Historical events- all these wars, victories, social movements - do not differ in particular diversity. History repeats itself, it has become commonplace. Right now, most often one has to make sure that each event is only a new version of an old story that has been heard for a long time, that

All this was once
Yes, I just don’t remember when ... 1

Sometimes it’s even somehow insulting that history has so little ingenuity, that it has such old wineskins for new, eternally new wines:

Alas, on the reins of life
The instant harvest of a generation,
By the secret will of Providence,
They rise, they rise and they fall,
Others follow them ... 2

But there is something that inalienably belongs to every era - and only to it - something individual, unique, characteristic - this is the "style of the era", its "color", its "smell". The scent of an era. It does not repeat itself - each generation has its own face, its own expression, once and for all - and this face for everyone who studies history is dearer than all wars, all events, all shuffles that take place daily on the historical stage.

To study the style of an era is to relive it again.

To study her events means not to know anything about her.

That is why every shred of the vanished way of life is so dear to us, every fragment of former customs, customs, habits, tastes - that is why we sometimes find in them more than in many folios devoted to the most thorough historical research.

The memoirs of Tatyana Passek are precious to us because for all their long life(1810-1889) she carefully preserved all these shreds and fragments and, after three quarters of a century, managed to convey, without spilling, every drop of the distant past, recreating the style and color of distant generations in the smallest lines.

She speaks, for example, about the first years of the last century. She does not say a word about the Peace of Tilsit 3 , nor about the Holy Alliance 4 , nor about the Tugendbund 5 , but from the pages of her book one can see that touching, unforgettable time when eight days stretched from Moscow to St.

Pots, chairs, chests,
Jam in jars, mattresses,
Feathers, cages with roosters,
Pots, basins et cetera; 6

when the girls were called Plenirs and Temirs 7 and placed in the boarding house of emigrants Dapkar and Falbala 8 ; when love notes were composed according to Kurganov's letter book, and Prince Shalikov's verses evoked tears, - this is how it rises, and rises from the grave, this frivolous time of wigs, cotillions, Valdai bells and Murom tallow candles - and we again live among these ghosts, they are for we are alive, undoubted, real, we “sigh” “at the feet” of Temira or Plenira, we whisper to her that she is “advantageous”, with this short waist and the widest sleeves, we write to her in an album that

A stream separates two trees,
Fate unites two hearts, - 9

and she sits at the harpsichord and blushes, lowers her eyes coyly, and, apparently, gives full “preference” to uhlan Pykhtin, or Buyanov, or Ivan Petushkov 10 and soon, having tasted the “bliss of Hymen” (definitely bliss and certainly Hymen! 11) plunges forever into the realm of solitaire games, hangers-on, French novels, knitting, icon lamps and christenings, annual christenings.

All this lives again, moves again - and lives and moves in its own way, with its own rhythm - and to eavesdrop on this rhythm, surrender to it, submit to it, a simple artless book by the daughter of a retired infantry lieutenant Tatyana Petrovna Passek gave us the opportunity.

Again before us it rings and sparkles, and spreads fun party noble Russian nobility in all these hereditary Nakvasins, Karpovki, Passekovki ...

But Passek's notes wouldn't be so valuable. historical monument, if from the first pages they had not indicated the place of this magnificent way of life - on serfdom and on the whole network of humiliations, insults, vices, crimes, which was so closely connected with this basis.

Here and there she will mention in two or three words either about the valet, who just did not marry his beloved girl because the master did not keep him a married servant, or about a recruitment set that separates a householder from his family and gives him twenty-five years to the power of prongs and gauntlets, or about the exchange of the girl Akulka for the girl Parashka - but all this without any underlining or exclamation marks - as about one dash, only one additional stroke to the cotillion, Karamzin and the boarding house m-lle Danquart:

“When a child, sitting in the arms of his pockmarked nanny Aksinya, came up with a desire to scratch her face, and he roared, if she didn’t give it to him, then the lady lost her temper and, angry, shouted: “It’s a great misfortune that the child will tear your pockmarked mug” . The child fought his mug, and the nanny, not daring to complain or resist, said to please the mistress: “Take it, father, take it to your health.”

In order to finally illustrate my thought, I will allow myself to compare two quotations: one from historical essay about the beginning of the last century, and another from Pasesque's memoirs, about the same era, and I will leave it to the reader to judge for himself what is more expressive, more embossed, brighter.

