Arina was her home name, but her real name was Irina or Irinya.
She was born on April 10 (21), 1758, half a mile from the village of Suyda - in the village of Lampovo, Koporsky district, St. Petersburg province. Her mother, Lukerya Kirillova, and father, Rodion Yakovlev (1728-1768), were serfs and had seven children.
As a child, she was listed as a serf of the second lieutenant of the Semyonovsky Life Guards regiment, Count Fyodor Alekseevich Apraksin. In 1759, Suida and the surrounding villages with people were bought from Apraksin by Abram Petrovich Hannibal, the great-grandfather of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. In 1781, Arina married the peasant Fyodor Matveev (1756-1801), and she was allowed to move to her husband in the village of Kobrino, Sofia district (not far from Gatchina). After marriage, she became a serf of the poet's grandfather, Osip Abramovich Hannibal. She was first the nanny of Nadezhda Osipovna, the mother of Alexander Sergeevich, and then became the nanny of her children: Olga, then Alexander and Lev.
In 1792, she was taken by Pushkin's grandmother Maria Alekseevna Gannibal as a nanny for her nephew Alexei, the son of Mikhail's brother. In 1795, Maria Alekseevna gave Arina Rodionovna a separate hut in Kobrino for her impeccable service. After the birth of Olga in 1797, Arina Rodionovna was taken into the Pushkin family, where she served as a nanny along with her relative or namesake Ulyana Yakovleva.
In 1807, the Hannibal family, together with the peasants, sold land in the St. Petersburg province and moved to the Opochetsky district of the Pskov province.
Arina Rodionovna was “attached” to the owners, and not to the land, so she was “excluded from sale,” and moved with the owners to the Pskov province. In 1824-1826, during the poet’s exile, she lived in Mikhailovskoye. Not only Pushkin, but also Yazykov dedicated his poems to this serf peasant woman, an old woman. Pushkin's friends sent greetings to her in letters to the poet.
After the death of Maria Alekseevna in 1818, she lived with the Pushkins in St. Petersburg, moving with them for the summer to the Mikhailovskoye estate in the Opochetsky district of the Pskov province. In 1824-1826, Arina Rodionovna actually shared Pushkin’s exile in Mikhailovskoye. At that time, Pushkin became especially close to his nanny, listened to her fairy tales, and recorded folk songs from her words. According to the poet, Arina Rodionovna was “the original of Nanny Tatyana” from “Eugene Onegin,” Dubrovsky’s nanny. It is generally accepted that Arina is also the prototype of Ksenia’s mother in “Boris Godunov,” the princess’s mother (“Rusalka”), and the female characters in the novel “Arap of Peter the Great.”
The great poet, using folklore in his work, owed much of this to his nanny. Perhaps that is why Alexander Pushkin said: “If the coming generation will honor my name, this poor old woman should not be forgotten.”
It was Arina Rodionovna who told Pushkin about the hut on chicken legs, about the dead princess and the seven heroes.
Almost until 1811, before he entered the Lyceum, A. Pushkin lived under the same roof with Arina Rodionovna. It is no coincidence that the poet, addressing Arina Rodionovna, often calls her not only “nanny,” but also “mummy.” The relationship between the poet and the nanny in the village of Mikhailovskoye, during the years of Pushkin’s exile, became especially warm. In Mikhailovskoye, Arina Rodionovna not only guarded the estate, but also managed all the master’s affairs. This is what the poet wrote to his brother Lev in those years: “I write notes before lunch, have lunch late... In the evening I listen to fairy tales.” He wrote down fairy tales, of which the nanny knew a great many, songs, and with interest “collected” sayings, proverbs, and folk expressions told to her.
The last years of her life she lived in St. Petersburg in the family of the poet's sister, Olga Pushkina (by her husband - Pavlishcheva). Arina Rodionovna died at the age of 70, in 1828. This is the simple life story of A. Pushkin’s nanny, whom he called “the confidante of magical antiquity,” “a friend of my youth,” “a good friend,” etc. The poet himself in his works created a romantic image of his beloved nanny. This idea was continued by his contemporaries. We practically do not know what Arina Rodionovna was like in real life. Even about her appearance, only a few lines are said: “A venerable old lady - plump-faced, gray-haired, who loved her pet...”
Sources: , .
Instead of an epigraph:
Pushkin:
- Nanny, give me some vodka...
Arina:
- My dear, we drank all the vodka yesterday.
