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operaportugues · 1 year ago

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Eugene Onegin (Tchaikovsky) - MET, 05/outubro/2013

Ópera completa com legenda em português: link.

Considerada a mais popular ópera russa, inspirada num dos poemas mais conhecidos de Pushkin. Apesar de evocar a vida da burguesia no campo no tempo dos czares, a música é sem dúvida ocidental, com um pouco do espetáculo e nada das cores folclóricas preferidas de outros compositores russos da época de Tchaikovsky. Com suas várias árias introspectivas, é em essência uma ópera intimista. E também uma história de amor marcada pela tragédia e sem final feliz. A famosa e longa cena da carta de Tatyana captura os sonhos de uma jovem cuja imaginação é influenciada tanto pela literatura quanto pelo desejo de amar. A dura resposta de Onieguin a esse amor estabelece o tom sombrio desta ópera.

O Amor, na Vida e na Arte Tchaikovsky já começara a compor a cena da carta de Tatyana quando, em maio de 1877, recebeu uma apaixonada carta de amor de Antonina Milyukova, ex-aluna do Conservatório de Moscou. Impressionado com a coincidência, aceitou a proposta de casamento de Antonina, afirmando que não se comportaria com ela como Onieguin com Tatyana. O casamento, destinado talvez a ocultar a homossexualidade do compositor, durou apenas três meses e levou Tchaikovsky a tentar o suicídio. Em meio a tudo isso, ele levaria a cabo a composição de Eugene Onegin.

Duelo As obras do poeta russo Alexander Pushkin contêm uma série de duelos, notavelmente o duelo de Onegin com Lensky em Eugene Onegin. Estes duelos revelaram-se proféticos, uma vez que o próprio Pushkin foi mortalmente ferido num duelo controverso com Georges d'Anthès, um oficial francês que, segundo os rumores, era amante da sua mulher. D'Anthès, que foi acusado de trapacear neste duelo, casou com a cunhada de Pushkin e tornou-se ministro e senador francês.

Filhas do czar Nicolau II e Alexandra Feodorovna (história) (exposição) O último Imperador da Rússia e sua esposa deram a suas 2 primeiras filhas o nome de Olga (1895) e Tatiana (1897), em honra das irmãs Olga e Tatiana do livro Eugene Onegin de Alexandre Pushkin, com a diferença de que no livro Tatiana era mais velha.

Anna Netrebko interpreta Tatiana, a jovem cuja impulsiva declaração de amor é friamente rejeitada pelo Onegin de Mariusz Kwiecien - com consequências inesperadas anos mais tarde. Piotr Beczala é Lenski, o amigo que se torna rival e que Onegin mata num duelo. Maestro russo Valery Gergiev.

Evgeny Oneguin: A Valsa, a Polonesa e a Cena da Carta

Para gostar de Eugene Onegin

Palestra com Irineu Franco Perpetuo

Aria Code

Análise sobre esta produção

New Production Preview

Onegin's Aria (Mariusz Kwiecien)

Papéis Principais - Madame Larina: dona da propriedade - Tatyana: sua filha mais velha - Olga: sua filha menor - Ievgueni Onieguin: o amado de Tatyana - Lensky: noivo de Olga - Príncipe Gremin: general da reserva, marido de Tatyana - Filipyevna: ama de Tatyana

Sinopse: Propriedade dos Larin perto de São Petersburgo, Rússia, fim do séc. XVIII

Ato I Enquanto suas filhas Tatyana e Olga cantam o amor e a tristeza, Madame Larina relembra o passado com sua aia, Filipyevna. Chegam camponeses para cantar e dançar para ela. Tatyana diz que as canções a fazem sonhar, mas Olga prefere dançar. Tatyana atribui sua própria palidez à triste história de amor que está lendo. O noivo de Olga, Lensky, chega com um amigo, Ievgueni Onieguin, que diz a Lensky que ele escolheu a irmã errada. Tatyana fica excitada. Onieguin pergunta se a vida no campo não é tediosa, mas ela responde que lê e sonha. Nessa noite, Tatyana diz a Filipyevna que está apaixonada. Entre temores e hesitações, escreve uma longa carta de amor a Onieguin. Ao fechá-la, observa: "Seria assustador relê-la". Na manhã seguinte, a carta é entregue. Dias depois, Tatyana espera Onieguin em seu jardim. Prometendo franqueza igual à dela, ele diz que não foi feito para o casamento que logo ela voltará seu ardor em outra direção. Tatyana fica arrasada.

