Anna Petrovna Kern, Pushkin and their love story

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Be that as it may, one can talk endlessly about Pushkin. This is just the same little one who managed to “inherit” everywhere. But this time we have to analyze 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 Mikhailovsky during his exile. When and how did Pushkin and Kern meet? Their love story, however, turned out to be rather 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 Trigorsky, the Osipov-Wulf family, who were Pushkin's neighbors in Mikhailovsky, the poet's family estate. Once, in a correspondence with her cousin, she reports that she is a big fan of Pushkin's poetry. These words reach the poet, he is intrigued in hisin a letter to the poet A. G. Rodzianko asks about Kern, whose estate was in his neighborhood, and besides, Anna was his very close friend. Rodzianko wrote a playful reply to Pushkin, Anna joined this playful friendly correspondence, she added a few ironic words to the letter. Pushkin was captivated by this turn and wrote her several compliments, while maintaining a frivolously playful tone. He expressed all his thoughts on this matter in his poem "To the Rodzianka".

Kern was married, and Pushkin knew well her not very happy marital status. It should be noted that for Kern Pushkin was not a fatal passion, as, indeed, she was for him.

Anna Kern: family

In her nee Anna Poltoratskaya was a fair-haired beauty with cornflower blue eyes. At the age of 17, she was given in marriage for a 52-year-old general, a participant in the war with Napoleon. Anna had to obey the will of her father, but she not only did not love her husband, but even hated her in her soul, she wrote about this in her diary. In 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 indisputable beauty who attracted the attention of many brave officers who often visited their house. As a woman, she was very cheerful and charming in communication, which had a devastating effect on them.

When Anna Kern and Pushkin first met at her aunt Olenina's, the young general's wife had already begun casual romances and fleeting relationships. The poet is notmade no impression on her, and at some points seemed rude and shameless. Anna liked him immediately, and he attracted her attention with flattering exclamations, something like: “Can you 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 at this time that Kern, on one of the July days of 1825, came to Trigorskoye to stay with her relatives. Pushkin was incredibly happy about this, she became for him for a while a ray of light. By that time, Anna was already a great admirer of the poet, she longed to meet him and again struck him with her beauty. The poet was seduced by her, especially after the song “Spring Night Breathed”, which was popular at that time, was sincerely sung by her.

A poem for Anna

Anna Kern in Pushkin's life for a moment became a fleeting muse, an inspiration that flooded him in an unexpected way. Impressed, he immediately picks up a 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 a July day in 1825, after dinner at Trigorskoye, everyone decided to visit Mikhailovskoye. The two crews set off. P. A. Osipova rode in one of them with her son Alexei Vulf, in the other A. N. Vulf, hercousin Anna Kern and Pushkin. The poet was, as ever, kind and courteous.

It was a farewell party, the next day Kern was supposed to leave for Riga. In the morning Pushkin came to say goodbye, brought her a copy of one of the chapters of Onegin. And among the uncircumcised sheets, she found a poem dedicated to her, read it and then wanted to put her poetic gift in the box, when Pushkin convulsively grabbed it and did not want to give it away for a long time. Anna did not understand this behavior of the poet.

Undoubtedly, this woman gave him moments of happiness, and perhaps brought him back to life.

Relationships

It is very important to note in this matter that Pushkin himself did not consider the feeling he experienced for Kern to be in love. Perhaps this is how he presented women for their tender caress and affection. In a letter to Anna Nikolaevna Wulf, he wrote that he wrote a lot of poems about love, but he had no love for Anna, otherwise he would have become very jealous of her for Alexei Wulf, who enjoyed her favor.

B. Tomashevsky notes that, of course, there was an intriguing outburst of feelings between them, and it served as an impetus for writing a poetic masterpiece. Perhaps Pushkin himself, handing it over to Kern, suddenly thought about the fact that it could cause a false interpretation, and therefore resisted his impulse. But it was already too late. Surely at that moment 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.

Communication

Anna Petrovna Kern and Pushkin broke up, but their further relationship is not known for certain. She left with her daughters for Riga and jokingly allowed the poet to write letters to her. And he wrote them to her, they have survived to this day, however, 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.”

Ways of fate

Anna Kern and Pushkin will see each other again in two years, in 1827, when she leaves her husband and moves to St. Petersburg, which will cause gossip in high society.

Kern, together with his sister and father, after moving to St. Petersburg, will live in the very house where he first met Pushkin in 1819.

This day she will spend completely 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 a great human affection and passion. In a letter to Sobolevsky, Pushkin openly writes that he recently slept with Kern.

In December 1828, Pushkin will meet his precious Natalie Goncharova, will live with her for 6 years in marriage, she will bear him four children. In 1837, Pushkin will be killed in a duel.

Freedom

Anna Kern will finally be freed from the bonds of marriage when her husband dies in 1841. She will fall in love with cadet Alexander Markov-Vinogradsky, who will also be her second cousin. With him, she will lead a quiet family life, although he is 20 years younger than her.

Anna will show Pushkin's letters and poem as a relic to Ivan Turgenev, but her beggarly position will force her to sell them for five rubles each.

One by one her daughters will die. She will outlive Pushkin by 42 years and will preserve in her memoirs the living image of the poet, who, as she believed, never truly loved anyone.

In fact, it is not clear 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.

Result

After the death of Pushkin's mother and the death of the poet himself, Kern did not interrupt close relations with his family. The poet's father, Sergei Lvovich Pushkin, who felt acute loneliness after the death of his wife, wrote quivering cordial 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 stressed his failure.

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.

Pushkin's brother Lev Sergeevich also dedicated a verse 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.”

On this consideration of the topic "Pushkin and Kern: a love story" can be completed. As it has already become clear, Kern captivated all the men of the Pushkin family, they somehow succumbed to her charm in an incredible way.