How the great Pushkin turned out to be the third superfluous: Love duet of Elizaveta Vorontsova and Raevsky

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In the Pushkin era, as never before, they knew how to charm and charm - and, incidentally, maybe not only then, just the poet's dedication to his beautiful muses seem so perfect that women themselves seem ideal. In the eyes of Pushkin, Elizaveta Vorontsova was once the best - at least one of those who added themselves to his Don Juan list. And what about the lady herself? Did she reciprocate the popular poet or use him as a screen for her real hobby?

Elizaveta Vorontsova

What then happened in Odessa could be called a love triangle or a love quadrangle, but there is no doubt that the main element of this romantic geometry was Elizaveta Vorontsova, nee Branitskaya.

She was born into the family of a Pole, Count Xavier Branitsky, and Alexandra, nee Engelhardt, who was the niece of Grigory Potemkin. Elizabeth, the youngest of three daughters, spent all her childhood, adolescence and even a significant part of adults by the standards of that time almost without a break in the estate of her parents Belaya Tserkov in the Kiev province. The children were given an excellent education, the mother was engaged in upbringing herself. Elizabeth and her sister were even determined to be the maid of honor of the Empress - but the youngest of the Branitsky girls did not leave the parental home. Elizaveta Ksaveryevna was so accustomed to seclusion that later, when her fascinating social life was temporarily replaced by solitude, rather boring, she endured the monotonous succession of days quite calmly, which surprised her acquaintances who were depressed in the village. In general, restraint, politeness, self-control and excellent manners favorably distinguished Elizabeth, which would later make her one of the most attractive ladies of her time.

Both older sisters were already married when, at the age of 26, Elizabeth went abroad with her mother. Arriving in Paris in January 1819, she almost immediately met there 36-year-old Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov, a participant in the Patriotic War of 1812, who was wealthy, confidently promoted in public service and seemed an enviable groom. Yes, and Elizabeth did not particularly risk sitting up in girls - her dowry was estimated at many millions, her parents wrote off to her daughter in case of marriage all the part of the family fortune due to her, like other sisters. Vorontsov made a very good impression on Alexandra Branitskaya, he secured the consent of his father, and in April the wedding took place.

Having traveled a little around Europe, the young people came first to Bila Tserkva, and then to St. Petersburg. Elizabeth's first pregnancy seemed to be resolved successfully, but the newborn girl soon died; The Vorontsovs were very worried about the loss, they managed to become happy parents a year later, when Alexander's daughter was born. In total, during the marriage, Elizaveta Ksaveryevna gave birth to three sons and three daughters, and one of them, Sophia, may not have been born of Vorontsov - he himself, in any case, did not recognize this child as his own. Who was the one to whom this young rich and respected lady gave her heart?

Alexander Pushkin

In 1823, Vorontsov was appointed governor-general of Novorossiya and Bessarabia, he settled in Odessa, where his wife also came. In the same year, in June, the poet Alexander Pushkin appeared in the city, sent into exile to the south and enlisted in the office of the governor-general and already enjoying the fame of both a fashionable famous poet and a successful ladies' man. Very quickly he gained the favor of many Odessa ladies, courting Amalia Riznich with might and main, until one day he saw Elizaveta Vorontsova.

If many events and details related to the Odessa scandal are still the subject of a furious dispute between Pushkinists and literary critics, then one thing is certain - Vorontsova captured Pushkin's attention, became an object of passion for him and a muse, he devoted most of all of his portrait drawings in the margins to her. her manuscripts, poems were written in her address during the period of exile later, including after the wedding with Natalia Goncharova.

Elizabeth easily knew how to charm new acquaintances. Small in stature, with slightly irregular features, she, nevertheless, was very attractive, graceful, feminine, affable. The poet could not ignore the wife of the Governor-General, and soon after they met, his heart and inspiration were already at her feet. There are different points of view regarding how Elizabeth responded to his feelings. Perhaps a romance really arose between Pushkin and Vorontsova, which led to the birth of his daughter Sophia in April 1825. It is with her that the poem "Baby" is associated, which Pushkin, apparently, addressed to his illegitimate child. There is a version that another work, "The Burnt Letter", was written under the influence of the present letter, received from Vorontsova, where she informed Pushkin about her pregnancy.