The historian says: “There was no direct transition from the lofty ideas about man and the state in the minds of the then intelligentsia to everyday reality. The world of the best concepts and ideas existed by itself, and traditional relationship to Russian life on their own. While professing the most advanced teachings in theory, the Russian people hardly noticed that their own behavior was completely inconsistent with these teachings. This did not stem from conscious hypocrisy, but from a natural discord between the concepts grafted through education and age-old habits under the influence of the totality of domestic conditions ... ”(E. Zvyagintsev. Social movement in Russia).

And Passek will tell you about the same thing in a completely different way. An artillery officer, she will say, having two or three insignia, arrived at her father's estate on lathered horses. The father broke a birch broom and said to his son;

“- I asked you many times to take care of my horses, but you did not consider it necessary to pay attention to this, well, as a father, I consider it necessary to teach you to respect the words of your parents. Take off your crosses and uniform.

The astonished son began to apologize and asked for an explanation of the strange demand. When the father repeated the demand without explanation, he took off his crosses and uniform; then the old man said:

While you are wearing the crosses and uniform granted by the tsar, I respect the tsar’s servant in you, but when you took them off, I see only my son and find it a duty to teach him a lesson with rods for disrespect for the words of his father. Now, as you know: either I will flog you, or we will forever be strangers to each other.

Alexander Ivanovich knew the persistent disposition of his father, he turned back and forth, the old man would not do anything - he undressed and lay down on the floor ... "

As you wish, but this birch broom, woven into the same garland with Speransky, French novels, harpsichords and cotillions - is worth all the reasoning about the "discord between grafted concepts and age-old habits."

And in this chaos, in the midst of a barbarian feast,
Amid the ugliness of the teeming semi-darkness,

with all these Buyanovs and Petushkovs, spoiled, capricious, spoiled children grew up and, just by some miracle, became Turgenevs, Stankevichs, Ogarevs, Herzens, Granovskys, Kireevskys, Aksakovs, Khomyakovs ...

The delightful, magnificent and barren time of the forties was approaching.

For the history of this time, Passek's memoirs are simply irreplaceable. Herzen's cousin, who grew up with him under the same roof, she for a long time was almost the only biographer of this brilliant poet-publicist. The first time she saw him was when he was not even a year old, and the last time, when he was the full-fledged editor of Kolokol, ringing loudly and anxiously throughout Russia. For many decades, she carefully entered into her diary all his sayings, opinions, letters, actions and made her book inevitable for anyone who wants to bring the image of this hitherto fabulous Russian genius closer to herself. It is not for nothing that everyone who wrote about Herzen in one way or another cannot do without these memoirs. Neither prof. Milyukov, neither S. A. Vengerov, nor M. K. Lemke, nor V. D. Smirnov - nobody. All three volumes of these memoirs are filled with Herzen, beginning with his scribbles about wolves running past him in the forest, and ending with several dozen priceless letters to Ogarev over the last three years of his life.

She herself had a great influence on Herzen. Only this year did one of the letters appear in print. famous writer where, among other things, it says:

“Friend Ogarev! .. You occupy a huge place in my psychology. You and Tatyana Petrovna (Passek) were the first two beings who took the trouble to understand me as a child, the first to notice then that I would not merge with the crowd, but would be something original ... ”And further:

... “I spend six hours at the Passeki, and this time is the most pleasant, a time of some kind of quiet enjoyment. There I rest from the stormy impulses of my imagination, both wild and free, there is not a thunderstorm, but the sky is clear and blue. How much I owe to this family!” (M. Lemke. Essays on the life and work of Herzen. "The World of God." 1906.)

And Herzen was right.

T. P. Passek was the first to discern in the pranks and whims of a spoiled barchon the bright inclinations of love of freedom, humanity, and fighting for the benefit of humiliated and offended people. It was all the more difficult to discern this because in that ugly environment, idle and ignorant, all these inclinations sometimes took on an extremely perverted form.

