“The genius of pure beauty” - the fate and love of Anna Kern. Kern Anna Petrovna
She went down in history as the woman who inspired Pushkin to write magnificent works. But the seductress left her mark not only in his soul, captivating many other men’s hearts.
Anna Petrovna Poltoratskaya was born on February 22, 1800 in the city of Orel into a noble family. Mother - Ekaterina Ivanovna - daughter of the Oryol governor Wulf, father - Pyotr Markovich - court councilor. The girl grew up in the circle of numerous noble and friendly relatives. Thanks to hired teachers and a governess, she received a good education.
Like many provincial young ladies, she had few temptations and opportunities for entertainment. Timid attempts at flirtation and coquetry were strictly suppressed by her parents (at the age of 13, the girl even lost her long braid - her mother cut off her daughter’s hair so that she would have nothing with which to seduce the male sex). But there was plenty of time and prerequisites for naive girlish dreams. Imagine the disappointment of sixteen-year-old Anna when one day Poltoratsky agreed on his daughter’s marriage to Ermolai Kern. The 52-year-old general was an enviable match for any local girl of marriageable age. However, the girl submitted to her father’s will only out of fear, which she felt for her parent throughout her childhood.
On January 8, 1817, Anna Poltoratskaya began to bear the surname Kern. She got a tyrannical, rude and narrow-minded husband. He could not achieve not only the love, but even the respect of his young wife. Anna quietly hated and despised him. She treated the daughters born from the hateful general coldly. And her own life, with constant travel following her military spouse, seemed dull and joyless to her.
Anna Kern and Alexander Pushkin
The young woman’s existence was brightened only by infrequent trips to relatives and friends, where parties were held with games and dancing. She enjoyed them with rapture, basking in universal love and admiration. It was at one of these dinners in 1819 that something happened to Alexander Pushkin. At first, Kern didn’t even notice the unattractive poet among the more eminent guests. But Alexander Sergeevich immediately noticed this cute coquette, both shy and modest, and tried with all his might to attract Anna’s attention. Which caused some irritation in the well-bred beauty - the poet’s remarks seemed painfully inappropriate and provocative to her.
Their next meeting took place in 1825 at the Trigorskoye estate. By this time, Kern appreciated Pushkin’s talent, becoming a fan of his work, and therefore treated the poet more favorably than the first time. With age and the blows of fate she experienced, Anna herself changed. The young woman was no longer as timid as before. Seductive, self-confident, mastered to perfection. And only a certain shyness that slipped through from time to time added a special charm to Anna. Pushkin was inflamed with passion, reflecting the whole whirlwind of his experiences in the famous poem “I remember a wonderful moment” (later he dedicated many more delightful lines to her), which, of course, flattered Kern, but did not give rise to mutual feelings. Before leaving the estate, the beauty graciously allowed the poet to write letters to her.
For the next two years, an entertaining correspondence was conducted between Pushkin and Anna Kern, in which Alexander Sergeevich confessed his mad love for Kern. In exquisite expressions, he deified his muse and endowed her with unimaginable virtues. And then suddenly, in another attack of jealousy, he would begin to rage and scold her, addressing her almost insultingly. His confidence in Anna’s favor towards her cousin and friend of the poet, Wulf (who, by the way, retained ardent feelings for this woman throughout his life) drove Pushkin to the point of rage. Alexander never wrote anything like this to any previous or subsequent lady.
In 1827, Kern finally separated from her husband. The unloved husband no longer just aroused disgust, but also hatred: he tried to set his own wife up with his nephew, he deprived her of maintenance, he was fiercely jealous... However, Anna paid for her independence with her own reputation, henceforth becoming “fallen” in the eyes of society.
The same Pushkin, not seeing the object of adoration in front of him, but at the same time, regularly receiving news about Anna’s incredible popularity with other men (even Alexander’s brother Leo was among her fans), became increasingly disappointed in her. And when he met his beloved in St. Petersburg, and Kern, intoxicated by the freedom he had finally gained, surrendered to him, he suddenly lost interest in the beauty.
