husband, without three daughters - she came off in full!) Together with her cousin P.A. Vulf-Osipova and her two daughters, one of whom, Anna Nikolaevna, was carried away by Pushkin and retained a deep unrequited feeling for life.

The poet's genius seems to have exercised a great influence on women; however, women at any time liked men who were talented, famous and strong in spirit and body.

The whole month that Kern spent with her aunt, Pushkin appeared almost daily at Trigorskoye, read his poems to her, listened to her sing. The day before the departure, Kern, along with her aunt and sister, visited Pushkin in Mikhailovsky, where the two of them wandered around the neglected garden for a long time at night, but, as Kern claims in her memoirs, she did not remember the details of the conversation.

Strange ... however, maybe there was no time for talking ...

The next day, saying goodbye, Pushkin gave her a copy of the first chapter of Eugene Onegin, between the sheets of which she found a sheet of paper folded in four with the verses "I remember a wonderful moment ..."

Five letters, written by him after Anna Petrovna Kern, and carefully preserved by her, slightly reveal the secret of their relationship. Unfortunately, Kern's letters to Pushkin have not been preserved, which makes the picture incomplete.

Here are a few quotes: "Your visit to Trigorskoe left an impression on me deeper and more painful than that which our meeting at the Olenins' had." "... I'm furious and I'm at your feet." "...I'm dying of boredom and I can only think of you."

It is not known what Kern answered him, but in the next letter he writes: “You assure me that I don’t know your character. And what do I care about him? I really need him - do pretty women have to have a character? teeth, arms and legs... How is your husband doing? I hope he had a major attack of gout the day after your arrival? If you only knew how disgusted... I feel for this man!... I beg you, divine write to me, love me..."

In the next letter: "... I love you more than you think ... You will come? - isn't it? - but until then, do not decide anything about your husband. Finally, be sure that I am not one of those who never advises drastic measures - sometimes it is inevitable, but first you need to think carefully and not create a scandal unnecessarily. It is now night, and your image rises before me, so sad and voluptuous: it seems to me that I see ... your half-open lips ... it seems to me that I am at your feet, squeezing them, feeling your knees - I would give my whole life for a moment of reality.

In the penultimate letter: "If your husband is very tired of you, leave him ... You leave the whole family there and come ... to Mikhailovskoye! Can you imagine how happy I would be? You say:" And the publicity, but the scandal? "Damn it! When a husband is abandoned, it's already a complete scandal, what happens next doesn't mean anything or means very little. Agree that my project is romantic! And when Kern dies, you'll be free as air... Well, what do you say to that?" " (By the way, E.F. Kern will die only after 16 years in 1841 at the age of 76 - he was a strong old man.)

And in the last, fifth letter: "Do you seriously say that you approve of my project? ... my head is spinning with joy. Talk to me about love: that's what I'm waiting for. The hope of seeing you still young and beautiful is the only thing that I expensive."

Probably, it is impossible to draw direct parallels between Pushkin's letters and the fact that at the beginning of 1826 Anna Petrovna Kern leaves her husband, a general, and leaves for St. Petersburg with her daughters, father and sister, because at the age of 20 (she was born on February 11, 1800) she writes in her diary: "... my fate is connected with a man whom I cannot love and whom ... I almost hate. I would run away ... if only to get rid of this misfortune - to share fate with such a rude, uncouth person ."

A few days after Pushkin presented Kern with a piece of poetry in Trigorskoye, he ended the letter to one of his friends with these words: "I feel that my spiritual powers have reached full development, I can create." And what, if not love, makes a person create? Although many Pushkinists believe that his passion was not particularly deep. And the course of their unspoken thoughts can be understood: in the wilderness, in exile, an enthusiastic woman came to the Poet, and the poet was just a man who was a poet ...

On May 22, 1827, Pushkin, after being released from exile, returned to St. Petersburg, where, as A.P. Kern writes, "I visited almost every day" in the house of his parents. He himself lived in a tavern near Demut on the Moika (one of the best St. Petersburg hotels) and "sometimes came to us, going to his parents."

Soon the father and sister left, and A.P. Kern began to rent a small apartment in the house where Pushkin's friend, the poet Baron Delvig, lived with his wife. On this occasion, Kern recalls that "once, introducing his wife to one family, Delvig joked: "This is my wife," and then, pointing to me: "And this is the second one."

"Pushkin ... often entered my room, repeating the last verse he wrote ...", "... visiting me, he talked about conversations with friends ..," "... he wanted to spend several hours with me , but I had to go to Countess Ivelevich ... "- Anna Petrovna recalls their relationship during this period in a streamlined way.

Veresaev writes that it was only in Moscow that Pushkin, when his former passion had faded, recognized Kern as a woman, although some authors write that this happened for the first time in Mikhailovsky. Pushkin immediately boasted in a letter to his friend Sobolevsky, not embarrassed in expressions and, moreover, using the lexicon of cabbies (sorry for the ugly quote - but what it is, it is): “You don’t write to me about 2100 rubles, I owe you, and you write to me about m-me Kern, whom I fucked the other day with the help of God.

As with all poets, so with Pushkin, falling in love passed quickly. A little later, Pushkin would write to Wulf with a slight sneer: "What is Anna Petrovna, whore of Babylon, doing?" - I mean THEM(Kern and Wolfe) relationship. And ten years later, in a letter to his wife, Pushkin would call Anna Kern a fool and send her to hell.

Why so rude? Veresaev explains it this way: "There was one short moment when a piquant, easily accessible to many (but not to a poet in love (aut)) mistress was suddenly perceived by the poet's soul as a genius of pure beauty - and the poet is artistically justified."

Having received a good education at home, possessing independent thinking, carried away by literature, she was always drawn to smart, sincere, talented people, and never before or since did she live such a rich spiritual life as at that time. Among her friends were the entire Pushkin family, the Delvig family, Vyazemsky, Krylov, Zhukovsky, Mitskevich, Glinka, Baratynsky. Already in her old age, when she was almost sixty, she will reflect the impressions of communicating with them in memoirs that are so puritanical in nature that Pushkin and his entourage look like a finished bronze composition, where Glinka is a “kind and amiable person”, a “dear musician” with "the most pleasant character", Mickiewicz "constantly amiable and pleasant", and Baron Delvig "amiable, kind and pleasant".

Only sometimes does she describe living real faces, where Pushkin is "... reckless and arrogant ... not always ... prudent, and sometimes not even smart", and that "... a circle of gifted writers and friends grouped around Pushkin, bore the character of a careless Russian gentleman who loves to deceive ... with a desire to have smart and noisy fun, and sometimes to have a good time.

For these words, she is often accused of bias, but probably in vain. True talent is not boring and not boring, it creates as it breathes, easily and imperceptibly for others, and does not put itself on a pedestal during its lifetime, but enjoys this life.

With a considerable amount of humor, she recalls that "Baratynsky never put punctuation marks except for a comma, and Delvig said that Baratynsky allegedly asked him:" What do you call the genitive case?

From the memoirs it is impossible to determine the degree of her closeness with Pushkin in this period, but it is incorrect to assume that Pushkin had a special relationship with A.P. asked for her hand.

By the way, Pushkin, as Kern herself notes, “had a low opinion of women, he was fascinated by wit, brilliance and external beauty in them,” and not virtue. Once, speaking of a woman who passionately loved him (apparently, it was about Anna Nikolaevna Wulf), he said: "... there is nothing tasteless than long-suffering and selflessness."

Some biographers, analyzing her (Kern) girlish "Diary for Rest", written by her at the age of 20, argue that it contains evidence of some special tendency of her from an early age to coquetry and flirting, which developed later, but not all of them agree.

What's in it? Descriptions of the balls ("... it's four o'clock in the afternoon, and I just got out of bed, so tired of the ball"), tea and dancing at the governor's, a description of her passion for some "worthy object that took possession" of her soul. She writes: "... I confess that for the first time I really love, and all other men are indifferent to me." "To love is to grieve, but not to love is not to live. So, I want to be tormented, grieve and live, as long as God pleases to relocate to eternity." (By the way, when she was seventy years old, she wrote that during her youth, young people "did not have that frivolity .., that licentiousness, which is striking now ..."). It is not known what kind of "worthy subject" we are talking about, but it is known that General Kern reprimands her for "they saw me, I was standing around the corner with one officer", "in the carriage he (Kern) began to yell, as if stabbed to death that ... no one in the world will convince him that I am staying at home for the sake of the child, he knows the real reason, and if I don’t go (to the ball), then he will also stay.

Her disgust for her husband is so great that she writes: "... even my daughter is not so dear to me ... if it were a child from ..., it would be dearer to me than my own life." And some strange episodes related with the quirks of an elderly husband-general worthy of the pages of a modern scandalous yellow edition.

