Appendix E: Biographies

Stroganov, Vasil’chikov, Kushelev

Count Aleksandr Sergeevich Stroganov (7 December 1818 – 26 July 1864; see Image 299) was one of the four sons of Senator General-of-Cavalry Adjutant-General Count Sergei Grigorievich Stroganov (1794–1882) and Countess Natalia Pavlovna (Stroganova) Stroganova (8 March 1796 – 7 October 1872 OS). He is said to have been educated first in Dresden at the Kreuzschule.1 He graduated from Moscow University in 1839 as a graduate student in jurisprudence. He was deeply interested in numismatics and collected medieval and modern European coins, on which he spent millions and of which he had a magnificent collection of more than 60,000 at his death.

Nicholas I (see Images 420–423), seeing Aleksandr Sergeevich on 8 March 1845 at the funeral of Countess Sofia Vladimirovna (Golitsyna) Stroganova (see Image 300), grandmother of the latter, appointed him an aide-de-camp. At the time of this appointment, he was an ensign in the Preobrazhenskii Guards Regiment and adjutant to the commander of the Field Army. Sometime after 5 September 1846, he married Countess Tat’iana Dmitrievna Vasil’chikova (19 March 1823 – 16 October 1880 OS; see Image 301), the younger sister of Ekaterina Dmitrievna (Vasil’chikova) Kusheleva (6/18 December 1811 – 1874; see Image 303), wife of Count Grigorii Grigorievich Kushelev (1802 – 17/29 February 1855; see Image 302), to whose estate the Gellibrands took Anna Whistler and Willie in September 1846 to experience a fête given by Count Kushelev for his peasants.2 The two sisters were the daughters of General-of-Cavalry Dmitri Vasilievich Vasil’chikov (1788 – 5 December 1859; see Image 304) and Countess Adelaida Petrovna (Apraksina) Vasil’chikova (1751 – 8 March 1851).3 Of their four daughters, Ekaterina Dmitrievna was the third daughter and Tat’iana Dmitrievna the youngest daughter. The surviving children of Aleksandr Sergeevich and Tat’iana Dmitrievna were Maria (1850–1914), Sergei (1852–1923), Elena (1855–1876), and Olga (1857–1944).

Aleksandr Sergeevich took part in the campaigns of 1849 (Hungary) and 1854 (the Crimea). He next commanded the First Rifle Guards Battalion. On 9 June 1857, he retired because of ill health, at the rank of colonel and “with uniform,” i.e., the right to continue wearing his uniform. On recovering, he was invited to return to service and was appointed both a colonel and an aide-de-camp to Emperor Alexander II, but continuing poor health prevented him from engaging in military service. In January 1864, he was promoted to actual state councilor (4th grade) and made master of the hunt to the emperor. He traveled to Wiesbaden for the cure and after successfully completing it journeyed back to Russia. On 25 July 1864, he returned home from the hunt to his estate in the village of Volyshovo in Pskov Province in seeming good health, but died suddenly during the night of 26 July, at the age of forty-five. He was a founder and member of the Imperial Archaeological Society, which was started in 1846, and from 1856 an acting member of the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities.4

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Sofia Vladimirovna (Golitsyna) Stroganova5 (11 November 1775 – 3 March 1845 OS; see Image 300) was the maternal grandmother of young Aleksandr Sergeevich Stroganov. She was the daughter of Prince Vladimir Borisovich Golitsyn (1731–1798) and Princess Natalia Petrovna Golitsyna (born Countess Chernysheva) (1741–1837). Like her siblings, she received her education primarily abroad as they accompanied their mother on the latter’s trips around Europe. This peripatetic life and education affected their fluency in Russian, a not uncommon phenomenon among the upper circles of Russian society. Sofia Vladimirovna, upon her return home, set about correcting this flaw, which included making herself translate into Russian Dante’s Inferno.

Memoirists record that in her youth she amazed all who knew her not only by her striking physical beauty but by her unusual qualities of mind and heart and her moral rectitude. In the last years of her life, now a bowed little old woman, she retained her forceful character, mental clarity, religious beliefs, and true understanding of what the welfare of one’s native land means. She was considered the ideal of the true Russian woman. These qualities inspired the poet Gavrila Derzhavin (1743–1816) to dedicate to her a poem containing the lines: “Oh Sofia, how pleasant you are in your innocent beauty, like limpid water sparkling in the roseate dawn.”