Pushkin:
- You keep telling me fairy tales, nanny!
“I received your letter and the money you sent me. For all your mercies, I am grateful to you with all my heart - you are constantly in my heart and on my mind, and only when I fall asleep, I forget you and your mercies to me... Your promise to visit us in the summer makes me very happy. Come, my angel, to us in Mikhailovskoye, I’ll put all the horses on the road...”
These touching lines were addressed in 1827 by the serf woman Arina Yakovleva to her pupil Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.
Arina Rodionovna Yakovleva (1758 - 1828)
The future nanny of the great poet was born in the village of Suyda into a family of northern Pomors, the Yakovlevs, who were in serfdom to Second Lieutenant Apraksin. Soon Suida, together with the peasants, was sold to Abram Hannibal, the legendary Arab of Peter the Great. To this day, in these places, an intricately shaped pond dug under Apraksin and a stone sofa carved from a boulder by Hannibal’s serfs have been preserved.
Known to us as Arina Rodionovna, Pushkin’s nanny had several names - she was also called Irina and Irinya. The family lived poorly, and Arina was also given in marriage to a poor man, Fyodor Matveev. It is believed that Pushkin depicts the character traits of the nanny in “Eugene Onegin” - “Ah, Tanya, Tanya, in our years we have never heard of love...”
Tatyana Larina's nanny tells how she was forcibly married as a teenager. There is no similarity between a literary character and a historical one - Arina Rodionovna herself got married at twenty-three.
Her husband died of rampant drunkenness, leaving four children.
To feed her family, Arina Rodionovna decided to find a job in the manor’s house. Hannibal's newborn granddaughter, Nadezhda, just needed a nurse. Having been accepted for several months, Arina Rodionovna remained in this family for the rest of her life. She not only fed Nadezhda Osipovna, but also raised her. Having become an adult, Nadezhda repeatedly offered Arina Rodionovna her freedom, and such an offer was worth a lot. But Arina refused, emphasizing that she was a slave. She saw some special meaning in this word.
Nadezhda Osipovna married Sergei Lvovich Pushkin. Arina Rodionovna became the nanny of her children - Lev, Olga and Alexander. Under Olga, she was assigned as a nurse, but little Alexander also reached out to her. He was especially attracted to Arina Rodionovna’s stories about evil spirits and dark superstitions. Since then, all his life he believed in omens - a flock of crows brought terror to him, a hare crossing the road forced him to turn back. Pushkin's parents did not like talk about evil spirits, but they could not offer anything in return. They themselves took little care of the children and randomly hired poorly educated French adventurers for them. Their images are often found in Pushkin’s works:
... Monseur L'Abbe, poor Frenchman,
So that the child does not get tired,
taught him everything - jokingly...
When young Alexander Pushkin returned from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum in 1817, he became friends again with his nanny. A simple conversation with Arina Rodionovna causes him genuine delight. It turned out that she is not only a storyteller. Arina Rodionovna is the main organizer of village weddings. She talks about ancient rituals, and in such detail that the listener has to make an effort to keep a serious face. Alexander Sergeevich dips his pen into the inkwell and quickly begins to write down the most interesting moments of the story. The illiterate nanny is simply amazed - the master himself records her simple speeches! From then on, she begins to idolize Alexander Sergeevich. But according to documents, Arina Rodionovna belongs to the poet’s sister, like a serf peasant woman.
Olga Pushkina, having gotten married, takes her nanny to Mikhailovskoye, which has now become a place of worship for Pushkinists. Due to Arina Rodionovna’s refusal to be freed, her already adult children remained in serfdom. But the Pushkin family gave them a house in their native village of Suyda. The descendants of Arina Rodionovna lived in it until the middle of the last century. By some miracle, the two-hundred-year-old hut remained almost unchanged. Enthusiasts turned it into the Arina Rodionovna Museum. It is full of amazing rarities - a cloth tueska is kept there, which, according to legend, Arina Rodionovna made with her own hands.
Once in Mikhailovskoye, Arina Rodionovna yearns for Alexander Sergeevich. Several touching letters were written under her dictation, in which she describes in unusually beautiful language how she misses him, how she prays for him...
“Dear Sir, Alexandra Sergeevich, I have the honor to congratulate you on the past New Year and on new happiness; and I wish you, my dear benefactor, health and prosperity... And we, father, were expecting a letter from you when you ordered the books to be brought, but we couldn’t wait.”