His nephew, who is a year younger than Anna Petrovna, settles in the general’s house, and in her notes, indicated in the diary “At 10 pm, after dinner,” the following is literally: “Now I was with P. Kern (the general’s nephew) in his room. Not I know why, but my husband wants me to go there when he goes to bed at all costs. More often than not, I avoid it, but sometimes he drags me there almost by force. And this young man ... not he is neither timid nor modest ... behaves like a second Narcissus, and imagines that one must at least be made of ice in order not to fall in love with him, seeing him in such a pleasant pose. My husband made me sit down beside his bed .., everyone asked me, isn't it, what kind of his nephew's Beautiful face. I confess, I'm just at a loss and can't figure out what it all means and how to understand such strange behavior."

In the thirties, events take place in the fate of Anna Petrovna Kern that radically change her Petersburg way of life. On February 18, 1831, Pushkin married the brilliant Natalya Nikolaevna Goncharova, with the one "who I loved for two years ..." - as he wrote in the sketch of the autobiographical story "My fate is decided. I'm getting married.", That is, since 1829 his heart belonged to Natalia Nikolaevna.

Soon, in the same 1831, Delvig dies. With the death of Delvig and the marriage of Pushkin, A.P. Kern’s connection with this circle of people close and dear to her was cut off.

The following years brought A.P. Kern a lot of grief. She buried her mother, her husband demanded her return, she tried to do translations in order to have "a livelihood", but she did not have enough experience and skill, and nothing came of it.

Several sharp and mocking words of Pushkin about her translations are known, but Pushkinists note that his friendly attitude towards her remains unchanged. Pushkin even helped her in the efforts to buy out the family estate, which, unfortunately, were not crowned with success.

And on February 1, 1837, she "wept and prayed" in the twilight of the Konyushennaya Church, where Pushkin was buried.

But life went on. Her second cousin, a pupil of the cadet corps, A.V. Markov-Vinogradsky, who is much younger than her, falls in love with her, still attractive at 37, and she reciprocates. He sacrifices everything to her: career, material security, the location of relatives. In 1839, their son is born (this is the fourth child of Anna Kern), who is called Alexander.

In 1841, General Kern dies, and in 1842 Anna Petrovna officially formalizes her marriage to A.V. Markov-Vinogradsky and takes his last name.

She refuses the title of "Excellency", from the solid pension assigned to her for General Kern, from the support of her father. It was another bold step in her life, which not every woman of her circle would have dared to take.

They lived together for almost forty years. Material insecurity, which at times reached extreme need, all sorts of everyday hardships relentlessly pursued them. However, no difficulties could break the union of these two people; they have, in their own words, "worked out their happiness."

In 1851, Anna Petrovna wrote: “Poverty has its joys, and it’s always good for us, because there is a lot of love in us. Perhaps, under better circumstances, we would be less happy. every smile of the surrounding world in order to enrich oneself with spiritual happiness. The rich are never poets... Poetry is the wealth of poverty..."

After the death of Pushkin, Anna Petrovna jealously kept everything that was at least to some extent connected with the memory of the poet - from his poems and letters to her to a small footstool on which he happened to sit in her house.

And the further their acquaintance went into the past, the more Anna Petrovna felt how generously she was endowed with fate, which brought her to life path with Pushkin. And when she was approached with a proposal to tell about her meetings with the poet, she did it willingly and quickly. At that time, she was about sixty years old: well, this just perfectly matches Pushkin's lines "... everything is instantaneous, everything will pass, what will pass will be nice."

Later P.V. Annenkov reproached her: "... you said less than what you could and should have said", that the memories should have turned into notes and "at the same time, of course, any need for half-confidence, silence, reluctance, as in in relation to oneself, and in relation to others ... false concepts of friendship, of decency and indecency. Of course, for this it is necessary to separate from small and vulgar considerations of the petty-bourgeois understanding of morality, permissible and inadmissible ... "The public expected juicy details and scandalous revelations ?

After 1865, the Markov-Vinogradskys led a wandering life - sometimes they lived with relatives in the Tver province, then in Lubny, then in Moscow. They were still haunted by appalling poverty.

Anna Petrovna even had to part with her only treasure - Pushkin's letters, to sell them for five rubles apiece (for comparison, during Pushkin's life a very luxurious edition of "Eugene Onegin" cost twenty-five rubles a copy). Incidentally, the composer Glinka simply lost the original poem "I remember a wonderful moment" when he composed his music on it, by the way, dedicated to Anna Kern's daughter, with whom (daughter) Glinka was madly in love ... so the poor woman by the end of life, except for memories, there was nothing left ... sadly ...

In January 1879, A.V. Markov-Vinogradsky died of stomach cancer with terrible suffering, and four months later in Moscow, in modest furnished rooms at the corner of Tverskaya and Gruzinskaya, at the age of seventy-nine, Anna Petrovna Markova- Vinogradskaya (Kern).

The story that has become a legend that "her coffin met with a monument to Pushkin, which was imported to Moscow," is well-known. Was it or not, it is not known for certain, but I want to believe that it was ... Because it is beautiful ...

There is no poet, there is no this woman... but this is the case when life after death continues. "I erected a monument to myself not made by hands ..." - Pushkin prophetically said to himself, but for this he had to create everything for which we know him, love and appreciate him, but only one poem dedicated to a sinless living woman, simple words genius "I remember a wonderful moment ..." immortalized the name of an ordinary earthly woman, to whom they were dedicated. And if somewhere the poetic image and the real person do not coincide, well ... this only proves that both the Poet and the Woman were normal living people, and not popular prints, as they were presented to us earlier, and this their human normality does not way does not diminish their place in the spiritual aura of the nation.

And let one shine, but the other reflects ...

Nikolai Latushkin

(Information on the memoirs of A.P. Kern and various

literary and journalistic sources)

Biography

The life of Anna Petrovna Kern is a difficult life, full of vicissitudes and hardships, almost tragic. And at the same time, she is surprisingly full of significant events and experiences, vivid impressions, rich, diverse spiritual interests - all that gave her many years of communication with remarkable people.

A. P. Kern, as she said, "was born along with the century" - at the very beginning (February 11), 1800. Her homeland is the city of Orel, where her maternal grandfather I.P. Wolf was the governor. But the girl was barely a few months old when her parents left the provincial Orel, and all her early years were spent in the provincial town of Lubny in Ukraine and in the Tver estate of I.P. Wolf Bernov.

Her parents belonged to the circle of wealthy bureaucratic nobility. Father - Poltava landowner and court adviser P. M. Poltoratsky - was the son of a famous Elizabethan times the head of the court chapel, Mark Fedorovich Poltoratsky, married to Agafoklea Alexandrovna Shishkova, a rich and powerful woman who equally arbitrarily ruled both her huge family and her numerous villages. Pyotr Markovich was an energetic, intelligent, well-read man, but tyranny and frivolity, bordering on adventurism, often led him to the most thoughtless acts, causing a lot of trouble to himself and those around him. Mother - Ekaterina Ivanovna, born Wulf, a kind woman, tenderly attached to children, but sickly and weak-willed, was entirely under the supervision of her husband.

Many different people surrounded the observant, impressionable girl and somehow influenced the formation of her character, her life concepts. In addition to their parents, this is the benevolent grandpa Ivan Petrovich, and the kind grandmother Anna Fedorovna, and the cruel, wayward Agafokleya Alexandrovna, countless uncles, aunts, cousins ​​and brothers, and the affectionate nanny Vasilievna, and the patriarchal Lubny townsfolk ... Subsequently, Anna Petrovna is inclined to was somewhat idealizing these people, but even from her descriptions it is clearly visible how low the intellectual level of this surrounding landowner and district philistine environment was, how narrow her interests were, how insignificant her occupations were.

For four years (from 8 to 12 years old), the girl, along with her cousin and closest friend for life, Anna Wulff, was raised and taught foreign languages ​​and various sciences by m-lle Benoit. Invited to Bernovo from St. Petersburg, m-lle Benoit, apparently, favorably differed from most foreign governesses of those times. A smart and knowledgeable teacher, by strictly systematic work she managed to win the respect and love of her pupil, she managed not only to teach the girl a lot, but, most importantly, to awaken in her curiosity and a taste for independent thinking. All classes were held in French; Russian was taught by a student who came from Moscow for several weeks during the holidays.

From the earliest years, as Anna Petrovna recalled, her passion for reading did not leave her. "I spent every free minute reading French and Russian books from my mother's library." This hobby, strongly encouraged by m-lle Benoit, eventually became a vital need. "We perceived from books only what was clear to the heart, what inspired the imagination, what was consistent with our spiritual purity, corresponded to our daydreaming and created poetic images and ideas in our playful imagination."