Ato II Entre os convidados de uma festa para Tatyana estão Lensky e Onieguin, que decide livrar-se do tédio flertando com Olga. Lensky fica irritado, mas Olga zomba do seu ciúme. Um francês brinda à beleza e à saúde de Tatyana, mas, recomeçando a dança, Lensky fica pensativo. Onieguin dá a entender que ele ficou louco, e os dois discutem. Até que, para horror dos convivas, Lensky desafia Onieguin. Despede-se então de Olga para sempre. Na manhã seguinte, esperando Onieguin, Lensky volta a sonhar com ela. Onieguin chega e os dois se perguntam por que estão duelando, e não rindo juntos. No duelo, Onieguin atira e Lensky cai morto.

Ato III Anos depois, Onieguin está entediado num baile em São Petersburgo quando o príncipe Gremin entra com sua mulher, e Onieguin reconhece Tatyana. Gremlin fala de seu grande amor por Tatyana e apresenta Onieguin a ela. Ela diz lembrar-se de tê-lo conhecido e pede licença para se retirar. Onieguin se dá conta de que a ama. Na casa de Gremin, Tatyana sente voltar sua paixão por Onieguin. Quando ele aparece, ela se pergunta se não estaria interessado em seu novo status. Ele declara seu amor, mas ela pede que se retire. Reconhece que ainda o ama, mas jamais trairá o marido. Sozinho, Onieguin sente o peso do remorso.

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#opera #Tchaikovsky #Youtube

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histoireettralala · 5 years ago

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A short history of dueling in France

Dueling is a custom of fighting by arms, according to precise rules, to settle a dispute between two adversaries, one asking the other for compensation for an offense or a wrong. In Europe, it is preceded by a challenge, usually signified by a cartel. The fight takes place in front of arbitrators, now called witnesses, who ensure compliance with the rules and specific conventions fixed in advance (number of hits by bladed weapon or firearm). In a pleasure duel (to show off) the number of hits is fixed. In a duel to the death, we speak of "excessive duel".

The duel was aimed at regulating and limiting the violence caused by a conflict between two individuals. By fixing the terms for the resolution of the conflict, it obliged the opposing parties to agree through dialogue on settled upon conditions and constituted a kind of contractual criminal law, the judicial duel. Integrated in the late Middle Ages into criminal procedure by different customs, the legal duel evolved between the Hundred Years War and the Renaissance in private law contracts as parliaments refined the case law and the monarchy grew stronger. In modern times, the duel is no more than a form of bravado against ordinary law, the duel of the point of honor.

A form of dueling was observed in other societies, in particular in Japan, but it was then a practice reserved for the military. However, by imposing individual weapons of war, that is to say by prohibiting the use of fists, for example, the duel mainly concerned the nobility, trained in fencing and shooting. The gentlemen ended up condescending to indulge themselves only among themselves: "Game of hands, game of villains". The spirit which governed it thus gave more value to dignity than to life, to manner rather than to interest, and claimed the primacy of individual freedom to regulate its affairs over recourse to public justice. Defended in the past by both supporters of an aristocratic regime and by Republicans, dueling is nowadays prohibited in most countries.

The oldest known form of the duel seems to be the judicial duel practiced by the Ancient Germans, already reported by Caesar. This form has slowly evolved over the centuries to lead to the duel of honor. To settle private disputes, you can fight, the gods will decide. In 502 among the Burgundians, the Gombette law codified the custom and introduced the concept of "champion."