And so, as a result of accusations of freethinking, Pushkin finds himself in Mikhailovskoye without the right to leave the estate for two years. At that time this place was considered a rare wilderness. Pushkin writes to friends - the nanny and I were inseparable. In the evenings, the nanny tells fairy tales and stories from village life, Pushkin writes, writes, writes.
Arina Rodionovna is considered illiterate, although there is evidence that she kept accounts at the estate and sent mail.
“I send both large and small books by the count - 134 books. I give Arkhip money - 90 rubles. I wish you what you wish, and I will remain with you with sincere respect, Arina Rodionovna.”
She was no longer a nanny, but a housekeeper.
During Pushkin's stay in Mikhailovsky, Arina Rodionovna's status became even higher, the poet even fired workers who offended his nanny. “He loved no one except his nanny,” Anna Kern said capriciously, not understanding why the poet spent so much time with Arina Rodionovna. Meanwhile, more and more fairy tales appear in Pushkin’s notebooks... We now read them as Fairy Tales of Arina Rodionovna.
But their drafts do not contain the name of the poet's nanny. Now there is an opinion that it was the art critic Annenkov who exaggerated the role of the nanny in Pushkin’s work, attributing authorship to her. As a result, in Soviet times, a simple peasant woman, Arina Rodionovna, became a symbol of folk wisdom. In Soviet propaganda, she is used as an antithesis to the poet's parents, the nobles - the oppressors of the serfs. This theory made it possible to prove that Pushkin is a people's poet.
Nowadays, some researchers go to the other extreme - Arina Rodionovna is declared a descendant of the inhabitants of the mysterious Hyperborea, she is credited with possessing magical abilities. Archaeologists added fuel to the fire - near the birthplace of Pushkin’s nanny, the remains of mounds up to one and a half thousand years old were found. Indeed, the name of the village, Suida, is very ancient. This land was considered sacred among the Slavic tribes.
The image of Arina Rodionovna as a pagan priestess is very attractive. But it does not fit into the notes of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin about his nanny:
“Imagine that at the age of 70 she had learned by heart a new prayer about TOUCHING THE HEART OF THE LORD AND TAMING THE SPIRIT OF HIS FIERCENESS, a prayer probably composed during the reign of Tsar Ivan. Now her priests are interrupting the prayer service and preventing me from doing my work.”
So the nanny appears to us as a completely ordinary, God-fearing old woman. Judging by Pushkin's poems, she wore large glasses. But not a single portrait wearing glasses has survived. In general, these images are not entirely similar to the description of her appearance in letters and memoirs. Pushkin calls her full-faced, although one cannot say so from the picturesque portrait. There is an interesting draft by Pushkin himself, where two faces are drawn in his unique manner - young and old. Signed - nanny. Is the young woman in a kokoshnik an image of Arina Rodionovna in her youth? Nobody will know this anymore.
The portrait of Pushkin's nanny, carved from bone by an unknown artist, has an interesting fate. It was discovered by Maxim Gorky on the island of Capri, accepted as a gift and returned to Russia.
Nowadays, Arina Rodionovna is more often portrayed as a fairy-tale character wearing a permanent scarf and with a kind smile. A favorite theme of many artists is the image of Pushkin’s nanny telling fairy tales to the poet in a cozy house in Mikhailovskoye.
The picturesque outbuilding of Arina Rodionovna has now been completely restored. It is small, only seven by nine meters. Moreover, the living room was very tiny, and the rest of the area was occupied by a bathhouse. According to popular legends, Pushkin preferred to live with his nanny rather than in the master's apartment.
It is known that after his exile in Mikhailovskoye, Pushkin fell in love with these places so much that he did not want to leave at all. Pushkin’s friends who visited him in Mikhailovsky were also delighted with this place and, of course, with the old nanny:
Svet Rodionovna, will I forget you?
In those days, as I loved rural freedom,
I left both fame and science for her,
And the Germans, and this city of professors and boredom, -
This is what the poet Yazykov wrote.
Life circumstances forced Pushkin to settle in St. Petersburg. And sister Olga also came to St. Petersburg, of course, taking Arina Rodionovna with her. Pushkin often visits them. In 1827, Arina Rodionovna fell ill. Pushkin visited her and noted in his notes - nanny... The next day he put a bold cross next to it.
The poet did not go to the funeral. But soon he began to miss his nanny, more and more every year. In his memories of her there is an alarming sense of fate, fate...
