Be that as it may, we can talk about Pushkin endlessly. This is exactly the guy who managed to “inherit” everywhere. But this time we have to look at the topic “Anna Kern and Pushkin: a love story.” These relationships could have gone unnoticed by everyone if not for the emotionally tender poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment,” dedicated to Anna Petrovna Kern and written by the poet in 1825 in Mikhailovskoye during his exile. When and how did Pushkin and Kern meet? However, their love story turned out to be quite mysterious and strange. Their first fleeting meeting took place in the Olenins' salon in 1819 in St. Petersburg. However, first things first.
Anna Kern and Pushkin: a love story
Anna was a relative of the inhabitants of Trigorskoye, the Osipov-Wulf family, who were Pushkin’s neighbors on Mikhailovskoye, the poet’s family estate. One day, in correspondence with her cousin, she reports that she is a big fan of Pushkin’s poetry. These words reach the poet, he is intrigued and in his letter to the poet A.G. Rodzianko asks about Kern, whose estate was located in his neighborhood, and besides, Anna was his very close friend. Rodzianko wrote a playful response to Pushkin; Anna also joined in this playful, friendly correspondence; she added several ironic words to the letter. Pushkin was fascinated by this turn and wrote her several compliments, while maintaining a frivolous and playful tone. He expressed all his thoughts on this matter in his poem “To Rodzianka”.
Kern was married, and Pushkin knew well her not very happy marital situation. It should be noted that for Kern Pushkin was not a fatal passion, just as she was not for him.
Anna Kern: family
As a girl, Anna Poltoratskaya was a fair-haired beauty with cornflower blue eyes. At the age of 17, she was given in an arranged marriage to a 52-year-old general, a participant in the war with Napoleon. Anna had to submit to her father’s will, but she not only did not love her husband, but even hated her in her heart, she wrote about this in her diary. During their marriage, they had two daughters; Tsar Alexander I himself expressed a desire to be the godfather of one of them.
Kern. Pushkin
Anna is an undeniable beauty who attracted the attention of many brave officers who often visited their house. As a woman, she was very cheerful and charming in her interactions, which had a devastating effect on them.
When Anna Kern and Pushkin first met at her aunt Olenina’s, the young general’s wife already began to have casual affairs and fleeting connections. The poet did not make any impression on her, and at some points seemed rude and shameless. He immediately liked Anna, and he attracted her attention with flattering exclamations, something like: “Is it possible to be so pretty?!”
Meeting in Mikhailovsky
Anna Petrovna Kern and Pushkin met again when Alexander Sergeevich was sent into exile to his native estate Mikhailovskoye. It was the most boring and lonely time for him; after the noisy Odessa, he was annoyed and morally crushed. “Poetry saved me, I was resurrected in soul,” he would later write. It was precisely at this time that Kern came to visit her relatives on one of the July days in 1825, which could not have come at a more opportune time. Pushkin was incredibly happy about this; she became a ray of light for him for a while. By that time, Anna was already a big fan of the poet, she longed to meet him and again amazed him with her beauty. The poet was seduced by her, especially after she soulfully sang the then popular romance “The Spring Night Breathed.”
Poem for Anna
Anna Kern in Pushkin's life for a moment became a fleeting muse, an inspiration that washed over him in an unexpected way. Impressed, he immediately takes up his pen and dedicates his poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” to her.
From the memoirs of Kern herself it follows that on the evening of July 1825, after dinner in Trigorskoye, everyone decided to visit Mikhailovskoye. The two crews set off. In one of them rode P. A. Osipova with her son Alexei Wulf, in the other A. N. Wulf, her cousin Anna Kern and Pushkin. The poet was, as ever, kind and courteous.
It was a farewell evening; the next day Kern was supposed to leave for Riga. In the morning, Pushkin came to say goodbye and brought her a copy of one of the chapters of Onegin. And among the uncut sheets, she found a poem dedicated to her, read it and then wanted to put her poetic gift in the box, when Pushkin frantically snatched it and did not want to give it back for a long time. Anna never understood this behavior of the poet.