The Church disapproved and fought against a custom deeply rooted in European culture.

The rules were the same everywhere: there is a gesture of defiance, it is noted, the meeting takes place in a closed, delimited place, there is a search to ensure that the combatants are on equal terms, and this is done in front of witnesses and after a religious ceremony.

The defeated duelist, found guilty, was hanged.

In 805 Charlemagne introduced the use of the stick in duels. However the stick would quickly become the weapon of the commoners while the nobles fought with the sword.

The Kings of France opposed it, especially during the 13th century. Saint Louis (Louis IX) in his Great Ordinance of 1254, wanted to return in judicial matters to the evidence by witnesses. Little by little, the nobility began to consider the duel as a way to challenge royal authority, and thereby assert their independence.

Philippe le Bel (Philippe IV) officially reintroduced the judicial duel by restricting it to the most serious crimes, by imposing financial formalities, and prohibiting it in time of war. The number of duels drastically decreased.

On July 10, 1547, the famous duel in Saint-Germain-en-Laye between Guy Chabot de Jarnac and François de La Châtaigneraie brought about the end of the legal duels.

Time for the great hours of the duel of point of honor!

The latter developed following the Italian wars. People defied royal power for any reason. For the most futile reasons, they challenge and killed each other and themselves, because they had to "defend their honor." It was part of the everyday landscape.

The King of France no longer giving permission to fight, people did without it, the legal duel then taking on a new form in the 16th century, the duel of the point of honor. In the desire to brave the growing royal power, they fought for any reason, and if necessary they invented a pretext concerning their honor (private or public) when the desire came to want to simply confront another with weapons in hand . The duel became a fashion, and under the influence of the Italian masters, the sword became its almost exclusive weapon with the dagger and, sometimes, the spear. The witnesses, called "seconds", from passive actors they were at the start, took more and more part in the duels they were supposed to arbitrate. In 1652, during the duel of the Dukes of Nemours and Beaufort, there were ten people who fought together in the horse market where the meeting took place. Three people were killed and several injured.

It was a massive phenomenon; people fought in the squares of towns and villages, in the streets, especially in the woods. Some places were very famous with duelists. Where is the current Place des Vosges, a large space near the Porte Saint-Antoine was very popular with duelists.

These duels escaped justice and clerical power. The Council of Trent may excommunicate the duellists, nothing helps. In France, between 1588 and 1608, more than 10,000 gentlemen killed themselves in a duel (and that only counts the nobles!), 4,000 in the year 1607 alone according to contemporaries: it is more than the Wars of Religion.

The Kings opposed it; we can note a large number of prohibition edicts, particularly from 1599 (1599, 1602, 1613, 1617, 1623). But they were themselves part of this combative aristocracy, and showed indulgence towards the duellists (Henri IV signed many graces in such circumstances - 7000 in 19 years).

Many nobles stupidly perished in a duel and the ban became a necessity. The state assumed the " monopoly of violence" and determined to tame the nobility. But it was with Richelieu, whose brother had been killed in a duel, that the fight against the duel took a sharp turn (for a moment). Now the duel, assimilated to high treason, was to be punished with death.

On February 6, 1626, Richelieu prohibited dueling.

"Sire, it is a matter of strangling duels or strangling Your Majesty's laws."

No mercy for the duellists, it would be exile or beheading.

And on June 22, 1627 was beheaded François de Montmorency-Bouteville for fighting in broad daylight, Place Royale, against François II d'Harcourt, Marquis de Beuvron, who fled to England. The scandal of a youth killing themselves for frivolous reasons was denounced at the very heart of the Court by the great poet Malherbe whose son, himself a duelist who had received a pardon, was assassinated on July 13, 1627 for having prevented a duel.

The very severe sentence raised a wave of protest from the nobles, but the king and the cardinal did not flinch, and the execution for the example took place.