(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 Agafoklea Alexandrovna (nee Shishkova) lived in the Georgian estate, 12 versts from Torzhok, in a magnificent house-palace, the architect of which, according to legend, was B. Rastrelli. Anna's maternal grandfather Ivan Petrovich Wulf owned the estate of Bernovo, Staritsky district. There she was raised until she was 3. Five years later she was again brought to her “incomparable grandfather” in Bernovo, where Anna receives 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
Anna Kern was born on February 22, 1800 in the city of Orel. Her childhood was spent in the district town of Lubny, Poltava province and on the family estate Bernovo. Having received an excellent home education and raised in the French language and literature, Anna at the age of 17 was married against her will to the elderly General E. Kern. She was not happy in this marriage, but gave birth to the general’s three daughters. She had to lead the life of a military wife, wandering around military camps and garrisons where her husband was assigned.
Anna Kern entered Russian history thanks to the role she played in the life of the great poet A.S. Pushkin. They first met in 1819 in St. Petersburg, when Anna was visiting her aunt. Here, at a literary evening, the intelligent and educated beauty Kern attracted the attention of the poet. The meeting was short, but memorable for both. Pushkin was told that Anna was a fan of his poetry and spoke very flatteringly about him.
Their next meeting occurred only a few years later in June 1825, when, on the way to Riga, Anna stopped by to stay in the village of Trigorskoye, her aunt’s estate. Pushkin was often a guest there, since it was a stone's throw from Mikhailovsky, where the poet “languished in exile.” Then Anna amazed him - Pushkin was delighted with Kern’s beauty and intelligence. Passionate love flared up in the poet, under the influence of which he wrote Anna his famous poem “I remember a wonderful moment...”. He had a deep feeling for her for a long time and wrote a number of letters remarkable for their strength and beauty. This correspondence has important biographical significance.
Kern herself is the author of memoirs - “Memories of Pushkin”, “Memories of Pushkin, Delvig and Glinka”, “Three meetings with Emperor Alexander I”, “One Hundred Years Ago”, “Diary”. In subsequent years, Anna maintained friendly relations with the poet's family, as well as with many famous writers and composers. She was close to the family of Baron A. Delvig, to S. Sobolevsky, A. Illichevsky, M. Glinka, F. Tyutchev, I. Turgenev and others. However, after Pushkin’s marriage and Delvig’s death, ties with this social circle were severed, although Anna remained on good terms with Pushkin’s parents.
In the mid-1830s, she became close to sixteen-year-old cadet Sasha Markov-Vinogradsky. This was the love that Kern had been looking for for so long. She stopped appearing in society and began to lead a quiet family life.
In 1839, their son was born, and in the early 1840s, after the death of General Kern, their wedding took place. Having married a young cadet, Anna went against her father’s will, for which he deprived her of all financial support. In this regard, the Markov-Vinogradskys settled in the village and led a very meager life. But, despite the difficulties, their union remained unbreakable, and they were happy all the years.
Alexander died in January 1879; Anna outlived her beloved husband by only four months.
Anna Petrovna Kern died on June 8, 1879 in Moscow. She was buried in the village of Prutnya not far from Torzhok, which is halfway between Moscow and St. Petersburg - the rains washed out the road and did not allow the coffin to be delivered to the cemetery “to her husband,” as she bequeathed.
Anna Petrovna Kern (11 (22) February 1800, Orel - 16 (27) May 1879, Torzhok; née Poltoratskaya, by her second husband - Markova-Vinogradskaya) - Russian noblewoman, best known in history for the role she played in Pushkin's life. Author of memoirs.
Father - Poltoratsky, Pyotr Markovich. Together with her parents she lived in the estate of her maternal grandfather I. P. Wulf, the Oryol governor, whose descendant D. A. Wulf is her great-nephew.
Later, the parents and Anna moved to the district town of Lubny, Poltava province. Anna spent her entire childhood in this city and in Bernovo, an estate that also belonged to I.P. Wulf.
Her parents belonged to the circle of wealthy official nobility. The father is a Poltava landowner and court councilor, the son of the head of the court singing choir, M.F. Poltoratsky, known back in Elizabethan times, married to the rich and powerful Agathoclea Alexandrovna Shishkova. Mother - Ekaterina Ivanovna, nee Wulf, a kind woman, but sickly and weak-willed, was under the command of her husband. Anna herself read a lot.
The young beauty began to “go out into the world”, looking at the “brilliant” officers, but the father himself brought the groom to the house - not only the officer, but also General E.F. Kern. At this time, Anna was 17 years old, Yermolay Fedorovich was 52. The girl had to come to terms and on January 8, 1817, the wedding took place. In her diary she wrote: “It is impossible to love him - I am not even given the consolation of respecting him; I will say frankly - I almost hate him.” Later, this was expressed in her attitude towards the children from her marriage with the general - Anna was quite cool towards them (her daughters Ekaterina and Anna, born in 1818 and 1821, respectively, were brought up at the Smolny Institute). Anna Petrovna had to lead the life of the wife of an army servant from Arakcheev’s times with a change of garrisons “according to assignment”: Elizavetgrad, Dorpat, Pskov, Old Bykhov, Riga...