Undoubtedly, this woman gave him moments of happiness, and perhaps brought him back to life.
Relationship
It is very important to note in this matter that Pushkin himself did not consider the feeling he experienced for Kern to be love. Maybe this is how he rewarded women for their tender caress and affection. In a letter to Anna Nikolaevna Wulf, he wrote that he writes a lot of poems about love, but he has no love for Anna, otherwise he would become very jealous of her for Alexei Wulf, who enjoyed her favor.
B. Tomashevsky will note that, of course, there was an intriguing outbreak of feelings between them, and it served as the impetus for writing a poetic masterpiece. Perhaps Pushkin himself, giving it into the hands of Kern, suddenly thought that it could cause a false interpretation, and therefore resisted his impulse. But it was already too late. Surely at these moments Anna Kern was beside herself with happiness. Pushkin's opening line, “I remember a wonderful moment,” remained engraved on her tombstone. This poem truly made her a living legend.
Connection
Anna Petrovna Kern and Pushkin broke up, but their further relationship is not known for certain. She left with her daughters for Riga and playfully allowed the poet to write letters to her. And he wrote them to her, they have survived to this day, although in French. There were no hints of deep feelings in them. On the contrary, they are ironic and mocking, but very friendly. The poet no longer writes that she is a “genius of pure beauty” (the relationship has moved into another phase), but calls her “our Babylonian harlot Anna Petrovna.”
Paths of destinies
Anna Kern and Pushkin would see each other next two years later, in 1827, when she left her husband and moved to St. Petersburg, which would cause gossip in high society.
After moving to St. Petersburg, Kern, along with her sister and father, will live in the very house where she first met Pushkin in 1819.
She will spend this day entirely in the company of Pushkin and his father. Anna could not find words of admiration and joy from meeting him. It was most likely not love, but great human affection and passion. In a letter to Sobolevsky, Pushkin will openly write that he recently slept with Kern.
In December 1828, Pushkin met his precious Natalie Goncharova, lived with her for 6 years in marriage, and she bore him four children. In 1837, Pushkin would be killed in a duel.
Liberty
Anna Kern would finally be freed from her marriage when her husband died in 1841. She will fall in love with cadet Alexander Markov-Vinogradsky, who will also be her second cousin. She will lead a quiet family life with him, although he is 20 years younger than her.
Anna will show Pushkin's letters and poem as a relic to Ivan Turgenev, but her poverty-stricken situation will force her to sell them for five rubles apiece.
One by one her daughters will die. She would outlive Pushkin by 42 years and preserve in her memoirs the living image of the poet, who, as she believed, never truly loved anyone.
In fact, it is still unclear who Anna Kern was in Pushkin’s life. The history of the relationship between these two people, between whom a spark flew, gave the world one of the most beautiful, most elegant and heartfelt poems dedicated to a beautiful woman that have ever been in Russian poetry.
Bottom line
After the death of Pushkin’s mother and the death of the poet himself, Kern did not interrupt her close relationship with his family. The poet’s father, Sergei Lvovich Pushkin, who felt acute loneliness after the death of his wife, wrote reverent heartfelt letters to Anna Petrovna and even wanted to live with her “the last sad years.”
She died in Moscow six months after the death of her husband - in 1879. She lived with him for a good 40 years and never emphasized his inadequacy.
Anna was buried in the village of Prutnya near the city of Torzhok, Tver province. Their son Alexander committed suicide after the death of his parents.
Her brother also dedicated a poem to her, which she read to Pushkin from memory when they met in 1827. It began with the words: “How can you not go crazy.”
This concludes our consideration of the topic “Pushkin and Kern: a love story.” As it has already become clear, Kern captivated all the men of the Pushkin family, they somehow incredibly succumbed to her charm.
Anna Petrovna appeared to Pushkin for the second time six years later. It was in Trigorskoye, an estate located next to Mikhailovsky, where Pushkin served his exile.