The repression continued under Louis XIV, Louis XVI .. The duels still existed (even ecclesiastics were fond of them,such as the Cardinal de Retz) they were only more discreet. In the woods, for example. There were areas of lawlessness like the Court of Miracles in Paris, where you could fight.

The Revolution abolished the royal edicts, and the duel made a powerful comeback. Except that it was now democratized: now everyone was fighting. At the fall of the Empire, demobilized officers attacked the Prussians or the legitimists. People were fighting for anything. And anywhere. In 1808, two men fought in balloons above Paris - one of the combatants was shot down and died with his witness. In 1843, two others fought with billiard balls.

In 1834 the Count of Chatauvillard published his Essay on the Duel, a true manual for the duelist.

Everyone was fighting. Debates in the Assembly often ended in a closed field with witnesses. This was the time of the cloak and daggers novels, whose authors themselves fought in duels. All the big names of the time duelled at least once.

Between 1826 and 1834 there were in France more than two hundred dead by duel.

Now for some famous duels of the XIXth century:

On May 31, 1832, Evariste Gallois, 20 years old, very brilliant and promising mathematician, just after having published his theory of ambiguity (which is still studied today), died in a duel with a lieutenant of cavalry who was more experienced than him.

On July 24, 1836, Armand Carrel died while fighting against Emile de Girardin.

A famous pistol duel took place in Saint Petersburg on January 27, 1837, and the great Russian writer Alexandre Pushkin was killed by French Lieutenant Georges d'Anthès.

During the Belle Epoque, highly regulated duels were stopped at first blood. It was a great passion.

We can find among the duelists Ledru-Rollin, Proudhon, Alexandre Dumas, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Adolphe Thiers, Léon Gambetta, Jules Ferry, Aristide Briand, Léon Blum, Georges Clemenceau (12 personal duels plus 5 as a witness for the Tiger!), Marcel Proust (yes, even him!), and the future presidents Raymond Poincaré and Paul Deschanel.

Men, you might think. Well ... not only!

Without counting the famous Julie d'Aubigny (Mademoiselle de Maupin) with her novel-like life, we can mention the famous duel which in September 1718 opposed two lovers of the Duke of Richelieu (not the Cardinal ... but a descendant of his family), the Marquise de Nesle and the Comtesse de Polignac. They fought for his love and got little for their pains, since the Duke left them both for the Regent's daughter.

The Great War will be a game-changer. It is possible that only something that big could durably affect society to the point it would give up such a long held tradition. After such devastation and the priority given to collective defense rather than individual combat, to die "for honor" suddenly seemed very absurd.

Some nostalgics continued, but the duel fell out of favor.

The last duel in France happened in 1967 between two parliamentarians, Gaston Defferre and René Ribière (because one said to the other in the middle of the Assembly: Shut up, you idiot!)

And nowadays... Some lone voices still talk about dueling.

Sources:

Wikipedia, le Duel (Article in French)

www.defense.gouv.fr

Pariszigzag, l'Histoire Insolite des duels et de leur répression

Ouest France, Edition du Soir, Pourquoi les Français ont adoré les duels ? 3 mai 2017

Infos Toulouse, Le duel: un code d'honneur historique, 9 août 2019

#history of dueling #duels in france #from the VIth to the XXth century #if you want to know more about specific duels ask me

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oupacademic · 5 years ago

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Have you ever wanted to know more about your favorite classic authors? Each month, we share various facts about the lives and works of our Author of the Month.

During June, we honored Alexander Pushkin as our Author of the Month. He was born on June 6th 1799 in Moscow. A Russian poet, playwright, and novelist who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Some of the most interesting things we learned about him this month were…

Alexander Pushkin, at the age of 8, reputedly wrote little plays in French, which he acted with his sister. It is evident from his letters and other sources that Alexander Pushkin contemplated writing a series of dramatic works but only ever completed one play.

