BREED
The Lopukhins are an ancient family, allegedly descending from the Kasozh (Adyghe) prince Rededi, who was killed in 1022 by the Tumutarakan prince Mstislav. Genealogy of the Rededich-Lopukhins - http://lopukhins.narod.ru/rospis-full.htm, more than 500 names. The early segment of the genealogy looks unreliable, it is possible that Rededi's ancestors entered the Russian service in the 13th century, there is such a version. Ancestor of the Lopukhins Mikhail Yurievich Sorokoum (early XIV century, boyar Ivan Kalita,received, as we see, a nickname that appreciates wisdom. The descendants of Sorokoum took root in the Novgorod and Pskov lands. There are many well-known historical figures in their branched family, and on the female line - Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich and his son, Emperor Peter II.
I am interested in such a phenomenon as BREED - unusual external genetic manifestations that are not erased for a long time in the genus, despite the usual dilution of blood (such as the saggy lower lip of the Habsburgs).
On the example of the Lopukhins, there is such a sign - long-headedness. This and other generic Lopukhin external features were drawn by S. Petukhov's article "Family Life of Peter the Great" in No. 7 "Knowledge is Power" http://www.znanie-sila.ru/online/issue_2833.html, which proved that blood Lopukhins was stronger than the blood of the Romanovs-Naryshkins.
This issue requires further study.

Alas, there are few portraits of the Lopukhins needed for research. But still they are, let's look at them again.

Imperial line.

Evdokia Lopukhina Alexey Petrovich Petr Alekseevich

A long head, a high forehead, a long straight nose, characteristic large brow ridges are typical Lopukhin features.

To what extent were they reproduced in other Lopukhins and their close and distant relatives?

Close relatives.
Take Evdokia's nephews.
Alexander Borisovich Kurakin Ivan Vladimirovich Lopukhin
1697-1749, 1756 - 1816, cousin-nephew,
son of Xenia's sister, grandson of Evdokia's uncle Peter the Great Lopukhin

In this branch, the features of the Lopukhins are clearly visible - the appearance of Ivan Vladimirovich is amazing. His portrait was taken from the same perspective as that of his second cousin, Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, and the features are very close.

Far branch.

Most Serene Prince His daughter, Anna Petrovna His son, His Serene Highness Prince Paul
Pyotr Vasilievich Lopukhin Lopukhin-GagarinPetrovich Lopukhin
(1744 - 1827) (1777 - 1805) (1788 - 1873)

And here these generic features are there, but they begin to blur. Pyotr Vasilievich's eyebrows are of a different shape, his round-headed son, his daughter's small nose.
CONCLUSION: The breed phenomenon is probably a set of dominant traits that persist for a long time even after dilution. Interestingly, however, to what extent do abilities correlate with phenotype?
The Lopukhins were quite noticeable, there were at least 5 governors of the 18th century among them, as the authors of one article note (

The meaning of the word LOPUKHINS in the Brief Biographical Encyclopedia

LOPUKHINS

The Lopukhins are a Russian princely and noble family, descending, according to legend, from the Kasozhian prince Rededi, whose descendant, Vasily Varfolomeevich Glebov, nicknamed Lopukha, was the ancestor of the Lopukhins. Nikita Vasilyevich Lopukhin was a governor in Borovsk, his son Abraham (died in 1685) was a duma clerk, then a duma nobleman. Illarion Dimitrievich Lopukhin (died in 1671) was later a duma clerk and one of the tsar's plenipotentiaries in Baturin for the annexation of Little Russia, later a duma nobleman and second judge of the Kazan Palace. Of the sons of Abraham Nikitich, four were boyars; one of them, Fedor, nicknamed Larion (died in 1713), was the father of Evdokia Fedorovna, the first wife of Peter the Great. Stepan Vasilievich Lopukhin, cousin of Empress Evdokia, was brought up in London and was governor in Astrakhan (1742); Vasily Abramovich, nephew of Tsarina Evdokia Feodorovna, participated in the wars with Turkey, Sweden and Prussia; in 1757 he was mortally wounded in the battle of Gross-Egernsdorf. Vladimir Ivanovich (1705 - 1797), served in the navy and army, participated in the wars with Poland and Turkey. About his son Ivan Vladimirovich Lopukhin, see above. Pyotr Vasilyevich (1744 - 1827), who was the governor-general of Yaroslavl and Vologda under Catherine II, the prosecutor general under Paul I, the minister of justice under Alexander I (1803 - 1810), the chairman of the state council and the committee of ministers, in 1799 he was elevated was in princely dignity with the title of lordship. His daughter, Anna Petrovna (1777 - 1805), a maid of honor and a cavalry lady who contributed to the elevation of her father, enjoyed the favor of Paul I. His son, Pavel Petrovich Lopukhin (1788 - 1873), took part in the campaign of 1812. With the death of his family princes Lopukhins stopped; their surname and title, since 1873, passed into the Demidov clan. The Lopukhins family is included in the VI part of the genealogical books of the Vladimir, Kyiv, Moscow, Novgorod, Oryol, Pskov, Tver and Tula provinces.