Pushkin, not jokingly, suffered on the banks of Soroti from melancholy and loneliness. After the noisy, cheerful Odessa, he found himself “in the wilderness, in the darkness of confinement,” in a small village house, which, due to the scarcity of funds, he could not even afford to properly heat. Dull evenings that he whiled away with the kind old nanny, books, lonely walks - that’s how he lived at that time. It is not surprising that the poet loved to visit the Wulfs in Trigorskoye. The kind owner of the estate Praskovya Aleksandrovna Osipova-Wulf, her daughters Eupraxia and Anna, stepdaughter Alexandra, son Alexey were invariably glad to see Alexander Sergeevich, and he was also happy to come to flirt with the Trigorsk young ladies and have fun.
And in June 1825, Anna Petrovna Kern came to visit her aunt Praskovya Alexandrovna. And Pushkin falls in love again. Here society was not as brilliant as in St. Petersburg, and Pushkin was already very famous at that time. Anna Petrovna loved and knew his poems. It’s no wonder that this time she listened to compliments much more favorably. But he no longer talked such nonsense as he did when they first met.
Alexander Sergeevich fell in love and behaved like a real poet in love. He is jealous and suffers because Kern shows attention to Alexei Vulf. He keeps a stone on the table that she supposedly tripped over while walking. Finally, one day he brings her the first chapter of “Eugene Onegin,” where between the pages lies a piece of paper with the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment.” She reads it and finds the poem beautiful, but Pushkin suddenly, like a boy, takes the piece of paper from her and agrees to return it only after much persuasion.
That summer ended quickly. Anna had to go to her unloved husband.
The woman who inspired the famous poet for one of his main masterpieces had a bad reputation
First fleeting meeting Anna Petrovna Kern and a 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 had been married for two years.
Unequal marriage
At the end of the day, a hereditary noblewoman, the daughter of a court councilor and a Poltava landowner who belonged to an old Cossack family, Anna Poltoratskaya I went when I was 16. The father, whom the family obeyed unquestioningly, decided that the best match for his daughter would be a 52-year-old general Ermolai Kern- it is believed that later his features will be reflected in the image of the prince Gremina in Pushkin's Evgenia 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 was disgusted with him on a physical level - but was forced to pretend to be a good wife, traveling with the general to garrisons. At first.
In Anna Kern's diaries there are phrases that it is impossible to love her husband and that she “almost hates” him. In 1818 their daughter was born Kate. Anna Petrovna was also unable to love a child born from a man she hated - the girl was brought up in Smolny, and her mother took minimal part in her upbringing. Their two other daughters died in childhood.
A fleeting vision
A couple of years after the wedding, rumors began to circulate about General Kern’s young wife that she was cheating on her husband. And in Anna’s own diaries there are references to different men. In 1819, during a visit to St. Petersburg to his aunt, Kern met Pushkin for the first time - at her aunt's Olenina they had their own salon; many famous people visited their house on the Fontanka embankment.
But then the young 21-year-old rake and wit did not make much of an impression on Anna - he even seemed rude, and Kern considered his compliments to her beauty to be flattering. As she later recalled, she was much more captivated 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 received an unexpected chance to get to know each other better. In the summer of 1825, she visited another aunt on an estate in the village of Trigorskoye near Mikhailovskoye, where the poet was serving his exile. The bored Pushkin often visited Trigorskoye - it was there that the “fleeting vision” sank into his heart.
At that time, Alexander Sergeevich was already widely known, Anna Petrovna was flattered by his attention - but she herself fell under Pushkin’s charm. In her diary, the woman wrote that she was “in admiration” for 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 Wulff, 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 piece of paper 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 piece of paper in the box, he suddenly snatched the paper - and for a long time did not want to give it back. 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 had overdone 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 Anna Petrovna and her daughters left for Riga, where her husband was then serving, they corresponded with Alexander Sergeevich for a long time. But the letters are more reminiscent of light playful flirtation than they speak of deep passion or the suffering of lovers in separation. And Pushkin himself, soon after meeting Anna, wrote in one of his letters to her cousin Wulf that all this “looks like love, but, I promise 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 reached their descendants - Anna Petrovna took great care of them and sold them with regret at the end of her life (for next to nothing), when she faced serious financial difficulties.