In 1817 Alexander Pushkin entered government service. However, he had gradually become committed to social reform and emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals. That angered the government and led to his transfer from the capital in May 1820.

After he finished school, Alexander Pushkin plunged into the vibrant and raucous intellectual youth culture of the capital, Saint Petersburg. In 1820, he published his first long poem, Ruslan and Ludmila, with much controversy about its subject and style.

In 1823, Alexander Pushkin moved to Odessa, where he again clashed with the government, which sent him into exile until 1826. During this time, he wrote nostalgic love poems which he dedicated to Elizaveta Vorontsova, wife of Malorossia's General-Governor.

In 1831 he married Natalia Goncharova and it was the attentions paid to her by Baron Georges D'Anthès, a French royalist in Russian service, that led to the duel in which Pushkin was fatally wounded

For the month of July, we are exploring the life and work of Franz Kafka. Be sure to follow the #ClassicsInContext hashtag on Twitter to learn more!

Image via Wikimedia Commons

#Classics in Context #Alexander Pushkin #Russian Poet #Russian Literature #Moscow #Eugene Onegin #Boris Gudunov #The Queen of Spades #Odessa #Russian Literary Scene

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lboogie1906 · 3 years ago

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Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (May 26, 1799 - January 29, 1837) was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. He was born into the Russian nobility in Moscow. His father, Sergey Lvovich Pushkin, belonged to Pushkin noble family. A maternal great-grandfather was African-born general Abram Petrovich Gannibal. He published his first poem at the age of 15 and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. He recited his controversial poem "Ode to Liberty", one of several that led to his being exiled by Tsar Alexander the First. While under the strict surveillance of the Tsar's political police and unable to publish, he wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov. His novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, was serialized between 1825 and 1832. He was fatally wounded in a duel with his brother-in-law, Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès, known as Dantes-Gekkern, a French officer serving with the Chevalier Guard Regiment, who attempted to seduce the poet's wife, Natalia Pushkina. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence https://www.instagram.com/p/CeBBB1XOvYbuHTF1BsTPsNKrwdh0Ue3jjQOdo00/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

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gogmstuff · 3 years ago

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Ekaterina Goncharova, Baroness Gekkern:

1838 Ekaterina Goncharova, Baroness Gekkern by Jean-Baptiste Sabatier (Alexander Pushkin Memorial Museum - St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg Federal City, Russia). From Wikimedia; removed spots and vertical cracks with Photoshop 1833X2048 @300 2.6Mp. This is an outstanding example of a pelerine.

1840 Ekaterina Goncharova by ? (State A. S. Pushkin Museum - Prechistenka Ulitsa, Moskva, Russia). From Wikimeida; darkened light patch in c. bkgnd with Photoshop & decreased temp' 85% and satn 10% and increased sharpness 100% 1307X1608 @200 429kj.

1840 Catherine Gontcharoff, baronne d'Anthès Heeckeren by Henri Beltz (location ?). From Wikimedia; expanded to fit screen 1848X2854 @144 794kp,

I hope this is the back story - Ekaterina Goncharova's story is interesting. According to her French Wikipedia article (Google translation), "She spent her childhood and teenage years in Moscow, where he received a good education.In the fall of 1834 at the invitation of his younger sister, Natalia, wife of Alexander Pushkin, Ekaterina moved to St. Petersburg with her in the house of Pushkin. In December of the same year she became a maid of honor to the Empress. (The Empress is Alexandra Feodorovna - gogm) Ekaterina met Georges-Charles d'Anthes in the fall of 1834, shortly after moving to St. Petersburg. Their wedding took place January 10, 1837, in two ceremonies: one Catholic and one Orthodox. The couple had four children.She died Oct. 15, 1843, due to puerperal fever after giving birth to her son."