Then he will call noble book"With coats of arms and genealogies - zoology, then he will give all his property to the courtyard, whose forehead was shaved for drunkenness, then he will leave the nursery in the front room or in the girl's room, where "close contact with the servant increases his hatred of slavery and arbitrariness," then it will come " fainting", having learned about the illegal extortion of clerks, managers and clerks, then he will hear a lot of stories of the gardener Provo about french revolution and begins to rant in front of her cousin, lying at night under a sheet swept up to the mattress:

There was a revolution in France, everyone was noisy, shouting, and those who didn’t make noise and didn’t shout, they chopped off their heads, people ran through the streets, beat everything, broke, then they ran to the palace and killed everything there, broke it, and put red caps on their heads and hang people on lanterns, they wanted to hang m-eur Provo from a lantern, - Lizaveta Ivanovna saved him by force.

How difficult it was to find out under all this the future idealist, Hegelian and great figure of the liberation era, can be seen if only from the fact that his own brother, Yegor Ivanovich, listening to such stories about the French Revolution, always responded in this way:

If only you could go there, you would be glad, help break, throw, distort everything cleaner than theirs.

And little Tanya already then sensed in him great spiritual and moral strength. And for this he had an ardent gratitude for her, and after many, many years he remembered her with such grateful words:

“She began to treat me, a thirteen-year-old boy, like a big one. I fell in love with her with all my heart for this and now I am ready to extend my hand to her again, and how many circumstances, people, miles have squeezed between us ... "

“... It was to her that I conveyed my first dreams, colorful, like birds of paradise, pure, like baby talk. I wrote to her about twenty times in an album in Russian, French, German and even Latin. 12

A lot of intelligence, insight, and instinct were needed to smell great strength in those ugly, humiliating, distorting everything and everyone conditions that then weighed heavily on feudal Russia. And if we didn’t know anything more about T. P. Passek, if we knew only this fact, it alone would be quite enough to recognize in her nature an outstanding, outstanding Russian woman. The testimonies of all who knew it support this conviction.

“Russian, wide, gifted nature,” writes about her close friend Herzen, the wife of the poet Ogarev: - Tatyana Petrovna Passek is a rare phenomenon in Russian journalism: already quite old, she began to write, her talent developed, she began to work vigorously, tormented terrible disease. She not only worked, but knew how to make others work, she had a pushing force that evoked the energy of others ”(“ Russkaya Starina ”, 1889, July).

The well-known historian V. I. Semevsky says about her: “Tatyana Passek was the focus of the circle that surrounded her husband in Moscow, in the late 30s and 40s, a circle of thinking Russian people who passionately loved their dear fatherland, wished him prosperity and feasible working for him. In this circle, the name of Prof. Granovsky…”

And here is the opinion of the editor of Russkaya Starina about her work itself: “Having fulfilled the sacred duty of a mother-leader, raising honest, diligent and capable servants of the fatherland in her sons, T. P. had the horror of losing both sons, and just when she had only enjoy the fruits of your care for them. She survived this blow too ... Moreover, with nothing else, but with labor filled with intelligence and talent, she was in a hurry to drown out such a terrible grief. T.P. took up her pen, and since 1872 her extensive notes began to appear on the pages of Russkaya Antiquity. They attracted general attention with the liveliness of the essays on Russian society in the twenties and fifties and the talent of the characteristics of a long line of Russian people, ascetics of the prosperity of the Russian people.

Here is a far from complete list of these “companions” (and simply wonderful people), with whom Tatyana Passek was briefly acquainted: Aksakov, Bakunin, Veltman, Senkovsky, Ogarev, Herzen, Zagoskin, Alyabyev, Vitberg, Granovsky, Shevchenko, Dal, Pogodin, Katkov, Lazhechnikov, Shcherbina, May, gr. Tolstoy...

At the present time Herzen's personality and activities have been elucidated quite comprehensively, and it would be superfluous to deal with them here. But there is one corner in his life where, for some reason, very little has been dwelt upon, and meanwhile Passek's memoirs provide such a mass of material for his research that one involuntarily wants to study it longer.

It's about about Herzen's attitude to the era of the Russian Sturm und Drang-Periode.