And another teacher, according to Anna Petrovna herself, had a great and beneficial influence on the formation of her spiritual image - nature. Tver fields and groves, Poltava steppes... When eight-year-old cousins ​​Anna Poltoratskaya and Anna Wolf first met in Bernovo, they "embraced and began to talk. She described the beauties of Trigorsky, and I - the delights of Luben..."

Until the age of sixteen, Anna Petrovna lived with her parents in Lubny. As she says, “she taught her brother and sisters, dreamed in the groves and behind books, danced at balls, listened to the praises of outsiders and reprimands from her relatives, participated in home performances ... and generally led a rather vulgar life, like most provincial young ladies.”

Some biographers of A.P. Kern, including the author of a book about her - B.L. Modzalevsky , as if her memoirs contain evidence of some special tendency of her from an early age to coquetry and flirting, which subsequently developed. One can hardly agree with this. All those petty insults, disappointments, embarrassments that Kern ingenuously talks about are characteristic of any teenage girl. The impartial reader of "Memoirs of My Childhood" for many pages sees in front of him the attractive features of a kind and sincere nature, lively and impressionable, modest and timid, although she shared the "vulgar life" of her environment, but in mind, development, demands noticeably different from "most provincial young ladies." Such, apparently, was the one who wrote these pages at the age of 12-16.

The well-established, familiar life in the parental home was cut short unexpectedly and sadly.

On January 8, 1817, a girl who had not yet reached seventeen years old was married to a fifty-two-year-old divisional general Yermolai Fedorovich Kern. The tyrant-father was flattered that his daughter would become a general's wife. E. F. Kern was an old campaigner who had become a general from the lower ranks, a narrow-minded man who did not know any other interests than the front, exercises, reviews. Not only due to his considerable age, but also due to his narrow-mindedness, rude right, he did not fit in any way with his young bride, secularly educated, dreaming of a life illuminated by noble ideals and lofty feelings. Many "district young ladies" envied her: it was not easy to find a groom-general. She submitted to the will of her parents with desperation. Kern not only did not take advantage of her location, but disgusted her. She understood that all her dreams were collapsing and there was nothing ahead but everyday life, gray and bleak.

So, in essence, having barely begun, life turned out to be broken, "nailed to the flower", tragically distorted.

For almost ten years, Anna Petrovna was forced to move after her husband from one city to another, depending on where the unit commanded by General Kern lodged. Elizavetgrad, Derpt, Pskov, Old Bykhov, Riga... From a provincial-philistine, small local environment, she ended up in a provincial military environment. What this environment of the Arakcheev time represented was known. Even the highest officers, as a rule, are rude and ignorant people. The most insignificant interests: studies, parades, promotions...

Events of any significance, memorable events were extremely rare. Anna Petrovna especially remembered the trip to St. Petersburg in early 1819, where in the house of her aunt, E. M. Olenina, she heard I. A. Krylov and met Pushkin for the first time, visits to relatives in Lubny, sometimes quite lengthy.

Here, in 1824-1825, she met and became friendly with her neighbor on the estate - A. G. Rodzianko, in her words, "a sweet poet, intelligent, amiable and very likeable person." Rodzianko knew Pushkin. At his place Anna Petrovna found shortly before that published "The Prisoner of the Caucasus" and "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray" and even took part in the correspondence of the poets. She was in every possible way drawn to smart, sincere, talented people - unlike those that constantly surrounded her in her own house. In Kyiv, she meets the Raevsky family and speaks of them with a sense of admiration. In Dorpat, her best friends are the Moyers, a professor of surgery at the local university, and his wife, "Zhukovsky's first love and his muse." In the summer of 1825, she made a trip to her aunt P. A. Vulf-Osipova in Trigorskoye to get acquainted with the exiled Pushkin: "Delighted by Pushkin, I passionately wanted to see him."

Life in an atmosphere of barracks rudeness and ignorance with a hated husband was unbearable for her. Even in the "Diary for Rest" of 1820, in the most ardent terms, she expressed her hatred for this atmosphere, feelings of deepest dissatisfaction, close to despair: "What anguish! It's terrible! I just don't know where to go. Imagine my situation - not a single soul, with whom I could talk, reading is already dizzy, I finish the book - and again alone in the world, my husband either sleeps, or at the exercises, or smokes. Oh God, have mercy on me! " Over time, the conflict between the nature of an honest, impressionable, can not stand lies and falsehood and vulgar, dirty everyday life became more and more aggravated.

At the beginning of 1826, Anna Petrovna left her husband, went to St. Petersburg and settled there with her father and sister (her daughters Ekaterina and Anna, born in 1818 and in 1821, were brought up at the Smolny Institute).
The end of the 20s - the beginning of the 30s, although they were not easy for A.P. Kern (the need to arrange her own fate, material dependence on her husband), appeared at the same time best years her conscious life. She entered the circle of people she dreamed about, saw on their part understanding, friendly participation, and sometimes enthusiastic worship.

Among her closest friends were the entire Pushkin family - Nadezhda Osipovna, Sergey Lvovich, Lev, whom she "turned her head", and especially Olga, whom she heartily helped at a difficult moment in her secret marriage and after whom she named her youngest daughter Olga. Anna Petrovna was her own person at the Delvigs (she met A. A. Delvig at the Pushkins), for some time she even rented an apartment in the same house with them, and Sofia Mikhailovna spent whole days in her company, sharing the most intimate. She was aware of all the undertakings and concerns of the Pushkin-Delvigov circle, she read "Northern Flowers" and "Literary Gazette" in proof. She herself tried to translate French novels. She was an indispensable participant in friendly literary evenings, at which Pushkin and Vyazemsky, Krylov and Zhukovsky, Venevitinov and Mitskevich, Pletnev and Gnedich, Podolinsky, Somov, Illichevsky ... (See: Gaevsky V. Delvig: Article Four) gathered / / Sovremennik. - 1854.- No 9. - S. 7-8.) Never, neither before nor later, did A.P. Kern live such a rich spiritual life as at that time.

The young poet D. V. Venevitinov, who loved her company, had conversations with her, "full of that high purity and morality that distinguished him," wanted to paint her portrait, saying that he "admires her, like Iphigenia in Tauris ..." (Pyatkovsky A.N. Prince V.F. Odoevsky and D.V. Venevitinov. - St. Petersburg, 1901. - P. 129.). A. V. Nikitenko, later a well-known critic, a professor at St. her into a lengthy controversy "on an equal footing" (See: Nikitenko A.V. Diary: In 3 vols. T. 1. - M., 1955. - P. 46 et seq.). Anna Petrovna's remarks show the maturity of her literary tastes, which, of course, were formed not without the influence of Pushkin and Delvig.

Kern met with M. I. Glinka at the Delvigs. Here, those friendly relations were established between them, which remained for many years (See: Glinka M.I. Literary heritage. - T. 1. - L .; M., 1952.).
In 1831, with the death of Delvig and the marriage of Pushkin, A.P. Kern’s connection with this circle of people especially close and dear to her was cut off. She was still close to O. S. Pushkina (Pavlishcheva), visited N. O. and S. L. Pushkins, where she also met Alexander Sergeevich. But there was no longer that close circle of friends, that atmosphere of unconstrained creative communication, which made life full and interesting, made it possible to forget everyday everyday hardships.

The following years brought A.P. Kern many sorrows. She buried her mother. Her husband demanded her return, refused material support. Deprived of all means, robbed by her father and relatives, she, according to N. O. Pushkina, "survived from day to day." After the death of her mother, in 1832, she tried to petition for the return of her estate, sold by P. M. Poltoratsky to Count Sheremetev. Pushkin and E. M. Khitrovo took part in the troubles. But nothing was achieved. I tried to do translations, again turned to Pushkin for assistance, but I lacked experience, skill, and nothing came of this either. However, even under such circumstances, she remained steadfast and independent.

At the beginning of 1841, E. F. Kern died, and a year and a half later, on July 25, 1842, Anna Petrovna remarried - to her second cousin A. V. Markov-Vinogradsky. Her husband was much younger than her, but they were connected by a feeling of great strength and sincerity. Alexander Vasilievich, while still a pupil of the First St. Petersburg Cadet Corps, fell head over heels in love with his cousin, young, still attractive at 36-37 years old. Released into the army, he served only two years and retired with the rank of second lieutenant to marry. Everything was sacrificed - career, material security, the location of relatives. Anna Petrovna refused the title of "Excellency", from the solid pension assigned to her for Kern, from the support of her father and was not afraid of disorder, insecurity, a vaguely uncertain future. It was a bold step that not every woman of her circle would have dared to take.