Brief biographical encyclopedia. 2012

See also interpretations, synonyms, meanings of the word and what LOPUKHINS are in Russian in dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference books:

• LOPUKHINS in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Euphron:
  princely and noble family, descended from the legendary Kasozh prince. Rededi, whose descendant, Vasily Varfolomeevich Glebov, nicknamed Burdock, was the ancestor of L. ...
• LOPUKHINS in the Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron:
  ? a princely and noble family descended from the legendary Kassozhian prince Rededi, whose descendant, Vasily Varfolomeevich Glebov, nicknamed Burdock, was the ancestor of ...
• TVER JOHN THE BAPTIST CHURCH in the Orthodox Encyclopedia Tree:
  Open Orthodox Encyclopedia "TREE". Temple in the name of St. John the Baptist in the city of Tver. Address: Tver, Belyakovsky (up to ...

Her beauty was so dazzling that, as the folk legend says, when the soldiers were ordered to shoot her, they, out of fear of seduction, fired at her, closing their eyes, not daring even to look at her face. This information is not entirely accurate, although the execution did take place. In fact, no one shot, no one squinted, no one lowered his eyes. On the contrary, the crowd, greedy for spectacles, which flooded Vasilevsky Island on August 29, 1743, looked with all its eyes at the scaffold, hastily put together from dirty boards, and at the formidable, with faces like udders, shoulder craftsmen, and at the impressive size of the bell announcing about the start of the execution. After reading the “most merciful” royal decree, which sentenced her to whipping, cutting out her tongue, confiscation of property and exile in Siberia, an executioner approached her, roughly tore off her mantilla and tore her shirt. She wept, trying in vain to tear off her dress to cover her nakedness. Then one of the executors seized her by the arms imperiously, turned and threw her on his back, while the other inflicted one after another cruel whistling blows with a whip - one, two, three. After that, a new executioner approached the exhausted woman, either with tongs or with a knife in his hand. Unclenching the unfortunate jaw, he put the tool into his mouth and with a swift movement pulled out most of the tongue.

Who needs language? - he shouted with a laugh, addressing the people, - Buy it, sell it cheap! ..

How did this woman, Natalya Fedorovna Lopukhina (nee Balk) (1699-1763), who was dealt with like an inveterate state criminal, incur the royal wrath? The answer to the question is given by her whole life, and therefore let us first turn to the pedigree of our heroine. On her mother's side, Natalya came from the notorious Mons family in Russian history, from whom she inherited her wonderful beauty. Her own aunt, charming Anna Mons, as we already wrote, was for ten years the subject of love of Peter the Great himself, and her uncle, handsome and dandy Willim Mons, turned the head of Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna. However, they suffered severely from the eccentric king; Natalya's mother, Matryona Mons (Balk), also got it, who was publicly whipped for indulging her brother, and then sent out of the capital (and this despite the fact that she was also Peter's concubine at one time). So Natalya Fedorovna, as the offspring of a disgraced family, had reasons for persistent hatred of the tsar-transformer.

It was not easy to have a relationship with Peter I and Natalya's husband, Stepan Vasilyevich Lopukhin, who was the cousin of Peter's first hateful wife, Evdokia Lopukhina, imprisoned by the tsar in a monastery under a "strong guard". It was Peter, contrary to his declared decree not to force the young to marry, who literally insisted on the marriage of Natalya with Stepan, although they openly admitted that they did not feel the slightest attraction to each other. Stepan Lopukhin later said:

“Peter the Great forced us to marry; I knew that she hated me, and was completely indifferent to her, despite her beauty.

However, in the very first year of their marriage in Russia, a trial broke out over Tsarevich Alexei, during which the brother of Evdokia, who was languishing in the monastery, Abram Fedorovich Lopukhin, laid down his head on the block; other representatives of the genus ended up in a distant Siberian exile.

The young couple also suffered. The modern historian Leonid Levin explained the reason for the persecution of Stepan: “There is an episode that took place in 1719, in the church during the funeral of the son of Peter I from the second wife of Peter Petrovich, dearly beloved by his father; standing at the coffin of the child, Lopukhin defiantly laughed and loudly said that “the candle did not go out”, alluding to the only descendant of Peter in the male line - Peter Alekseevich - the son of the executed Alexei.