In Herzen, as in every man of the forties, there was much that was dreamy, impractical, lordly. In the end, if you scrape Herzen, it will certainly turn out to be Stepan Trofimovich from Dostoevsky's "Demons" - an aesthetician, a dreamer, a citoyen du monde, an admirer of art. Don't you feel that he, too, has above all his statistical, political, economic and all other aspirations the part of the "queen of queens", the "ideal of humanity" - the Sistine Madonna. Isn't there, in the hiding place of this soul, the soul of a political tribune and agitator, don't you hear a quiet whisper, the same whisper "du pauvre" of Stepan Trofimovich:

“Without an Englishman it is still possible for mankind to live, without Germany it is possible, without a Russian man it is too possible, without science it is possible, without bread it is possible, without beauty alone it is impossible, for there will be absolutely nothing to do in the world! The whole mystery is here, the whole story is here!”

True, Herzen did not put beauty above freedom, truth, brotherhood, but this is because freedom, truth, brotherhood were beauty for him. He was the "Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky district" 14 , he was "an extra person" - this terrible Herzen, whom so many imagined as Marat, a cannibal, an arsonist. "Clever uselessness" - so half-mockingly, and proudly, he christened himself. He was a poet, a “linguist”, a scribe, and no matter how hard he tried to give himself to the “cause”, and only to the “cause”, the “word” still had some kind of charm over him.

But all the same, he gave his whole soul to the "cause" - and he would have given his life to it, however, with a spectacular gesture, with a beautiful exclamation, but he would certainly have given it.

Yes, and endure the entire pre-reform era on your own shoulders - wasn’t it greatest feat at the time when -

Even din Homer
I did not dare to call myself Omir!

But the 60s did not want to know such "feats". At best, they treated their predecessors condescendingly and drew sympathetic epitaphs over them:

Chained to reality
You lived as a skygazer, in vain,
And wandered disappointed
Worshiping beauty.
contemplative, reading,
With relentless spleen
Traveling around Europe
Here and there - a stranger to everything.
Though real effort
You never did -
Feeling bitter helplessness
Obeying forever
Yet I honor you and now I ... 15

The meaning of all these praises was the same: you are a gentleman, you are a white hand, you are superfluous, you are useless. In the midst of the sixties, Herzen had to listen to harsher reviews: he was called both the "gastronomer of liberation ideas", and the "amateur of the revolution", and the "fossil skeleton of a mammoth", etc., etc.

And the young ruler of the then minds, Pisarev, turned to the generation of Herzen and even more provocatively:

“What are you singing about,” he asked, “what are you looking for, what are you asking from life? Do you want to be happy? Why, you never know! Happiness must be won. There are forces - take it. No strength - be silent, otherwise it’s sickening without you. ”

The most painful thing was that all this came from those whom Herzen used to consider his only allies and successors. Misunderstood, insulted, rejected by those for whom he sacrificed his homeland, talent, freedom - he felt that someone broad and rude had come and "with boots" climbed into the holy of holies of his soul. And his attitude to these "boots" comes out very prominently from the memoirs of T. P. Passek.

Referring the reader to these memoirs, I will confine myself here to two or three of the most characteristic extracts.

“Young emigrants from Russia appeared in Geneva. With their appearance, the horizon of Herzen's life did not expand, but narrowed, the conversations became monotonous and boring to the point that sometimes there was nothing to say to each other. Abroad, these young people were not interested in anything; science, they were not engaged in business; the newspapers were hardly followed. They poisoned the life of Herzen and Ogarev. Discord was repeated in different forms everyday, from differences in education and views.

They looked at Herzen and Ogarev as if they were backward invalids, as if they were in the past, and naively marveled that they were not far behind them. Little by little, they took on a patronizing tone and began to teach the old people, then accuse them of lordship, and finally, of embezzling other people's money.

But how did Herzen treat them? Run through his letters to Ogarev in Volume III"Memories" Passek. “In yesterday's letter I just wrote to you - about the strike 16, more and more millstones stop, we sluggishly push the water, surrounded by laughter and vile envy. Russia is deaf. The sowing is done, it is covered with manure, there is nothing to do until autumn.

“Manure”, “a gang of Russian scoundrels”, “cute puppies of pseudo-nihilism”, “talentless foam”, “rotting rot”, “Cains of our golden youth” - all these nicknames flash on the pages of his letters.

“As for Bazarov, 17,” he writes in one letter to Ogarev, “if you forget the existence of Turgenev and renounce our popularizations, then you will understand the weak and naked fidelity of the type. Bazarov is morally superior to subsequent Bazaroids. He is brave, smart, not a thief, not a scammer, not a smelly bug ... He is weak, superficial, badly conceived, but he is God in front of these pigs. (On the same topic, see Herzen's article: " extra people and biliaries).