In Kyiv, she becomes close to the Raevsky family and speaks about them with a feeling of admiration. In Dorpat, her best friends become the Moyers - a professor of surgery at the local university and his wife - “Zhukovsky’s first love and his muse.” Anna Petrovna also remembered her trip to St. Petersburg at the beginning of 1819, where in the house of her aunt, E.M. Olenina, she heard I.A. Krylov and where she first met Pushkin.
However, in 1819, a certain man flashed into her life - from the diary you can find out that she called him “rosehip.” Then she began an affair with the local landowner Arkady Gavrilovich Rodzianko, who introduced Anna to the works of Pushkin, whom Anna had encountered briefly earlier. He didn’t make an “impression” on her (then!), he even seemed rude. Now she was completely delighted with his poetry. biography of a. Kern Pushkin
In June 1825, having already left her husband, on the way to Riga, she looked into Trigorskoye, the estate of her aunt, Praskovya Aleksandrovna Osipova, where she again met Pushkin (the Mikhailovskoye estate is located nearby). At this time, Pushkin wrote Kern’s famous madrigal poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment...”. At that moment, Anna was flirting with the poet’s friend (and Osipova’s son, her cousin) Alexei Wulf, and in Riga a passionate romance happened between them (Wulf also courted her sister Lisa Poltoratskaya).
Pushkin's letters to Kern are preserved in French; they are at least no less parodic and playful than they are marked by a serious feeling, corresponding to the nature of the game that reigned in Mikhailovsky and Trigorsky. Anna Petrovna only two years later, already in St. Petersburg, entered into a fleeting relationship with the poet; Pushkin treated this event ironically and in a rather rude tone mentioned what happened in a letter to his friend S. A. Sobolevsky. In another letter, Pushkin calls Kern “our Babylonian harlot Anna Petrovna.”
In her later life, Kern was close to the family of Baron A.A. Delviga, to D.V. Venevitinov, S.A. Sobolevsky, A.D. Illichevsky, A.V. Nikitenko, M.I. Glinka (Mikhail Ivanovich wrote beautiful music for the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment”), but dedicated it to Ekaterina Kern, the daughter of Anna Petrovna), F.I. Tyutchev, I.S. Turgenev.
However, after Pushkin’s marriage and Delvig’s death, the connection with this social circle was severed, although Anna remained on good terms with the Pushkin family - she still visited Nadezhda Osipovna and Sergei Lvovich Pushkin, “the “Lion” whose head I turned,” and of course same, with Olga Sergeevna Pushkina (Pavlishcheva), “confidante in matters of the heart,” (in her honor Anna will name her youngest daughter Olga).
Anna continued to love and fall in love, although in “secular society” she acquired the status of an outcast. Already at the age of 36, she fell in love again - and it turned out to be true love. The chosen one was a sixteen-year-old cadet of the First St. Petersburg Cadet Corps, her second cousin Sasha Markov-Vinogradsky. She completely stopped appearing in society and began to lead a quiet family life. Three years later she gave birth to a son, whom she named Alexander. All this happened outside of marriage. A little later (at the beginning of 1841), old Kern dies. Anna, as the general's widow, was entitled to a decent pension, but on July 25, 1842, she officially married Alexander and now her last name is Markova-Vinogradskaya. From this moment on, she can no longer claim a pension, and they have to live very modestly. In order to somehow make ends meet, they have to live for many years in a village near Sosnovitsy, Chernigov province - the only family estate of their husband. In 1855, Alexander Vasilyevich managed to get a place in St. Petersburg, first in the family of Prince S.A. Dolgorukov, and then the head of the department of appanages. It was hard, Anna Petrovna earned money by translating, but their union remained unbreakable until her death. In November 1865, Alexander Vasilyevich retired with the rank of collegiate assessor and a small pension, and the Markov-Vinogradskys left St. Petersburg. They lived here and there, and were haunted by terrible poverty. Out of necessity, Anna Petrovna sold her treasures - Pushkin's letters, for five rubles apiece. On January twenty-eighth, 1879, A.V. Markov-Vinogradsky died in Pryamukhin (“from stomach cancer in terrible pain”), and four months later (May 27) Anna Petrovna herself died, in “furnished rooms”, on the corner of Gruzinskaya and Tverskoy (her son moved her to Moscow). They say that when the funeral procession with the coffin passed along Tverskoy Boulevard, the famous monument to the famous poet was just being erected on it. This is how Genius met his “genius of pure beauty” for the last time.