For such a daring act, Stepan was put on trial, beaten with batogs and exiled with his young wife to the White Sea, to Kola. But before exile, he managed to get even with the scammer, the clerk Kudryashov, and beat him mercilessly. Hot-tempered and violent was Lopukhin, distinguished by remarkable physical strength. Once in Kola, he literally terrorized all the guards - he beat the soldiers, and “hit the sergeant on the head with a club and this club about him, the sergeant, broke his head.” The guard sent one complaint after another to the capital: “He beat and maimed the soldiers so much that many almost died”; “Even an angel of God will not get along with him, and if you give him free rein, then no one will remain in prison for six months.” He, like Natalya, bonfired Peter I, who dealt so severely with his relatives. The ubiquitous Secret Chancellery ordered to beat the obstinate prisoner with batogs again, but he still did not let up.

Finally, the long-awaited will came, and the Lopukhins couple settled in Moscow, and with the accession of Peter II (that same “not extinguished candle”), they, like their other relatives, were returned to the Court. A special honor was surrounded by the “empress-grandmother” of the young emperor - Evdokia Lopukhina, with whom Stepan was friendly.

The Lopukhins were also treated kindly under Empress Anna Ioannovna: they were given rich estates;

Stepan received the rank of general, and Natalya became one of the most prominent state ladies of Her Majesty's Court, standing out for her desperate panache. Here is how Valentin Pikul describes her preparations for going out: “I washed my white breasts with Danish water, infused with cucumbers. The girls with handkerchiefs jumped up and began to wipe her breasts. Natasha washed her face with May milk from a black cow - for the sake of whiteness (already white). For ease of step, she rubbed her heels with bitter almonds: there is a fair amount of dancing to be done. In the incision of the chest, she pasted a fly - a boat with a sail. She took out another - with a heart, and - on her forehead! To indicate voluptuous languor, she drew blue arrows on her temples, she realized that she was ready for love. Lopukhina was known as the standard of beauty, the trendsetter of court fashions and enjoyed resounding success in society. In addition to her irresistible beauty, whose main charm was dark and languid eyes, she was intelligent and educated. Her biographer, historian and writer of the 19th century Dmitry Bantysh-Kamensky enthusiastically wrote: “A crowd of admirers constantly surrounded the beautiful Natalya, with whom she danced, whom she honored with a conversation, he considered himself the happiest of mortals. Where she was not, forced merriment reigned; she appeared - joy animated the society; ... the beauties noticed intently what dress she adorned, so that at least they looked like her attire.

An interesting document has come down to us. This is the register of a tailor, a certain Yagan Gildebrant, about work done but not paid for by Lopukhina. Here the beauty was presented with a bill: “For the work of the purple Samara and for the butt of bones, silk and krashenin - 3 rubles; for the work of lacing - 4 rubles; for the work of a fizhbenny skirt and for the dressing of one of the bones - 4 rubles; for the work of the made obyarinnova samara and for the butt of bones and silk; for the work of the orange-colored dream samara and for the butt of it and silk. We will not dwell on the specific details of clothing of that time mentioned here. We only note that samara (or kontush) is, as costume historians write, “a child of the gallant age. wide clothes with a neckline, without a waist, falling in free folds to the floor; ... a bodice was attached to it, which, although it outlined the bust, but only in front”; and fizhbenny was called a skirt with bones sewn into it or a whalebone. As for the coloring of the dress, our dandy preferred, apparently, catchy colors, although she had long passed over thirty.

Another extraordinary beauty shone at the Court of the Empress - the daughter of Peter I, Tsarina Elizabeth. According to the description of the wife of the English envoy, Lady Jane Vigor (Rondo), she had excellent brown hair, expressive blue eyes, healthy teeth and a charming mouth. She had an external gloss: she spoke excellent French, danced gracefully, was always cheerful and entertaining in conversations. In addition, Elizabeth was ten years younger than Natalia.

Beauty admirers were divided into two camps - some gave the palm to Natalia, others - to Elizabeth. Among the latter was the Chinese ambassador: when he was asked in 1734 who the most charming woman at court was, he directly pointed to Elizabeth. However, Lopukhina, who ruined, as a contemporary says, “a lot of hearts,” there were much more adherents. Let's not become like the mythical Paris, who undertook to judge which of the beauties is better. We only emphasize that between the ladies, who tried in every possible way to outdo each other, there was a long-standing rivalry. Competing with Elizabeth, like a woman with a woman, Lopukhina, having found out in what dress she was going to be at the court or at the ball, she could order the same dress for herself and appear in it in society, very annoying the ambitious princess. However, under Anna Ioannovna and, especially, later, under the ruler Anna Leopoldovna, such injections, sensitive for Elizabeth, not only got away with Natalya, but also aroused ridicule over Peter's daughter, who did not then enjoy special weight and influence. An additional incentive in this dandy battle was given by Lopukhina, her hatred for Peter, which passed on to his daughter. It seems that Elizabeth, too, has harbored a sharp resentment against Natalya Fedorovna ever since.