“The old lady is no longer there - already behind the wall
I don’t hear her heavy steps,
Not her painstaking watch."
The exact location of Pushkin's nanny's grave remains a mystery. Most likely, she is buried at the Smolensk cemetery in St. Petersburg. Now a memorial plaque speaks about this. Recently, strange studies have appeared trying to prove that Arina Rodionovna’s grave was found in a suburb of Berlin.
The simple life of a simple peasant woman continues to acquire new legends.
Arina Rodionovna was born on April 10, 1758 in the village of Voskresensky in the family of serfs Rodion Yakovlev and Lukerya Kirillova. This date has been documented thanks to a record discovered in the Parish Register of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Suyda, now stored in the Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg. In the metric, the future nanny of A.S. Pushkin was recorded as “Irinya”. Under this name she is mentioned in all surviving documents of the former Suydin temple. It is also indicated here that the place of birth of Arina Rodionovna is the “village of Suyda”, Voskresenskoye, also in the Koporsky district of the St. Petersburg province. The village of Voskresenskoye, which received its name in honor of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ erected next to it in 1718, until that time was officially called the village of Suydoi. Since the time of Swedish rule (approximately 1619), this ancient settlement was assigned to the Suida manor. In documents of the 18th century, the double name of the village was often mentioned: Suyda and Voskresenskoye. So, for example, in the metric book of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ for 1737 it is reported: “In the village of Voskresensky, that there was a Suidovskaya manor...”.
Arina Rodionovna's parents were serfs of a local landowner, second lieutenant of the Semyonovsky Life Guards Regiment, Count Fyodor Alekseevich Apraksin. The owner of the Suida manor was the grandson of the famous Peter the Great's associate, Count Pyotr Matveevich Apraksin, to whom these lands were granted by Peter I shortly after their liberation from the Swedish invaders. As you know, P.M. Apraksin was one of the main heroes of the Northern War.
A year after the birth of Arina Rodionovna, the Suydinskaya manor with the village of Voskresensky and neighboring villages assigned to it were acquired by the general-in-chief and cavalier Abram Petrovich Hannibal, who later became the legendary great-grandfather of A.S. Pushkin.
Arina Rodionovna's father, Rodion Yakovlev, was born in 1728. The boy lost his parents early and became an orphan. At about the age of nine, he was taken as an “adopted child” to be raised by the childless peasant family of Pyotr Poluektov and Vassa Emelyanova, who had lived in the village of Voskresensky since Peter’s time.
The peasant family of the Poluektovs appeared on Suida land during the forced resettlement here of several peasant families who arrived from the central provinces of Russia. By Peter's decree, in the period 1715 to 1725, they, like thousands of other immigrants, were expelled from their native places. The tsar hoped to quickly bring back deserted regions, villages and hamlets located on lands that were part of the St. Petersburg province established in 1708, deserted after the Swedish occupation. Pyotr Poluektov was the eldest son of the “Great Russian” peasant Poluekt Andreev. In the neighboring courtyards of the village of Voskresensky, his brothers Andrei and Kirill lived next to him.
No documentary evidence has been preserved about the real parents of Rodion Yakovlev. The place of his birth is also unknown. One can only assume that the homeland of Arina Rodionovna’s father was the village of Voskresenskoye. Answers to these and many other questions could be gleaned from the church documents of the Suida temple. However, the registry book for 1728, when Rodion Yakovlev was born, was not preserved in the archive.
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An unsubstantiated version set out in the research of the famous Pushkin scholar, former curator of Pushkin sites in the Gatchina region and the author of the first museum exhibitions in Suida, Vyra and Kobrin Nina Ivanovna Granovskaya (1917-2002) that Rodion Yakovlev “probably was a descendant of settlers or baptized Karelians (Chudi)” is not documented. Recently, a whole series of unsubstantiated materials dedicated to the Finno-Ugric origin of the great poet’s nanny has appeared in the press. There were brave souls who considered Arina Rodionovna almost a Lutheran. However, it is not. Finnish themes occupy both places in the biography of Ina Rodionovna, in her wonderful fairy-tale heritage, which was so clearly reflected in the work of A.S. Pushkin. But this is a topic for a separate publication.