The Markov-Vinogradskys lived for almost forty years, almost without parting. Raised a son. Material insecurity, which at times reached extreme need, all sorts of everyday hardships relentlessly pursued them. In order to somehow make ends meet, they were forced to live for many years in a small village near the county town of Sosnitsa, Chernigov province, the only ancestral "patrimony" of Alexander Vasilyevich. The place of an assessor, which provides means for a comfortable existence, or the possibility of moving to live in the city of Torzhok, or even half a pound of coffee, were the subject of dreams. However, no life's difficulties and hardships could disturb the touchingly tender harmony of these two people, based on the commonality of spiritual needs and interests. They, in their own expression, which they liked to repeat, "worked out happiness for themselves." This is convincingly evidenced by the letters of A.P. and A.V. Markov-Vinogradsky from Sosnitsa to the sister of Alexander Vasilyevich - Elizaveta Vasilievna, by her husband Bakunina. So, for example, in September 1851, Anna Petrovna wrote: "Poverty has its joys, and we are always happy, because we have a lot of love ... Maybe, under better circumstances, we would be less happy." And a year later, on August 17, 1852: "Husband today went to his office for a week, and maybe longer. You cannot imagine how sad I am when he leaves! Imagine and scold me for what I have become unusually suspicious and superstitious! I'm afraid - what were you thinking? You'll never guess! - I'm afraid that we both have never been, it seems, so tender to each other, so happy, so in agreement! (Manuscript Department of the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 27259/CXCV-54.)

A rare letter does not contain an enumeration, or even a critical analysis of books read together. Among them are the novels of Dickens and Thackeray, Balzac and George Sand, stories by Panaev and Baron Brambeus (Senkovskii), almost all the thick Russian magazines: Sovremennik, Otechestvennye Zapiski, Library for Reading... The spiritual life of these people, abandoned into the wilderness, was amazingly full and varied.

At the end of 1855, the Markov-Vinogradskys moved to St. Petersburg, where Alexander Vasilyevich managed to first get a job as a home teacher in the family of Prince. S. A. Dolgorukov, and then the head clerk in the department of destinies. The ten years they spent in St. Petersburg were perhaps the most prosperous in their life together: relatively well-off financially and extremely saturated with mental and social activity. The people around Anna Petrovna now, although not as brilliant as they once were, are far from ordinary. She found her closest friends in the family of N. N. Tyutchev, a writer, a man of liberal views, a former friend of Belinsky. In the company of his wife Alexandra Petrovna and sister-in-law Constance Petrovna de Dodt, she spent a lot of time. Here she met with F. I. Tyutchev, P. V. Annenkov, I. S. Turgenev. Turgenev, together with Annenkov, visited Anna Petrovna on her name day, February 3, 1864. This is noted in the diary by A. V. Markov-Vinogradsky (This extensive diary is kept in the Manuscript Department of the IRLI of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.), and Turgenev tells about this in a letter to P. Viardot. His response as a whole is more than restrained. But there are also such words in it: "In her youth, she must have been very pretty ... She keeps the letters that Pushkin wrote to her as a shrine ... A pleasant family, even a little touching ..." (I. Turgenev (S. Complete collection of works and letters: Letters. - V. 5. - M., 1963. - P. 222-223.) M. I. Glinka, with whom she renewed her acquaintance. Friendly relations with O.S. were also renewed. Pavlishcheva.

At the same time, almost all of her memoirs were written.

In November 1865, Alexander Vasilyevich retired with the rank of collegiate assessor and a small pension, and the Markov-Vinogradskys left St. Petersburg.

All subsequent years they led a wandering life - they lived either with relatives in the Tver province, then in Lubny, Kyiv, Moscow, or in Bakunin's Pryamukhin. They were still haunted by appalling poverty. Anna Petrovna even had to part with her only treasure - Pushkin's letters, to sell them for five rubles apiece. It is impossible to read with indifference the lines of a letter from Alexander Vasilievich to A. N. Vulf, who sent help at a critical moment - one hundred rubles: "My poor old woman shed a tear and kissed a rainbow piece of paper, so it came in handy ..." (Manuscript Department of the Institute of Russian Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 22922 / С2Хб36 .) And as before, with amazing stamina, they endured all the blows of fate, not embittered, not disappointed in life, not losing their former interest in it.

On January 28, 1879, A. V. Markov-Vinogradsky died in Pryamukhino. A week later, his son informed A. N. Vulf: “Dear Alexei Nikolaevich! I hasten to inform you with sadness that on January 28 my father died of cancer in the stomach during terrible suffering in the village of Bakunin in the village of Pryamukhino. After the funeral, I moved the unfortunate old mother to my place to Moscow - where I hope to somehow arrange for her at home and where she will live out her short, but painfully sad life! Any participation will bring joy to the poor orphan mother, for whom the loss of her father is irreplaceable "(Manuscript Department of the Institute of Russian Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 22921 / S2Xb35.).

In Moscow, in modest furnished rooms on the corner of Tverskaya and Gruzinskaya, Anna Petrovna lived for about four months, until her death on May 27 of the same, 1879.

The story that has become a legend is known that "her coffin met with a monument to Pushkin, which was imported to Moscow" (Russian Archive. - 1884. - No 6. - P. 349.). According to another version, shortly before her death, she heard a noise from her room caused by the transportation of a huge granite pedestal for a monument to Pushkin, and, having learned what was the matter, she said: “Ah, finally! Well, thank God, it’s high time!.. "(Modzalevsky B. L. Anna Petrovna Kern. - S. 124-125.) Whichever of these two versions is closer to reality, the very fact of the existence of such a legend is significant.

Talking about her visit to the Olenins' house in the winter of 1819, A.P. Kern recalled the expressive reading of one of his fables by I.A. Krylov. "In the midst of such charm," she wrote, "it was strange to see anyone but the culprit of poetic pleasure, and that's why I didn't notice Pushkin."

Several years have passed. It was precisely what so captured the nineteen-year-old provincial at the evening at the Olenins - the "poetic pleasure", the "charm" of poetry - that became the reason for her keen interest in the personality of the ugly curly-haired youth she did not notice at that time. The "southern poems" that resounded all over Russia carried the name of Pushkin to distant Lubny. Anna Petrovna wrote about her admiration for Pushkin's poems in Trigorskoye to her cousin Anna Nikolaevna Wulf, knowing that her words would reach the exiled poet. Anna Nikolaevna, in turn, told her "his various phrases" about the meeting at the Olenins. “Explain to me, dear, what is A.P. Kern, who wrote a lot of tenderness about me to her cousin? They say she is a pretty thing - but Lubny is glorious beyond the mountains,” Pushkin addresses A.G. Rodzianko at the end of 1824, and in response receives a message from Rodzianko and A.P. Kern. Thus began their correspondence.

It is interrupted by the arrival of Anna Petrovna in Trigorskoye in the summer of 1825.

For a month (from mid-June to mid-July) Kern stayed with Aunt P. A. Wulf-Osipova on the picturesque banks of the Sorot, and all this month Pushkin came to Trigorskoye almost every day. He read his "Gypsies" to her, told "the tale about the Devil, who rode a cab to Vasilevsky Island", listened to her sing a barcarolle to the verses of the blind poet I. I. Kozlov "Venetian Night", and wrote about this singing to P. A. Pletnev: "Tell Kozlov from me that one charm has recently visited our land, which celestially sings its Venetian night to the voice of the Gondolier recitative - I promised to inform the dear, inspired blind man about that. It is a pity that he will not see her - but let him imagine beauty and sincerity - at least God forbid he hear it! On the night before his departure, A.P. Kern from Trigorskoye, the poet showed her his Mikhailovsky Park, and on the day of departure he presented the 1st chapter of "Eugene Onegin", in uncut sheets, between which she found a four-fold sheet of note paper with verses: "I I remember a wonderful moment...

“Every night I walk in the garden and repeat to myself: she was here - the stone she stumbled on lies on my table, next to a branch of withered heliotrope, I write many poems - all this, if you like, is very similar to love, but I swear to you that this is not at all the same,” Pushkin admits half-jokingly, half-seriously to Anna Nikolaevna Vulf, who left with Anna Petrovna, her mother and younger sister, for Riga.

Following Anna Petrovna, Pushkin sends five letters one after another, she answers and becomes the poet's partner in a kind of literary game, his co-author in creating a kind of "novel in letters". The poet's letters are witty, brilliant and always playful in Pushkin's style. "... If you come, I promise you to be gracious to the extreme - on Monday I will be cheerful, on Tuesday enthusiastic, on Wednesday gentle, on Thursday playful, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday I will be whatever you want, and all week - at your feet..." Pushkin achieves a truly lofty comedy, supplementing the letters addressed directly to Kern with a letter written about her to a third person - ostensibly to Aunt Praskovya Alexandrovna, but in fact intended for the same Anna Petrovna.

We do not know the letters of A.P. Kern to Pushkin. But one must think that they were written in the tone of his epistles.

The irony of Pushkin's tone does not allow one to determine the measure of the seriousness of the poet's love confessions. It can be assumed that his passion was not particularly deep. However, regardless of this, it is absolutely certain that it was pleasant, interesting, and fun for both Pushkin and his correspondent to maintain this correspondence.