She was buried in a graveyard near an old stone church in the village of Prutnya, 6 kilometers from Torzhok - the rains washed out the road and did not allow the coffin to be delivered to the cemetery, “to her husband.” And 100 years later in Riga, near the former church, a modest monument to Anna Petrovna was erected with an inscription in a language unfamiliar to her.
Fans of Pushkin's work, of course, know who Anna Kern is. The biography of this woman is closely connected with the fate of the great Russian poet. Anna Kern is a Russian noblewoman who lived in the 19th century and went down in history precisely thanks to her role in the life of A.S. Pushkin. However, her fate is notable not only for this. Anna Kern went through a very interesting life path. Her biography can intrigue even people far from poetry. After reading this article, you will become familiar with the main events in her life.
Origin of Anna Kern
This woman was born in 1800, a year later than A.S. Pushkin. She went through a long and eventful life - Anna Kern died in 1879. The biography of our heroine begins with meeting her parents. Her father was Pyotr Markovich Poltoratsky. His grandfather on his side is Mark Fedorovich Poltoratsky (his portrait is presented below) - a Russian singer and state councilor (years of life - 1729-1795).
Anna Kern lived with her parents in the estate of the Oryol governor I.P. Wulf. This man was her maternal grandfather. Later the family moved to the Poltava province, to the district town of Lubny. Anna Kern spent her childhood here, as well as in Bernovo, on the estate of I. P. Wulf.
The father and mother of our heroine were from the circle of official nobility. These were quite wealthy people. Anna's father is a court councilor and a Poltava landowner. His father was M. F. Poltoratsky, the head of the singing choir located at the court, known even in the time of Elizabeth. M. F. Poltoratsky was married to Shishkova Agathoklea Alexandrovna, a powerful and rich woman. The mother of our heroine was Ekaterina Ivanovna, nee Wulf. She was distinguished by her kindness, but was weak-willed and sickly. The head of the family was, of course, her husband.
Unhappy marriage, birth of daughters
From a young age, Anna Kern fell in love with reading. Her biography continues with the fact that after some time she began to “go out into the world.” The girl looked closely at the “brilliant” officers. However, her father himself introduced her to the groom. He brought Ermolai Fedorovich Kern, a general and officer, to the house (his portrait is presented below). When Anna met him, she was 17 years old, and her future husband was 52. Anna did not like this man. She wrote in her diary that she couldn’t even respect him, that she practically hated him.
This was expressed later in her attitude towards the children born from her marriage with the general - Anna was rather cool towards them. From Ermolai Fedorovich she had two daughters, Ekaterina and Anna (born in 1818 and 1821, respectively). They were sent to be raised at the Smolny Institute.
Forced relocations
Our heroine had to get used to the role of the wife of an army soldier from the time of Arakcheev. Her husband had to frequently change garrisons, moving on duty to Elizavetgrad, Pskov, Dorpat, or Riga...
In Kyiv, Anna Petrovna Kern became friends with the Raevsky family, whose brief biography interests us. She spoke of this family with admiration. Her close friends in Dorpat were the Moyers. The head of this family was a professor of surgery and worked at the local university. His wife was the first love of the poet Zhukovsky, his muse. Anna Petrovna also remembered a trip to St. Petersburg, which took place at the beginning of 1819. In the house of E. M. Olenina, her aunt, the girl heard Krylov, and also saw A. S. Pushkin for the first time. This is how Anna Petrovna Kern quietly entered the poet’s life. Pushkin's biography is marked with a bright page associated with this woman. However, their close acquaintance took place a little later.
Anna Kern's hobbies
In the same year, 1819, a certain man briefly appeared in the life of our heroine, whom Anna called “rosehip” in her diary. Then she began an affair with A.G. Rodzianko, a local landowner. It was he who introduced Anna Kern to the works of Alexander Sergeevich, whom she had already briefly encountered before. The great poet did not make an impression on Anna Petrovna at that time; he even seemed somewhat rude to her. However, thanks to A.G. Rodzianko, Pushkin and Anna Petrovna Kern became close. A short biography of this woman is noted by the fact that she was completely delighted with the poetry of Alexander Sergeevich.