For all their outward dissimilarity, both ladies were the object of gossip. Natalya was called a "fornicator rogue", and Elizabeth was equally blamed for her "scattered life." We will not give the names of the favorites of the princess, because she is not the heroine of our story. As for Lopukhina, then, in our opinion, she was condemned in vain. Yes, she did not keep marital fidelity. But after all, her marriage to the unloved was doomed from the very beginning. By the way, Stepan Lopukhin also understood this - he did not reproach his wife for treason at all, but to some extent justified her, saying: “Why should I be embarrassed by her connection with the person she likes, especially since I need to give her justice, she behaves as decently as her position allows her.”

For Natalia, the dapper Chief Marshal, Count Reingold Gustav Levenvolde became such a person. “I owe happiness to women,” they said about him. But it must be admitted that the long, disinterested relationship with Lopukhina, proven over the years, did not add to Reingold any titles or regalia and was explained precisely by a heartfelt inclination. And although he cannot be called a faithful lover (it was rumored that he kept a whole series of Circassian beauties at home), the count was constant in relations with Natalya and revealed to her the best sides of his nature. Lopukhina could not even look at anyone, except Levenvolde, dear to her!

She fully shared his political views. And the sympathies of Levenvolde and, accordingly, Lopukhina were on the side of the pro-Austrian party. Such a political orientation was followed by the Court of Anna of Brunswick, managed by Vice-Chancellor Andrey Osterman, who liked to remain in the shadows. Among the welcome guests of the Court was the Austrian envoy Antonio Otto Botta d'Adorno, for whom Natalia and Reingold had deep respect.

In general, the time of Emperor John Antonovich and the regent Anna Leopoldovna, who ruled for him, was golden for the Lopukhin family. Stepan Vasilyevich took the prominent post of General-Kriegs-Commissar. Shone at the Court and Natalya Fedorovna. And their son, Ivan Stepanovich, was appointed chamber junker and accepted into the intimate circle of those especially close to the ruler. He also made friends with Anna Leopoldovna's influential favorite, Karl Moritz Linar.

But the happiness of the Lopukhins collapsed overnight on November 25, 1741, when, as a result of a coup carried out by the guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, Elizaveta Petrovna came to power, and the Braunschweig family was deposed and exiled. First of all, the new empress dealt with the leading dignitaries of the previous reign. Tragic was the fate of Levenvolde, who was exiled to a permanent residence in distant Solikamsk. The Lopukhins also fell into disgrace: the estates granted by Anna were taken from them. He lost his position and was dismissed with the same rank, without any promotion or award, Stepan Vasilyevich; Ivan Stepanovich was expelled from the chamber junkers (he was transferred as a lieutenant colonel to the army, without being assigned to a regiment); Natalya Feodorovna, although she continued to be a state lady, felt the dislike of the monarch.

But most of all, Lopukhina was depressed by the position of her beloved Reinhold Gustav, for whom she passionately thirsted for revenge. And she took revenge on Elizabeth in a purely feminine way. Despite the ban on appearing at balls and at the palace in a dress of the same color as that of the empress, the masterful lady of state dressed, as before, in an outfit not only of the same color, but also of the same cut. In addition, she decorated her hair with the same rose as Elizabeth's. This defiant disobedience to the royal ban was perceived as an unheard of desperate impudence - the empress forced Natalya to kneel and, armed with scissors, cut a rose from her head and, in addition, whipped her cheeks. Such a trick by Lopukhina was all the more unbearable for Elizabeth because, having become an autocratic empress, she no longer tolerated rivalry and praise of someone else's beauty. And who, it would seem, would dare to compete with this crowned dandy? But Natalya Fedorovna dared, wanting to avenge her beloved! After the said scene, she completely stopped attending balls in the palace (later she will be reminded of this: “I didn’t go to the palace without permission.”).

Danger, however, crept up on the Lopukhins from another, unexpected side. Looking ahead, let's say that they became one of the targets in the struggle between court and political parties that unfolded at the Court of the Empress. It all started with the fact that Natalya Fedorovna, having learned that a new bailiff, cuirassier lieutenant Yakov Berger, was going to the place of Reinhold Gustav's exile, to distant Solikamsk, decided to send news to the dear. She instructed her son, Ivan, to convey her bow to the exile through Berger: “Count Levenwolde is not forgotten by his friends and should not lose hope, better times will not be delayed for him!”