Whore of Babylon
In Riga, Kern started another affair - 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 thanks to the patronage of the emperor, but her reputation was ruined. However, the beauty, who had already begun to fade, seemed to not care about this - and continued to have affairs, sometimes several at the same time.
What’s interesting is that Alexander Sergeevich’s younger brother fell under Anna Petrovna’s charm a lion. And again - a poetic dedication. “How can one 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 met in salons.
But at that time Pushkin already had other muses. “Our Babylonian harlot Anna Petrovna,” he casually mentions the woman who inspired him to create one of his best poetic works in a letter to a friend. And in one letter he speaks quite rudely and cynically about her and their relationship that once took place.
There is information that the last time Pushkin and Kern saw each other was shortly before the death of the poet - he paid Kern a short visit, expressing condolences over the death of her mother. At that time, 36-year-old Anna Petrovna was already madly 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 stop quickly. 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 the latest gossip, nor poverty, which eventually became simply catastrophic, nor other trials could destroy it.
Anna Petrovna died in Moscow, where her adult son had taken her, in May 1879, outliving her husband by four months and Alexander Pushkin by 42 years, thanks to whom she remained in the memory of posterity not as a Babylonian harlot, but as a “genius of pure beauty.” "
Over the two centuries that have passed since the writing of the poem “I remember a wonderful moment...”, literary scholars 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, most mysterious and already legendary. Maria Molchanova found out who Anna Kern is.
The beautiful romantic lines written by Alexander Pushkin in poems about Kern are noticeably “grounded” by his impartial statements about the “genius of pure beauty” in letters to friends, which still tickles the nerves of lovers of piquant details. Be that as it may, Pushkin’s dedication to Anna Kern became almost the most popular lyric poem in Russian literature. And Anna Petrovna herself remained in the memory of posterity the embodiment of femininity, an ideal muse.
Portrait of Anna Petrovna Kern
But the real life that Kern led outside the “halo” of Pushkin was difficult and sometimes tragic. Anna Kern's memoirs, diaries and letters have been preserved, documenting her experiences and facts of life. 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 a wonderful baritone, to St. Petersburg.
At the age of 17, Anna is married to 52-year-old General Ermolai 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 active state councilor, which gave the right to hereditary nobility. Note that Poltoratsky had 22 children! Anna Kern was born into the family of his youngest son Peter, a retired second lieutenant, Lubensky leader of the nobility.
Portrait of Anna Kern, 1840s
Anna Petrovna lived in Lubny until her marriage, taught her brother and sisters, danced at balls, took part in home performances... “and led a rather vulgar life, like most provincial young ladies. Despite the constant fun, dinners and balls in which I took part, I managed to satisfy my passion for reading, which had developed in me since the age of five. I never played with dolls and was very happy to participate in housework.”
In those years, a horse-jaeger 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: her fiancé was 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. The girl was amazed by this decision: “The general’s pleasantries made me sick, I could hardly force myself to talk to him and be polite...”
Pushkin, meeting Kern: “Is it possible to be so pretty!”
The wedding of Anna Poltoratskaya and Ermolai Kern took place on January 8, 1817 in the Lubensky Cathedral. Her disgust for the general only intensified after her marriage. In the young woman’s diary, entries constantly appeared, full of either deep melancholy or indignation: “It is impossible to love him - I am not even given the consolation of respecting him; I’ll tell you straight - I almost hate him.”