Joking Pushkin's letters were immediately preceded by an appeal to the same woman in verse of a high lyrical order.

If in the letters to A.P. Kern we have before us the external, everyday side of human relations, then in the poem "I remember a wonderful moment ..." the hidden spiritual life of the poet is revealed.

A few days after Pushkin gave Anna Petrovna a leaflet with poems addressed to her in Trigorskoye, he ended a letter to one of his friends with such significant words: "I feel that my spiritual powers have reached full development, I can create." This is said in connection with "Boris Godunov", the work on which was then in full swing. It was a moment of special upsurge of creative, mental strength, the moment of joyful "awakening" of the soul. And at that time, “in the wilderness, in the darkness of confinement,” a beautiful, bright image from distant years again appeared to Pushkin - as a gratifying memory of a stormy, free youth and as a hope for an imminent release, in which the exiled poet did not stop believing ... Already Pushkin spent not a few hours, as once with the Olenins, but spent many days in Trigorskoye near Anna Petrovna, but from this the vivid impression of that first, fleeting meeting with her was not erased, did not fade, - on the contrary, the image of a beautiful woman acquired in the eyes of the poet new charm. If their meeting at the Olenins was accidental, then in the summer of 1825 Anna Petrovna was heading to Trigorskoye, knowing full well that she would meet there the author of The Prisoner of the Caucasus, The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, The Robber Brothers, the first chapter of Eugene Onegin, and ardently wished acquaintance with the first Russian poet.

Many years later, in a letter to their relatives (Bakunin), Anna Petrovna and Alexander Vasilyevich Markov-Vinogradsky wrote about themselves: “We, having despaired of ever gaining material satisfaction, cherish every moral impression and chase after the pleasures of the soul and catch every smile of the world around us, to enrich oneself with spiritual happiness. The rich are never poets... Poetry is the wealth of poverty..." (Manuscript Department of the Institute of Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 27259/CXCVb54.) Ability and striving to live an intense spiritual life, thirst for "poetic pleasure", vivid impressions for the mind were always characteristic of A. P. Kern.
In the autumn of 1825, Anna Petrovna again visited Trigorskoye with E.F. Kern, and Pushkin, in her words, “didn’t get along very well with her husband,” and with her “was still and even more tender ...”.
By the end of the 1820s, there are scattered but undoubted evidence of the friendly closeness that was then established between Kern and Pushkin. These are comic poems inscribed by the poet in her album, and a copy of "Gypsies" with the inscription: "To Her Excellency A.P. Kern from Mr. Pushkin, her zealous admirer ...", the poem "Signs" dedicated to her, and, finally, several lines in Pushkin's letters.
Sincerely friendly conversation Pushkin with A.P. Kern, of course, was not an accident, it had a prerequisite for the originality and originality of her personality.
Later, when changed life circumstances alienate Kern from Pushkin's circle, from Pushkin, her admiration for Pushkin's poetry and her ardent sympathy for the poet himself remain unchanged, and Pushkin's friendly disposition towards her remains unchanged - until the end of his life.
This is not contradicted by a few harsh and mocking words spoken by the poet in a letter to his wife on September 29, 1835 regarding Kern's note, in which she asked Smirdin to intercede for the publication of her translation of George Sand's novel. First of all, we should not forget that Pushkin received the note through Natalya Nikolaevna, who was jealous of her husband for all his former friends, and also that it was difficult for Pushkin to help Anna Petrovna in this case - by 1835 he broke off all business relations with Smirdin. But Anna Petrovna recalls with what sincere participation Pushkin consoled her and tried to encourage her after the death of her mother - in one of the most difficult moments of her life: "Pushkin came to me and, looking for my apartment, ran, with his characteristic liveliness, through all the neighboring yards until at last he found me. On this visit he used all his eloquence to console me, and I saw him as he was before." We know that Pushkin, together with E. M. Khitrovo, helped A. P. Kern in her business efforts to buy out the estate ...
And on February 1, 1837, she "wept and prayed" in the twilight of the Konyushennaya Church, where Pushkin was buried.
After the death of Pushkin, Anna Petrovna jealously kept everything that was at least to some extent connected with the memory of the poet - from his poems and letters to her to a small footstool on which he happened to sit in her house. And the further their acquaintance went into the past, the more Anna Petrovna felt how generously she was gifted by fate, which brought her on the path of life with Pushkin.

Memories of Pushkin, of course, have a central place in the literary heritage of A.P. Kern. The success of this first work of hers, which got into print in 1859 and was greeted very sympathetically by numerous readers, brought to life memories of Delvig, Glinka (most often again in connection with Pushkin) and the last autobiographical notes, aroused interest in the personality of the memoirist herself and opened the way of publishing after many years, even decades, those of her works that were not intended for publication - diaries, letters.

Anna Petrovna, as she herself says, loved to write letters from childhood. As a girl, she began to keep a diary, which, however, was used by her father as wrapping material in his mustard factory. For A. P. Kern, it was a need to confide her thoughts, feelings, observations to paper, and this need remained with her throughout her life, becoming more urgent and definite over the years. And when in 1857 or 1858 one of her Petersburg acquaintances, the poetess E. N. Puchkova, turned to Anna Petrovna with a proposal to tell about her meetings with Pushkin, she did it willingly and quickly.
It has long been recognized that "Memories of Pushkin" by A.P. Kern (Markova-Vinogradskaya) occupy "one of the first places in a series of biographical materials about the great poet" (Maikov L. Pushkin: Biographical materials and historical and literary essays. - St. Petersburg. , 1899.- S. 234.).
Thanks to them, for the first time, many essential facts of Pushkin's life, which we are now accustomed to seeing on the pages of each of his biography, became known or received the necessary concreteness. How the young Pushkin spreads jokes in the St. Petersburg salon of the Olenins or rides on a bare horse from the post station to the estate of his old friend Rodzianko; how a poet, exiled to a Pskov village, daily comes from his Mikhailovsky to the hospitable Trigorsky house of the Wulf-Osipovs in order to be among friends, have fun and relax, or how, returning to the capital after six years of exile, touchingly and tenderly meets his beloved Delvig, on at his literary meetings or at Kern's apartment, he conducts "poetic conversations." We learned about all this and much more from the story of A.P. Kern - artless, sincere, fascinating. Pushkin different years, very different, but always Pushkin.

Kern also introduces Pushkin's hitherto unknown poems and letters, his thoughts, statements in friendly conversations, and some features of his creative process.

Subtly noticed by the memoirist are many properties of the character, manners, habits of the poet. "... He was very uneven in his manner: either noisily cheerful, then sad, then timid, then impudent, then endlessly amiable, then tediously boring - and it was impossible to guess in what mood he would be in a minute." "... He did not know how to hide his feelings, he always expressed them sincerely and was indescribably good when something pleasant agitated him ... When he decided to be kind, then nothing could compare with the brilliance, sharpness and fascination of his speech ". Here we have a real, living Pushkin, as only a smart, observant contemporary who knew him well could portray him. In a multitude of episodes scattered over the memories, seemingly small and random, but essentially very significant, we see this living Pushkin, always presented with ardent sympathy and subtle understanding. And then, when he becomes shy at the first acquaintance with a young lady; and when, pleased with his brother's verses, he says "very naively": "Il aussi beaucoup d" esprit "(" And he is also very smart "); and when, "like a genius of kindness," he comes to Kern in a difficult hour to console and help (a lot is said about Pushkin's extraordinary kindness, generosity, his love for children); and when, "sitting down on a small bench" in her apartment, he writes a poem "I was going to you. Living dreams...", and then "sings them with his sonorous voice". Pushkin's voice - "melodious, melodic" - we hear when A.P. "in moments of absent-mindedness" sings incessantly "Relentless, you did not want to live ..." We also hear his infectious "childish laughter".
Some of Kern's judgments are extremely interesting and important - about Pushkin's state of mind in post-December Petersburg ("He was then cheerful, but he lacked something ...", "... he was often gloomy, absent-minded and apathetic"), about the meaning of life in Mikhailovskoye for his creative development ("There, in the quiet of solitude, his poetry matured, his thoughts concentrated, his soul became stronger and comprehended ... He arrived in St. Petersburg with a rich supply of developed thoughts"). More than once, Kern's testimony about Pushkin's good relations with his mother was questioned, but, probably, she does not deviate from the truth here either - the poet's relationship with his mother, especially in his mature years, was different than with his father.
The "correct tact" with which Kern presents his relationship with Pushkin deserves special mention. “...Only one smart female hand,” wrote P.V. Annenkov, “is capable of sketching the history of intercourse so subtly and excellently, where the feeling of one’s dignity, along with the desire to please and even cordial affection, are cast in different and always graceful features, nor never offended anyone's eye and nobody's feelings, despite the fact that they are sometimes combined into images, least of all of a monastic or puritanical nature.