Ogarev did not agree with such reviews, defended the younger generation in every possible way, looked for the good side, but for Ogarev, the appearance of a nihilist commoner meant complete bankruptcy - the collapse of all his ideals, everything that he served, worshiped, and prayed. Even creativity did not fascinate him.

“I will hardly be able to write,” he said to Tatyana Petrovna in last years his life, and who is interested in what at the present time? Even young men are not carried away, they are not excited by high feats, noble feelings, hopes, hopes, poetry. There are young men - I don’t see youth ... You say: write - for whom? Our time, the forties, is called the time of romanticism, fantasy - so be it, but is this reality? True, we were brought up artistically; Isn't grace and nobility the highest manifestation of reality?.. Selfishness and coarse pleasure revolted us.

And in our time, that was enough.

So, but concealed, conscience. Now they're bragging."

Such artistic images, with strokes, paints, spots, T. P. Passek wrote a wide motley picture of the Russian community development from the era of solemn illuminations, Masonic lodges and high waists to Russian nihilism, with all its naive "boots exceeding Shakespeare", with natural sciences, with reckless cheerful "whistle-dancing", with unkempt Reshetnikovs and pockmarked Yakushkins. She, like no one else, depicted in her notes the meeting of these two worlds, their fatal clash and the fatal, inevitable outcome of this struggle.

Is it not now, in the moment we are experiencing, that it is repeated - and to what extent! - the same clash of the same two worlds, and the memory of previous skirmishes is really so useless for us? On the contrary, it seems to me that anyone who tries to comprehend modernity is trying to understand for himself how the present public life ours, with all its mysterious, incomprehensible, unexpected events and anxieties, must inevitably turn to the history of recent public figures, adding to Herzen's gratitude and his gratitude to T.P. Passek for her loving, quiet memories "of distant years."

Korney Chukovsky

1. A slightly modified quote from a poem by A.K. Tolstoy "By rowing uneven and shaking ...".

2. Quote from the novel in verse by A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin" (Chapter 2, stanza XXXVIII).

3. Peace of Tilsit - Treaties between France and Russia and France and Prussia, signed in Tilsit (now Sovetsk, Kaliningrad Region), respectively, on June 25 (July 7) and July 9, 1807 after the victory of Napoleonic troops in the Russian-Prussian-French war 1806-1807

4. Holy Alliance - the Union of European monarchs, concluded after the collapse of the Napoleonic empire to fight against the revolutionary and national liberation movement and ensure the inviolability of the decisions of the Vienna Congress of 1814-1815.

5. Tugenbund (German Tugenbund) - "Union of virtue", secret political society in Prussia, created in April 1808 with the aim of reviving national spirit after the defeat of Prussia by Napoleon.

6. "Pots, chairs, chests ..." - a quote from the novel in verse by A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin" (Ch. 7, stanza XXXI).

7. ... when the girls were called Plenirs and Temirs - T.P. Passek was called Temira in the family circle, she also signed her children's letters with this name (see Vol. 1 of "Memoirs", ch. "Devil's").

8. In the boarding house of emigrants Dankar and Falbala ... - The boarding house of Mademoiselle Dankar (Dankvart), in which the memoirist was brought up, is described by her in the chapter "Boarding" of the first volume of "Memoirs".

9. “A stream separates two trees ...” - Poems from a girl's album, signed by Sasha Voeikova, a friend of T.P. Passek from Madame Vaucher's boarding house (vol. 1, ch. “Exit from the boarding house”).

10. ... lancer Pykhtin or Ivan Petushkov ... - The characters of the novel "Eugene Onegin".

11. Hymen - in ancient Greek and Roman mythologies, the god of marriage.

12. Iskander. From the notes of one young man. (A.I. Herzen. Notes of a young man//Full collection. Works: In 30 vols. Vol. 1, M., Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1954, pp. 257-316).

13. Those wishing to get to know the charming personality of Tatiana Passek better, we refer to S. Lavrentyeva’s memories of her in “Russian Antiquity”, 1890, 2.

14. “Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky district” - a story by I.S. Turgenev from the cycle "Notes of a hunter".

15. "Shackled for reality ..." - Misha's words from Nekrasov's "Bear Hunt" (Scene 5).

