The Mystery of "Unknown" Kramskoy: The Tragic Fate of the Artist's Daughter

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

If the name of Ivan Kramskoy is known to almost everyone, then the name of his beloved daughter Sophia Juncker-Kramskoy (1866-1933) very few know. She is the real Stranger. The thing is that very few people know that the artist had a daughter, and besides, she is a very talented artist. The obvious reason for oblivion was her imprisonment and exile to Siberia. Her brothers disowned her, afraid to admit their kinship with their "unreliable" sister, and the story of her arrest was carefully hidden for many years.

Even in the largest encyclopedia in the world - Wikipedia - there is no page dedicated to Sophia Kramskoy, who left a significant mark in the visual arts. And she was a talented painter, graphic artist, miniaturist, watercolourist, portraitist, wrote genre paintings, still lifes, was engaged in illustration.

Only on the page of her father - the great Russian artist - in the "Family" section - a short line where Sophia's name is mentioned among the list of Kramskoy's children: Moreover, neither the date of her birth, nor the date of her death are indicated. The tragic fate of the daughter of the great artist Ivan Kramskoy became known only recently, when documents from the archives of the FSB of the Russian Federation were made public.

But be that as it may, her image is immortalized by her loving father in many paintings. Including according to one of the versions, it was Sonya who posed for her father when creating his most famous painting "Unknown" (1883).

Sophia is the only daughter among three sons in the Kramskoy family, born according to some sources in 1866, and others in 1867. Since childhood, she was an ugly duckling, but as she matured, she became unusually prettier. And for the artist's father, she has always been the most beautiful and beloved model. True, Sophia's sad and pensive bottomless eyes look from almost every portrait. She seems to have a presentiment of the coming misfortunes in her life.

Growing up in the creative atmosphere of the Kramskoy house, where talented and educated people were regular guests, the girl early became imbued with a love of painting. And Kramskoy in every possible way developed the outstanding abilities of his daughter, became her first mentor and teacher.

Sophia Kramskaya and daughters of the Moscow merchant P. M. Tretyakova - Vera and Alexandra were the same age, from childhood connected by a strong friendship. From the memoirs of Vera Tretyakova:

Ilya Repin, a student of Kramskoy, then a completely unknown artist, was delighted with the graceful figure of Sophia. And 30-year-old Albert Benoit had serious plans for a 15-year-old girl. But he seemed too old to Sonya, but Sergei Botkin, a young doctor, one of the Botkin's medical dynasty, immediately took possession of the heart of young Kramskoy. It was going to the wedding. Sophia's father painted magnificent portraits of the bride and groom in 1882.

Suddenly, the happiness of young Kramskoy collapsed like a house of cards. Sergei Botkin broke off his engagement with Sonya and married her friend Sasha Tretyakova. Sophia, who survived a double betrayal, managed to save her face and remain a friend to her rival. But only God alone knew what it cost her.

Only painting saved her from melancholy and despondency. And all this time, her father was with her, who worried with all his heart, supported and consoled his only daughter., - from the memoirs of Vera Tretyakova.

Before his death, the artist, saddened by the unfortunate fate of Sophia, and at the same time proud of her professional talent as an artist, said: He seemed to have felt in advance the unhappy fate of his only daughter.

For a long time, Sophia could not recover from the betrayal of her beloved, and did not let new love into her heart. Only years later, having become a famous 35-year-old artist, the thawed heart of Sofia Ivanovna could fall in love. She became the wife of the St. Petersburg lawyer Georgy Juncker, with whom she lived for 15 years.

Painting of Sophia Kramskoy and the last years of her life

At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Kramskaya was quite famous. She received many orders from noble and wealthy people, including a series of portraits of members of the imperial family. Her work has been exhibited at many exhibitions at the Academy of Arts.

The beginning of the twentieth century brought with it many new troubles - the first world war, revolution, civil war. And it was impossible to preserve most of the artist's paintings. Much has been destroyed, many have been lost. And some of the works that Sophia handed over to the Ostrogozh Museum in 1942 burned down in a fire. But several works have survived to this day, thanks to the museum staff.

Sophia had to adapt to a new life in post-revolutionary Russia. In 1918, while working as a restorer in the workshop of Glavnauka, she, a deeply religious person, had to organize an anti-religious museum of the Winter Palace. And work on illustrations for the Atheist publishing house. Being a devout person, she did not hide her faith. And also, having a kind and sympathetic heart, Kramskaya helped her friends from the former nobility as much as she could, who remained outside the new life.

As a result of such activities, Sofya Yunker-Kramskaya was arrested on December 25, 1930, and was accused under Article 58-II of the RSFSR Criminal Code of counter-revolutionary propaganda and for introducing unreliable citizens into social institutions. As an "alien element" she was sentenced to three years of exile in Siberia. The court decision and verdict provoked a stroke. Slightly treated in a prison hospital, shattered by paralysis, Sophia was nevertheless sent to Siberia by escort.

At the end of 1931, he wrote letters to Mikhail Kalinin and Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova, who significantly provided assistance to political prisoners. Sophia asked for a mitigation of the sentence, and at the beginning of the next year, Kramskaya was indeed pardoned and she was allowed to return to Leningrad. And all this was thanks to the efforts of Ekaterina Peshkova. And a year later, in 1933, Sophia Ivanovna was gone. She died under strange circumstances. The official version said that the death followed from sepsis. The artist was rehabilitated for lack of corpus delicti only in 1989.

Children are always the pride and pain of their parents. O the tragic fate of her daughter the contemporary artist Alexander Shilov also few people know, but she has been responding with acute pain in his heart for how many years.