Holy innocence! The unscrupulous careerist Berger was only waiting for an opportunity to rise at any cost, including a loyal denunciation. He immediately hurried to Elizabeth's personal doctor, the influential Johann Herman Lestok, to whom he told exactly the words of Lopukhina. Thanks to this, Berger's appointment to God-forgotten Solikamsk was cancelled. He stayed in St. Petersburg and was instructed to find out from Ivan Stepanovich on what the Lopukhins base their hopes that the fate of Levenvolde will change for the better. Berger, together with another scammer, Captain Matvey Falkenberg, invited the young Lopukhin to a tavern, made him drunk and began to eagerly listen to his drunken revelations. The bitter resentment of the family against the new government immediately spilled out. “The Empress goes to Tsarskoe Selo and takes bad people with her,” drunk Ivan almost shouted, “she loves extremely English beer. She shouldn't have been heir to the throne; she's illegitimate - she was born three years before her parents' wedding. The current rulers of the state are all rubbish, not like the former ones - Osterman and Levenvolde; Lestok alone is only a nimble rascal with the empress. Soon, soon there will be a change! My father wrote to my mother, so that I would not seek any mercy from the current empress. Annoying more than the talkative Lopukhin, Falkenberg casually asked: “Is there anyone more here?” And Ivan threw the phrase, dear

costing the entire Lopukhin family: “Austrian ambassador, Marquis Botta, a faithful servant and well-wisher to Emperor John.”

Having learned about the rantings of the younger Lopukhin, the “agile rascal” Lestok was inspired. Imagination painted him an ominous picture of a total conspiracy against Elizabeth, the threads of which he, a life doctor devoted to the monarch, was called upon to unravel. What is the Lopukhins, when the enemy of the throne was a more important bird - the Austrian emissary Botta himself! However, he immediately remembered that Natalya was friends with Anna Gavrilovna (nee Golovkina, from Yaguzhinskaya's first marriage), the wife of Mikhail Petrovich Bestuzhev. And her beloved brother of Anna Gavrilovna, Mikhail Gavrilovich Golovkin, like Levenvolde, was sent to Siberian exile, therefore, Bestuzheva does not favor the new government. At the same time, she, like Lopukhina, was friendly with the Austrian marquis. But Anna Gavrilovna was also interested in Lestok not in herself, but only because she was the daughter-in-law of his main rival at the Court - Vice-Chancellor Alexei Petrovich Bestuzhev, who did not support his Franco-Prussian sympathies, but firmly bent his political line towards an alliance with Austria. Thus, the most important task that Lestok set for himself was to drag the vice-chancellor into the case, dump him and thereby strengthen his influence on the empress.

And then everything seemed to go according to the plan developed by Lestok. The first was seized, thrown into the dungeon, and the talkative Ivan was interrogated with prejudice. On the rack, he confessed everything and slandered his mother that the Marquis Botta came to her in Moscow and said: Help would be provided to the Braunschweig family. Under torture, Natalya Feodorovna also spoke. She admitted that the Marquis Botta had visited her house more than once and talked about the fate of the august family. “The words that he won’t calm down until he helps Princess Anna,” answered Lopukhina, “I heard from him and told him that they shouldn’t make porridge and don’t make trouble in Russia. We had a conversation with Countess Anna Bestuzheva about the words of Botta, and she said that Botta said the same thing with her.

Anna Gavrilovna Bestuzheva, also tortured, said: “I didn’t say secretly: God forbid, when they (the Brunswick surname) were released to the fatherland.” Stepan Vasilievich Lopukhin, who was distinguished by straightforwardness, was also called to the dungeons. He did not play up, but immediately admitted: “That I am dissatisfied and offended by Her Majesty, I talked about this with my wife and lamented such displeasure that. dismissed without awarding a rank; and for the princess [Anna Leopoldovna - L.B.] to be as before, I wished that I would be better with her.” He also confirmed that Botta spoke unflatteringly about the new empress and stigmatized the unrest of the current government. Several more people were involved in this mythical “conspiracy”, which in history was called the “Lopukhin case”, they were also punished for allegedly knowing about it, but not reporting it. According to Lestok, it was Botta who should have been the spring of the “conspiracy” - the life doctor directly told the interrogated that if they pointed to the Marquis, their fate would be alleviated.

However, Lestok's main goal - to eliminate Vice-Chancellor Alexei Bestuzhev - failed miserably. Even his brother, Mikhail Bestuzhev, who was married to the “state criminal” Anna Gavrilovna, did not suffer. She, Anna Bestuzheva, not only did not slander her husband, but completely whitewashed him.

The Russian Court insisted on exemplary punishment of Botta, about which Elizabeth wrote to Empress Maria Theresa of Austria-Hungary. The latter defended her emissary for some time, but then, not wanting to spoil relations with Russia, she sent him to Graz and kept him under guard there for a year.

The reprisal against the Russian defendants in the case was much more brutal. The General Assembly decided: Stepan, Natalya and Ivan Lopukhins, as well as Anna Bestuzheva, “having cut out their tongues, turn them on the wheel, put their bodies under the wheels.” However, Elizabeth, who swore that no death penalty would occur in her time in Russia, commuted the sentence and gave them life. But what a life!

The exiles were transported to the remotest corners of Siberia. The place of settlement of Anna Bestuzheva is known - she was taken to Yakutsk, 8617 miles from St. Petersburg. Natalya Fedorovna also ended up in Yakutia, in the town of Selenginsk. She lived there for twenty long years. Deprived of her tongue, she could not speak and let out a helpless lowing, which only those close to her were able to understand. It is noteworthy that she, a German by nationality and a Lutheran by religion, while in exile, on July 21, 1757, converted to Orthodoxy. What prompted her to do this? After all, the Russian God was so mercilessly strict with her. Perhaps suffering enlightened her, and she accepted them as the salvation of her soul, as the highest grace.

With the accession of Emperor Peter III, Lopukhina received forgiveness and returned to St. Petersburg. The exaggerated “Lopukhin case” was reviewed. Here is what Catherine II wrote about him: “All this is a real lie. Botta did not conspire, but he often visited the houses of Mrs. Lopukhina and Yaguzhinskaya; there they spoke somewhat unrestrainedly about Elizabeth, these speeches were conveyed to her; in all this business, with the exception of unrestrained conversations, not a trace of a conspiracy is visible; but it is true that they tried to find him in order to destroy the great chancellor Bestuzhev, the brother-in-law of Countess Yaguzhinskaya, who married the brother of the great chancellor in her second marriage.

In St. Petersburg, Natalya Fedorovna again began to visit society. But, summed up Dmitry Bantysh-Kamensky, "time and sadness have wiped out the beauty that caused Lopukhina's death."

The biographer concluded that Elizabeth killed Natalya out of envy of her beauty. One thing is certain: the lady, who dared to compete with the empress, aroused indignation and hostility in the latter. And therefore, Elizaveta Petrovna was glad to deal with her when an opportunity presented itself.

Natalya Lopukhina survived her offender and left the world already in the reign of Catherine II, on March 11, 1763, at the age of 64. In recent years, her beauty was no longer envied, no noisy crowd of admirers surrounded her, and no one believed that this withered, mute old woman had once been a rival of the empress herself.

Lev Berdnikov

From the book "Russian Gallant Age in Persons and Plots", Vol. 1

L opukhins - a Russian princely and noble family, descending, according to legend, from the Kasozh prince Rededi, whose descendant, Vasily Varfolomeevich Glebov, nicknamed Lopukha, was the ancestor of the Lopukhins. Nikita Vasilyevich Lopukhin was a governor in Borovsk, his son Abraham (died in 1685) was a duma clerk, then a duma nobleman. Illarion Dimitrievich Lopukhin (died in 1671) was later a duma clerk and one of the tsar's plenipotentiaries in Baturin for the annexation of Little Russia, later a duma nobleman and second judge of the Kazan Palace. Of the sons of Abraham Nikitich, four were boyars; one of them, Fyodor, surnamed Larion (died 1713), was the father of Evdokia Fyodorovna, the first wife of Peter the Great. Stepan Vasilievich Lopukhin, cousin of Empress Evdokia, was brought up in London and was governor in Astrakhan (1742); Vasily Abramovich, nephew of Tsarina Evdokia Feodorovna, participated in the wars with Turkey, Sweden and Prussia; in 1757 he was mortally wounded in the battle of Gross-Egernsdorf. Vladimir Ivanovich (1705 - 1797), served in the navy and army, participated in the wars with Poland and Turkey. About his son Ivan Vladimirovich Lopukhin, see above. Pyotr Vasilyevich (1744 - 1827), who was the governor-general of Yaroslavl and Vologda under Catherine II, the prosecutor general under Paul I, the minister of justice under Alexander I (1803 - 1810), the chairman of the state council and the committee of ministers, in 1799 he was elevated was in princely dignity with the title of lordship. His daughter, Anna Petrovna (1777 - 1805), a maid of honor and a cavalry lady who contributed to the elevation of her father, enjoyed the favor of Paul I. His son, Pavel Petrovich Lopukhin (1788 - 1873), took part in the campaign of 1812. With the death of his family princes Lopukhins stopped; their surname and title, since 1873, passed into the Demidov clan. The Lopukhins family is included in the VI part of the genealogical books of the Vladimir, Kyiv, Moscow, Novgorod, Oryol, Pskov, Tver and Tula provinces.