While compiling the genealogy of Arina Rodionovna, we can say with complete confidence that her parents - father and mother - had Slavic, Orthodox roots. This is proven, first of all, by the fact that Rodion Yakovlev and Lukerya Kirillovna were parishioners of the Suida church. The ancient village of Voskresenskoye (formerly Suyda) has been considered a Novgorod settlement since time immemorial. It was first mentioned in the Novgorod scribe book of 1499 as the village of Suyda in the Nikolsko-Suydovsky churchyard in Vodskry Pyatina on the land of Veliky Novgorod.
Arina Rodionovna's mother, Lukerya Kirillovna, was born in 1730 in the village of Voskresensky into a large peasant family. Her father Kirill Mikhailovich was a “servant” of the Suida manor. In the Confessional Books of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ from the mid-18th century, it is called “the ancient village of Suydy.” Based on this, it can be assumed that her ancestors were Novgorodians who survived the Swedish occupation of the region. There were several children in the family of Kirill Mikhailovich. Among them is Irina Kirillova, after whom the newborn was named at baptism in 1758, who later became Arina Rodionovna. It is interesting that one of the recipients at her baptism was her mother’s brother, Larion Kirillov (in the documents he is named Kirillin). Another successor was the daughter of the Voskresensky peasant, the maiden Euphemia Lukina.
Rodion Yakovlev and Lukerya Kirillovna had a large family - seven children: in 1755 the eldest son Simeon was born. At that time, the name of Rodion Yakovlev was often mentioned in metric documents. So, for example, in 1757, in connection with the birth of the Voskresensky peasant Ivan Eliseev’s daughter Matryona. Her baptismal recipient was Arina Rodionovna’s mother, Lukerya Kirillovna, who was born in 1730 in the village of Voskresensky into a large peasant family. Her father Kirill Mikhailovich was a “servant” of the Suida manor. In the Confessional Books of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ from the mid-18th century, it is called “the ancient village of Suydy.” Based on this, it can be assumed that her ancestors were Novgorodians who survived the Swedish occupation of the region. There were several children in the family of Kirill Mikhailovich. Among them is Irina Kirillova, after whom the newborn was named at baptism in 1758, who later became Arina Rodionovna. It is interesting that one of the recipients at her baptism was her mother’s brother, Larion Kirillov (in the documents he is named Kirillin). Another successor was the daughter of the Voskresensky peasant, the maiden Euphemia Lukina.
According to the register of parishes, in 1750, 22-year-old Rodion Yakovlev entered into a legal marriage with a local serf girl, 20-year-old Lukerya Kirillova. According to the Confessional Books, it was possible to trace that the newlyweds, not having their own yard, settled in the house of their stepfather Pyotr Poluektov. Their children were born here. Four years later, Rodion Yakovlev’s adoptive mother, Vassa Emelyanova, died. She was 55 years old. And soon the widowed Pyotr Poluektov married a second time to the “plowwoman” of the Suida manor, the widow Nastasya Filippova, who from her first marriage had two daughters and a son, Eremey Agafonov.
Rodion Yakovlev and Lukerya Kirillovna had a large family - seven children: in 1755 the eldest son Simeon was born. At that time, the name of Rodion Yakovlev was often mentioned in metric documents. So, for example, in 1757, in connection with the birth of the Voskresensky peasant Ivan Eliseev’s daughter Matryona. Her baptismal recipient was Arina Rodionovna’s future father.
Rodion Yakovlev died in 1768, when Arina Rodionovna was only 10 years old. In 1772, Pyotr Poluektov also died, outliving his adopted son by four years. After the death of their breadwinners, both families, consisting mainly of young children, continued to live together for some time. Eremey Agafonov turned out to be the only male breadwinner in the house.
From his adolescence, Eremey Agafonov was assigned to work on a landowner's estate. In documents of that time he is often mentioned among the peasants assigned to the Suida manor. Thus, in the Confessional Book for 1795, among the “yard people” of the estate of Ivan Abramovich Hannibal, the following are indicated:
“Eremey Agafonov is 58 years old, his wife Evdokia is 55 years old, his mother is the widow Nastasya Filippova, 93 years old.”
It was Eremey who recommended Arina Rodionovna’s elder brother Simeon Rodionov, who later served as a coachman for the Hannibals, to work at the landowner’s estate. It can be assumed that Simeon, in turn, brought his very young sister Irinya, the future Arina Rodionovna, to the old arap’s manor house. While serving on a manor's estate, she encountered hard peasant labor very early. Thus, Arina Rodionovna was connected with the Hannibals and their estate long before she became a nanny in the Kobrin estate, the so-called Runovskaya manor.
