Mother Zhukovsky biography

Imagine: from the war, Athanasius Bunin, the landowner from the Tula province, bring two tourist sisters. The man is married and passionate: 11 children were already born in marriage, but only four daughters survived. And the captured Turkish girls Salge and Fatma were 16 and the youngest died, the eldest became the concubine of the landowner, she was baptized, called Elizaveta Turchaninova.

She became the mother of Vasily Zhukovsky. She worked as a keychain, nursed the children of her master, gave birth ... in order to legally arrange his son, Athanasius Bunin attracted another person to this melodrama - Andrei Zhukovsky. He needed money, and he was convenient as a foster father of noble origin. Such a mishmash of facts seems more appropriate in a bad historical series.

Or the good old play from the Spanish life - “Don Cesar de Bazan”, for example ... Interestingly, even further in his life went wild and unpredictably. Any line from the life of Vasily Andreevich is built quite logically, but each of them shows us, as it were, different people. Let's try to get to know them. All episodes lived by Zhukovsky are worthy of individual biographies, which, as it were, are not connected.

Soviet schoolchildren knew about the role that fate took to Zhukovsky as a person close to Pushkin. Another story is a ransom from the serfdom of Taras Shevchenko. Another is the translations of the Odyssey and the Iliads, which made a priceless contribution to Russian literature and there were still transfers from Byron, Cervantes, Schiller ... And the Battle of Borodino was - Zhukovsky participated in the war of the year.

Not the heir: the illegitimate child of the concubine Papa Bunin did not leave Vasily money: he shared his lands and the condition between four legitimate daughters. Vasily's mother remained for the role either for servants, or survivors. Vasily Andreevich existed at the expense of the legal wife of his father and sisters. In this situation, he became a hostage of connections: somewhere they patted to recognize him as a nobleman, then the ranks appeared ...

He received a home education, but tried to achieve something else, not knowing what. He liked the theater, French and German. But he grew up in the province and did not fully realize his purpose. Wear the surname and patronymic of a person who is not your father. To see your mother, changing faith, name and surname. To be not sure of anything: neither in his roots, nor in abilities ...

But one day he ended up in the Moscow University boarding house. And then it turned out that a good French and a good German is already glorious.

And then also the son of the chief person from Moscow University of Director Andrei Turgenev became his friend. Photo: TASS. Not the groom: the love drama with the daughter of the half -sister’s personal life of Vasily Andreevich did not set. He taught his nieces who, based on the entire previous life, were not legally nieces. And then he fell in love. In the daughter of a consolidated sister.

For romanticism in Goethe style, it was a fantastic subtract: no intimacy, only dreams. Young niece for whom you compose lectures and work out the necessary educational program. But Zhukovsky was not enough. He loved the girl, suffered and felt the impossibility of his happiness. He loved his sisters who supported him. Once he admitted everything, told about his feelings for the very young Masha Protasova, heard terrible words about the impossibility of communicating further and about deceived trust.

Then many corners smoothed out, the niece grew up and married, and Zhukovsky made an enviable career, which was his relative. But he marries much later. The mentor of the emperor: He painted the alphabet for Alexander II Zhukovsky - a man who always helped everyone. The Decembrists and their relatives wrote him constantly. Sometimes Zhukovsky managed to exhale something for friends and acquaintances, but sometimes he was very nervous: he knew too well what he could do and what was not.

The Decembrists did not know in the link. They asked, demanded, offended. People who went to Senate against Nicholas the Great were waiting for help from a person who approached the retinue of Nicholas the First and became a mentor of his son, future Alexander II. How did the transformation of the romantic poet into the teacher of the future emperor? He received an apartment at the court of the Grand Duke then, a good salary and a lot of free time.

As well as the opportunity to accompany the student on traveling abroad. And after Nikolai’s accession, Zhukovsky became the mentor of Alexander Nikolaevich to the throne and taught him the Russian language. And enthusiastically painted the alphabet for him - according to many figures for each letter. To educate the king, to teach the king is a great task for the teacher.

Engraving "Family Grove" by the artist Vasily Zhukovsky, year. The patron of all Svetlan, as you know, William Shakespeare invented the female names of Miranda and Jessica before him simply did not exist. And Zhukovsky is attributed to the invention of Svetlana. In fact, Alexander Vostokov became its author, who composed the “ancient romance” “Svetlana and Mstislav” in the year.But it was after Zhukovsky’s ballad “Svetlana”, which published 11 years later, that the name became popular.

Only the Orthodox Church of the girls did not allow it to be called that, because there was no such saint. The name took root after the October Revolution. Zhukovsky did not seem to take root - they tried to “drop it from the ship of history” as an obsolete monarchist poet - but Svetlana still liked it. The party elite - in particular, Stalin and Molotov - called so daughters, and for a long time, until the second half of the twentieth century, Svetlana were the young ladies of the elect.

They were not even called Svetki - no diminutive. But time passed, the name was embarrassed, and his glory returned to Zhukovsky. A little archaic, more associated with Pushkin than with the poet’s personal and considerable merits to Russia, the Russian language and the art of translation. He was also an artist. And he could stand in the Dresden Gallery an hour before the "Sistine Madonna" Rafael.

The son of the Turkish concubine and the Tula landowner, who died in Baden-Baden at the age of 69, who composed the words to the anthem “God, keep the king, the translator of the New Testament, the loving father of the daughter of Alexandra and the son of Pavel, Alexander Second. So many lives in one biography, after which there are no memoirs. Only a list of ships from the Homeric Iliad.