The noble family of the Lopukhins occupied an important role in the social hierarchy of the then society. But it cannot be said that Lopukhin was lucky in life. Involved in court coups, adventures and intrigues, the Lopukhins were increasingly mired in illegality and abuse. An evil fate hung over the Lopukhins family, which shrouded their entire subsequent history with an ominous mystical shadow. It is worth at least remembering Kaluga Governor Dmitry Ardalionovich Lopukhin, notorious for his office abuses, exposed in 1802 by a Special Commission headed by senator, poet Gavriil Romanovich Derzhavin, who became famous for his incorruptibility and justice. This case, notorious throughout the province, became the basis of the plot of the Gogol auditor. And it all happened like this: In 1801, the mayor Ivan Ivanovich Borisov, expressing the general indignation of Kaluga residents with the governor D. A. Lopukhin, wrote a petition to the tsar. Not only the democratic strata of the population, the poor, and serfs suffered from the governor's arbitrariness, as was usually the case, but complaints came from landowners, merchants and manufacturers. Perhaps that is why the complaints were given a quick move and Senator G. R. Derzhavin, known for his incorruptible honesty and justice, was sent to investigate them by the emperor. Not wanting to give the governor the opportunity to cover up the traces of his crimes, Derzhavin settled in the house of I. I. Borisov, introducing himself as a private person, and he himself began to collect information about Lopukhin's "activities". While doing the assigned work, G. R. Derzhavin got acquainted with the city along the way, twice visited the Main Public School, charitable institutions and the hospital, went to the Church of the Intercession. And only having supported the complaints of the townspeople with facts, he appeared in the provincial government with the announcement of his mission. The auditor visited the chambers of the civil and criminal courts to take documents and materials of interest to him for study. Derzhavin's report to the Senate on the results of the audit was strict and impartial, but Lopukhin managed to avoid trial and severe punishment. He was only removed from the post of Kaluga governor, as they say, "got off with a slight fright." This event with the Kaluga governor did not pass without a trace for the poet's work: this episode was reflected in the fable "The Peasant and the Oak".
Such an unpleasant event left a dark mark on the entire Lopukhin family. And, alas, not the only one. But the Lopukhins in terms of nobility and origin were not inferior to the legendary Rurikovich. According to legend, they descended from the Kassogian prince Rededi, the ruler of Tmutarakan, who was killed in 1022 in single combat with Prince Mstislav Vladimirovich. From them descended the offspring, whose representatives laid the foundation for many Russian noble families, including the Lopukhins. A descendant of the legendary Roman Rededich is Mikhail Yuryevich Sorokoum, a boyar under the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan Danilovich Kalita, who lived at the beginning of the 14th century. He had a son Gleb Mikhailovich, grandson Ilya Glebovich, great-grandson Grigory Ilyich Glebov and great-great-grandson Varfolomey Grigoryevich Glebov, whose son, Vasily, nicknamed Lopukh, became the ancestor of the Lopukhins.
Since the 15th century, representatives of the Lopukhin family served as governors, boyars and townsmen in Veliky Novgorod and Moscow. In 1689, the marriage of Tsar Peter I with Evdokia Fedorovna Lopukhina (1669-1731) contributed to the special elevation of the family. Due to this marriage, the father of the queen, Fedor (Illarion) Avraamovich (1638-1713) and his brothers - Peter the Great Avraamovich (1630 - 1701), Peter the Lesser Avraamovich (d. 1698), Vasily Avraamovich (1646-1698) and Sergei Avraamovich (d. 1711) were granted boyars. Subsequently, they all became victims of royal hostility and palace intrigues. The boyar Pyotr Avraamovich Bolshoi became the first among the Lopukhins to fall victim to the Tsar's enmity. The documents do not record the exact wording of the accusation against him, it is only known that a very powerful man, the boyar Lev Kirillovich Naryshkin, the brother of Tsar Peter's mother, who then headed the Posolsky order, "bashed" him. The king, in spite of the many services rendered to him; in his time, Pyotr Avraamovich, personally tortured the slandered, but with such predilection that the boyar could not stand it and died. The same fate, but somewhat later, befell the second of the brothers - Peter Avraamovich the Lesser. The peasants assigned to the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin complained about him to the Tsar. They claimed that "the boyar Lopukhin is killing peasants to death, but there is no trial against him." It is difficult to say how justified this accusation was and whether any inquiry was carried out, but Tsar Peter ordered "to bring the boyar to the Konstantinovsky dungeon." In the files of the secret Preobrazhensky order for 1697, “pompous sheets” were preserved, which say that, being raised on a rack and tortured, Pyotr Avraamovich spoke about the Tsar, that “he is a heretical son, conceived from the Antichrist, brought us boyar Golitsyn, and boyar Neplyuev , but he himself tortured his uncle boyar Pyotr Abramych Lopukhin, poured wine over him and set him on fire. And Pyotr Avraamovich the Lesser, as his elder brother, died during the tsar's "poignant inquiry." In the same year, when the conspiracy of prominent archery chiefs Sokovnin, Tsikler and Pushkin was discovered, Peter suspected other uncles of Tsaritsa Evdokia Feodorovna of participating in it. The tsar put them in disgrace, removing them from Moscow as governors to distant cities: boyar Fyodor Abramovich to Totma; Vasily Abramovich to Saransk; Sergei Avramovich - to Vyazma. And at night of that day, at five o'clock in the night, a sign was observed in the sky over Moscow - an unusual star with a tail appeared in the midday side of the sky.
Thus, the glorious, and at the same time tragic epic of the Lopukhins, which lasted almost eight years, ended with the appearance of an ominous comet. The further sad fate of the marriage of Tsar Peter Alekseevich and Tsarina Evdokia Feodorovna is known; she was tonsured a nun. The father of Tsarina Evdokia Fyodor Avraamovich later returned from Totma, but he no longer lived in Moscow, devoting himself entirely to managing his estates, building temples and founding monasteries. In the documents of 1705, he is shown among the boyars who live in their villages. Other brothers also returned from honorary exile, but they also did not participate in state affairs. The Lopukhins' estates were taken away, but their family estates remained in the possession of the family, which kept the Lopukhins among the largest Russian landowners, and this, in turn, became the key to their fairly quick return to state and public life.
But the persecution of the Lopukhins did not end with the defeat of 1695-1698 - this surname paid dearly for its proximity to the Russian throne. Later there were new disgraces, and torture, and executions, and not only by Tsar Peter Alekseevich, but also during the reign of his daughter, Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. Abraham Fedorovich Lopukhin, the younger brother of the disgraced Empress, was not subjected to obvious persecution in the first decades of Peter's reign. The tsar sent him abroad to study maritime affairs together with young people of the most noble families of Russia. Upon his return, he successfully served, although not in the navy - he was not allowed to the ships beloved by Peter. The end of the brother of the Queen was terrible. His martyrdom falls on the late time of Peter's reign. Abraham Fedorovich, despite strict prohibitions, kept in touch with his sister Tsarina Evdokia Feodorovna, he was also close to his nephew Tsarevich Alexei. The fact that the brother of the former Tsarina corresponded with her, the Tsar, apparently, did not know, but he knew that he spent a lot of time with the Tsarevich. Tsar Peter was informed about the “maliciousness” of the conversations of his uncle and nephew back in 1708, but he left the denunciation without consequences - either he considered the matter petty, unworthy of attention, or there was no time, the war with Charles XII of Sweden was in full swing, and the Poltava battle was still was coming. The situation began to change when, in 1716, Tsarevich Alexei fled from Russia to the Austrian Caesar. An embassy headed by Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy was dressed up behind him, and the naive Tsarevich fell into the nets set by his father. When Tolstoy brought the unfortunate man to Russia, an investigation began, which revealed, among others, the role of Abraham Fedorovich in the escape of the Heir to the Throne: he knew about him, but did not inform ... It became known about the participation of this Lopukhin in a group dissatisfied with the political course of Tsar Peter Alekseevich. In 1718, Abraham Fedorovich was tortured several times, and in the autumn the Governing Senate announced the verdict - the death penalty by wheeling ... It took place on December 8, 1718 in St. Petersburg, the new young capital of Russia. The severed head of Tsaritsyn's younger brother was impaled on a long iron rod, borrowed for this occasion from the Admiralty, and put on display for all to see in the crowded square of the Edible Market. And the broken body was left on the shameful wheel, where for several months it terrified the people of St. Petersburg, as a reminder of what awaits the Tsar's disobedient and Tsar's criminals.
Then, in connection with the “case of the Tsarevich”, more than one Abraham Fedorovich suffered. They took into custody and subjected his sister, Princess Anastasia Fyodorovna Troyekurova, nee Lopukhina, to a "pompous interrogation". Stepan Ivanovich Lopukhin was exiled to the Kola jail. Tsar Peter did not spare his ex-wife either - the Queen, who was dethroned, was brought to Moscow from the monastery and was also tormented in the "Preobrazhenskaya torture hut." And then Tsar Peter forcibly tonsured her as a nun, as evidenced by the folk song “The tonsure of the queen”, recorded from old people in the Nizhny Novgorod province:

It's unhealthy in Moscow -
The big bell is ringing mournfully,
Mournfully and sadly:
The Sovereign, the Tsar, was angry with the Tsaritsa,
The Tsar sends the Tsaritsa out of Moscow -
And in that monastery in Pokrovskaya.
As Empress Eudoxia will say:
“Where are my young grooms!
You pawn black horses,
You will go to Moscow - do not rush,
You don't make Moscow people laugh,
What can the Sovereign Tsar be touched,
Will he tell me to come back?"
However, the Tsar did not turn the Tsarina out of the way...
The Empress came to Suzdal,
As in that monastery in Pokrovsky,
And meets the Empress Abbess with the sisters
They put on the Queen a black dress,
The black dress is sad
Yes, and soon the Empress was tonsured,