Connection with Pushkin
By June 1825, Anna had already left her husband. She was traveling to Riga and on the way decided to look into the Trigorskoye estate, which belonged to P. A. Osipova, her aunt. Here our heroine again met Alexander Sergeevich (the Mikhailovskoye estate, where he was then located, was located nearby). The poet flared up with passion, which was reflected in Pushkin’s famous poem dedicated to his beloved A. Kern (“I remember a wonderful moment...”). However, at that moment Anna Petrovna was flirting with Alexei Vulf, Osipova’s son and a friend of the poet. In Riga, a passionate romance took place between her and Alexei.
Alexander Sergeevich continued to suffer. Only 2 years later his beloved condescended to become her admirer. However, Anna Petrovna Kern and Pushkin did not stay together for long. The poet's biography is marked by the fact that, having achieved his goal, he discovered that his feelings had disappeared from that moment. Soon the connection between Alexander Sergeevich and Anna Petrovna ceased. But our heroine is still known as Pushkin’s mistress. Anna Kern, her biography and relationship with the great poet are of interest to many to this day.
A. Kern after the break with Pushkin
After this break, Anna was close to A.V. Nikitenko, A.D. Illichevsky, D.V. Venevitinov, the family of Baron Delvig, I.S. Turgenev, F.I. Tyutchev, as well as M.I. Glinka . The latter wrote music for Pushkin’s poem “I remember a wonderful moment...”. However, he dedicated it not to Anna Kern, but to her daughter Catherine. Our heroine stopped maintaining contact with this circle after Pushkin’s marriage. Nevertheless, after Delvig’s death, she maintained warm relations with the family of Alexander Sergeevich. Anna Kern still went to visit Sergei Lvovich and Nadezhda Osipovna Pushkin. She also kept in touch with Pushkina (Pavlishcheva) Olga Sergeevna, who was a “confidante” in her affairs of the heart. By the way, it is in her honor that Anna will name her youngest daughter Olga.
True love A. Kern
Our heroine continued to fall in love, despite the fact that she acquired the status of an outcast in secular society. At the age of 36, she met her true love. Her chosen one turned out to be Sasha Markov-Vinogradsky (his portrait is presented above), Anna Petrovna’s second cousin, at that time a 16-year-old cadet. Anna completely stopped appearing in secular society, to which she preferred a quiet family life. Three years later, her son Alexander was born, who was an illegitimate child, since Anna Petrovna was officially still married to the general.
Death of a spouse, new marriage
Her husband died early in 1841. As the general's widow, Anna was entitled to a significant pension. However, on July 25, 1842, she married her lover. Now Anna’s surname became Markova-Vinogradskaya. Because of this, our heroine could no longer claim a pension, so the spouses had to live quite modestly. They spent many years in a village near Sosnovitsy, located in the Chernigov province. This was the only way it was possible. This village is the only family estate of Anna Petrovna’s new husband.
Difficulties the family had to face
Alexander Vasilyevich in 1855 received a position in St. Petersburg. He began to work in the family of Prince S.A. Dolgorukov, and after a while - the head of the department of appanages. Life was not easy for the couple. Anna had to earn extra money by translating. However, despite all the difficulties, their union was unbreakable. Alexander Vasilyevich retired in November 1865 with the modest rank of collegiate assessor. Naturally, one could not count on a large pension. The Markov-Vinogradskys decided to leave St. Petersburg. They lived wherever they had to, the spouses were haunted by poverty. Anna Petrovna, out of need, sold Pushkin’s letters, for which she was given 5 rubles.
Death of Alexander and Anna
A.V. Markov-Vinogradsky died in Pryamukhin on January 28, 1879 in terrible agony. The cause of death was stomach cancer. Four months later, on May 27, Anna also died. This happened in Moscow, in furnished rooms located on the corner of Tverskaya and Gruzinskaya (Anna Petrovna was transported to Moscow by her son). They say that the funeral procession moved along Tverskoy Boulevard when the monument to A.S. Pushkin was erected on it. This is how the great poet met for the last time with the “genius of pure beauty.”
Our heroine was buried in a graveyard near an old stone church located in the village of Prutnya (6 km from Torzhok). The road was washed away by rains, which did not allow the coffin to be delivered “to my husband” to the cemetery. 100 years later in Riga, near the former church, a modest monument to this woman was erected. Of course, Anna Kern was a bright and interesting person. Her short biography presented in the article, we hope, convinced you of this.