16. We are talking about the termination of the "Bell".

Passek (nee Kuchina) Tatyana Petrovna (25.07. 1810-24.03.1889), writer. Relative and childhood friend A.I. Herzen . In 1832 she became a wife V. V. Passeka ; to the same time belong its first literary experiments. Passek publishes the book "Reading for Youth" (1846), engaged in literary translations. In the autumn of 1839, he became close to A. F. Veltman's circle of "Muscovites" and maintained ties with the Slavophiles. In 1859 she went abroad with her family for 2 years, where in 1861 she met and corresponded with Herzen. Since the 1950s, Passek was friendly with M.N. Katkov and supported his Orthodox-monarchist views. greatest value present Passek's memoirs of the 30-40s "From Distant Years" (vols. 1-3, 1878-1889). By the end of his life, Passek was dominated by religious and monarchical aspirations. In 1880-1887 Passek published a popular children's magazine"Toy".

Site materials used Big Encyclopedia Russian people.

Tatiana Petrovna Passek (July 25, 1810 - March 24, 1889) was a Russian writer and memoir writer. From the nobles of the Tver province. A. I. Herzen's cousin, nee Kuchina ("Korchevskaya cousin", "Korchevskaya niece" in "The Past and Thoughts"). Childhood and youth friend of Herzen. In 1832 she married V. V. Passek. In 1867, she began to write memoirs, on which she worked for about 20 years, collected many documents, unpublished works and letters from Herzen (some of them are unreliable), encouraged many people to write memoirs about him (M. K. Reichel, T. A. Astrakova, N. A. Tuchkov-Ogarev, N. P. Ogareva). From December 1872, her memoirs began to be published in Russian Starina. In 1878-1889, for the first time, separate edition in 3 volumes under the title "From Distant Years". Latest ed. in 2 vols. - in 1963 (M.). Passek's Memoirs is a valuable source on the history of the social and ideological life of the 20-40s of the 19th century.

S. S. Dmitriev. Moscow.

Soviet historical encyclopedia. In 16 volumes. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1973-1982. Volume 10. NAKHIMSON - PERGAM. 1967.

Read further:

Passek T.P. From early years, from distant life. Memoirs of T.P. Passek. 1810-1842. // "Russian antiquity". Monthly historical publication. 1872 Volume VI. St. Petersburg, 1872, pp. 607-648.

Passek Vadim Vasilievich(1808-1842), husband of Tatyana Petrovna.

Compositions:

From distant years. Memories / Intro. Art., prep. text and notes. A. N. Dubovikova. T. 1-2. M., 1963.

Literature:

Herzen A. I., Past and thoughts, vol. 1-2, M., 1962;

Leskov N. S., Lit. grandmother, "World illustration", 1889, No 15;

Dubovikov A.N., Memories of T.P. Passek "From Distant Years" as a source for studying the biography of Herzen and Ogarev, in the book: "Lit. Heritage", vol. 63, M., 1956.

Passek T.P. From early years, from a distant life. Memoirs of T.P. Passek. 1810-1842. // "Russian antiquity". Monthly historical publication. 1872 Volume VI. St. Petersburg, 1872, pp. 607-648.

Passek T.P. From the early years, from the distant life.

The editors of "Russian Antiquity" precedes the publication with the following farewell:.

“... Tatyana Petrovna Passek, the widow of the once fairly well-known gifted writer Vadim Vasilievich Passek (died in 1842), from her infancy was placed among the richest ancient noble family, the senior representative of which was the father of her mother, Natalya Petrovna Kuchina, General Peter Alekseevich Yakovlev. This surname, in the male branch, is now extinct. At one time, that is, at the end of the past and in the first decades of the current (XVIII-XIX centuries - adm.) centuries, she united several extremely typical personalities in her environment.

The pen of one of the talented writers of our time has already reproduced several artistic household paintings, in which the members of this surname are brightly lit. This does not take away, however, either interest or significance in the memoirs of a close relative, co-educate and childhood friend of this writer. If Mrs. Passek, with the commonality of some notes with this writer, is forced, in the first two or three chapters, to use some of the characteristics of her relatives, inscribed by his masterful pen, nevertheless. In subsequent chapters, she has a lot of her own facts, subtly noticed, purely with female observation.