According to his Wikipedia article, George Charles d'Anthes was an Alsatian aristocrat and military officer who supported the Bourbons and not the Orléanists in 1830 so he went back to Alsace and then was allowed to serve abroad. He ended up in St. Petersburg. There he joined the Knights Guards and also met and married Ekaterina.He also met the Dutch plenipotentiary to the court, Baron Heeckeren. Baron van Heeckeren was childless and did not want his title to become extinct. "After a lengthy correspondence and a journey to Alsace, the latter (Baron Heeckeren - gogm) proposed to d'Anthès's father to adopt the son as his heir. After the agreement of the King of the Netherlands, Georges-Charles d'Anthès took the name of Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès."

"D'Anthès met Pushkin and his wife, Natalia ("Natasha"), a beautiful and flirtatious young woman who had many admirers. D'Anthès courted her in such a way that Pushkin threatened him. D'Anthès then married Natalia's own sister, Yekaterina Goncharova, on 10 January 1837. It has been suggested that d'Anthès's engagement and marriage to Natalia's sister was devised to contradict society gossip that he was in pursuit of Natalia. In any event, this was not enough to soothe the conflict between the two new brothers-in-law, especially since an anonymous letter nominated Pushkin Deputy Grand Master and Historiograph of the Order of Cuckolds. Pushkin's jealousy made him write an insulting letter to d'Anthès's adoptive father. Pushkin having refused to withdraw these abuses, a duel became inevitable." Baron d'Anthes fired first, fatally wounding Pushkin.

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peachteapunch · 8 months ago

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#Bronze no Tenshi #Natalia Pushkina #Alexander Pushkin #Georges D'Anthès # Natalia my sweet bby girl #Chiho Saito

Natalia did nothing wrong.

I recently reread Bronze no Tenshi and oh my God I love Georges D’Anthès with all my heart - as if I already didn’t love him enough when I first read this manga. He’s so respectful, he’s ready to sacrifice everything for Natalia and he understands a woman’s struggles.

I don’t despise Pushkin in Bronze no Tenshi as it often happens to me with the other “love rival” of Saito’s stories, sometimes I pity him, but I also think a lot of people overlook his flaws and mistakes in his relationship and attitude towards Natalia out of their admiration for the figure of the real Pushkin, the poet. On the other hand, I see a lot of blame put on Natalia, when, if you really think about it, Natalia did nothing wrong. Natalia cannot be the usual strong, single-minded, fierce woman that Saito portrays in her stories: it wouldn’t be realistic and true to the time when the events take place. In my opinion, Natalia was a good person that always sacrificed herself for the people around her, who had for once the chance to do something exclusively for herself when she met the love of her life, D’Anthès.

Keep reading

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adrianivashk0v · 7 years ago

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HISTORY MEME → [7/9] Figures: Alexander Pushkin

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (6 June [O.S. 26 May] 1799 – 10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1837) was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin was born into Russian nobility in Moscow. His matrilineal great-grandfather was Abram Petrovich Gannibal, who was kidnapped from what is now either Eritrea or Cameroon (there are various scholarly views on this) and raised in the household of Peter the Great. He published his first poem at the age of fifteen, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. While under the strict surveillance of the Tsar's political police and unable to publish, Pushkin wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov. His novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, was serialized between 1825 and 1832. Pushkin was fatally wounded in a duel with his brother-in-law, Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès, also known as Dantes-Gekkern, a French officer serving with the Chevalier Guard Regiment who attempted to seduce the poet's wife, Natalia Pushkina.

#historymeme #historyedit #alexander pushkin #history meme #history #figures #myedits

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historical-nonfiction · 7 years ago

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Moral maxims are surprisingly useful on occasions when we can invent little else to justify our actions.

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799 to 1837), Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin was born into Russian nobility in Moscow. He published his first poem at the age of fifteen, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. While under the strict surveillance of the Tsar's political police and unable to publish, Pushkin wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov. His novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, was serialized between 1825 and 1832.