In Voskresensky, as in other Russian villages in Russia, all local girls were taught needlework from an early age. Arina Rodionovna was also an excellent needlewoman. Ancient legends and documentary information tell about this. The Suida region has always been famous for its craftswomen - embroiderers and lacemakers.
By the standards of that time, Arina Rodionovna got married quite late - at twenty-three. She was matched to a peasant from the neighboring village of Kobrino, Fyodor Matveev. The wedding was in a hurry. The last days of the life of the old arap were coming to an end, after whose death the bride and groom could end up in the possessions of different landowners: Suyda was to be inherited by Ivan Abramovich Hannibal, Kobrino - by Osip Abramovich Hannibal, the future grandfather of A.S. Pushkin.
The wedding of Fyodor Matveev and Arina Rodionova took place in the Suida Church of the Resurrection of Christ on February 5, 1781. The entry in the Parish Register says: “In the village of Kobrino, the peasant son Fyodor Matveev, the village of Suydy with the peasant girl Irinya Rodionova, both by their first marriage.”
The groom's guarantors at the wedding were the peasants of the village of Taitsa, Kuzma Nikitin and Efim Petrov, and the bride's closest relatives were Larion Kirillov and Simeon Rodionov. After marriage, Arina Rodionevna moves to her husband in Kobrino. In the same year, on May 14, Abram Petrovich Hannibal died and this village was inherited by his son.
A. Burlakov
Photo by G. Puntusova
Arina Rodionovna YAKOVLEVA
Yakovleva Arina Rodionovna (1758-1828), Pushkin's nanny. She was born in Suida, an estate A.P. Hannibal. Having received “freedom” in 1899, Arina Rodionovna remained with the Pushkins; nursed all three of their children. Pushkin called her “mummy” and treated her with warmth and care. “The good friend of my poor youth”, “my decrepit dove” - this is from the poems “Winter Evening” and “Friend of My Harsh Days”, written during the years of the poet’s exile in Mikhailovskoye (1824-1826). At that time, Pushkin became especially close to his nanny, listened to her fairy tales with pleasure, and recorded folk songs from her words. He used the plots and motives of what he heard in his work. According to the poet, Arina Rodionovna was “the original of Tatyana’s nanny” from Eugene Onegin.
In the 1835 poem “Again I Visited...” Pushkin gratefully remembers his beloved nanny, her “painstaking watch,” and in the draft manuscript of this poem we find the following heartfelt lines:
It happened
Her simple speeches and advice
And reproaches full of love,
They encouraged my tired heart
A quiet joy.
Book materials used: Pushkin A.S. Works in 5 volumes. M., Synergy Publishing House, 1999.
YAKOVLEVA Arina Rodionovna (1758-1828).
Pushkin's nanny. His grandmother's serf M.A. Hannibal. In 1799 she received “freedom”, but chose to stay in the Pushkin family, where she nursed Olga, Alexander and Lev. According to the poet’s sister, “she spoke fairy tales masterfully, knew folk beliefs and sprinkled in proverbs and sayings. Alexander Sergeevich, who loved her since childhood, appreciated her fully while he lived in exile in Mikhailovskoye.” Here, in the wilderness, separated from his friends, Pushkin found in his nanny a caring “mother,” as he called her, and greatly appreciated her affection for him.
Friend of my harsh days, my decrepit dove! Alone in the wilderness of pine forests For a long, long time you have been waiting for me.
“In the evening I listen to the fairy tales of my nanny, the original nanny Tatyana... She is my only friend - and only with her I am not bored,” Pushkin wrote from Mikhailovsky to one of his friends in December 1824. According to Arina Rodionovna, the poet wrote down seven fairy tales and ten songs. The naive charm of the old nanny's stories awakened creative ideas in the poet and was reflected in the fairy tales he created. Pushkin spent the first half of 1827 in Moscow. Arina Rodionovna expressed the grief of separation from her pet in a touching letter to him from Trigorskoye in March 1827 (written under her dictation): “You are constantly in my heart and on my mind... Come, my angel, to us in Mikhailovskoye, everyone I’ll put the horses on the road.”
Soon after Olga Sergeevna’s marriage, Arina Rodionovna moved to St. Petersburg with her at the beginning of 1828 and died in the summer of the same year at the age of seventy.
In 1835, Pushkin visited Mikhailovskoye. The poet expressed his feelings for his beloved nanny in heartfelt verses:
And, it seems, I wandered in these groves for another evening.