The memoirs of Tatyana Petrovna embrace quite a few chapters: they depict the life of Moscow society, the life of the Russian nobility in the provinces, during the reign of Alexander I. Essays on the life of youth at Moscow University in the thirties, and so on. The author, compiling notes, not so much for the press, but for himself, - some chapters have not yet been recognized as possible to print - they are too family, private in nature, and therefore are still left in the manuscript ... "

. (25.07.1810 - 24.03.1889) . She was born on July 25, 1810 in the village of Novoselye, Korchevo district in family estate his grandfather. Later the family settled in Korchevo. Tatyana's father, Pyotr Ivanovich Kuchin, served as a police officer. Children's and adolescence Tatyana. In 1812, the first meeting between Tatyana and Alexander Herzen took place here. In 1820, Tatyana was brought to Moscow and assigned to a private boarding school. A period of close friendship with Alexander Herzen began. She became, as it were, a member of the Yakovlev family. "Korchevskaya cousin" Alexander Herzen called her.

In 1825 Tatyana returned to Korcheva. But she constantly visited the Yakovlevs in Moscow, stayed with them for a long time. In 1832, Tatyana Kuchina married a friend of A. Herzen Vadim Vasilyevich Pasek - a writer, historian, lithographer. Her first literary experiments belong to the same time. She publishes the book "Reading for Youth", engaged in literary translations.

In the book of memoirs "From Distant Years" Tatyana Passek talks about N. Ogarev and A. Herzen, about life in Korchevo and Novoselye, in the surrounding villages.

Sources:Passek T.P. From distant years. - M., 1963.

Basukinsky A. Korchevskaya cousin // Zarya (Konakovskiy district). -1981, - 19 Nov.

Toropetsky I. Tanechka Kuchina from Korcheva // Tver Life.- 2010.- August 10

If you conduct a survey of the most educated and well-read people modern Russia on the topic “The Most Talented Russian Memoirs”, then Tatyana Petrovna Passek’s memoirs “From Distant Years” will certainly be in the top ten, no matter how we shuffle the community of respondents (alas, not very extensive).

What is the secret to the success of this book, first published in magazine version back in the 1880s? It has all the components on which the best memoirs are built: the spirit of the era, the fame of the characters, the accuracy of the presentation of facts, the author's amazing memory, and the vivid language.

The central character of these memoirs, in addition to the author himself, is Alexander Ivanovich Herzen, and it was this fact that ensured the repeated reprinting of weighty folios. Still: the founder of Russian socialism!

But the memoirs of Tatyana Passek are interesting not only for this, especially since Herzen himself took care of his autobiography, writing famous memories- Past and Thoughts. He began to write them from the age of 25 and continued in fact until his death. In terms of volume and content, this work is compared with War and Peace.

Here is a far from complete list of remarkable people with whom Tatyana Passek was briefly acquainted and about whom she left memories: Aksakov, Bakunin, Veltman, Senkovsky, Ogarev, Herzen, Zagoskin, Alyabyev, Vitberg, Granovsky, Shevchenko, Dal, Pogodin, Lazhechnikov, Shcherbina May, Tolstoy...

Two months after the birth of Sasha Herzen, Napoleon's army entered Russia, and the child was taken to the Korchevo district of the Tver province. In the Novoselye estate, between modern Konakovo and Dubna, he waited out the "storm of the twelfth year", not yet understanding the course of history, which he would later try to change. Here he first saw his "Korchevskaya cousin" - little Tanechka Kuchina, with whom life would bring him close already in his adolescence. Now there is neither the city of Korcheva, flooded by the Moscow Sea, nor the village of Novoselye, nor the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in it. But they are preserved in the memoirs of Tatyana Pasek "From Distant Years", and with a certain imagination, we can visualize them and experience many interesting events with the author of the memoirs.

Tatyana Petrovna Passek was born on August 6, 1810 and spent her childhood in the Korchevo estate. Ivan Alekseevich Yakovlev, father of Sasha Herzen, took his son good teachers and he paid particular attention to his education. Tatyana moved to Moscow, entered a French boarding school, and rich uncle Ivan Alekseevich, noticing her craving for knowledge and the girl’s good influence on her son’s character and success, asked Tatyana’s father to let her live with them.