Pushkin was fatally wounded at age 37 in a duel with his brother-in-law, Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès, a French officer serving with the Chevalier Guard Regiment. d'Anthès had attempted to seduce the poet's wife, Natalia Gonchorova Pushkina

#history #lit #poetry #theatre #russia

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ioannisg22 · 8 years ago

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Natalia Nikolayevna Pushkina-Lanskaya

(Russian: Наталья Николаевна Пушкина-Ланская, 8 September 1812 – 26 November 1863) (née Natalia Nikolayevna Goncharova) (Гончарова) was the wife of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin from 1831 until his death in 1837 in a duel with Georges d'Anthès. Natalia was married to Major-General Petr Petrovich Lanskoy from 1844 until her death in 1863.

Natalia (Natalya) Goncharova was born on 8 September 1812 (27 August 1812 Old Style) in Karian Village in Tambov Governorate (in present-day Znamensky District, Tambov Oblast), where her family lived during the occupation of Moscow by the forces of Napoleon. Her father, Nikolay Afanasievich Goncharov, a scion of the family of paper manufacturers from Kaluga, was pronounced demented in 1815; the household was managed by his wife, Natalia Ivanovna Zagriajskaya, an imperious lady with connections within Muscovite nobility.[1] Her ancestors included Petro Doroshenko, 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

After many hesitations, Natalia eventually accepted a proposal of marriage from Pushkin in April 1830, but not until she had received assurances that the tsarist government did not intend to persecute the libertarian poet. They were officially engaged on 6 May 1830 and sent out wedding invitations. Because of the outbreak of cholera 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 in Moscow.

During the six years of their marriage, Natalia Pushkina gave birth to four children: Maria (b. 1832, suggested as a prototype of Anna Karenina), Alexander (b. 1833), Grigory (b. 1835), and Natalia (b. 1836) (who married into the Royal House of Nassau-Weilburg to Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau and became Countess of Merenberg). As the family lived in the country for prolonged periods, while Pushkin spent most of his time in the capitals, there was a sizeable correspondence between Natalia and Pushkin. Seventy-eight letters from Pushkin to Natalia remain; they are frequently written in a light-hearted tone with touches of ribaldry, but none of them could be called love letters. It is believed that the poet dedicated several poems to her, including "Madonna" (1830). Natalya's correspondence with Pushkin was lost except for one letter, written together with her mother Natalia Ivanovna

In 1835 Natalia met a French immigrant, Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès, and was involved in a society intrigue, which provoked rumors of an affair with D'Anthès. These resulted in a duel between Pushkin and D'Anthès on January 27, 1837, in which Pushkin was mortally wounded. Commentators disagree about the propriety of Natalia's behavior in this situation. Some, including Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva, covertly or overtly blamed Pushkin's death on her, feeling that she did not understand his greatness and failed to take an appropriate interest in his art. It does seem that she preferred worldly pleasures to his company, though to some extent she was obliged to socialise separately from him; for example, even during her pregnancies, she often had to chaperone her sisters in the court, since there was no one else to do so, and only by going into society could they find husbands. Her constant demands for money for costly dresses and jewelry forced the poet to write increasingly for money rather than for pleasure. However, modern research into archival materials and contemporary memoirs, including those of family members (who always mentioned Natalia Nikolayevna with great warmth and respect), leads to a more sympathetic view. It stands to her credit that she preserved Pushkin's letters to her (which suggests that she had some idea of the significance of his written heritage), and subsequently she allowed them to be published.

Much was made of Natalia's relationship with Nicholas I after Pushkin's death; it was even rumored that she became his mistress. In 1843, she met Petr Petrovich Lanskoy (1799-1877), who served in the same regiment as her brother. After having been blessed by the Tsar, their wedding was held in Strelna��on 16 July 1844. Lanskoy was in favor with the tsar, and he had had a remarkable career before his marriage. Following the marriage, Natalia gave birth to three daughters: Alexandra (b. 1845), Elizaveta (b. 1846) and Sophia (b. 1848). Natalia died on 26 November 1863 and her ashes were laid in the cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

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