Here is the disgraced house, Where I lived with my poor nanny. The old woman is no longer there - I’m already behind the wall. I don’t hear her heavy steps, nor her painstaking watch.
The living image of Arina Rodionovna is captured in the poems “Winter Evening” (1825), “Friend of My Harsh Days...” (1826) and “Once Again I Visited That Corner of the Earth...” (1835), as well as in “Eugene Onegin.” and "Dubrovsky".
L.A. Chereisky. Contemporaries of Pushkin. Documentary essays. M., 1999, p. 154-155.
It's hard to say who this applies to - the grandmother or the nanny:
Oh! Shall I keep silent about my mother?
About the charm of mysterious nights,
When in a cap, in an ancient robe,
She, evading the spirits with prayer,
Will baptize me with zeal
And he will tell me in a whisper
About the dead, about the exploits of Bova...
On April 21, 1758, a daughter, Irina, was born into the family of the serf Rodion Yakovlev, who was destined to become the nanny of the “sun of Russian poetry.”
Friend of my harsh days,
My decrepit dove!
Alone in the wilderness of pine forests
You've been waiting for me for a long, long time.
You are under the window of my little room
You're grieving like you're on a clock,
And the knitting needles hesitate every minute
In your wrinkled hands...
If the most famous nanny in the West is Mary Poppins, a fictional character, then in the post-Soviet space the main nanny of all times has become a very real person - Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin’s nanny Arina Rodionovna.
Pushkinists are still arguing about her actual influence on the work of the main poet of Russia, but one thing is certain - the image of Arina Rodionovna has become an integral part of Russian culture.
There are also different opinions about the place of birth of Arina Rodionovna. An entry found in the Parish Register of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Suida indicates that Pushkin’s nanny was born on April 10 (April 21, new style) 1758 in the village of Voskresensky, into the family of serfs Rodion Yakovlev and Lukerya Kirillova. At birth, the girl was named Irina, or Irinya, but history has preserved the colloquial form of the name that was accepted at that time - Arina.
As for the double name of the village where Arina Rodionovna was born, until 1718 it was called Suida, and the new name was assigned to it after the construction of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in it.
Arina’s parents were listed as serfs of the second lieutenant of the Semyonovsky Life Guards regiment, Fyodor Alekseevich Apraksin. When the girl was one year old, the village, along with the peasants, was sold to General-in-Chief Abram Petrovich Hannibal, Pushkin’s great-grandfather, the same “amoor of Peter the Great.”
Arina's parents had seven children, they lived poorly. An already difficult life became very difficult after the head of the family, Rodion Yakovlev, died in 1768.
Arina began working on the landowner's estate while still a very young girl, many years before the birth of her famous pupil. She was recommended to the gentlemen by her brother Simeon, who had previously been hired as a coachman.
In addition to working on the estate, Arina was engaged in needlework, which was very common among serf girls of that era. She herself was an excellent needlewoman, which Alexander Pushkin later noted.
By the standards of that time, Arina Rodionovna married quite late, at 23, to the serf Fyodor Matveev. The wedding was prepared hastily - Abram Petrovich Hannibal was very ill by that time, and after his death the property was supposed to be divided between his sons, as a result of which the bride and groom could be separated forever.
After marriage, Arina Rodionovna moved in with her husband and after the death of Abram Hannibal, she became the serf of Osip Abramovich Hannibal, Pushkin’s grandfather.
In her marriage to Fyodor Matveev, Arina Rodionovna had four children, but family life did not work out. The husband drank and eventually died from drunkenness in 1801. The family didn’t even have cattle, so the main breadwinner for her husband and children was Arina Rodionovna, who in 1792 was taken by Pushkin’s grandmother Maria Alekseevna Hannibal as a nanny for her nephew Alexei, the son of his brother Mikhail.
Maria Alekseevna was very pleased with the nanny - so much so that three years later Arina Rodionovna was given a separate hut.
Arina Rodionovna was the nanny of all three Pushkin children - Olga, Alexander and Lev. Pushkin scholars who call the nanny by her father’s name “Arina Yakovleva” note that at the same time another nanny, Ulyana Yakovleva, who was not a relative of Arina Rodionovna, also served in the Pushkin house.
An interesting point: according to researchers, Arina Rodionovna performed the direct, classic duties of a nanny in relation to Olga and Lev, while the care of little Sasha was entrusted to Ulyana Yakovleva.
