Natalia Pushkina - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Nataliya Nikolaevna Pushkina-Lanskaya , (née Nataliya Nikolaevna Goncharova) (Гончарова), was the wife of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin from 1831 until his death in 1837 of a duel with Georges d'Anthès

Georges d'Anthès

Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès, baron was a French military officer and politician. Despite his later career as a senator under the Second French Empire, d'Anthès's name is most famous because he killed Russia's greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin in a duel.Born in Colmar to a French royalist...

. Natalya was married to Major-General Petr Petrovich Lanskoy from 1844 until her death in 1863.

Prior to marriage

Natalya Goncharova was born on 8 September 1812 (28 August 1812 Old Style) in the Karian village in the present-day Tambov Oblast

Tambov Oblast

Tambov Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Tambov. Population: down from 1,178,443 recorded by the 2002 Census.Tambov Oblast is situated in forest steppe.-Birth rate:...

, where her family lived during the occupation of Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

by the forces of Napoleon

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...

. Her father, Nikolay Afanasievich Goncharov, a scion of the family of paper manufacturers from Kaluga

Kaluga

Kaluga is a city and the administrative center of Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River southwest of Moscow. Population: It is served by Grabtsevo Airport.-History:...

, was pronounced demented in 1815; the household was managed by his wife, Natalia Ivanovna Zagriajskaya, an imperious lady with connections within Muscovite nobility. Her ancestors included Petro Doroshenko

Petro Doroshenko

Petro Dorofeyevych Doroshenko was a Cossack political and military leader, Hetman of Right-bank Ukraine and a Russian voyevoda.-Earlier life:...

, Hetman of Ukrainian Cossacks.

Natalie (as she was familiarly known) met Alexander Pushkin at the age of 16, when she was one of the most talked-about beauties of Moscow.

Marriage to Pushkin

After many hesitations, Natalya eventually accepted Pushkin's proposal in April 1830, but not before she received assurances that the tsarist government had no intentions to persecute the libertine poet. They were officially engaged on 6 May 1830, and sent out wedding invitations. Due to the outbreak of cholera

Cholera

Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...

and other circumstances, the wedding was delayed for a year. The ceremony took place on 18 February 1831 (Old Style) in the Great Ascension Church on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street

Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street

Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street is a radial street that runs west from Mokhovaya Street to Garden Ring in Moscow, between Vozdvizhenka Street and Tverskaya Street...

in Moscow

Moscow

During the six years of their marriage, Natalya Pushkina gave birth to four children: Maria (b. 1832, suggested as a prototype of Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger...

), Alexander (b. 1833), Grigory (b. 1835), and Natalya (b. 1836) (who would marry into the royal House of Nassau-Weilburg to Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau

Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau

Nikolaus Wilhelm, Prince of Nassau , was the only son of William, Duke of Nassau by his second wife Princess Pauline of Württemberg.-Marriage and issue:...

and become Countess of Merenberg). As the family resided for prolonged periods in the country, while Pushkin frequented the capitals, such a lifestyle could not but occasion a sizable correspondence between the spouses. Seventy eight letters of Pushkin to his wife are extant, frequently written in a light-hearted tone with touches of ribaldry, yet there are none of what may be called love letters among these. It is believed that the poet dedicated several poems to her, including "Madonna" (1830). As for her own correspondence with Pushkin, it was lost with the exception of one letter, written together with her mother Natalya Ivanovna.

Affair with d'Anthès

In 1835 she met a French immigrant Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès and was involved in a society intrigue, which provoked rumors of her alleged affair with d'Anthès and resulted in a duel between her husband and d'Anthès on January 27, 1837, in which Pushkin was mortally wounded. The propriety of her behaviour in this situation was disputed by commentators; some, including Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova

Anna Andreyevna Gorenko , better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova , was a Russian and Soviet modernist poet, one of the most acclaimed writers in the Russian canon.Harrington p11...

and Marina Tsvetayeva, covertly or overtly blamed Pushkin's death on her, feeling that she could not understand his greatness and failed to take an appropriate interest in his art. That she preferred worldly pleasures to his society is hard to argue with; although even while pregnant, she often had to chaperon her sisters, who otherwise had no protection, in the court to settle them. Her constant exhortations of money for costly dresses and jewellery forced the poet to write increasingly for money rather than for pleasure. However, modern research over archival materials and memoirs of that era, including those of family members who always mentioned Natalya Nikolaevna with great warmth and respect, allows for a much more sympathetic legacy. It can be said to her credit that she preserved Pushkin's letters to her (which witnesses that she indeed had a notion about the significance of Pushkin's written heritage) and later let these be published.

Second Marriage and Death

Much was made of her relationship with Nicholas I

Nicholas I of Russia

Nicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...

after the poet's death; it was even rumoured that she became his mistress. In 1843, Pushkin's widow met Petr Petrovich Lanskoy (1799-1877), who served at the same regiment as her brother. After having been blessed by the tsar, their wedding was held in Strelna

Strelna

Strelna is a municipal settlement in Petrodvortsovy District of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia, situated about halfway between St. Petersburg proper and Petergof and overlooking the shore of the Gulf of Finland...

on 16 July 1844. Lanskoy enjoyed the sovereign's favor and made a remarkable career before his marriage, while his wife gave birth to three daughters: Alexandra (b. 1845), Elizaveta (b. 1846) and Sophia (b. 1848). Natalie died on 26 November 1863 and her ashes were put to rest in the cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra

Alexander Nevsky Lavra

Saint Alexander Nevsky Lavra or Saint Alexander Nevsky Monastery was founded by Peter I of Russia in 1710 at the eastern end of the Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg supposing that that was the site of the Neva Battle in 1240 when Alexander Nevsky, a prince, defeated the Swedes; however, the battle...

Prior to marriage

Marriage to Pushkin

Affair with d'Anthès

Second Marriage and Death

Further reading