In 1793, she married Count Pavel Aleksandrovich Stroganov (1774–1817). After the birth of their only son, Aleksandr Pavlovich (1794–1814), the couple settled in St. Petersburg, where through her husband’s friendship with Grand Duke Aleksandr Pavlovich (the future Alexander I; see Image 418), they moved in Court circles. She became very close to Grand Duke Aleksandr Pavlovich’s wife, Grand Duchess Elizaveta Alekseevna (later Empress Maria Fyodorovna; see Images 415–416).

In the 1810s, tragedy struck her family. Her husband took their nineteen-year-old son into the active army as an ensign. On 23 February 1814, at the Battle of Craonne, the young man was decapitated by a bomb. In 1817, her husband died of tuberculosis. As lifetime heir to the Stroganov estate, she spent the rest of her life either at Marino, an estate in Novgorod Province, or at the Stroganov Palace in St. Petersburg, where she entertained St. Petersburg, Court, literary, and artistic society.

After the death of her husband, for some twenty-seven years she almost exclusively devoted herself to bringing order to the rundown state of the family’s properties, especially those in the Perm area. She strove particularly to better the lives of her serfs. Soon after her husband’s death, she conveyed to the serf, Volegov, whom she had put in charge of her lands, that he should first and foremost concern himself with the welfare of her serfs and only secondarily with the question of income from the estates. Persons participating in the administration of her estates were local inhabitants, former serfs, and their descendants. Those who needed specialized knowledge were educated first in schools set up by her in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and the village of Marino in Novgorod Province. They were even sent at her expense to institutions of higher learning in Western Europe. Many of them, even if they did not acquire an education beyond the schools set up by her, later left valuable academic works in the fields of local archaeology, history, ethnography, agriculture, and forestry. The abovementioned Volegov, for example, became a famous historian of the Stroganov family.

In addition to their son, Sofia Vladimirovna and Pavel Aleksandrovich had four daughters: Natalia (7 March 1796 – 7 October 1872), Aglaida (31 December 1799 – 12 February 1882), Adelaida (16 November 1802 – 11 June 1863), and Olga (1 June 1808 – 13 April 1837). Natalia, who married Count Sergei Grigorievich Stroganov (1794–1882), of another branch of the family, became the mother of Count Aleksandr Sergeevich Stroganov (1818–1864; see Image 299), whom Anna Whistler and her children met on the ship to St. Petersburg.

Upon the death of Sofia Vladimirovna, the St. Petersburg News carried the following announcement: “She will never be forgotten! She loved everything that was elegant, was a patron of literature and the fine arts, and was truly the mother of the poor. Sister and wife of two illustrious men of Russia, she upheld with dignity their lofty name and the glory that went with it.” Her funeral service was held in the Kazan Cathedral (see Image 126). She was buried in the Lazarus Church of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. All of her estates, together with the title of Count, passed at her death to Sergei Grigorievich Stroganov, the husband of her eldest daughter, Natalia Pavlovna.