The relationship between Elizabeth's husband and Pushkin, at first rather friendly, began to deteriorate, it was Vorontsov who became the addressee of several of the poet's epigrams, and besides her, several more. Under the influence, apparently, of jealousy, Vorontsov achieved the expulsion of Pushkin from Odessa, and he went to the village of Mikhailovskoye. At parting, Vorontsova presented the poet with a ring. Of all the correspondence with Elizabeth, only one letter from Pushkin to Vorontsova, March 1834, has survived, and one earlier, written by her and dated December 1833.

Alexander Raevsky

But no matter how the poet was in love with his "Eliza", most likely, he did not become the hero of her novel - and by the way, these are only versions. It is known that in addition to Pushkin, there was another admirer of Vorontsova in Odessa, desperately looking for her location. It was Alexander Raevsky, brother of Maria Volkonskaya, who in 1826 will go to Siberian exile for her husband. Alexander, an outstanding, intelligent, thinking young man, never put his talents to life, personifying the very type of "superfluous" person that fell into the focus of Russian literature of the 19th century.

Raevsky was familiar with Elizaveta Ksaveryevna even before her marriage. He was his own man in the house of Alexandra Branitskaya, who was a distant relative of him. Elizabeth's mother loved Raevsky very much and gladly received him at her Crimean estate, where Alexander met with Vorontsova, who often visited his mother. In 1824, Raevsky left military service and moved to Odessa, where he often had the opportunity to see Elizabeth - at balls, in the theater, during receptions that she hosted in her home. In order not to incur suspicion on the part of his spouse, Raevsky used Pushkin, whom he met in the Caucasus and maintained friendly relations.

According to some testimonies, primarily from F. F. Vigel, Raevsky with might and main urged the poet to intensify his courtship of Countess Vorontsova, thus diverting her husband's attention from himself and getting the opportunity to see Elizabeth more without incurring suspicion. In any case, his passionate love was confirmed by letters - first of all, from Father Raevsky, who repeatedly mentioned the nonsense that his son was doing for the sake of Vorontsova: “Maybe he will be put in an insane asylum at his first crazy act, which I expect,” - later wrote to his daughter Raevsky-father, general.

In 1826, Alexander was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the December uprising, but was soon released and returned to Odessa. It is known for certain that this contender for Vorontsova's favor eventually began to arouse no less strong dislike from her husband than Pushkin. In addition, it is possible that this connection was real - after all, at least one of his friends called the relationship between the poet and Eliza purely platonic. In 1828, a scandal erupted that stirred up the whole of Odessa. It is believed that Raevsky stopped Vorontsova's carriage with a whip in his hand and began to shout out insolence, mentioning, moreover, about their common daughter. This scene, perhaps, was just gossip, but it was then that Vorontsov filed a petition to the police chief to apply sanctions against Raevsky because of the persecution of his wife - an unprecedented case for that time, because such an accusation compromised all the participants in the case. After some time, Raevsky was expelled from Odessa to Poltava - on a different basis, due to participation in anti-government conversations. He never met Vorontsova again.

Elizaveta Vorontsova entered Pushkin's famous Don Juan list. With Raevsky, he remained, as the letters testify, in good relations after the Odessa period, which probably indicates that the poet did not feel like a defeated rival, because he was not. he, soon becoming a widow, raised one. And the deceived or too suspicious husband himself, in turn, was noticed in connection with one of his wife's friends, Olga Naryshkina, who had a daughter - also Sophia - surprisingly similar to the Novorossiysk governor-general.

In addition to Vorontsov, Pushkin's epigrams had many addressees, including the famous Smoking-room journalist.