Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya

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Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya

Mariya Volkonskaya ( Russian Мария Николаевна Волконская , scientific. Transliteration Marija Nikolaevna Volkonskaja ; Dec. 25, 1805 * . Jul / 6. January  1806 greg. , † August 10 jul. / 22. August  1863 greg. In Woronki , Chernigov Governorate ) followed her husband Sergei Grigoryevich Volkonsky voluntarily into exile in Siberia and is considered to be the founder of the local social system.

Life

The Princess Maria Nikolayevna came from the family of General Rajewski , who in the war against Napoleon I had excellent. She was also a great-granddaughter of the great scholar Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov . At the age of 18, at the beginning of 1825, she was married by her father to General Prince Sergei Grigoryevich Volkonsky (1788-1865), who was 17 years her senior .

He was one of the leading Decembrists , a secret society whose goal was political overthrow, the elimination of serfdom and civil liberty. After the Decembrist uprising on December 14th, July / December 26,  1825 greg. he was arrested and only then did Volkonskaya find out about the existence of this secret society. Without hesitation, she sided with her husband and his allies. Five Decembrists were executed on July 13, 1826, the others, including her husband, were sent to Siberia for forced labor. As soon as he was sentenced, she decided, despite opposition from the government and her family, to follow her husband to Siberia. Many other women followed her example. Immediately after the execution of the five Decembrists, Tsar Nicholas I said that he feared these women more than anything else. In a letter to the Tsar, Marija Volkonskaya asked for permission to follow her husband into exile, which she was allowed to do, although she had to leave her young son with her husband's sister.

Before leaving, she saw the Russian poet Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin one last time . His respect for her decision is reflected in his poem Message to Siberia . In December 1826 the princess set out and after 23 days of travel she reached Irkutsk , the capital of Eastern Siberia. In order to be able to travel on to her husband, the governor there presented her with a document for signature, with the signing of which she lost title and position, which demoted her to the wife of a slave laborer and made her future children serfs. She lost the right to own money and valuables. Her companion had to return to St. Petersburg.

For 29 years she lived near her husband in Nerchinsk , Chita , Urik and from 1837 in Irkutsk. The former Princess Trubetskaya , wife of Prince Sergei Petrovich Trubetskoi , with whom she was friends, also lived nearby . From 1847 the situation improved. Of the four children born in Siberia, a son and a daughter survived, whose upbringing became their purpose in life. As the wife of an exile, she was not allowed to show herself in public places, and so her house developed into a center of cultural and social life in Irkutsk, where she also founded an orphanage .

After Tsar Alexander II succeeded his father Nicholas I, who died in 1855, to the throne, he issued an amnesty , which enabled the family to return home. She settled with her family in Voronki in the Chernigov governorate, where her daughter Jelena married the owner of the village, MO Kotschubejem ( М. О. Кочубеєм ). Marija Volkonskaya died there on August 10th July. / 22nd August  1863 greg. from a heart condition that she contracted in Siberia.

Aftermath

The two houses of the Volkonsky and Trubetskoi family in Irkutsk can now be visited as Decembrist museums.

In the poems Fürstin Trubetzkaja (1871/1872) and Fürstin MN Wolkonskaja (1872/1873), which the poet Nikolaj Alexejewitsch Nekrasow (Russian: Николай Алексеевич Некрасов) summarized the epoch under the title of Russian women , he directly describes the epoch of the Russian women . For the first poem he primarily used the text From the Memoirs of a Decembrist by AJ Rosen as an authentic source , for the second the diaries of Princess Volkonskaya, written in French.

In Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace , two important families are called "Bolkonski" and "Drubetzkoj". Since the novel ends with the preparation for the Decembrist uprising, these names are probably not chosen by chance, even if the historical Marija Nikolajewna Volkonskaya does not appear in the novel.

Works

literature

  • W. Düwel, E. Dieckmann, G. Dudek, H. Graßhoff, H. Raab, M. Wegner, G. Ziegengeist (eds.): History of classical Russian literature. Structure, Berlin and Weimar 1973
  • Jurij A. Kalugin: Princess Volkonskaya. Historical novel . Verlag der Nation, Berlin 1964
  • Christine Sutherland: The Princess of Siberia. Maria Volkonskaya and her time . Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 2000, ISBN 3-596-25672-0
  • Светлана Кокорышкина, Мартина Каммерер: Мария Волконская. Жена декабриста. Ernst Klett, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-12-515373-5
  • Я. А. Шевченко: Усадьба князя Сергея Григорьевича Волконского . Комитет по культуре администрации Иркутской области. Иркутский областной историко-мемориальный музей декабристов. (Without a year).
  • Волконская Мария Николаевна. Большой Энциклопедический Словарь . www.erudition.ru/Биографии/Поиск

Web links

Commons : Marija Nikolajewna Volkonskaya  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gudrun Ziegler: The gold of the tsars, Chapter Three - Gold Rush, The failed December Revolution, page 229, line 29/30 . Heyne, ISBN 3-453-17988-9
  2. ^ Entry on Marija Wolkonskaja in the Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia ; accessed on December 3, 2018 (Ukrainian)
  3. ^ Voronky local history on the website of the Department of Culture and Tourism, Nationalities and Religions of the State Administration of the Chernihiv District ; accessed on December 3, 2018 (Ukrainian)
  4. ↑ imhaben.de (Russian)
personal data
SURNAME Volkonskaya, Marija Nikolajewna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Волконская, Мария Николаевна (Russian); Volkonskaja, Marija Nikolajevna (scientific transliteration); Volkonskaya, Maria Nikolaevna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian founder of the social system in Siberia
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1806
DATE OF DEATH August 22, 1863
Place of death Voronki , Chernigov Governorate