Pushkin appears before us in Kern's memoirs so authentically also because he is surrounded here by no less authentically represented contemporaries.

Laconically, sometimes in a few sentences, Kern draws extremely accurate and lively portraits of people of that circle, whose spiritual leader was Pushkin. Such, for example, is the charming Mitskevich or the amazing Krylov in her depiction, whose witticisms Pushkin readily repeats and who defines “what Pushkin is” in one word: “Genius”.
A direct continuation of the memoirs of Pushkin were the memoirs of Delvig and Glinka, where these two remarkable figures of the Pushkin era are characterized as fully and expressively as in no other memoir document. Anton Antonovich Delvig - "the soul of this whole happy family of poets" who gathered in his house, "a small republic", where he managed to create an atmosphere of "kindly simplicity and sympathy"; a man of a calm, even character, infinitely kind, hospitable, good-naturedly witty, knowing the value of a cheerful joke and a recognized authority in matters of art, "a principled and impartial connoisseur." And Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka is sickly, timidly modest and delicate, but, moreover, always the most welcome guest thanks to his mind and kindness of heart, possessing great creative power, the gift of shaking the souls of people with his art. Reading Kern's memoirs, you are surprised to see, for example, that in her story about a trip to Imatra in the summer of 1829, written many years after the event, all the participants in the trip, and the circumstances of the journey itself, pictures of the majestic northern nature are captured more accurately, more colorful than in essay by a professional writer O. M. Somov, published in 1830-1831.
Kern reports for the first time many facts from the biography of Delvig and Glinka. Thanks to her messages, Delvig's comic poems became known: "Friend Pushkin, do you want to taste ...", "The tail pile lay here ...", "I am in Kursk, dear friends ...", "Where the Semenovsky regiment is. ..". A parody of the ballad by V. A. Zhukovsky (translated from V. Scott) "The Baron of Smalholm", very close to the author's text, was cited by A. P. Kern long before Delvig's autograph became known. It is unlikely that anyone else who heard Glinka's brilliant improvisations, his special performance of his own and other people's works, told about them with such clarity and the deepest sympathy as A.P. Kern. How true and accurate are the characteristics of Glinka's music, for example, three lines about Lyudmila's aria from the opera "Ruslan and Lyudmila": "Oh, what wonderful music! What a soul in this music, what a harmonious combination of feeling with the mind and what a subtle understanding of folk color ... "

Working on the memories of Delvig, Glinka (they were then combined and saw the light in 1864), again returning to Delvig (published only in 1907), A.P. Kern, as it were, fulfilled the promise given at the beginning of her first memoirs, - "to put forward ... besides Pushkin, several persons ... known to all." But of course, she continued to think about Pushkin all the time. She published here several notes to her by Pushkin and E. M. Khitrovo. She remembered and told about meetings with the poet, when he, together with her, blessed Olga Sergeevna, who married against the will of her parents, and later, when he and his wife visited the mortally ill Nadezhda Osipovna. She conveyed the judgments she heard from him about Delvig's poems and some books - Pavlov's stories, novels by Bulwer, Manzoni. She supplemented the previous description of Pushkin's state of mind in the late 1920s and early 1930s, emphasizing the "deep, dramatic change" that had taken place in him. "... Pushkin often showed a restless mood ... His joke often turned into sarcasm, which probably had a basis in the spirit of the poet, deeply perturbed by reality." Defining the character of Delvig, she does this by comparing him with the character of Pushkin.
Of great value are the information that Kern reported in her letters to P. V. Annenkov, especially the detailed description of Pushkin's long-term friend P. A. Osipova.
In some cases, Kern's story sins with a certain subjectivism, an idealization of the "good old days." Is it possible to agree, for example, with the following statement: "The whole circle of gifted writers and friends, grouped around Pushkin, bore the character of a careless Russian gentleman who loves to swear..."? Were Pushkin, Delvig, Venevitinov, Mitskevich really such careless, "avoiding the hardships of work" merry fellows and revelers at that time? .. And one can hardly say about Delvig's life in recent years: and music, could be called the happiest of mortals. Here the sobriety and objectivity of the view are betrayed by the memoirist. But there are very few such cases, and the story of A.P. Kern as a whole recreates a completely reliable, objective picture of the life of that circle of Russian artistic intelligentsia of the 20-30s, of which Pushkin was the recognized head.

The value of a genuine historical document that combines vivid imagery, liveliness of description with factual accuracy, in general and in detail, is Kern's autobiographical notes, which complete the cycle of her memoirs and were published after her death, in 1884. A long series of typical images representing various strata of Russian society at the beginning of the last century, pictures of the life of a noble estate and a county town, are drawn frankly and very convincingly. Sometimes the story about people and events of the past is interrupted by the author's reflections, some conclusions from her life experience- about education and the role of work in it, blind obedience and independence, willpower, about marriage and relations between people in general. And these pages of notes are also of undoubted interest.

More than once the exceptional accuracy with which A.P. Kern sets out the facts of half a century ago in his memoirs has been pointed out. Errors are extremely rare. She herself emphasizes her desire for maximum accuracy - sometimes with a clause in the text (“I don’t remember further, but I don’t want to quote incorrectly”), then with an epigraph (“That mirror is only good, which correctly reflects”). Such a number of names, surnames, names of places, various statements and even poetic lines were preserved by the amazing memory of A.P. Kern, which may suggest that she did not use some of her old diary entries. But, apparently, if such records existed at one time, then by the time the memories were created, they had not survived.

The "Diary for Rest" of 1820 is not directly related to the content of the memoirs of Pushkin and his friends, but is of great interest as a document of the era and self-expression of the generation to which both Pushkin and Kern belonged. It was not intended for printing and was first published only a hundred years later, in 1929.

Anna Petrovna kept this "diary" when she was twenty years old and she lived in Pskov, where General Kern commanded a brigade (four years later Pushkin got there). She wrote for "relaxation", in order to forget for a while the bitterness of everyday life. She wrote in French, only occasionally using her native language (on the one hand, it was probably more familiar and more convenient, on the other hand, it was easier to protect the notes from the eyes of her husband, who did not read French). For the most part, the diary consists of complaints about an unbearably painful existence with a hated husband - a rude martinet in general's epaulettes, outpourings of bitter feelings and experiences, memories of her former life with her family, which now seems ideal to her. But it also contains many colorful sketches from the life of the officer environment and provincial society, well-aimed characteristics and portraits. There are even references, albeit rather naive, to revolutionary events in Europe, with which the year 1820 was so rich. A special place in the diary is occupied by numerous extracts from books read - not only sensitive French novels, but also such serious works as the book by J. de Stael "On Germany", which the young general read with an interest and understanding rare for that time (See: Zaborov P. R. Germain de Stael and Russian literature of the first third of the 19th century Early romantic trends. - L., 1972. - S. 195.). She read "Sentimental Journey" by L. Stern more than once in Russian and French (It should be noted that interest in Stern is characteristic of the progressive Russian youth of the 1810-1820s (see: Azadovsky M.K. Stern in the perception Decembrists Revolt of the Decembrists. - L., 1926. - S. 383-392).).

Not without the influence of sentimental writers, a style has developed that distinguishes the entries of A. P. Kern in the "Diary for Rest", especially those that deal with the hero of her half-fictional "novel" - a young officer, called either Eglantine - Rosehip, then Immortelle - Immortal. Kern often uses the fashionable "language of flowers" to express his feelings allegorically. Sometimes she clearly enters the role of the heroine of one or another of the novels she has read. But behind this naive-sentimental way of expression, one can discern the true tragedy of a woman with extraordinary demands and ideals, capable of a reasonable, useful life, deep and pure feelings, but instead doomed to a vulgar existence in an alien, even hostile environment - a rather ordinary tragedy of an outstanding man in Russia of the last century.
A "diary for relaxation" in its form is a diary-letter addressed to a certain person, with whom the author of the entries shares his thoughts, feelings, and observations. This form was not chosen by chance: the epistolary style was close to Anna Petrovna from an early age. However, we know very little from her correspondence. But even what we have is of undoubted value, especially, of course, the letters of Pushkin so carefully preserved by her, which were discussed above, the letters of P. V. Annenkov to her and her to Annenkov. They bring new touches to the portrait of Anna Petrovna herself known to us, supplement her memoirs and diary entries with new significant facts, our ideas about the range of phenomena of Russian public life of the last century, about which she told us.

P. V. Annenkov, in a letter to A. P. Kern (Markova-Vinogradskaya), written shortly after the publication of "Memoirs of Pushkin", gave a fair assessment of the merits and significance of her work, and declared the memoirist herself a contender for the title of "chronicler of a known era and a well-known society", whose name "has already become associated with the history of literature, i.e., with the history of our social development."