However, Pushkin always called Ulyana “nanny” and did not have particularly warm feelings for her, unlike Arina Rodionovna. The future poet was fascinated by the fairy tales and lullabies of Arina Rodionovna, which she told and sang much better than her colleague.
The Hannibal family sold the lands that belonged to them several times, but Arina Rodionovna by that time was assigned not to the villages, but to the masters, so these transactions did not affect her fate in any way.
Arina Rodionovna lived with Sasha Pushkin under the same roof almost until the moment he entered the Lyceum in 1811. She greatly influenced the boy’s creative nature—in his letters, Pushkin often called her “mummy.”
After her pupils grew up, Arina Rodionovna lived with the gentlemen in the Pskov province. In 1818, Pushkin’s grandmother Maria Hannibal died, and after her death, Arina Rodionovna lived with the Pushkins in St. Petersburg, returning with them in the summer to the Pskov region, to the village of Mikhailovskoye.
Let's have a drink, good friend
My poor youth
Let's drink from grief; where is the mug?
The heart will be happier.
Sing me a song like a tit
She lived quietly across the sea;
Sing me a song like a maiden
I went to get water in the morning.
Pushkin wrote the well-known lines about the nanny and the mug in 1825 in Mikhailovsky, where he was in exile from 1824 to 1826. Arina Rodionovna actually shared the exile with the matured pupil, becoming his closest person and inspiration at that time.
Pushkin rediscovered the fairy tales he heard in childhood, carefully wrote them down, and later they became the basis for his works.
The image of the nanny herself also appeared in the poet’s works - Arina Rodionovna was the prototype of the nanny Tatiana from “Eugene Onegin”, the prototype of Ksenia’s mother from “Boris Godunov” and several female images from “Arap Peter the Great”.
In November 1824, Pushkin wrote to his brother: “Do you know my studies? I write notes before lunch, have lunch late; After dinner I ride horseback, in the evening I listen to fairy tales - and thereby compensate for the shortcomings of my damned upbringing. What a delight these tales are! Each is a poem!
The Russian poet Nikolai Yazykov, who visited Pushkin in Mikhailovsky and personally knew Arina Rodionovna, called her a “cheerful drinking companion.” So the lines about the circle in Pushkin’s poem appeared for a reason. However, it is unlikely that Arina Rodionovna abused alcohol, otherwise there would have been no question of many years of impeccable service as a nanny.
"My dear friend
Alexander Sergeevich, I received your letter and the money you sent me. For all your mercies, I am grateful to you with all my heart - you are constantly in my heart and on my mind, and only when I fall asleep, I forget you and your mercies to me... Your promise to visit us in the summer makes me very happy. Come, my angel, to us in Mikhailovskoye, I’ll put all the horses on the road... I will wait for you and pray to God to let us meet... Farewell, my father, Alexander Sergeevich. For your health, I took out the bread and served a prayer service, live well, my friend, well, you will fall in love yourself. I, thank God, am healthy, kiss your hands and remain your much-loving nanny, Arina Rodionovna.”
Pushkin’s last meeting with Arina Rodionovna took place in the village of Mikhailovskoye on September 14, 1827. The nanny was already 69 years old, which at that time was the age of extreme old age.
In January 1828, Pushkin's elder sister Olga married against the will of her parents. With her husband Nikolai Pavlishchev they settled in St. Petersburg. In March, Olga's parents reluctantly allocated her several serfs to run the household. Among those whom Olga took in was her old nanny.
For Arina Rodionovna, this March trip to St. Petersburg, still on the winter route, turned out to be too much of a burden. She died on July 31 (August 12, new style) 1828 in St. Petersburg, in the house of the Pavlishchevs.
Pushkin was not present at the nanny’s funeral, and his sister Olga did not participate in it. Olga's husband, Nikolai Pavlishchev, buried the nanny.
Arina Rodionovna was born and died a serf, and no attention was paid to the burials of people of such low status. When in 1830, Pushkin, who had come to his senses and his friends tried to find the grave of his “mother,” he failed. Only a century later, researchers were able to establish that Arina Rodionovna was buried in the Smolensk cemetery in St. Petersburg, but her grave was lost forever.
In 1977, a memorial plaque appeared at the Smolensk cemetery in memory of Arina Rodionovna. The text on it reads:
“Arina Rodionovna is buried in this cemetery
nanny of A. S. Pushkin
1758-1828
“Friend of my harsh days,
My decrepit dove!”