Ermolai Kern
In 1817, at a ball in Poltava, organized on the occasion of the review of the 3rd corps of General Fabian Wilhelmovich Osten-Sacken, Anna met Emperor Alexander I: “Not daring to speak to anyone before, I spoke to him as to an old friend and adored father! I wasn’t in love... I was in awe, I worshiped him! It is known that the emperor became the godfather of Anna Kern's first daughter, 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. There her first meeting with Pushkin took place, which became fateful. The poet, who was not yet very famous at that time, did not make a strong impression on Anna. Anna Kern recalled about 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 Nadya Rusheva
Their next meeting took place six years later in the village of Trigorskoye, near Mikhailovskoye - in July 1825, on the estate of Praskovya Osipova, Aunt Anna. By that time, Anna Kern became the mother of two daughters: Catherine and Anna. On the day of Anna Petrovna’s departure from Trigorskoye, Pushkin gave her a copy of the second chapter of Onegin, which included a sheet of paper with the poem “I remember a wonderful moment...”. According to Kern’s diaries, when she was about to hide the gift in the box, Pushkin looked at her intently, snatched a piece of paper with poems 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 Mikhailovskoye for Riga: “Every night I walk in my garden and say to myself: here she was... the stone on which she tripped, lies on my table next to the withered heliotrope. Finally, I write a lot of poetry. All this, if you like, strongly resembles love, but I promise you that there is no mention of it.”
Kern's diary: “Admired by Pushkin, I passionately want to see him...”
In the spring of 1826, a rift occurred between the Kern spouses, leading to divorce. Soon their four-year-old daughter Anna died. Kern did not attend the funeral because 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, and 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, caring for Ekaterina Ermolaevna. He dedicated the romance “I remember a wonderful moment...” to her, so Pushkin’s lines were 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 in connection with the death of her mother. On February 1, 1837, Kern “cryed and prayed” at the poet’s funeral service in the twilight of the Stable Church.
(Russia, Tver region, Torzhok district, Prutnya)
The Church of the Resurrection in Prutnya was built by the landowners Lvov (owners of the nearby estates of Mitino and Vasilevo), consecrated in 1781. Next to the temple is their family necropolis. Here in the cemetery is the grave of Anna Petrovna Kern, to whom A. S. Pushkin dedicated his famous poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment.”
The fate of Anna Kern in the story of researcher I.A. Bochkareva: “Anna Petrovna Kern (nee Poltoratskaya) was “born along with the century” on February 11, 1800 in the city of Orel, but was closely connected with the Tver region. Her paternal grandfather Mark Fedorovich Poltoratsky is the director of the Imperial Court Chapel and her grandmother is the legendary Agafokleya Alexandrovna (nee Shishkova) lived in the Georgian estate, 12 versts from Torzhok, in a magnificent palace-house, the architect of which, according to legend, was B. Rastrelli, Anna’s maternal grandfather Ivan Petrovich Wulf, owned the estate of Bernovo, Staritsky district. She was raised until she was three years old. Five years later she was again brought to her “incomparable grandfather” in Bernovo, where Anna received her home education, although she became addicted to reading from the age of five.
In the fall of 1812, the parents took the girl to her father’s estate in the city of Lubny, Poltava province.
She was not even seventeen years old when, by the will of her father, she became the wife of the valiant 52-year-old general, widower Ermolai Fedorovich Kern. “Father refused everyone who asked him for my hand,” Anna Petrovna recalled with resentment.
1819 A. Kern arrived in St. Petersburg. At one of the evenings at the house of her aunt, Elizaveta Markovna Olenina, she first met A.S. Pushkin. “At dinner, Pushkin sat down behind me and tried to attract my attention with a flattering exclamation: “Is it possible to be so pretty!.. When I left, ... Pushkin stood on the porch and followed me with his eyes.”
They haven't seen each other for six years. In the summer of 1825, Pushkin, already a famous poet, was in exile in his Mikhailovsky. Wulf Anna Petrovna came to the neighboring Trigorskoye estate to stay with her aunt Praskovya Fedorovna Osipova. The poet came to Trigorskoye every day.
One day he brought the manuscript of the poem “Gypsies” and began to read: “...he had a melodious and melodic voice... as he said about Ovid, “and a voice like the sound of waters.”
On the eve of leaving for Riga, where her husband was serving at that time, Anna Petrovna and the inhabitants of Trigorskoye went on a farewell visit to Mikhailovskoye. Pushkin and Kern walked through the old park. In memory of that walk, today the linden alley is called “Kern Alley”.
Portrait gallery: A.P. Kern, E.F. Kern and A.V. Markov-Vinogradsky
On the day of Kern’s departure, Pushkin came with a gift, a copy of the 2nd chapter of Onegin, in the uncut sheets of which there was a folded postal sheet with the verses “I remember a wonderful moment.” Anna Petrovna recalled: “When I was going to hide a poetic gift in the box, he looked at me for a long time, then frantically snatched it away and did not want to return it; I forcibly begged them again; I don’t know what flashed through his head then.” Letters flew from Mikhailovsky to Riga to the “divine” Kern.
There were whirlwind romances in her life. She fascinated fans with “touching languor in the expression of her eyes, smile, and in the sounds of her voice.” There were losses and bitter losses in her life: out of three daughters, only Ekaterina Ermolaevna remained. The lover M. Glinka dedicated the romance “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” to her. A.P.’s connection is known. Kern with A.N. Wulf, a Tver nobleman and a good acquaintance of Pushkin, who reflected the history of their relationship in his diary.
Anna Kern was already forty when her 19-year-old second cousin Alexander Vasilyevich Markov-Vinogradsky fell passionately in love with her.
In 1839, their son Alexander was born. After the death of E.F. Kern, they got married in 1842. They lived happily ever after and died, as in a fairy tale, in one year.
Their life was not serene: condemnation of their relatives, poverty. I had to lead a wandering life, moving from one relative to another. We rented apartments in Torzhok, visited the Lvovs in Mitino, and the Bakunins in Pryamukhin.
She left for descendants priceless “Memoirs” about Pushkin and his contemporaries.
Anna Petrovna died on May 27, 1879 in Moscow. She bequeathed to bury herself next to her beloved husband in Pryamukhin (Markov-Vinogradsky died on January 27 of the same year, when they were visiting the Bakunins). The son was unable to fulfill her last wish: after the rains, the 35 miles of country road from Torzhok to Pryamukhin turned out to be insurmountable. Her last refuge was the family cemetery of the Mitinsky Lvovs - Prutnensky Pogost” - I.A. Bochkareva.
“Anna Petrovna Kern was lucky in the memory of generations more than all her cousins - Wulf (Anneta, Eupraxia, Netty), Anna Olenina - combined. The “wonderful moments” of the poet’s life, experienced and recreated in lofty artistic images, made her name unrivaled among other female names associated in our memory with Pushkin. And he’s lucky – he’s so lucky. Because the only portrait of Anna Petrovna known to us among the huge number of the poet’s drawings is also one of the best in Pushkin’s graphics. This is a drawing dated September-October 1829, on a draft of the poet’s protest against the unauthorized publication of his poems by M. Bestuzhev-Ryumin in “Northern Star” (1829). The portrait, which is a skillfully made pencil profile, conveys the pretty feminine features of a beautiful and still quite young woman. A portrait of A.M. has been identified. Efros in the book “Pushkin Portrait Painter,” to whom we refer the reader who is interested in the details of this iconographic identification,” L.F. wrote in her book. Kertselli (“Tver region in Pushkin’s drawings”, M., 1976, p. 177)
Literature:
Booklet “The Genius of Pure Beauty”. Text by I.A. Bochkaroyeva, Torzhok, 2009
L.F. Kertselli “Tver region in Pushkin’s drawings”, M., 1976
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Prutnya churchyard. Church of the Resurrection of Christ. Grave of A.P. Kern 57.110358 , 34.960535 Prutnya. Church of the Resurrection of Christ. Grave of A.P. Kern