AT close connection with the history of our community development, with the poetry of Pushkin, the music of Glinka, this remarkable woman lives in the grateful memory of generations - an outstanding daughter of her era, stately and her chronicler.

Bibliography

• Kern A.P. “Memoirs of Pushkin” (“Library for Reading”, 1859, No. 4, reprinted in the collection of L.N. Maikov; “Pushkin”, St. Petersburg, 1899);
• A. P. Kern “Memories of Pushkin, Delvig and Glinka” (“Family Evenings”, 1864, No. 10; reprinted with additions, in the collection “Pushkin and His Contemporaries”, Issue V, 1908);
• Kern A.P. Memoirs of Anna Petrovna Kern. Three meetings with Emperor Alexander Pavlovich. 1817-1820 // Russian antiquity, 1870. - T. 1. - Ed. 3rd. - St. Petersburg, 1875 - S. 230-243 .;
• Kern A.P. “One hundred years ago” (Rainbow magazine, 1884, No. 18 - 19, 22, 24 and 25; reprinted, under the title: “From the memories of my childhood”, in the Russian Archive 1884, No. 6);
• Kern A.P. "Diary" (1861; in "Past Years", 1908, No. 10). - See the article by B. L. Modzalevsky in the collected works of Pushkin, edited by S. A. Vengerov (volume III, 1909).

Over the two centuries that have passed since the poem "I remember a wonderful moment ...", literary critics and historians have managed to conduct a lot of research on the relationship of the great poet with Anna Petrovna Kern. From their first meeting in St. Petersburg, in the aristocratic salon of the Olenins, to the last, the most mysterious and already legendary. Who is Anna Kern, Maria Molchanova figured out.

The beautiful romantic lines written by Alexander Pushkin in poems about Kern are tangibly “landed” by his hard-hitting remarks about the “genius of pure beauty” in letters to friends, which still tickles the nerves of lovers of spicy details. Be that as it may, Pushkin's dedication to Anna Kern has become almost the most popular lyric poem in Russian literature. And Anna Petrovna herself in the memory of her descendants remained the embodiment of femininity, an ideal muse.

Portrait of Anna Petrovna Kern

But that real life that Kern led outside of Pushkin's "halo" was not easy and sometimes tragic. Memoirs, diaries and letters of Anna Kern have been preserved, in which her experiences and facts of life are documented. Anna's grandfather Mark Poltoratsky belonged to an old Ukrainian Cossack family. A native of the hundredth town of Sosnitsa, he studied at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy. Alexey Razumovsky, who was looking for talented singers for the Court Choir in the Little Russian lands, invited Mark, the owner of an excellent baritone, to St. Petersburg.

At the age of 17, Anna is married to 52-year-old General Yermolai Kern

From the northern capital, the young singer was soon sent to Italy to improve his vocal skills. Returning to St. Petersburg, he became a conductor, and 10 years later - the manager of the Court Choir. For many years of service, he received the rank of real state councilor, which gave the right to hereditary nobility. Note that Poltoratsky had 22 children! Anna Kern was born in the family of his youngest son Peter, a retired second lieutenant, Lubensky marshal of the nobility.

Portrait of Anna Kern, 1840s

Anna Petrovna lived in Lubny until her marriage, taught her brother and sisters, danced at balls, participated in home performances ... “and led a rather vulgar life, like most provincial young ladies. Despite constant gaiety, dinners and balls in which I participated, I managed to satisfy my passion for reading, which had developed in me from the age of five. I never played with dolls and was very happy to participate in household chores.

In those years, a cavalry regiment was stationed in Lubny, and many officers were admirers of the young beauty. But Anna's marriage was decided by the will of her father, a strict and despotic man: 52-year-old Major General Ermolai Fedorovich Kern, a participant in the war with Napoleon, commander of the division to which the Lubensky regiment belonged, became her fiancé. The girl was amazed at this decision: “The courtesies of the general made me sick, I could hardly force myself to talk to him and be courteous ...”.

Pushkin, getting acquainted with Kern: "Is it possible to be so pretty!"

The wedding of Anna Poltoratskaya with Yermolai Kern took place on January 8, 1817 in the Lubensky Cathedral. Her distaste for the general only intensified after her marriage. In the diary of a young woman, entries constantly appeared, full of either deep anguish or indignation: “It is impossible to love him - I have not even been given consolation to respect him; To be honest, I almost hate him."

Ermolai Kern

In 1817, at a ball in Poltava, arranged on the occasion of a review of the 3rd Corps by General Fabian Wilhelmovich Osten-Saken, Anna met Emperor Alexander I: adored father! I was not in love ... I was in awe, I worshiped him! It is known that the emperor became the godfather of the first daughter of Anna Kern, Catherine.

Anna Petrovna first came to St. Petersburg in 1819, where she was introduced to her aunt Elizaveta Olenina, the wife of a prominent statesman, President of the Academy of Arts Alexander Olenin. In the aristocratic salon of the Olenins on the Fontanka embankment, house 101, the creative elite of that time gathered: Karl and Alexander Bryullov, Orest Kiprensky, Nikolai Gnedich, Vasily Zhukovsky, Nikolai Karamzin, Ivan Krylov. It was there that her first meeting with Pushkin took place, which became fateful. The poet, then not too famous, did not make a strong impression on Anna. Anna Kern recalled this evening: “At dinner, Pushkin sat down with my brother behind me and tried to attract my attention with flattering exclamations.”

Pushkin and Anna Kern. Drawing by Nadia Rusheva

Their next meeting took place six years later in the village of Trigorsky, near Mikhailovsky - in July 1825, at the estate of Praskovya Osipova, Anna's aunt. By that time, Anna Kern had become the mother of two daughters: Catherine and Anna. On the day of Anna Petrovna's departure from Trigorskoye, Pushkin handed her a copy of the second chapter of Onegin, in which was enclosed a sheet with the poem "I remember a wonderful moment ...". According to Kern's diaries, when she was about to hide the gift in a box, Pushkin looked at her intently, grabbed a piece of poetry and did not want to return it. Pushkin himself wrote about his feelings in a letter addressed to Anna Kern’s cousin, Anna Wulf, with whom she left Mikhailovsky for Riga: “Every night I walk in my garden and say to myself: here was she ... the stone she stumbled on, lies on my table beside the withered heliotrope. Finally, I write a lot of poetry. All this, if you like, strongly resembles love, but I swear to you that there is no mention of it.

Diary Kern: "Delighted by Pushkin, I long to see him..."

In the spring of 1826, a gap occurred between the Kern spouses, which led to a divorce. Soon their four-year-old daughter Anna died. Kern did not attend the funeral as she was pregnant with her third daughter, Olga, who would die in 1834. In the first years after the divorce, Anna Kern found support among Pushkin's friends - poets Anton Delvig, Dmitry Venevitinov, Alexei Illichevsky, writer Alexander Nikitenko. It is known that in 1827, during her stay in Trigorskoye, she visited Pushkin's parents and managed to "completely turn the head of Lev Sergeevich", the poet's brother. He even dedicated a poem to her "How can you not go crazy, listening to you, admiring you ...".

Anna Kern in Pushkin's drawing. 1829

In 1837-1838, Kern lived in St. Petersburg in small apartments, with her only surviving daughter, Ekaterina. Mikhail Glinka often visited them, courting Ekaterina Ermolaevna. He dedicated the romance "I remember a wonderful moment ..." to her, so Pushkin's lines were already addressed to Anna Kern's daughter. The last meeting with Pushkin took place shortly before the tragic death of the poet - he visited Anna to offer his condolences on the death of her mother. On February 1, 1837, Kern "wept and prayed" at the poet's funeral in the semi-darkness of the Stables Church.

The woman who inspired the famous poet for one of his main masterpieces had a bad reputation

First fleeting meeting Anna Petrovna Kern and young poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, which had yet to earn the status of "the sun of Russian poetry", happened in 1819. At that time, the young beauty was 19 years old and she had been married for two years.

Unequal marriage

Down the aisle, a hereditary noblewoman, the daughter of a court councilor and a Poltava landowner, who belonged to an old Cossack family, Anna Poltoratskaya left at the age of 16. The father, whom the family unquestioningly obeyed, decided that the 52-year-old general would be the best match for his daughter. Ermolai Kern- it is believed that later his features will be reflected in the image of the prince gremina in Pushkin's Eugene Onegin».

The wedding took place in January 1817. To say that the young wife did not love her elderly husband is to say nothing. Apparently, she felt disgust for him on a physical level - but was forced to portray good wife, traveled with the general to the garrisons. At first.

