The Pushkin Museum has a new arrival - the surviving part of the correspondence of I.S. Turgenev and Pushkin’s daughter Automatic translate

MOSCOW. The Pushkin Museum received a letter from I. S. Turgenev to N. A. Pushkina.

The document received by the museum was for a long time in a private collection. The new exhibit is valuable not only because of the names of the addressee and sender. It is also a reminder of a controversial, confusing and scandalous story. The main subject of discussion between the writer and the youngest daughter of the great poet was the desire to publish the correspondence of her parents that was kept with her - about 75 messages. Turgenev was assigned the role of an intermediary capable of finding a publisher of priceless correspondence. Turgenev, who treated Alexander Sergeevich with great reverence, was pleased to accept the offer of Countess Merenberg (the title received by Natalya Alexandrovna in marriage with Nikolai-Wilhelm Nassausky).

The epistolary dialogue that was lost, with the exception of the letter donated to the museum, was lengthy, not always simple, but ended as planned by the poet’s daughter. It is difficult for the present generation to imagine what passions raged at the stage of preparation for publication. The famous biographer Pushkin Annenkov, to whom Turgenev turned for consultation, spoke very negatively about this idea. Recognizing the enormous value of the letters, he did not find the publication of the deeply personal "delicate outpourings of the poet" ethically possible. According to Annenkov, the countess tried to sell family secrets for personal enrichment. The sister and her brothers, Alexander and Grigory, condemned the act, and even planned to shoot a duel with Ivan Sergeyevich.

But, although the fate of Natalya Alexandrovna was not simple - she had an extremely unsuccessful first marriage with Mikhail Dubelt, a player and an autocratic jealous, she did not have any material interest in publishing at that time after the divorce. Meeting with a longtime admirer, Prince Nassauski, a kind and noble man, radically changed her life. In marriage with him, she found love, peace of mind, material security.

The publication in the journal “Vestnik Evropy”, which took place two years after Merenberg addressed Turgenev, turned into a scandal, rejection by the public not accustomed to such revelations of the then public. The life of Natalya Alexandrovna simultaneously resembled tragedy, melodrama and even a detective story. And in the early 2000s, her unexpectedly discovered autobiographical book, Vera Petrovna, was published. Petersburg novel. " But this is a completely different story.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru