Twenty years I waited in vain; finally fate brought me to those places where thirty-three years ago my childhood passed so cheerfully and where I now found only graves. Each of us has suffered losses, each will understand my feelings. Here I also received the numbers of the magazine with Lermontov's student notebooks and an announcement threatening the publication of three volumes of his works, which would include notebooks and a significant number of his children's poems. Righteous God! Why publish so many bad poems, as if there were not enough of them anyway? Under the influence of these feelings, I overcame my indecision and took up the pen. I do not offer a fiction work to the public, but a true description of what happened in the life of a person who is interested in the present.
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov was born on October 3, 1814, on the estate of his grandmother, Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva, born Stolypina, in the village of Tarkhanakh, Chembarsky district, Penza province.
Being younger than him by four years, I can't say anything positive about his first childhood; I only know that he remained after his mother for several months in the arms of his grandmother, and his father, Yuri Petrovich, lived in his village in the Efremov district and did not often come to visit his son, whom his grandmother loved without memory and took into her care, appointing him her estate (quite decent, at that time there were six hundred souls), since she had no other children. I also heard that from childhood he was in very poor health, why his grandmother took him three times to the Caucasus to mineral waters. I myself begin to remember him well from the autumn of 1825.
My late mother was the dear and beloved niece of Elizaveta Alekseevna, who persuaded her to move from the Caucasus, where we lived, to the Penza province, and helped to buy an estate three miles from hers, and, out of friendship for her, she took me to her upbringing together with Michel, as we all called Mikhail Yurievich.
Thus, we all came together in the autumn of 1825 from Pyatigorsk to Tarkhany, and from that time I vividly remember Michel, swarthy, with black shining eyes, in a green jacket and with a tuft of blond hair over his forehead, sharply different from the others, black as pitch. teachers were Mr. Capet, a tall and thin Frenchman with a hooked nose, our constant companion, and a Greek who fled from Turkey to Russia; but the Greek language turned out to be not to Michel's taste, his lessons were postponed indefinitely, and the Cephalonian took up dressing the skins of singed dogs and began to teach this art to the peasants; he, the poor man, had already died long ago, but the industry he created developed and bore magnificent fruits: many Tarkhans got rich from it, and to this day almost half of the village continues to furrier.
I still remember, as if through a dream, the face of a kind old German woman, Kristina Osipovna, Michel's nanny, and the family doctor Levis, on whose orders we were fed in the spring in the mornings with black bread and butter, sprinkled with watercress, and we were not given meat, although Michel, as I always seemed to be quite healthy, and in the fifteen years that we spent together, I don't remember him being seriously ill even once.
Nikolai Gavrilovich Davydov, a neighbor from Pachelma (neighboring village), lived with us, distant relatives of my grandmother, two brothers Yurievs, two princes Maksyutovs, stayed for quite a long time, close relatives with children and grandchildren often came over, in addition, a great neighborhood, in a word, there was always a house packed full. My grandmother had three gardens, a large pond in front of the house, and a grove behind the pond; plenty of space in summer. In winter it is a little closer, but on the pond we split into two camps and exchanged snowballs; on the dam, with a sinking heart, they watched how the Orthodox people, wall to wall (there was no ban then), converged on fists, and I remember Michel just burst into tears when Vasily the gardener got out of the dump with his lip cut to the blood. During Great Lent, Michel was a master of making colossal human figures out of melted snow; in general he was happily endowed with aptitude for the arts; even then he painted quite decently with watercolors and sculpted whole pictures from colored wax; the hunt for a hare with greyhounds, which we had to see once, he molded very successfully, also the crossing of the Granik and the battle of Arbella, with elephants, chariots decorated with glass beads, and foil braids. The manifestations of poetic talent in him were not at all noticeable at that time, he wrote all the essays commissioned by Capet in prose, and was not at all better than his comrades.
When the neighbors got together, dances were arranged and once or twice there was a home performance; grandmother herself was very sad, she always went about in a black dress and a white old cap without ribbons, but she was affectionate and kind, and loved children to play and have fun, and we had a lot of fun with her.
So we lived for two years. In 1827 she went with Michel to Moscow to bring him up, and a year later they brought me to them. I found a great change in Michel, he was no longer a child, he was fourteen years old; he studied hard. Mr. Gindrot, the tutor, a respectable and kind old man, was, however, strict and exacting, and kept us in his hands; various other teachers visited us, as usual. Here for the first time I saw Russian poems by Michel: Lomonosov, Derzhavin, Dmitriev, Ozerov, Batyushkov, Krylov, Zhukovsky, Kozlov and Pushkin, at the same time Michel read me his compositions stanzas K; I was terribly intrigued by what the word stanzas means and why three asterisks? However, he remained silent, as if I understood. Soon the first poem "Indian Woman" was written and the handwritten magazine "Morning Dawn" began to be published, in the manner of "Observer" or "Telegraph", as it should, with poems and belles-lettres, edited by Nikolai Gavrilovich; several issues of this journal were published, fortunately, before leaving for St. Petersburg, all this was burned, and much more, when parsing old papers.
A year later, Michel entered the University noble boarding school as a half boarder, and we moved from Povarskaya to Malaya Molchanovka to Chernov's house. Michel's boarding life was little known to me, I only know that there were no stories with him; of all the employees at the boarding school, I saw only one warden, Alexei Zinovievich Zinoviev, who often visited my grandmother, and he himself was in the boarding house only once, at the graduation act, where Michel recited Zhukovsky’s poems: “The silent sea, the azure sea, I stand enchanted over your abyss ". However, he was not a master of recitation, and even afterwards he read his beautiful poems quite badly.
In the neighborhood with us lived the Lopukhin family, an old father, three maiden daughters and a son; they were with us like family and very friendly with Michel, who was not there for a rare day. We also had relatives with adult daughters who often visited us, so that the first society that Michel entered was predominantly female, and it must certainly have influenced his impressionable nature.
Soon afterwards Mr. Gindrot died, Mr. Winson, an Englishman, took his place, and under his guidance Michel began to study English. As far as I remember, this happened in 1829, however, I cannot give exact figures with certainty; it's so long ago, more than thirty years, I was a child, never recorded any incidents and could not think that I would ever have to deliver materials for the biography of Lermontov. One thing I can vouch for is the correctness of both the facts themselves and their sequence.
Michel began to study English according to Byron and after a few months began to understand it fluently; read Moore and the poetic works of Walter Scott (besides these three, I never saw other poets of England from him), but he could never speak fluently in English, and in French German owned as his own. Studying in English remarkable in that from that time on he began to mimic Byron.
In general, most of Lermontov's works of this era, that is, from 1829 to 1833, bear the imprint of skepticism, gloom and hopelessness, but in reality these feelings were far from him. He was rather cheerful in character, loved society, especially women's, in which he almost grew up and who liked the liveliness of his wit and penchant for epigrams; often attended the theater, balls, masquerades; in life he did not know any hardships or failures: his grandmother did not look for a soul in him and never denied him anything; relatives and short acquaintances carried him, so to speak, in their arms; he did not suffer especially sensitive losses; Why such gloominess, such hopelessness? Was it not more of a drapery to make it more interesting, since Byronism and disillusionment were in full swing at the time, or a mask to fool the charming Moscow lionesses? A small weakness, very excusable in such a young man. This tactic, as it seems, he succeeded, judging by the recollections. I happened to read one of them in Russkiy Vestnik about three years ago. The author of these “Memoirs”, who was called Katenka, as can be seen from his story, was known to us at that time under the name of Miss Black-eyes Sushkov, later Khvostova, probably does not even suspect that there was a witness to all the incidents, to whom, as no one paid attention to the child, but who noticed a lot, and understood, and remembers, among other things, that neither Alexandrine W. nor Catherine S. had ever lived in our neighborhood, in Moscow; that my grandmother did not have a brother who served with Griboedov, and the one in question was the military governor (Nikolai Alekseevich Stolypin) in Sevastopol, where he was killed in 1830 during an uprising; that, finally, Michel was not a clubfoot, and his eyes were not at all red, but rather beautiful.
As a student, he was passionately in love, but not with Miss Blackeyes, and not even with her cousin (may the shadow of the famous poetess not be angry with us for this news), but with a young, sweet, smart as day, and in full sense delightful V. A. Lopukhin, it was an ardent, enthusiastic, poetic nature and in the highest degree pretty. How now I remember her affectionate look and bright smile; she was about fifteen or sixteen; we were children and teased her a lot; she had a small birthmark on her forehead, and we always pestered her, repeating: “Varenka has a mole, Varenka is ugly,” but she, the kindest creature, never got angry. Lermontov's feeling for her was implicit, but true and strong, and he almost retained it until his death, despite some subsequent hobbies, but it could not (and did not) cast a gloomy shadow on his existence, on the contrary: at the beginning in its own way, it aroused reciprocity, later, in St. Petersburg, in the guards school, it was temporarily drowned out by the new situation and the noisy life of the junkers of the then school, after new successes in society and literature came into being; but it instantly and strongly awakened at the unexpected news of the marriage of the beloved woman; At that time there was no longer any mention of Byronism.
In his home life, Lermontov was almost always cheerful, even-tempered, often engaged in music, and more drawing, mainly in the battle genre, we also often played chess and war game for which I always had several plans ready. All this convinces me undeniably that Byronism was nothing more than drapery; that there were no dark torments, no sacrifices, no betrayals, no kissing poisons in reality; that all Lermontov's poems relating to the time of his stay in Moscow are only childish pranks, they do not explain or express anything; why any judgment about the character and state of the poet’s soul, based on them, will lead to an incorrect conclusion, besides, except for two or three, they do not withstand the most condescending criticism, they were never assigned to print by the author, but were preserved from auto da-fé by chance, without adding anything to the literary glory of Lermontov, on the contrary, they can only bore the reader, and everyone who cherishes the memory of the late poet should be very, very sorry that these creations appeared in print.
Upon graduating from the boarding school, Michel entered Moscow University, I think, in 1831. The beginning of his poem "The Demon", which he subsequently reworked for so many and long, dates back to this time; in its original form, its action took place in Spain and the heroine was a nun; also most of his works with a Byronic direction and a lot of small ones, written on various occasions, since, with admission to the university, he began to attend the Moscow grand-monde. G. Dudyshkin, in his article "Lermontov's Student Notebooks", cites some of these poems, wondering what to attribute them to; I know that they were written on the occasion of a masquerade in the Noble Assembly, where Lermontov appeared in the costume of an astrologer, with a huge book of fate under his arm, in this book the position of cabalistic signs was corrected by Chinese letters, cut out by me from black paper, copied in a colossal form with tea box and pasted on each page; under the letters were inscribed the verses cited by Mr. Dudyshkin, assigned to various acquaintances, whom it was likely to meet in a masquerade, where it could be both appropriate and very nice, but what meaning can these very weak rhymes have in the collected works of the poet?
The same writer and in the same article suggests that Miss Alexandrine is the person playing important role during these years of Lermontov's life. This is partly true, but not in the sense that the author seems to want to hint at. Miss Alexandrine, that is, Alexandra Mikhailovna Vereshchagin, his cousin, took a great part in it, she perfectly knew how to use a slightly sarcastic direction of her mind and irony in order to master this restless nature and direct it, joking and laughing, towards the beautiful and noble; all letters of Alexandra Mikhailovna to Lermontov prove her friendship for him<...>. Meanwhile, as a girl, passionately and for a long time he loved, it is difficult to find the slightest hint in the whole assembly.
In Moscow, Lermontov wrote poems: “Litvinka”, “The Fugitive”, “Izmail Bay”, “Two Brothers”, “Hadji Abrek”, “Boyarin Orsha” and a very weak dramatic work with the German title “Menschen und Leidenschaften”. I do not understand how it appeared; I was sure that we burned this tragedy along with others bad poetry, of which there were a whole bunch.
Entertained by secular pleasures, Lermontov, however, was engaged in lectures, but did not stay long at the university; as a result of some incident with one of the professors, in which he was accidentally and against his will involved, he had to leave Moscow University, and at the end of 1832 he went with his grandmother to Petersburg to enter there, but instead of the university he entered School of Guards ensigns and cavalry junkers, in the Life Guards Hussar Regiment. A year later, that is, at the beginning of 1834, I also arrived in St. Petersburg to enter the Artillery School and again settled with my grandmother. In Michel I again found a great change. He has formed physically; he was small in stature, but became broader in the shoulders and thicker, his face was still swarthy and not good-looking; but he had an intelligent look, well-shaped lips, black and soft hair, very beautiful and gentle hands; legs are crooked (the right one, below the knee, he broke at school, in the arena, and it was badly spliced).
I brought him a bow from Varenka. In his absence, we often talked about him; he was dear to both of us, although not equally, but equally dear. At parting, holding out her hand, with moist eyes, but with a smile, she said to me:
Bow to him from me; tell me that I'm calm, satisfied, even happy.
I was very annoyed with him that he listened to me as if in cold blood and did not ask about her; I reproached him for this, he smiled and answered:
You're still a child, you don't understand anything!
And though you understand a lot, you are not worth her little finger! - I objected, angry in earnest.
This was our first and only quarrel; but we soon reconciled.
The school was then in the place near the Blue Bridge, where the palace of Her Highness Maria Nikolaevna is now. Grandmother rented an apartment a few steps from the school, on the Moika, in Lanskov's house, and almost every day I went to Michel with contraband, that is, with various pâtés froids, pâtés de Strasbourg, sweets and other things, and thus I had the opportunity to see and to know many of his comrades, among whom was his friend Vonlyar-Lyarsky, later a well-known novelist, and the two brothers Martynov, of whom the smaller, handsome and stately young man received such a sad (at least for us) fame.<...>
Morally, Michel changed at school no less than physically, traces of home education and female society disappeared; at that time the school was dominated by the spirit of some kind of revelry, revelry, bombing; fortunately, Michel entered there not earlier than nineteen years old and stayed there no more than two; upon graduation to the officers, all this disappeared like water off a duck's back. Faut que jeunesse jette sa gourme, say the French.
He turned his drawing abilities and poetic talent to caricatures, epigrams and other works inconvenient for printing, which were placed in a handwritten illustrated magazine published at the school, some of which went from hand to hand in separate issues. As an example, I can cite a few verses from the poem “Ulansha”, famous in its time and in its place:
Our noisy squadron is coming
Thundering motley crowd,
The hang of the weary tends to sleep,
Too late, dark blue
The sky is covered, the day is gone,
The hangers are murmuring...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
But here is Izhorka, thank God!
It's time to bow to the horse.
How to get out on the road
Lancer with wrapped badge;
He is important in apartments, decorously
He took the chiefs with him,
Although, to admit, the smell of wine
Revealed him at times.
But what is the life of a lancer without wine?
His soul is at the bottom of a glass
And who is not drunk twice a day,
He, excuse me, is not a lancer!
Can I tell you the name of the tenant?
It was Lafa, a dashing brawler,
With whose youthful head
Neither Doppel-Kumel, nor Madeira,
Not even noisy ai
Never could get it right.
His brown skin
She shone in a multitude of eels,
Well, in a word, everything, gait, mug
The heart was filled with fear.
Pushing the shako to the back of the head,
He goes, everything thunders on him,
Like a dozen empty bottles
Pushing in a big box.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Lafa sullenly enters the hut,
The overcoat, slipping, falls from the shoulders,
Around he wildly leads his eyes
And he thinks he sees hundreds of candles...
In front of him, meanwhile, one torch,
Smoking, crackling, it burns,
But what a wonderful picture
Illuminated by her beam!
Through magical smoke, tobacco smoke,
The faces of the junkers flash.
Their faces are red, their eyes are terrible,
Who is in a harness, who is without sh<танов>
They feast! - In their foggy circle
Oak table and ladle on it,
And punch in a wooden tub
Blazes with a blue light...etc.
He came home only on holidays and Sundays and wrote absolutely nothing. At school, he was nicknamed Mayoshka, from M-m Mayeux, the hunchbacked and witty hero of a long-forgotten clownish French novel.
The two ill-fated years of his stay at school quickly passed, and at the beginning of 1835 he was promoted to officer in the Life Hussar Regiment, while I entered the Artillery School and, in turn, began to go home only on Sundays and holidays.
A distant relative and friend of Michel's school, Nikolai Dmitrievich Yuryev, lived with us at that time, who, after futile efforts to persuade Michel to publish his poems, quietly handed over from him the poem "Hadji Abrek" to Senkovsky, and she, to our considerable surprise, in one Beautiful Morning appeared in print in the Reading Library. Lermontov was furious, fortunately no one dissected the poem, on the contrary, it had some success, and he began to continue writing, but still not publishing.
After he was promoted to an officer, his grandmother said that Misha needed money, and went to Tarkhany (this was their first separation). And indeed, Misha needed money; I rarely met a person more careless than him regarding material life, his cashier was Andrey, who acted completely uncontrollably. When later he began to publish his compositions, I often said to him: “Why don't you take anything for your poems. Pushkin was no poorer than you, but the booksellers paid him gold for each verse, ”but he, laughing, answered me with the words of Goethe:
Das Lied, das aus der Kehie dringt
East Lohn, der reichlich lohnet.
He lived constantly in St. Petersburg, and went to Tsarskoye Selo, where the hussars were stationed, for training and duty. His relative Alexei Arkadyevich Stolypin, known at school, and then in the world under the name of Mungo, served in the same regiment. Once they set off together on a sentimental journey from Tsarskoye to Peterhof, which Lermontov described in verse:
The sun is setting behind the mountain
Fog smokes over the swamp.
And now, dear pillar,
They fly, bending over the bow,
Two riders, big swoop...etc.
At this time, that is, before 1837, Lermontov wrote "The Treasurer", "The Song of Tsar John and the Merchant Kalashnikov", began a novel in prose without a title and a drama in prose "Two Brothers", remade "Demons", sketched several scenes of the drama "Arbenin" (later called "Masquerade") and several small poems, all this was read at home, between short ones. In 1836, grandmother, missing Misha, returned to St. Petersburg. At the same time, the son of her old friend, SA Raevsky, lived with us. He served in the War Department, studied at the university, received a good education and had an acquaintance in the literary circle.
At the same time, I had the opportunity to make sure that Michel's first passion had not disappeared. We played chess, the man handed in the letter; Michel began to read it, but suddenly his face changed and turned pale; I was frightened and wanted to ask what it was, but, handing me the letter, he said: “Here is the news - read it,” and left the room. This was the news of the upcoming marriage of V. A. Lopukhina.
Through Raevsky, Michel met A.A. Kraevsky, to whom he subsequently gave his poems for placement in the Notes of the Fatherland. Raevsky had a true critical view, his remarks and advice were not without benefit to Michel, who, however, still did not want to publish his works, and his name remained unknown to the majority of the public, when in January 1837 we were all suddenly struck by a rumor about Pushkin's death. Contemporaries remember what a shock this news produced in St. Petersburg. Lermontov was not personally acquainted with Pushkin, but he could and knew how to appreciate him. Under the still fresh influence of true grief and indignation aroused in him by this sacrilegious murder, he wrote several stanzas in one sitting, which spread throughout the city in two days. Since then, to everyone who cares Russian word, the name of Lermontov became known.
These verses were written with an epigraph from the unpublished tragedy of Mr. Gendre "Venceslav":
Revenge, my lord! Revenge!
I will fall at your feet
Be fair and punish the killer
So that his execution in later centuries
Your right judgment proclaimed to posterity,
To see the villains in her example.
I do not quote the verses themselves, since they have already been printed in full.<...>
It is not difficult to imagine what impression the stanzas "On the death of Pushkin" made in the public, but they also had another effect. Lermontov was put under arrest in one of the rooms on the top floor of the General Staff building, from where he went to the Caucasus as an ensign in the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment. Raevsky also fell under the surkup, he was transferred from the guardhouse on Sennaya to serve in Petrozavodsk; As for me, Colonel Krivopishin, who carried out a search of our house, did not deign to pay any attention, fortunately, and both I and the carefully copied copy of the persecuted poems remained unharmed.
Under arrest, only his valet, who brought dinner, was allowed to see Michel; Michel ordered the bread to be wrapped in gray paper, and on these scraps, with the help of wine, oven soot and matches, he wrote several plays, namely: “When the yellowing field is agitated”; “I, the mother of God, now with a prayer”; “Whoever you are, my sad neighbor,” and remade the old play “Open the dungeon for me”, adding to it the last stanza “But the window of the prison is high.”
The old grandmother was extremely struck by this incident, but remained in St. Petersburg, with the hope of obtaining a pardon for her grandson, which she managed to do through her relatives, and especially through L. V. Dubelt; less than a year later, Michel was returned and transferred first to Grodno, and soon, at the request of his grandmother, again to the Life Hussars.<...>
Shortly before Pushkin's death, on the occasion of political alarm in the West, Lermontov wrote a play like the famous "Slanderers of Russia", but, being in some way in disgrace, he never wanted to print it afterwards, according to a very understandable feeling. Since this play is completely unknown to the public (if not placed in latest edition), I'll include it here:
Again folk winds
For the fallen cause of Lithuania
To the glory of proud Russia
Again, noisily, you rebelled! .. and so on.
Upon returning to St. Petersburg, Lermontov began to go out more often, but he found a more friendly welcome in the house of the Karamzins, Mrs. Smirnova and Prince Odoevsky. His literary activity increased. He wrote many small lyric poems, remade the poem "Demon" for the third time, finished the drama "Masquerade", remade the poem "Mtsyri" written by him long ago and several other plays that I can't remember now; began the novel "A Hero of Our Time". In a word, it was the most active era of his life in terms of literature. From 1839 he began to publish his works in Otechestvennye Zapiski; he did not have excessive authorial pride; he did not trust himself, he willingly listened to the critical remarks of those in whose friendship he was confident and in whose taste he hoped, moreover, he was not prompted by mercantile calculations, which is why he made a strict choice of the works that he appointed for publication. Again, with true heartfelt grief, I cannot help but regret that after Lermontov's death, his works are not published with the same legibility.
Can it be (as he himself said) childish feelings,
Discordant, unaccountable delirium,
Worthy of strict art?
They will be ridiculed, the world will forget.
In the spring of 1838, Varvara Alexandrovna arrived in St. Petersburg with her husband on her way abroad. Lermontov was in Tsarskoye, I sent a messenger to him, and I galloped to her. My God, how my heart contracted painfully at the sight of her! Pale, thin, and there was no shadow of the former Varenka, only her eyes retained their brilliance and were as affectionate as before. "Well, how do you live here?" - "Why is it you?" "Because I'm asking about two." - “We live as God sent, but we think and feel as in the old days. However, another answer will come from Tsarskoye in two hours.” This was our last meeting; neither he nor I was destined to see her again. She survived him, languished for a long time and died, they say, peacefully, about ten years ago.
V.A. Zhukovsky wanted to see Lermontov, who was introduced to him. The venerable poet received the young man kindly and attentively, and presented him with a copy of his Ondine with a handwritten inscription. One of the members of the royal family wished to read the "Demon", which at that time went from hand to hand, in the lists more or less distorted. Lermontov set to work on this poem for the fourth time, finished it off completely, gave it to be rewritten in calligraphy, and, upon approval for publication by the censors, forwarded it to its destination. A few days later he received it back, and this is the only copy complete and after which the "Demon" was not altered. This copy should be in the possession of Mr. Alopeus, to whom he passed from me through Obukhov, my comrade at the Artillery School. There is another copy of The Demon, written entirely by Lermontov's hand and handed over by me to Dmitri Arkadyevich Stolypin.
Lately we have often talked with Lermontov about The Demon. Undoubtedly, there are beautiful poems and pictures in it, although then, remembering the Caucasus, as if through a dream, I could not, as now, judge the amazing fidelity of these pictures. No doubt, when it appeared in print, it should have been a success, but it could also have provoked a very strict review. It always seemed to me that The Demon was like an opera with the most charming music and the most empty libretto. In the opera it is excused, but in the poem it is not. A good critic can and should ask a poet, especially one like Lermontov: "What is the purpose of your poem, what is the idea in it?" In "The Demon" one goal is visible - to write some beautiful poems and draw some lovely pictures of the marvelous Caucasian nature, this is good, but not enough. The idea, it is ridiculous to say, came out such as the author himself did not even think about. Indeed, remember the stanza:
And he enters, ready to love,
With a soul open to good ... and so on.
Isn't it true that here the prince de Talleyrand would have had to repeat his word to the heavenly police: surtout pas trop de zèle, Messieurs! The messenger of paradise very inopportunely appeared to protect Tamara from a danger that did not exist; by this awkwardness he prevented the revival of the Demon and thereby prepared for himself and his people in the future an abyss of troubles from which they would have been delivered forever if this messenger had been more perceptive. Lermontov could not have had this immoral idea; although he was not distinguished by a particularly zealous performance of religious rites, he was neither an atheist nor a blasphemer. Read his plays “I, the Mother of God, now with a prayer”, “In a difficult moment of life”, “When the yellowing field is agitated”, “The branch of Palestine” and tell me, could a person without a warm feeling in his heart write these verses? I proposed another plan: to take away from the Demon any idea of repentance and rebirth, let him act directly with the aim of destroying the soul of the holy hermit, so that the fight between the Angel and the Demon would take place in the presence of Tamara, but not sleeping; let Tamara, as the highest personification of a tender female nature, ready to sacrifice herself, go with full consciousness to the side of the unfortunate, but, in her opinion, repentant sufferer, in the hope of saving him; leave everything else as it is, and the verse:
She suffered and loved
And heaven opened for love...-
saves the epilogue. “Your plan,” replied Lermontov, “is not bad, it only looks a lot like Alfred de Vigny's Sœur des anges. However, you can think about it. We’ll wait for the demon to be printed, leave him for now.” That is why the poem "The Demon", already approved by the Censorship Committee, remained unpublished during Lermontov's lifetime. I have no doubt that only death prevented him from bringing the beloved child of his imagination into a form worthy of his talent.
Here, by the way, I note two inaccuracies in this poem:
He himself is the ruler of Synodal...
There is no Sinodal in Georgia, but there is Tsinundali, an ancient castle in a charming place in Kakheti, belonging to one of the oldest families of Georgia, the princes of Chavchavadze, plundered eight years ago by the son of Shamil.
Timid Georgians fled...
Georgians are not timid, on the contrary, they can rather be reproached for insane courage, which the entire Caucasian army, which understands what courage is, will testify. Lermontov could not help but know this, he himself went with them into the fire, the prince's slaves could run, this is a slip of the tongue.
In the winter of 1839, Lermontov was very interested in Prince. Shcherbatova (the play “On secular chains” belongs to her). I never happened to see her, I only know that she was a young widow, but I heard from him that she was such that she could not be told in a fairy tale or written with a pen. The same thing, as can be seen from what follows, was also thought of by M. de Barante, the son of the then French envoy in St. Petersburg. The slightly too obvious preference shown at the ball to a happy rival blew up Barant, he went up to Lermontov and said passionately: “Vous profitez trop, Monsieur, de ce que nous sommes dans un pays où le duel est défendu.” - “Qu” àça ne tienne, Monsieur, - he answered, - je me mets entièrement à votre disposition ", and a meeting was scheduled for tomorrow; it happened on Wednesday at the carnival of 1840. We were dismissed from the school in the morning, and I, having come home at nine o'clock, was very I was surprised when a man told me that Mikhail Yuryevich was deigned to leave at seven o'clock; the weather was bad, it was sleet with light rain. Two hours later Lermontov returned, all wet as a mouse. "Where are you from?" - "He shot" - "How, what, why, with whom?" - "With a Frenchman."
- "Tell". He began to change clothes and tell: “I went to Munga, he took sharpened rapiers and a pair of kuchenreiters, and we drove across the Black River. They were right there. Mungo raised his arms, the Frenchman chose his rapiers, we stood knee-deep in the sleet and began; things were not going well, the French attacked sluggishly, I did not attack, but did not give in either. Mungo was cold and furious, and this went on for about ten minutes. Finally, he scratched my arm below the elbow, I wanted to pierce his arm, but I hit the very hilt, and my rapier broke. The seconds came up and stopped us; Mungo raised his pistols, he fired and missed, I fired into the air, we made up and parted, that's all.
This story remained for quite a long time without consequences, Lermontov, as before, continued to go out into the world and look after his princess; finally, one careless young lady B, probably without any intention, gave the incident sufficient publicity in a very high place, as a result of which, by order of the Guards Corps, Lieutenant of the Life Guards of the Hussar Regiment Lermontov was brought to a military court for a duel with detention, and on Monday at a passionate In a week he received a state-owned apartment on the third floor of the St. Petersburg Ordinance House, where he stayed for two weeks, and from there he was transferred to the arsenal guardhouse, which is on Liteinaya. No one was allowed into Lermontov's ordinance-gauz either; grandmother was paralyzed and could not leave, however, so that Misha would not be so bored and in order to have a daily and reliable bulletin about him, she managed to procure from the then commandant or parade-major, I don’t remember well, Baron Z<ахаржевского>so that he would let me in to the prisoner. The noble baron took pity on the old woman and allowed me, under his own responsibility, free entry, only they always took away my sword on the stairs (then I was promoted and left in the officer classes to finish the course). Lermontov was not very sad, we talked about city news, about the new French novels that then, as now, flooded our boudoirs, played chess, read a lot, among other things, Andre Chenier, Heine and Barbier's Yamba, he did not like the latter , out of the whole little book he praised only one following stanza, from the play "La Popularité":
C "est la mer, c" est la mer, d "abord calme et sereine,
La mer, aux premiers feux du jour,
Chantant et souriant comme une jeune reine,
La mer blonde et pleine d "amour.
La mer baisant le sable et caressant la rive
Du beaume enivrant de ses flots,
Et berçant sur sa gorge, ondoyante et lassive,
Son peuple brun de matelots.
Here the play "The Neighbor" was written, only with a small addition. She really was an interesting neighbor, I saw her through the window, but there were no bars at the window, and she was not the jailer's daughter at all, but probably the daughter of some official serving at the ordinance house, where there are no jailers, but a sentry with a gun he was definitely standing at the door, I always put my sword near him.
Meanwhile, the military court case went on as usual and began to take a favorable turn as a result of Lermontov's answer, where he wrote that he did not consider himself entitled to refuse the Frenchman, since he did not touch only him, Lermontov, in his words, but expressed the idea that it would be impossible to get satisfaction in general in Russia, but he himself had no intention of harming him, which was proved by a shot fired into the air. Thus, we had hope for a favorable outcome of the case, as my recklessness spoiled everything. Barant was very offended when he learned the content of Lermontov’s answer, and repeated everywhere he went that Lermontov was in vain boasting that he had given him life, this is not true, and he, Barant, upon Lermontov’s release from arrest, will punish him for this boasting. I recognized these words of the Frenchman, they infuriated me, and I went to the guardhouse. “You are sitting here,” I said to Lermontov, “locked up and you don’t see anyone, and the Frenchman, that’s what is ringing about you everywhere louder than any pipes.” Lermontov immediately wrote a note, two hussar officers arrived, and I left him. The next day, he told me that one of the officers brought Barant to him to the guardhouse, to whom Lermontov expressed his displeasure and offered, if he, Barant, was dissatisfied, a new meeting after the end of his arrest, to which Barant, in front of two witnesses, answered as follows: “ Monsieur, les bruits qui sont parvenus jusqu "à vous sont inexacts, et je m" empresse de vous dire que je me tiens pour parfaitement satisfait.
Then they put him in a carriage and took him home.
It seemed to us that that was the end of the matter; on the contrary, it was just beginning. Barant's mother went to the commander of the guards corps with a complaint against Lermontov because, being in the guardhouse, he demanded her son to him and challenged him again to a duel. After such a passage, things dragged on a bit, Lieutenant Lermontov was transferred to the Caucasus in the same rank to the Tenginsky Infantry Regiment, where he went, and after him the grandmother went to the village. Their absence was not long; Lermontov received leave and by the new year 1841, together with his grandmother, returned to St. Petersburg.
All grandmother's attempts to get forgiveness for her Misha again were unsuccessful, she was told that it was not time yet, she had to wait.
Lermontov stayed in St. Petersburg until May; from the Caucasus, he brought several rather successful types of his work, painted in oils, several poems and the novel "A Hero of Our Time", begun even earlier, but completed on his last visit to St. Petersburg. There is an opinion in the public that Lermontov wanted to portray himself in The Hero of Our Time; as far as I know, there is nothing in common between Pechorin and Lermontov, either in character or in the circumstances of life, except for a reference to the Caucasus. The ideal that all the idle youth of that time aspired to: lions, lion cubs, and so on. the smokers of the sky, as Gogol says, were personified by Lermontov in Pechorin. The highest dandyism then consisted in not being surprised at anything, to seem indifferent to everything, to put one's self above everything else; poorly understood Anglomania was in full swing, whence the deplorable use of God-given abilities. Lermontov very successfully collected these features in his hero, whom he made interesting, but nevertheless exposed the emptiness of such people and the harm (though not all) from them to society. It is not his fault if instead of satire, many were pleased to see an apology.
During Holy Week, Lermontov wrote the play The Last Housewarming Party; while he was writing it, I succeeded in sketching his profile with a pencil. I mention this circumstance because of all his portraits, not one is similar, and this profile, it seems to me, sins less than other portraits against the original.
Lermontov's vacation was drawing to a close; he began to gather back to the Caucasus. He and I made a detailed review of all the papers, selected several both already printed and not yet published, and compiled a bundle. “When, God willing, I return,” he said, “maybe something else will be added here, and we will carefully sort it out and see what needs to be placed in the volume and what to throw away.” I left these papers with me, while the rest, like unnecessary trash, we threw into a box. If I knew where you would fall, says the proverb, you would spread straws; so in this case: I will never forgive myself that I didn’t send all this rubbish at the same time to the kitchen under the stove.
On May 2, at eight o'clock in the morning, we arrived at the Post Office, from where the Moscow checkpoint departed. I had no premonition, but it was very hard on my soul. While the horses were being laid, Lermontov gave me various instructions to V. A. Zhukovsky and A. A. Kraevsky, spoke for a long time, but I did not hear anything. When he got into the carriage, I came to my senses a little and said to him: “I'm sorry, Michel, I didn't understand anything you were saying; If you need anything, write, I will do everything. “What a child you are,” he answered. - Nothing, everything will be ground - there will be flour. Goodbye, kiss your grandmother's hands and be healthy.
These were in his life last words to me; in August we received the news of his death.
Upon my return with my grandmother to the village, where Lermontov's things were brought from Pyatigorsk, I found between them a book in black binding in 8 °, in which several poems, the last composed by him, were inscribed by his hand. On the first page it was stated that the book was given to Lermontov by Prince Odoevsky so that the poet would return it written; Nikolai Arkadyevich Stolypin, who was then visiting Petersburg, at my request, took this book with him to give to the prince. Subsequently, in 1842, in Kremenchug, I met with Lev Ivanovich Arnoldi and, at his request, left him for some time a bunch of draft poems selected by Lermontov in 1841 in St. Petersburg. I don’t know to what extent these papers served in the previous editions of his works, in which there are quite a few errors and omissions, nevertheless it is desirable that future publishers check the manuscripts they have with those in the possession of the persons I have named, who, probably out of respect for the memory of the late poet will not interfere with that. Only, for the sake of the creator, what are all these student notebooks and poems of the first youth for? If Lermontov lived for a long time and his writings, scattered in different places, could deliver material for a multi-volume collection - that's another matter; should be merged into one place chronological order, if you like, everything that was published by the poet or assigned for posthumous publication; in such a collection it would really be possible to follow the development and course of the poet's talent. But Lermontov, when he was killed, was not even twenty-seven years old. His talent not only did not have time to bear a ripe fruit, but only began to develop: everything that can be read with pleasure from what he wrote is unlikely to deliver material for one volume. Why add two more to it, increase their volume, offering the public creations below mediocrity, unworthy of the poet's fame, which he himself recognized as such and never thought to publish? Shouldn't have.
This is my opinion, I express it frankly. Perhaps some of the Aristarchs of our literature will call me a backward Old Believer who does not understand the modern requirements of its history and criticism. So be it, I submit in advance to a severe sentence; at least the reader, yawning over the Notebooks, will not have the right to blame Lermontov for his boredom.
In 1844, upon retirement, I had to settle in the Caucasus, in the Pyatigorsk district, and there I learned reliable details about the death of Lermontov from eyewitnesses outside him. In the summer of 1841, many young people from St. Petersburg gathered in Pyatigorsk, among them Martynov, very handsome, always walking in a Circassian coat with a large Dagestan dagger on his belt. Lermontov, in his old habit of teasing his school friend, gave him the nickname Montagnard au grand poignard; it would seem to be nothing, but when it is often repeated, it can get boring. On July 14, in the evening, a lot of people gathered at the Verzilins' house; the society was lively and noisy; Prince S. Trubetskoy played the piano, Lermontov was sitting next to the daughter of the mistress of the house, Martynov entered the room. Turning to a neighbor, Lermontov said: "M-lle Emilie, prenez garde, voici que s" approche le farouche montagnard ".
This was said quite quietly, behind the general conversation one could not have heard even two steps away; but, unfortunately, Prince Trubetskoy got up at that very moment, everything fell silent, as if on command, and the words le farouche montagnard were heard around the room. When they began to disperse, Martynov went up to Lermontov and said to him:
M. Lermontoff, je vous ai bien des fois prié de retenir vos plaisanteries sur mon compte, au moins devant les femmes.
Allons donc, answered Lermontov, allez-vous vous fâcher sérieusement et me provoquer?
Oui, je vous provoque, said Martynov and left.
The next day, the fifteenth, they agreed to move in after dinner to the right of the road leading from Pyatigorsk to the Scottish colony, at the foot of Mashuk; stood twelve paces. Martynov fired first; the bullet hit the right side, pierced the lungs and flew right through; Lermontov was killed outright.
All other options on this topic are just fables, not worth mentioning, they were never heard of before; for what purpose they are dissolved so many years later, God knows; and the pistol from which Lermontov was killed is not where they say it is Kuhenreiter No. 2 of the pair; I saw him at Aleksey Arkadyevich Stolypin's, on the wall above the bed, next to the portrait taken by the painter Shwede from the already murdered Lermontov.
A year later, his body, in a lead coffin, was transported to Tarkhany and laid near the grave of his mother, near the village church in the chapel built by his grandmother, where she now rests.
All this has long passed, but the memory of Lermontov is still dear to me; therefore I will not undertake to pronounce a judgment on his character, it may be biased, and I am not writing a panegyric.
May the reader be kind to me and not judge me if my personality, uninteresting to him, so often appears before him in this story. Its only merit is truthfulness; it seemed necessary to me, in order to dispel doubts, to explain why everything I spoke about could be known to me, and to name several persons by name who might detect the inaccuracy, if it occurs. I ask you not to exact them either, if for this reason I allowed myself, without their permission, to put their names in full in my story.
Akim Pavlovich Shan Giray(1818-1883, Tiflis) - second cousin of Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov, author of memoirs about the poet (first published in the Russian Review magazine, 1890, book VIII). As a close friend, he helped Lermontov in his work on the novel "Princess Ligovskaya"; saved many of the poet's manuscripts, including the list of the 4th edition of the poem "The Demon", as well as his letters addressed to Svyatoslav Raevsky, Maria Lopukhina, Alexandra Vereshchagina.
In 1851, he married the stepdaughter of General Verzilin, Emilia Alexandrovna Klingenberg, who witnessed a quarrel between Lermontov and officer Nikolai Martynov, which ended in a duel.
Biography
Childhood
Akim Pavlovich was born in the village of Shelkozavodskaya in the family of retired staff captain Pavel Petrovich Shan-Girey (1795-1864), who served under General Yermolov, and Maria Akimovna Shan-Girey (before marriage - Khastatova) (1799-1845), who was a niece Lermontov's grandmother - Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva. There were four children in the family; Akim Pavlovich was the eldest.
In 1825, at the insistence of Elizaveta Alekseevna, the Shan Girey moved from Pyatigorsk to the Penza province. At first, they stayed with Arsenyeva in Tarkhany, later they acquired the nearby Apalikha estate. Seven-year-old Akim, taken by Lermontov's grandmother "to be brought up with Michel", lived next to the future poet for two years; the boys had a common children's room and common teachers - the Frenchman Cape, who talked about military exploits, and the German Christina Osipovna. Getting older, Lermontov began to travel independently to relatives in Apalikha; his passion for the Caucasus could have originated in his teenage years after the stories of Pavel Petrovich about this region.
I begin to remember Lermontov well from the autumn of 1825.<…>I vividly remember the swarthy, with black shiny eyes, Michel, in a green jacket and with a tuft of blond hair, sharply different from the others, black as pitch.<…>Even then, he painted with watercolors and sculpted entire paintings from colored wax. From the memoirs of A.P. Shan Giray.
Youth. Near Lermontov
Beginning in 1828, Shan Giray tried not to be separated from his second cousin for a long time; when he moved to Moscow, Akim Pavlovich moved in next. In the autumn of 1832, Lermontov entered the school of guard ensigns in St. Petersburg - two years later, Shan Giray also arrived in the capital. Staying at Arsenyeva's house, he almost daily visited a friend at the cadet school, smuggling in pies and sweets; sometimes he made drawings telling about the customs of this institution (among the surviving ones are “Junkers at the punishment cell”, “Dinner of junkers”).
Enrolling in 1834 in the St. Petersburg artillery school, Shan Giray on weekends and holidays he invariably appeared in Elizaveta Alekseevna's apartment: friends played chess, argued about books; Lermontov attracted his younger brother to work on the novel "Princess Ligovskaya". Shan Giray was dedicated to the affairs of the heart of a comrade: the poet did not hide from him either the shock caused by the news of the marriage of Varvara Lopukhina, or his interest in Princess Maria Alekseevna Shcherbatova - the struggle for her attention could be one of the reasons for Lermontov's duel with the son of the French ambassador Ernest de Barant. The fact that the poet went to the Black River to "shoot", Shan-Giray, who returned from school at an odd hour, learned from himself: Lermontov, having appeared in the house "wet like a mouse", casually said that at first there was a fight in the snow on rapiers, then the seconds gave the duelists pistols; In the end, everything ended well for both parties.
I had no premonition, but it was very hard on my soul. While the horses were being laid, Lermontov gave me various instructions,<…>but I didn't hear anything. "I'm sorry, Michel, I didn't understand anything." “What a child you are,” he answered. “Goodbye, kiss your grandmother’s hands.” These were his last words to me in life. In August we received the news of his death.
Author of memoirs about the poet (first published in the Russian Review magazine, 1890, book VIII). As a close friend, he helped Lermontov in his work on the novel "Princess Ligovskaya"; saved many of the poet's manuscripts, including a list of the 4th edition of the poem "The Demon", as well as his letters addressed to Svyatoslav Raevsky, Maria Lopukhina, Alexandra Vereshchagina.
In 1851 he married the stepdaughter of General Verzilin, Emilia Alexandrovna Klingenberg, who witnessed a quarrel between Lermontov and officer Nikolai Martynov, which ended in a duel.
Biography
Childhood
Akim Pavlovich was born in the village of Shelkozavodskaya in the family of a retired staff captain Pavel Petrovich Shan-Girey (1795-1864), who served under General Yermolov, and Maria Akimovna Shan-Girey (before marriage - Khastatova) (1799-1845), who was a niece Lermontov's grandmother - Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva. There were four children in the family; Akim Pavlovich was the eldest. In 1825, the Shan Gireys, at the urging of Elizaveta Alekseevna, moved from Pyatigorsk to the Penza Governorate. At first, they stayed with Arsenyeva in Tarkhany, later they acquired the nearby Apalikha estate. Seven-year-old Akim, taken by Lermontov's grandmother "to be brought up with Michel", lived next to the future poet for two years; the boys had a common children's room and common teachers - the Frenchman Capet, who talked about military exploits, and the German Christina Osipovna. Getting older, Lermontov began to travel independently to relatives in Apalikha; his passion for the Caucasus could have originated in his teenage years after the stories of Pavel Petrovich about this region.
I begin to remember Lermontov well from the autumn of 1825.<…>I vividly remember swarthy, with black
with sparkling eyes, Michel, in a green jacket and with a tuft of blond hair that differed sharply from the others,
black as pitch.<…>Even then, he painted with watercolors and sculpted entire paintings from colored wax..
From the memoirs of A.P. Shan Giray .
Youth. Near Lermontov
Beginning in 1828, Shan Giray tried not to be separated from his second cousin for a long time; when he moved to Moscow, Akim Pavlovich moved in after him. In the autumn of 1832, Lermontov entered the school of guard ensigns in St. Petersburg - two years later, Shan Giray also arrived in the capital. Staying at Arsenyeva's house, he visited a friend at the cadet school almost daily, smuggling pies and sweets; sometimes he made drawings telling about the customs of this institution (among the surviving ones are "Junkers at the punishment cell", "Junkers' Lunch").
Entering the St. Petersburg Artillery School in 1834, Shan-Giray invariably appeared at Elizaveta Alekseevna's apartment on weekends and holidays: friends played chess, argued about books; Lermontov attracted his younger brother to work on the novel "Princess Ligovskaya". Shan Giray was dedicated to the affairs of the heart of a comrade: the poet did not hide from him either the shock caused by the news of the marriage of Varvara Lopukhina, or interest in Princess Maria Alekseevna Shcherbatova - the struggle for her attention could be one of the reasons for Lermontov's duel with the son of the French ambassador Ernest de Barant. The fact that the poet went to the Black River to "shoot", Shan-Giray, who returned from school at an odd hour, learned from himself: Lermontov, having appeared in the house "wet like a mouse", casually said that at first there was a fight in the snow on rapiers, then the seconds gave the duelists pistols; In the end, everything ended well for both parties.
I had no premonition, but it was very hard on my soul. While the horses were being laid, Lermontov gave me various instructions, <…>but I didn't hear anything. "I'm sorry, Michel, I didn't understand anything." “What a child you are,” he answered. “Goodbye, kiss your grandmother’s hands.” These were his last words to me in life. In August we received the news of his death.
Arriving in Pyatigorsk, Lermontov sent another parting word to his second cousin: in a letter dated May 10, 1841, addressed to Arsenyeva, he asked him to tell “Ekim Shangirei” so that he would not go to America - “it’s better here to the Caucasus. It is closer and much more fun.
mature years. Family
Shan Giray fulfilled Lermontov's request and indeed connected his life with the Caucasus. After graduating from college, he served as adjutant to the head of the field horse artillery, Ivan Karlovich Arnoldi. Having retired in 1844, he arrived in Pyatigorsk and acquired an estate near the city. Seven years later, Akim Pavlovich married Emilia Aleksandrovna Klingenberg, the stepdaughter of General Verzilin, in whose house Lermontov's clash with Martynov took place.
Emilia Klingenberg, who had the ability to surround herself with fans, was called the "rose of the Caucasus." According to some researchers, she served as the prototype for Princess Mary; the caustic attributed to Lermontov was dedicated to her: "For the girl Emilie / Youth like males". It is not known for certain what the role of the “Pyatigorsk socialite” was in the history of the quarrel between Lermontov and Martynov, however, the researchers “guessed the unkind participation of the stepdaughter of General Verzilin in this conflict”, and therefore, with a certain distrust, treated her memoirs, published in 1880- th years in the newspapers and magazines "New time", "Niva", "Russian messenger" and others. Nevertheless, kinship with Shan Giray became a shield for Klingenberg to stop open accusations.
Akim Pavlovich was engaged in irrigation work in the Caucasus for many years. Working with the bowels of the earth, he discovered a sulfur deposit (1867, Nakhichevan district). His professional activity was combined with public. So, the active involvement of Shan Giray in the affairs of the county allowed him to take the post of marshal of the nobility. For his work in the committee of the State Council and the Caucasian Committee for the arrangement of the peasants of the Stavropol province, he was awarded a bronze medal.
Shan Giray died in Tiflis on December 8, 1883; The cause of death was a violation of the integrity of the walls of the heart. Ashes of Akim Pavlovich were transferred to Pyatigorsk. His last refuge was the old Pyatigorsk cemetery; Shan Giray's grave is located not far from the place of Lermontov's original burial. Emilia Alexandrovna Klingenberg survived her husband by eight years.
Controversy surrounding creative contributions
Among literary critics there is no unambiguous opinion about how deeply Akim Shan Giray was immersed in Lermontov's creative ideas. So, Pavel Viskovatov believed that the poet's second cousin had contact with them very superficially: his role in joint work over works was reduced to writing them from dictation or reading prepared passages aloud. Viskovatov explained this by the youth of Shan-Giray and the fact that he "by his then development could not even be remotely useful collaborator and connoisseur".
Irakli Andronikov gave a rather harsh assessment of Shan Giray's memoirs: the literary critic was outraged by the theses about Lermontov's Byronism as a "drapery", behind which there was neither torment nor suffering. Calling these judgments "naive and deeply false," Andronikov noted that Shang Giray "did not understand much, and simply did not remember much."
At the same time, the literary critic and editor-in-chief of the Lermontov Encyclopedia Viktor Manuylov emphasized that Shang Giray was one of the few people around the poet whom he trusted with his creative plans. Manuilov was generally supported by other researchers who believed that "maybe only S. A. Raevsky meant more in the life of the poet." Raevsky himself, having learned about Shan Giray's intention to write memoirs about Lermontov, responded to the initiative with the words:
You were his friend, devoted from childhood, and hardly parted from him; at least all
significant changes in his life took place with you, with your warm participation, and your rare memory
a guarantee that no one more truly than you can convey to society a lot of wonderful things about this person.
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Notes
- , With. 619.
- Krylova G. A. Klingenberg // . - S. 222-223.
- Shekhurina L. D. Shan Girey. Pavel Petrovich // Lermontov Encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1981. - S. 618.
- Sandomirska V. B. Shan Girey. Maria Akimovna // Lermontov Encyclopedia. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1981. - S. 618.
- , With. 28-29.
- . State Lermontov Museum-Reserve "Tarkhany". Retrieved March 8, 2015.
- , With. 28-30.
- , With. 133.
- , With. 618.
- , With. 203.
- , With. 327.
- Nazarova L. N. Shcherbatova // . - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1981. - S. 628.
- , With. 328.
- , With. 447.
- Hillelson M., Miller O. Comments // . - M.: Fiction, 1989. - S. 497-498.
- M.F. Damianidi.. Lermontov. encyclopedic Dictionary. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
- T. P. Golovanova, G. A. Lapkina, A. N. Mikhailova. Notes // . - M., L.: Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1954. - S. 377.
- Vadim Khachikov.. - M .: AST, 2014. - S. 33. - ISBN 978-5-17-086820-9.
- Ter-Gabrielants I. G. Shan Giray E. A. // . - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1981. - S. 619.
- B. M. Eikhenbaum, E. E. Naidich, T. P. Golovanova, L. N. Nazarova, I. S. Chistova, N. A. Khmelevskaya. Notes // . - L .: Nauka, Leningrad branch, 1981. - S. 517.
- Viskovaty P.A.. - M., 1891.
- Andronikov I. L.. - M .: Fiction, 1977. - S. 124-125.
Literature
- Shekhurina L. D. Shan Giray A.P. // Lermontov Encyclopedia. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1981. - S. 618-619. - 784 p.
- Shchegolev P. E. Lermontov. - M .: Agraf, 1999. - 528 p. - ISBN 5-7784-0063-2.
An excerpt characterizing Shan Giray, Akim Pavlovich
It was not difficult to say "tomorrow" and maintain a tone of propriety; but to come home alone, to see sisters, brother, mother, father, confess and ask for money to which you have no right after the given word of honor, it was terrible.Haven't slept at home yet. The youth of the Rostovs' house, having returned from the theatre, had supper, sat at the clavichord. As soon as Nikolai entered the hall, he was seized by that loving, poetic atmosphere that reigned that winter in their house and which now, after Dolokhov's proposal and Yogel's ball, seemed to thicken even more, like the air before a thunderstorm, over Sonya and Natasha. Sonya and Natasha, in the blue dresses they wore at the theatre, pretty and knowing it, were happy and smiling at the clavichord. Vera and Shinshin were playing chess in the living room. The old countess, expecting her son and husband, was playing solitaire with an old noblewoman who lived in their house. Denisov, with shining eyes and disheveled hair, was sitting with his leg thrown back at the clavichord, and clapping his short fingers on them, he took chords, and rolling his eyes, in his small, hoarse, but true voice, sang the poem he had composed "The Enchantress", to which he tried to find music.
Sorceress, tell me what power
Draws me to abandoned strings;
What kind of fire did you plant in your heart,
What delight spilled over the fingers!
He sang in a passionate voice, shining at the frightened and happy Natasha with his agate, black eyes.
- Wonderful! Great! Natasha screamed. “Another verse,” she said, not noticing Nikolai.
“They have everything the same,” thought Nikolai, looking into the living room, where he saw Vera and his mother with an old woman.
- A! here's Nikolenka! Natasha ran up to him.
- Is daddy at home? - he asked.
- I'm glad you came! - Without answering, Natasha said, - we have so much fun. Vassily Dmitritch stayed another day for me, you know?
“No, dad hasn’t arrived yet,” said Sonya.
- Coco, you have arrived, come to me, my friend! said the voice of the countess from the living room. Nikolai went up to his mother, kissed her hand, and, silently sitting down at her table, began to look at her hands, laying out the cards. Laughter and cheerful voices were heard from the hall, persuading Natasha.
“Well, all right, all right,” Denisov shouted, “now there is nothing to excuse, barcarolla is behind you, I beg you.
The Countess looked back at her silent son.
- What happened to you? Nikolai's mother asked.
“Ah, nothing,” he said, as if he was already tired of this one and the same question.
- Is daddy coming soon?
- I think.
“They have the same. They don't know anything! Where can I go? ” thought Nikolai and went back to the hall where the clavichords stood.
Sonya sat at the clavichord and played the prelude of that barcarolle that Denisov especially loved. Natasha was going to sing. Denisov looked at her with enthusiastic eyes.
Nikolai began to pace up and down the room.
“And here is the desire to make her sing? What can she sing? And there is nothing funny here, thought Nikolai.
Sonya took the first chord of the prelude.
“My God, I am lost, I am a dishonorable person. Bullet in the forehead, the only thing left, not to sing, he thought. Leave? but where to? anyway, let them sing!”
Nikolai gloomily, continuing to walk around the room, looked at Denisov and the girls, avoiding their eyes.
"Nikolenka, what's wrong with you?" asked Sonya's gaze fixed on him. She immediately saw that something had happened to him.
Nicholas turned away from her. Natasha, with her sensitivity, also instantly noticed the state of her brother. She noticed him, but she herself was so happy at that moment, she was so far from grief, sadness, reproaches, that she (as often happens with young people) deliberately deceived herself. No, I'm too happy now to spoil my fun with sympathy for someone else's grief, she felt, and said to herself:
"No, I'm sure I'm wrong, he must be as cheerful as I am." Well, Sonya, - she said and went to the very middle of the hall, where, in her opinion, the resonance was best. Raising her head, lowering her lifelessly hanging hands, as dancers do, Natasha, stepping from heel to tiptoe with an energetic movement, walked across the middle of the room and stopped.
"Here I am!" as if she were speaking, answering the enthusiastic look of Denisov, who was watching her.
“And what makes her happy! Nikolay thought, looking at his sister. And how she is not bored and not ashamed! Natasha took the first note, her throat widened, her chest straightened, her eyes took on a serious expression. She was not thinking of anyone or anything at that moment, and sounds poured out of the smile of her folded mouth, those sounds that anyone can produce at the same intervals and at the same intervals, but which leave you cold a thousand times, in make you shudder and cry for the thousand and first time.
Natasha this winter began to sing seriously for the first time, and especially because Denisov admired her singing. She sang now not like a child, there was no longer in her singing that comic, childish diligence that had been in her before; but she did not yet sing well, as all the judges who heard her said. “Not processed, but a beautiful voice, it needs to be processed,” everyone said. But they usually said this long after her voice had fallen silent. At the same time, when this unprocessed voice sounded with incorrect aspirations and with efforts of transitions, even the experts of the judge did not say anything, and only enjoyed this unprocessed voice and only wished to hear it again. There was that virginal innocence in her voice, that ignorance of her own strengths and that still unprocessed velvety, which were so combined with the shortcomings of the art of singing that it seemed impossible to change anything in this voice without spoiling it.
“What is this? Nikolay thought, hearing her voice and opening his eyes wide. - What happened to her? How does she sing today? he thought. And suddenly the whole world for him concentrated in anticipation of the next note, the next phrase, and everything in the world became divided into three tempos: “Oh mio crudele affetto… [Oh my cruel love…] One, two, three… one, two… three… one… Oh mio crudele affetto… One, two, three… one. Oh, our stupid life! Nicholas thought. All this, and misfortune, and money, and Dolokhov, and malice, and honor - all this is nonsense ... but here it is real ... Hy, Natasha, well, my dear! well, mother! ... how will she take this si? took! God bless!" - and he, without noticing that he was singing, in order to strengthen this si, took the second third of a high note. "My God! how good! Is this what I took? how happy!” he thought.
ABOUT! how this third trembled, and how something better that was in Rostov's soul was touched. And this something was independent of everything in the world, and above everything in the world. What are the losses here, and the Dolokhovs, and honestly!… Everything is nonsense! You can kill, steal and still be happy ...
For a long time Rostov had not experienced such pleasure from music as on that day. But as soon as Natasha finished her barcarolle, he remembered reality again. He left without saying anything and went downstairs to his room. A quarter of an hour later the old count, cheerful and contented, arrived from the club. Nikolai, hearing his arrival, went to him.
- Well, did you have fun? said Ilya Andreich, smiling joyfully and proudly at his son. Nikolai wanted to say yes, but he could not: he almost sobbed. The count lit his pipe and did not notice the state of his son.
"Oh, inevitably!" Nikolai thought for the first and last time. And suddenly, in the most careless tone, such that he seemed disgusting to himself, as if he was asking the carriage to go to the city, he said to his father.
- Dad, I came to you for business. I had and forgot. I need money.
"That's it," said the father, who was in a particularly cheerful spirit. “I told you that it won’t. Is it a lot?
“A lot,” said Nikolai, blushing and with a stupid, careless smile, which for a long time later he could not forgive himself. - I lost a little, that is, even a lot, a lot, 43 thousand.
- What? To whom?... You're kidding! shouted the Count, suddenly blushing apoplectically on his neck and the back of his head, as old people blush.
“I promised to pay tomorrow,” Nikolai said.
“Well!” said the old count, spreading his arms and sank helplessly on the sofa.
- What to do! Who hasn't this happened to? - said the son in a cheeky, bold tone, while in his soul he considered himself a scoundrel, a scoundrel who could not atone for his crime all his life. He would like to kiss his father's hands, on his knees to ask for his forgiveness, and he casually and even rudely said that this happens to everyone.
Count Ilya Andreich lowered his eyes on hearing these words of his son and hurried, looking for something.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “it’s hard, I’m afraid, it’s hard to get ... with anyone! yes, with whom it has not happened ... - And the count glanced at his son's face and went out of the room ... Nikolai was preparing to fight back, but did not expect this at all.
- Daddy! pa ... hemp! he shouted after him, sobbing; excuse me! And, seizing his father's hand, he pressed his lips to it and wept.
While the father was explaining himself to his son, an equally important explanation was taking place between the mother and her daughter. Natasha, excited, ran to her mother.
- Mom! ... Mom! ... he made me ...
- What did you do?
- Made an offer. Mother! Mother! she screamed. The Countess could not believe her ears. Denisov made an offer. To whom? This tiny girl Natasha, who until recently played with dolls and now still took lessons.
- Natasha, full of nonsense! she said, still hoping it was a joke.
- Well, nonsense! “I’m talking to you,” Natasha said angrily. - I came to ask what to do, and you tell me: "nonsense" ...
The countess shrugged.
- If it is true that Monsieur Denisov proposed to you, then tell him that he is a fool, that's all.
“No, he’s not a fool,” Natasha said offendedly and seriously.
- Well, what do you want? You are all in love these days. Well, in love, so marry him! said the Countess, laughing angrily. - With God blessing!
“No, mother, I am not in love with him, I must not be in love with him.
“Well, just tell him that.
- Mom, are you angry? Don't be angry, my dear, what am I to blame for?
“No, what is it, my friend? If you want, I'll go and tell him, - said the countess, smiling.
- No, I myself, just teach. Everything is easy for you,” she added, answering her smile. “And if you saw how he told me this!” After all, I know that he did not want to say this, but he accidentally said it.
- Well, you still have to refuse.
- No, you don't have to. I feel so sorry for him! He is so cute.
Well, take the offer. And then it’s time to get married, ”the mother said angrily and mockingly.
“No, Mom, I feel so sorry for him. I don't know how I will say.
“Yes, you don’t have anything to say, I’ll say it myself,” said the countess, indignant at the fact that they dared to look at this little Natasha as a big one.
“No, no way, I’m on my own, and you listen at the door,” and Natasha ran through the living room into the hall, where Denisov was sitting on the same chair, at the clavichord, covering his face with his hands. He jumped up at the sound of her light footsteps.
- Natalie, - he said, approaching her with quick steps, - decide my fate. She is in your hands!
"Vasily Dmitritch, I'm so sorry for you!... No, but you're so nice... but don't... it's... but I'll always love you like that."
Denisov bent over her hand, and she heard strange sounds, incomprehensible to her. She kissed him on his black, matted, curly head. At that moment, the hasty noise of the countess's dress was heard. She approached them.
“Vasily Dmitritch, I thank you for the honor,” said the countess in an embarrassed voice, but which seemed strict to Denisov, “but my daughter is so young, and I thought that you, as a friend of my son, would first turn to me. In that case, you would not put me in the need for a refusal.
“Mr. Athena,” Denisov said with downcast eyes and a guilty look, he wanted to say something else and stumbled.
Natasha could not calmly see him so miserable. She began to sob loudly.
“Mr. Athena, I am guilty before you,” Denisov continued in a broken voice, “but know that I idolize your daughter and your entire family so much that I will give two lives ...” He looked at the countess and, noticing her stern face ... “Well, goodbye, Mrs. Athena,” he said, kissed her hand and, without looking at Natasha, left the room with quick, decisive steps.
The next day, Rostov saw off Denisov, who did not want to stay in Moscow for another day. Denisov was seen off at the gypsies by all his Moscow friends, and he did not remember how he was put into the sledge and how the first three stations were taken.
After Denisov's departure, Rostov, waiting for the money that the old count could not suddenly collect, spent another two weeks in Moscow, without leaving home, and mainly in the young ladies' room.
Sonya was more tender and devoted to him than before. She seemed to want to show him that his loss was a feat for which she now loves him all the more; but Nicholas now considered himself unworthy of her.
He filled the girls' albums with poems and notes, and without saying goodbye to any of his acquaintances, finally sending all 43 thousand and receiving Dolokhov's receipt, he left at the end of November to catch up with the regiment, which was already in Poland.
After his explanation with his wife, Pierre went to Petersburg. There were no horses at the station in Torzhok, or the caretaker did not want them. Pierre had to wait. Without undressing, he lay down on a leather sofa in front of a round table, put his big feet in warm boots on this table and thought.
- Will you order the suitcases to be brought in? Make a bed, would you like some tea? the valet asked.
Pierre did not answer, because he did not hear or see anything. He had been thinking at the last station and still kept thinking about the same thing - about such an important thing that he did not pay any attention to what was going on around him. He was not only not interested in the fact that he would arrive later or earlier in Petersburg, or whether he would or would not have a place to rest at this station, but all the same, in comparison with the thoughts that occupied him now, whether he would stay for a few hours or a lifetime at that station.
The caretaker, caretaker, valet, a woman with Torzhkov sewing came into the room, offering their services. Pierre, without changing his position of his raised legs, looked at them through his glasses, and did not understand what they might need and how they could all live without resolving the issues that occupied him. And he was occupied with the same questions from the very day he returned from Sokolniki after the duel and spent the first, painful, sleepless night; only now, in the solitude of the journey, they took possession of it with particular force. Whatever he began to think about, he returned to the same questions that he could not solve, and could not stop asking himself. It was as if the main screw on which his whole life rested was curled up in his head. The screw did not go further in, did not go out, but spun, without grabbing anything, all on the same groove, and it was impossible to stop turning it.
The Girey dynasty ruled the Crimean Khanate for almost 350 years. She showed the world many famous personalities, some of which were outstanding statesmen while others found their calling in serving science and culture. The famous art critic and ethnographer Sultan Khan Giray belonged to the latter type. The biography of this person, as well as the history of the Girey dynasty as a whole, will be the subject of our discussion.
Biography of Khan Giray
Sultan Khan Giray was born in 1808 on the territory of modern Adygea. He was the third son of the Crimean Tatar aristocrat, descended from the khan's family - Mehmed Khan Giray. In addition, Circassian blood also flowed in the veins of the Sultan. Best qualities these two peoples intertwined in it.
After reaching the age of 29, he participated in a number of wars Russian Empire, while having an officer rank and commanding a separate unit. But he did not take part in the Caucasian War, which was tearing his homeland apart at that time, although, of course, this tragic conflict resonated in his heart.
Khan Giray wrote whole line works on ethnography, folklore and art history of the Circassian people, which gained worldwide fame. Among them are Notes on Circassia and Circassian Traditions. He is also the author of a number of works of art. But most of his works were published only after his death. Khan Giray is also known as the compiler of the Adyghe alphabet.
From 1841, he actively campaigned among the highlanders (on behalf of the Russian government) with the aim of reconciling them. However, his attempts ended in vain. Khan Giray died at the age of 34, in 1842, in his small homeland.
This outstanding man left behind a son - Sultan Murat Giray, who was born in the year of his father's death. But the contribution of Sultan Khan Giray to the development of Adyghe culture and literature is priceless.
According to one version, it is in honor of him that the Crimean Tatars want to rename Kherson into Khan Giray.
Let's find out who the ancestors of such an outstanding personality were.
Founding of a dynasty
The founder of the dynasty of rulers of the Crimea was Hadji Giray. He came from the Tukatimurid clan - one of the offshoots of the descendants of Genghis Khan. According to another version, the roots of the Girey dynasty came from the Mongolian family of Kirey, and they were attributed to the Genghisides later in order to justify their right to power.
Hadji Giray was born around 1397 on the territory of modern Belarus, which at that time belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL).
At that time, the Golden Horde experienced not better times, actually breaking up into several independent states. Power in the Crimea, with the support of the Lithuanian prince, succeeded in capturing Hadji-Gireya in 1441. Thus, he became the ancestor of a dynasty that ruled in the Crimea for almost 350 years.
At the source of power
Mengli Giray - Khan, who laid the foundation for the power of the Crimean Khanate. He was the son of Hadji Giray, after whose death (in 1466) a struggle for power broke out between the children.
Initially, the eldest son of Hadji-Girey, Nur-Devlet, became the khan. But Mengli Giray decided to challenge this right. Several times during this internecine struggle, the ruler of the Crimean Khanate changed. Moreover, if Nur-Devlet in his claims relied on the forces of the Golden Horde and Ottoman Empire, then Mengli made a bet on the local Crimean nobility. Later, another brother, Ayder, joined the fight. In 1477, the throne was seized by Janibek, who did not belong to the Girey dynasty at all.
Finally, in 1478, Mengli Giray was able to finally defeat his rivals and establish himself in power. It was he who laid the foundations for the power of the Crimean Khanate. True, in the course of the struggle with other applicants, he had to recognize his state from the Ottoman Empire and give the south of Crimea, which was colonized by his allies - the Genoese, to the direct control of the Turks.
The Crimean Khan Mengli-Girey made an alliance with the Muscovite state against the Great Horde (heir to the Golden Horde) and Lithuania. In 1482, his troops ravaged Kyiv, which at that time belonged to the GDL. Under him, the Crimean Tatars carried out massive predatory raids on the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as part of the observance of an agreement with Moscow. In 1502, Mengli Giray finally destroyed the Great Horde.
Mengli Giray died in 1515.
Further strengthening of the khan's power
The state was further strengthened by Mehmed-Girey, the khan who ruled after the death of Mengli-Girey and was his son. Unlike his father, he was preparing to become a ruler from a young age, having received the title - kalga, which corresponded to the title of crown prince. Mehmed Giray led many campaigns and raids organized by Mengli Giray.
By the time of his accession to the throne, he already held in his hands all the threads of government, so that the attempts of his brothers to raise a rebellion were doomed to failure.
In 1519, the Crimean Khanate strengthened significantly, as part of the Nogai Horde moved to its territory. This was due to the fact that the Nogais were defeated by the Kazakhs, and they had to seek asylum from Mehmed Giray.
Under Mehmed there was a change of course foreign policy Crimean Khanate. After the Great Horde was defeated by his father, the need for an alliance with the Moscow principality disappeared, so Mehmed Giray Khan made an alliance with Lithuania against Rus'. It was under him that the first major campaign was organized in 1521. Crimean Tatars to the Moscow principality.
Mehmed-Girey managed to place his brother Sahib-Girey on the throne of the Kazan Khanate, thereby extending his influence to the Middle Volga region. In 1522 he captured the Astrakhan Khanate. Thus, Mehmed Giray actually managed to subjugate a significant part of the former Golden Horde.
But, while in Astrakhan, the khan was so intoxicated with his power that he disbanded the army, which was used by ill-wishers who organized a conspiracy against Mehmed Giray and killed him in 1523.
pinnacle of power
In the period from 1523 to 1551, the brothers and sons of Mehmed Giray ruled alternately. This time was full of acute struggle within the Crimean Khanate. But in 1551, Devlet-Girey, the son of Mubarek, came to power, who, in turn, was the offspring of Mengli-Girey. It was during his reign that the Crimean Khanate reached its peak of power.
Devlet Giray - Crimean Khan, who was especially famous for raids on Russian state. His campaign of 1571 even culminated in the burning of Moscow.
Devlet Giray was in power for 26 years and died in 1577.
Weakening of the Khanate
If the son of Devlet-Girey still managed to maintain the prestige of the Crimean Khanate, then under his successors the importance of the Tatar state in the international arena fell significantly. Mehmed II himself was overthrown by the Turkish sultan in 1584, and his brother Islyam-Girey was imprisoned instead. The following Crimean khans were unremarkable rulers, and in the state itself, unrest became a fairly common occurrence.
In 1648 to the arena big politics tried to leave Islyam Giray III, making an alliance with Zaporozhye Cossacks in the liberation war against the Commonwealth. But this union soon fell apart, and the hetmanate passed into citizenship to the Russian tsar.
The last ruler
The last ruler of the Crimean Khanate was Khan Shahin Giray. Even during the reign of his predecessor Devlet Giray IV, in 1774, the Crimean Khanate gained independence from the Ottoman Empire and recognized the protectorate of Russia. This was one of the conditions for the Kyuchuk-Kaynarji peace, which ended the next Russian-Turkish war.
The Crimean Khan Shagin Giray came to power in 1777 as a protege of Russia. He was enthroned instead of the pro-Turkish Devlet Giray IV. However, even supported by Russian weapons, he did not sit firmly on the throne. This is evidenced by the fact that in 1782 he was removed from the throne by his brother Bahadir Giray, who came to power on a wave of popular uprising. With the help of Russian troops, Shagin-Giray managed to regain the throne, but his further reign became a fiction, since he no longer had real power.
In 1783 this fiction was eliminated. Shagin Giray signed the abdication, and the Crimean Khanate was annexed to the Russian Empire. Thus ended the period of Girey's rule in the Crimea. Only the coins of Khan Giray, the image of which can be seen above, can now serve as evidence of the reign of Shagin.
Shagin-Giray, after his abdication, first lived in Russia, but then moved to Turkey, where in 1787 he was executed by order of the Sultan.
Girey after losing power
Sultan Khan Giray is not the only representative of the family who became widely known after the loss of power of the dynasty over the Crimea. His brothers were famous - Sultan Adil-Girey and Sultan Sagat-Girey, who became famous in the military field for the benefit of the Russian Empire.
Sultan Davlet-Girey, Khan-Girey's cousin-nephew, became the founder of the Adyghe theater. The brother of the latter, Sutan Krym-Giray, was the chairman of the committee of the cavalry division. Both were killed in 1918 by the Bolsheviks.
Currently, the title of Crimean Khan is nominally claimed by Jezzar Pamir-Girey, who lives in London.
The meaning of the Girey family in world history
The Gireev family left a noticeable mark in the history of the Crimea, and in world history as a whole. The existence of the Crimean Khanate, a state that at one time played one of the leading roles in Eastern Europe, is almost inextricably linked with the name of this dynasty.
Gireev also remembers the current generation of Crimean Tatars, associating this family with glorious times in the history of the people. No wonder they came up with the initiative to rename Kherson into Khan-Girey.