In the diaries of Anna Kern, there are phrases that it is impossible to love her husband and that she “almost hates” him. In 1818 they had a daughter Katia. Anna Petrovna also could not love a child born from a person she hated - the girl was brought up in Smolny, and her mother took part in her upbringing to a minimum. Two of their other daughters died in childhood.

fleeting vision

A couple of years after the wedding, rumors began to circulate about the young wife of General Kern that she was cheating on her husband. Yes, and in the diaries of Anna herself, references to different men are found. In 1819, during a visit to St. Petersburg to his aunt, Kern first met Pushkin - at her aunt's. Olenina had its own salon, in their house on the Fontanka embankment there were many famous people.

But then the young 21-year-old rake and wit did not make a special impression on Anna - he even seemed rude, and Kern considered his compliments to her beauty flattering. As she later recalled, she was much more fascinated by the charades that Ivan Krylov, who was one of the regulars at the Olenins' evenings.

Everything changed six years later, when Alexander Pushkin and Anna Kern got an unexpected chance to get to know each other better. In the summer of 1825, she was visiting another aunt in the estate in the village of Trigorskoye near Mikhailovsky, where the poet was serving a link. Pushkin, who was bored, often visited Trigorskoye - it was there that the "fleeting vision" sunk into his heart.

At that time, Alexander Sergeevich was already widely known, Anna Petrovna was flattered by his attention - but she herself fell under the spell of Pushkin. In her diary, the woman wrote that she was “in awe” of him. And the poet realized that he had found a muse in Trigorsky - the meetings inspired him, in a letter to his cousin Anna, Anne Wolf, he reported that he was finally writing a lot of poetry.

It was in Trigorskoye that Alexander Sergeevich handed over to Anna Petrovna one of the chapters of "Eugene Onegin" with an enclosed sheet on which the famous lines were written: "I remember a wonderful moment ..."

At the last moment, the poet almost changed his mind - and when Kern wanted to put the sheet in the box, he suddenly grabbed the paper - and did not want to give it back for a long time. As Anna Petrovna recalled, she barely persuaded Pushkin to return it to her. Why the poet hesitated is a mystery. Perhaps he considered the verse not good enough, perhaps he realized that he overdid it with the expression of feelings, or maybe for some other reason? Actually, this is where the most romantic part of the relationship between Alexander Pushkin and Anna Kern ends.

After the departure of Anna Petrovna with her daughters to Riga, where her husband then served, they corresponded with Alexander Sergeevich for a long time. But the letters are more like light playful flirting than they speak of deep passion or the suffering of lovers in separation. Yes, and Pushkin himself, shortly after meeting Anna, wrote in one of his letters to her cousin Wulf that all this “looks like love, but, I swear to you, there is no mention of it.” Yes, and his “I beg you, divine, write to me, love me”, mixed with witty barbs towards an elderly husband and reasoning that pretty women should not have character, rather speaks of admiration for the muse than of physical passion .

The correspondence continued for about six months. Kern's letters have not survived, but Pushkin's letters have come down to posterity - Anna Petrovna took great care of them and regretfully sold them at the end of her life (for a pittance), when she faced serious financial difficulties.

Whore of Babylon

In Riga, Kern started another romance - quite serious. And in 1827, her break with her husband was discussed by the entire secular society of St. Petersburg, where Anna Petrovna moved after that. She was accepted in society - largely due to the patronage of the emperor, but her reputation was damaged. However, the beauty, who had already begun to fade, seemed to spit on this - and continued to twist novels, sometimes - and several at the same time.

What is interesting - the younger brother of Alexander Sergeevich fell under the spell of Anna Petrovna a lion. And again - a poetic dedication. “How can you not go crazy, listening to you, admiring you ...” - these lines of his are dedicated to her. As for the "sun of Russian poetry", sometimes Anna and Alexander crossed paths in the salons.

But at that time, Pushkin already had other muses. “Our harlot Anna Petrovna of Babylon,” he casually mentions the woman who inspired him to create one of the best poetic works in a letter to a friend. And in one letter he even speaks about her and their once-existing connection rather rudely and cynically.

There is evidence that the last time Pushkin and Kern saw each other shortly before the death of the poet - he paid Kern a short visit, expressing condolences on the death of her mother. At that time, 36-year-old Anna Petrovna was already in love with a 16-year-old cadet and her second cousin Alexander Markov-Vinogradsky.

To the surprise of secular society, this strange relationship did not quickly end. Three years later, their son was born, and a year after the death of General Kern, in 1842, Anna and Alexander got married, and she took her husband's surname. Their marriage turned out to be surprisingly strong, neither regular gossip, nor poverty, which eventually became simply catastrophic, nor other trials could destroy it.

Anna Petrovna died in Moscow, where her already adult son moved her, in May 1879, having outlived her husband for four months and Alexander Pushkin for 42 years, thanks to whom she remained in the memory of her descendants still not a Babylonian harlot, but "a genius of pure beauty ".

Anna Petrovna Kern

AP Kern Unknown artist. 1830s.

Kern Anna Petrovna (1800-1879), wife of General E.N. Kerna, a close relative of Pushkin's Trigor friends Osipov-Wulf. Her name became one of the most famous among those that entered the history of our culture, thanks to a meeting with Pushkin in St. Petersburg (1819), and then in Mikhailovsky (1825). The famous lyric poem is dedicated to her. It is difficult to imagine a Russian who would not know the immortal lines by no means:

I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me...

In old age, Anna Kern wrote small but very meaningful memoirs, which Pushkinists recognize as the primary biographical material about the great poet.

Used materials of the book: Pushkin A.S. Works in 5 vol. M., Synergy Publishing House, 1999.

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KERN Anna Petrovna (1800-1879). Personal life Anna Petrovna was unsuccessful. Her childhood was overshadowed by the eccentric and despotic father, Peter Markovich Poltoratsky. At his insistence, at the age of seventeen she was married off to a fifty-two-year-old Brigadier General E.F. Soon she left her husband and only after his death (1841) did she link her fate with the man she loved. She was happy, although she lived in poverty.

In the early spring of 1819, Anna Petrovna arrived in St. Petersburg and met the nineteen-year-old Pushkin at the home of her relatives, the Olenins. The young beauty made an indelible impression on the poet. The poem dedicated to Kern reflected this brief acquaintance and their later meetings:

I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.

In the languor of hopeless sadness,
In the anxieties of noisy bustle
A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time
And dreamed of cute features.

“For six years I did not see Pushkin,” Kern later said, “but from many I heard about him as a glorious poet and eagerly read The Prisoner of the Caucasus, The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, The Robber Brothers, and Chapter 1 "Eugene Onegin".

In the summer of 1825, Anna Petrovna unexpectedly arrived in Trigorskoye to visit her aunt Praskovya Alexandrovna Osipova. “Delighted by Pushkin, I passionately wanted to see him...” At dinner, “Suddenly Pushkin entered with a large, thick stick in his hands. Auntie, near whom I was sitting, introduced him to me, he bowed very low, but did not say a word: timidity was visible in his movements. I, too, could not find anything to say to him, and we did not soon get acquainted and started talking.

Anna Petrovna stayed in Trigorskoye for about a month and met with Pushkin almost daily. The poet experienced a strong passion for Kern and described his feelings for her in the final lines of the poem:

In the wilderness, in the darkness of confinement
My days passed quietly
Without a god, without inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love.

The soul has awakened:
And here you are again
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.

And the heart beats in rapture
And for him they rose again
And deity, and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.

Meetings with Kern were remembered by Pushkin for a long time, and in July-August 1825 he wrote to her: “Your arrival in Trigorskoye left me with a deeper and more painful impression than the one that our meeting at the Olenins once made on me ... If you come I promise you to be amiable to the extreme - on Monday I will be cheerful, on Tuesday I will be enthusiastic, on Wednesday I will be gentle, on Thursday I will be playful, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday I will be whatever you want, and all week at your feet.

They also communicated later in St. Petersburg - in the company of A. A. Delvig, Pushkin's sister and his parents. The ideal image of Kern, born of the poet's imagination, gradually becomes real, but the relationship between them continues to be friendly. She is aware of his creative plans and literary pursuits and follows his life with constant interest.

Kern spoke about her fate, about her friendship with Pushkin and other writers of his circle in her "Memoirs", meaningful and truthful, the most valuable memoir document of the Pushkin era. Anna Petrovna was buried ten versts from the city of Torzhok, Tver Region, in the picturesque churchyard of Prutnya. Her grave is always decorated with flowers.

L.A. Chereisky. Pushkin's contemporaries. Documentary essays. M., 1999, p. 155-157.

Read further:

Kern A.P. Memories. Three meetings with Emperor Alexander Pavlovich. 1817-1820 // "Russian antiquity". Monthly historical publication. 1870 Volume I. St. Petersburg, 1870, pp. 221-227.

Kern Ermolai Fedorovich(1765-1841), staff officer, Anna's husband.