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Prince Illarion Vasilievich Vasil’chikov6 (21 February 1776 – 21 February 1847; see Image 310) was the son of Brigadier Vasilii Alekseevich Vasil’chikov and Ekaterina Illarionovna (Ovtsyna) Vasil’chikova (d. 1832). Registered in early childhood in the Izmailov regiment, he began his service as a non-commissioned officer in the Horse Guard in 1792 and on 1 January 1793 received the rank of cornet. His rise began in the reign of Paul I, who in 1799 appointed him a “gentleman of the bedchamber” (kamerger). His service at the Court and in the Guard brought him close to the heir to the throne, Grand Duke Aleksandr Pavlovich. When the latter became Alexander I (see Image 418), Vasil’chikov was made a major general and adjutant-general. Appointed in 1803 commander-in-chief of the Akhtyr Hussar Regiment, he participated with Alexander I in the campaign of 1807. The campaigns of 1812–1814 gave him the opportunity to demonstrate even further his military capability. For his participation at the battle of Borodino, where he was wounded, he was promoted to lieutenant general. At Kaiserswald, where he was wounded a second time, he beat the French, while at Katzbach, commanding the entire cavalry of the Silesian Army, he was again victorious. After Leipzig, he pursued the enemy to the Rhine. For his actions at Lapotière he was awarded the Order of St. George (2nd class). Upon the conclusion of the Paris Peace, he was sent to Moscow to deliver the news. In France, he formed the Life Guard Horse Grenadier Regiment and was appointed its commander-in-chief. In 1814, he was assigned the Guards Light Cavalry Division and in 1817 the Guard Corps. His position as corps commander-in-chief was difficult, because he had to battle both the machinations of the enemy and the over-anxiety and mistrust of Alexander I. The well-known Semenov Revolt (1820) (see events leading up to the Decembrist Rebellion) took place while he was in the army, for which he was subjected to much criticism. In 1821, he asked to be released from his duties and was appointed a member of the State Senate. He played a prominent role in the suppression of the Decembrist Rebellion, convincing Nicholas I of the necessity of taking decisive measures. When his proposal that the rebels must be met by gunfire was greeted by Nicholas with the reply that “Vasil’chikov was proposing he begin his reign by spilling the blood of his loyal citizens,” Vasil’chikov replied: “Yes, to save your Empire.” On Coronation Day, Vasil’chikov received the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called. In 1831, he was appointed to command the troops in St. Petersburg and its environs, and on 6 December of that year he received the title of count. In 1833, he was appointed inspector general of Cavalry and commander-in-chief of the Akhtyr Hussar Regiment. In 1838, he took on the role of president of the State Council and the Committee of Ministers. On 1 January 1839, he was awarded the title of prince. He died on 21 February 1847 after severe suffering. His funeral was held in the Preobrazhenskii Cathedral, and he was buried at his estate in Novgorod Province.

His first wife was Vera Petrovna (Protasova) Vasil’chikova (1780 –2 October 1814), whom he married in 1801. His second wife was Tat’iana Vasilievna (Pashkova) (1793–1875). He was the uncle of Tat’iana Dmitrievna Vasil’chikova (see Image 301), fiancée of Count Aleksandr Sergeevich Stroganov, Anna Whistler’s “young Count Strauganauf,” and of Ekaterina Dmitrievna (Vasil’chikova) Kusheleva (see Image 303).

The comments of Vasil’chikov’s contemporaries show him to have been the most attractive of all those who served Nicholas I. He was considered reasonable, truth-loving, unselfish, independent in his thinking, and a true knight of honor, and felt to have deservedly earned the trust of Alexander I and Nicholas I. He was one of the few who did not kowtow to the all-powerful Aleksei Andreevich Arakcheev (1769–1834; see Image 244), famous for the establishment of military colonies of Draconian discipline. When Nicholas I, while still Grand Duke, insulted the Guards officer, Norov, on parade, Vasil’chikov convinced him to apologize. Nicholas I, recalling his youthful hot temper, thanked Vasil’chikov for having insisted on the apology. Modest Korf (1800–1876) said Vasil’chikov was the only person who at all times and in all matters had free access to and free speech with the emperor. He was a person whom Nicholas I not only loved but esteemed as he did no one else. He was the one in whom his Monarch never suspected hidden motive, whom he trusted completely and unreservedly as a straightforward and loyal advisor, almost a mentor, and someone he considered and called a friend. On Vasil’chikov’s death, Nicholas I said: “Monarchs should thank heaven for such people.”

Anna Whistler and Willie witnessed the funeral procession on Tuesday, 25 February / 9 March 1847.

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Dmitrii Vasilievich Vasil’chikov (1778–1859; see Image 304)7 was also the son of Brigadier Vasilii Alekseevich Vasil’chikov and Ekaterina Illarionovna (Ovtsyna) Vasil’chikova. He was the younger brother of Illarion Vasilievich Vasil’chikov (1776–1847). At the age of seven, he was registered as a sergeant in the Preobrazhenskii Regiment. He entered active duty in 1794 in the Horse Guard and in 1796 was promoted to cornet. Like his brother, he moved ahead in his career during the reign of Paul I. In 1799, he was made an actual gentleman of the bedchamber (kamerger). At a time when most of his contemporaries remembered the final years of the reign of Paul I (see Image 417) with horror, Dmitrii Vasilievich retained the most pleasant memories of it as an unprecedented time of fun. In old age, he used to tell the story of a daring action on his part that could have brought the monarch’s anger down upon him. Paul I had forbidden dancing the waltz. A lady whom Dmitrii Vasilievich was interested in told him at a ball that she wanted to waltz. He, in the name of Paul I, ordered the orchestra to play a waltz and danced with her. Paul I found that the couple danced the waltz beautifully, and from then on the ban was lifted.

In 1800, he was appointed a counselor to the State Expedition for Inspecting Accounts. In 1801 (now the reign of Alexander I), he was made captain in the Horse Guards Regiment, in 1802 promoted to colonel, and in 1804 again appointed actual gentleman of the bedchamber (kamerger). In 1808, he was transfered to the Akhtyr Hussar Regiment and participated in the campaign in Galicia in 1808 and in the Fatherland War in 1809, for which he received the Order of St. Vladimir (3rd class), and the Order of St. George (4th class), and the rank of major-general. In 1812 and in subsequent years, he displayed outstanding bravery, for which he received further orders: the Order of St. Anne (1st class) (Katzbach), the Order of St. George (3rd class) (Leipzig), the Order of St. Vladimir (2nd class) (Lapotiére), and a gold weapon. In 1814, he was put in command of a brigade in the Second Hussar Division, with which he entered Paris. In 1816, he was put in command of the First Uhlan Division. Retired in 1822 because of illness, he again entered service in 1830, but this time attached to the Imperial Court as vice-president of the Imperial Commisary Office, and held the title of head of the Imperial Household Economy and Imperial Court Staff. In 1832, he was appointed master of the hunt in charge of organizing the Imperial Hunt. He was also put in charge of the household economy and staff of the court of Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich (see Image 439). As of 1838, he was in charge of the Imperial Hunt and as of 1846 became a member of the State Council. He devoted a part of his time to social philanthropic institutions, first as member and from 1853 as president of the Council of Institutions of Social Welfare and trustee of several hospitals. He not only achieved the highest ranks, but also was the recipient of the highest orders of Russia, including the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called with diamonds. He died in 1859 and was buried at his estate in Novgorod Province.

Dmitrii Vasilievich was handsome and in character mild, merry, and lively. Because of his kindness, he was much loved by his subordinates. Ardent and brave, he was one of the outstanding cavalrists of his time. For the intrepid attack of his brigade against the French flank, Field Marshall Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (1742–1819) kissed him with gusto on the battlefield in the presence of all the troops. A negative assessment of him does exist: the Decembrist, I.D. Iakushkin (1793–1857), called him a bad person.

From his marriage to Adelaida Petrovna Apraksina, he had four daughters: Elizaveta (1805–1890); Sofia (1809–1887); Ekaterina (6/18 December 1811 – 1874), the wife of Count Grigorii Grigorievich Kushelev (see his biography in this essay); and Tat’iana (1823–1880), the fiancée of Count Alexandr Sergeevich Stroganov (1818–1864), the young man Anna Whistler and her family met on board their ship bound for St. Petersburg (see his biography in this essay).

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Count Grigorii Grigorievich Kushelev8 (9/12 March 1802 – 17/29 February 1855; see Image 302) was the younger of the two sons of Count Grigorii Grigorievich Kushelev (1754–1833) and Countess Liubov’ Ilinichna (Bezborodko) Kusheleva (1783–1809). He began his service in 1819 in the Guards Horse Artillery. In 1827, he participated in the Russo–Persian War of 1826–1828 and was present at the taking of Echmiadzin. In 1828, he participated in the Russo–Turkish War of 1828–1829 and was promoted to captain for excellence at the Battle for Shumla. Sent from the environs of Silistria to St. Petersburg with dispatches, he was made aide-de-camp to Nicholas I. In 1831, he was promoted to colonel. As of 1838, he was vice-director of the Artillery Department of the Ministry of War. In 1839, he was promoted to major-general and appointed to the emperor’s suite. As of 1840, he became director of the Artillery Department of the Ministry of War. Starting in 1846, he was a member of the War Council.

He was married to Ekaterina Dmitrievna Vasil’chikova (6/18 December 1811 – 1874; see Image 303), third daughter of General-of-Calvary Dmitrii Vasilievich Vasil’chikov (1788–1859) and Countess Adelaida Petrovna (Apraksina) Vasil’chikova (1785–1851). The Kushelevs were childless, but had an adopted daughter, Maria Grigorievna Bogdanova (c. 1840 – Florence, Italy 23 July 1901), called “Mania” for short, who, when Anna Whistler attended their fête for their peasants in September 1846, was about five years and seven months old. At the fête, Anna Whistler learned brief details of the history of the fortunate child.

The official history of the child is as follows. According to a certificate issued on 17 January 1845 by the St. Petersburg Temporary Board of Decorum, Major General Count Grigorii Grigorievich Kushelev expressed the wish to take it upon himself to bring up a baby of the female sex that had been abandoned to his care on 6 January 1841 by a person or persons unknown and christened Maria, having as his intention that when this foundling should reach maturity she could on the basis of articles 932 and 1082 of Vol. 9 concerning estates, be registered according to his choice for some kind of life in the taxpaying class. In his last will and testament, dated 6 April (OS) 1853, Count Kushelev, stating that he was childless, asked his nephews, who were his heirs, to honor his wish that Maria receive forty thousand silver rubles, which were to be given to his wife for safekeeping. His heirs agreed to carry out his wishes. In the event that his wife should die at the same time as he, he willed to Maria, “our ward, and my godchild,” property that he was otherwise leaving to his wife: two houses with all effects and the farm Ligovo. Ligovo could be sold and the money deposited in the bank for safekeeping until Maria’s marriage. She was also to receive all the capital and monies that were in the form of securities, except for a portion that was to go to the Kushelev’s steward, Zakhar Zakharovich Maklotlin. On 14 November 1856 (OS), the Ministry of Justice sent a proposal to the governing Senate to the effect that Emperor Aleksandr Nikolaevich had granted the petition of Count Kushelev’s widow that her ward, Maria Grigorievna Bogdanova, be permitted to take the name of Kushelev, with the right to possess those inhabited estates which might be willed to her by the Countess Kusheleva. Maria Bogdanova was permitted to take the name Kushelev with full noble privileges but without noble title. This royal permission granted her was not, however, to serve as a precedent.

Maria Grigorievna Kusheleva was not beautiful, but was considered to possess great charm and was famous for her sharp tongue. She married first on 1/13 August 1858 in St. Petersburg Prince Boris Nikolaevich Golitsyn (1833–1888). She divorced him in 1870 and married the Italian, Marquis Incontri, and lived in Florence, where she died. From her first marriage she had a son, Boris Borisovich Golitsyn (1862–1916), who became a famous physicist and mathematician and a specialist in seismology.9

Kushelev was one of numerous aristocrats who engaged in experimental agriculture. His estate, Ligovo, was located on the Peterhof Road at the thirteenth verst, at the turnoff for Krasnoe Selo. He had acquired it in 1840 and enlarged it in 1844 through his purchase of the bordering dachas of the English merchant N.A. Blando and of Privy Councilor M.P. Pozin. In 1845, the estate amounted to 2700 desiatinas of land (1 d. = 2.7 acres), consisting of farmland, meadows, woods, marshes, buildings, gardens, conservatories, and a lake. The main focus in planting on his model farm was oats, hay, and potatoes. The dairy was new and in 1845 had not yet been completed. Surplus milk was sold in the city. The buildings were constructed of bricks made at Ligovo’s own factory, which was famous in the surrounding countryside. The roofs covering the majority of the farm buildings were made of a paper that was cheaper and lighter than iron and very strong. The raising of horses was considered to be at such a level of perfection that horse connoisseurs came there to observe the procedures used. A Scotsman, Richard Watson McLothlin (c. 1794 – 14/26 May 1861), was the expert in charge of horsebreeding, as well as overseer of the entire estate. The Ligovo peasants numbered more than three hundred. Everyone connected with the estate was very well treated, as the wills of both Grigorii Grigorievich and his wife show.

The Kushelevs also had a mansion on the corner of Palace Square (or Quay) in St. Petersburg. Two governesses, Fanny Swan and Mrs. Willis, widow, were residing there in 1845. In 1846, Andrei Ivanovich Shtakenshneider (1802–1865), who was considered at the time one of the best architects and was the personal favorite of Nicholas I, designed and built for the Kushelevs a mansion in the early Florentine Renaissance style on the Fontanka Embankment. The artist Luigi Premazzi (1814–1891) executed exquisite watercolors of this building and its interiors in the second half of the 1840s (see Image 151).

Notes