A unique time of youthful aspirations and dreams spent together! Life subsequently separated Tatyana and Alexander greatly, but nothing cast a shadow on their memory of the wonderful time of growing up next to each other. Tatyana wrote in her memoirs “From Distant Years”: “As children and youths, we entered life, holding hands. magical images were drawn before us in the morning mist of life; he reflected light inner world ours, modifying the forms of the outer world. Together we entered youth, full of delight, sadness, joy, prayers and hopes.

Teenagers comprehended life through history and literature, there they met people with whom they sympathized, whose life examples aroused the desire for beauty. Both of them were capable of new ideas and bold impulses that found an outlet in their own literary reviews, historical articles and translations. In the linden grove of the village of Novoselye there was a picturesque place, which Sasha named Ermenonville in memory of Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Tanya and Sasha often went there with books.

At the request of her father, Tatyana returned to Korcheva to help her stepmother, who had taken several students to replenish the family budget. The girl took up teaching with such fervor that she took upon herself all these worries. Instead of dry and official teaching, characteristic of the then school, Tatyana vividly told the students about historical figures and events, read works of art. Inspired by the example of the Spartans, the students came up with such hardening measures that Passek later wondered how she managed to avoid colds. With the money received for her upbringing, Tatyana bought flowers, treats and books for her studies. The students sincerely attached to her and cried when it was time to say goodbye.

In 1832, Herzen introduced Tatyana to his friend, ethnographer Vadim Passek, who later became her husband. “Love is the way to heaven,” Tatyana wrote to her fiancé. “I would like to point it out to the whole world.” And in hard times when the family suffered extreme poverty, the peace was not disturbed by a single quarrel. “Ten years of boundless happiness were our lot,” Tatyana wrote. Happy Korcheva youth and short years of marriage, as it turned out, were given to Tatyana as a reward for terrible trials in later life. The husband died ten years after his marriage, in 1842. Their children died as young, and Tatyana Petrovna lived for decades in hopeless poverty, retaining her nobility and dignity.

I am sure, dear reader, that after reading the memoirs of Tatyana Passek, you will also include this book in the top ten Russian memoirs, and maybe you will want to go near Konakovo and sit in the silence of a linden grove in former estate Housewarming, as it used to be, sat there almost two centuries ago Sasha Herzen and Tanechka Kuchina.

(1810 - 1889), cousin of A.I. Herzen. Engaged in literary work. The book "From Distant Years" contains memories of Korchevo and Korchevo district.

Passek, Tatyana Petrovna(née Kuchina) - writer; genus. July 25, 1810 in the village. Housewarming party of the Tver province. Korchevsky district, died on March 24, 1889 in St. Petersburg. T.P. spent her childhood partly in the village. Karpovka and mountains. Korcheva, partly in Moscow with his mother's relatives - Princess Khovanskaya and I. A. Yakovlev. At the age of nine, she entered the Moscow boarding school of Mrs. Donnwart, and then was transferred to the boarding school of Mrs. Voshe. Upon leaving there in the 12th year, she spent seven years in the house of I. A. Yakovlev, where A. I. Herzen, her cousin, at that time a student at Moscow University, also lived. The environment surrounding T. P. in Yakovlev's house, consisting of scientists, writers and artists, developed in her a love for literature. In 1832, T.P. married Vadim Vasilyevich Passek (see). This period also includes the first literary works, which were placed in the Essays on Russia published by her husband. She then worked for Pluchart's Pictorial Review and finally published the book Reading for Youth, which was a significant success at the time. But these works did not satisfy her. According to her extensive literary education and a great mind, she needed a wider field of activity. And so she, with the participation of scientists and writers well-known at that time, developed the program of the magazine for mothers "Nature", which was submitted for approval; however, permission to publish the journal was not forthcoming. After that, T.P. took up translations for various magazines and publications. In the eleventh year of her marriage, she lost her husband and, left with her two sons Alexander and Vladimir, continued literary pursuits. In 1859 she went abroad with her children, where she stayed for more than two years; here T. P. suffered a heavy loss: in Paris she lost her beloved eldest son.

Upon returning from Paris to St. Petersburg, P. in 1871 met M. I. Semevsky, the editor-publisher of Russkaya Antiquity, who invited her to participate in his journal and place on its pages the memoirs compiled by Tatyana Petrovna "From Distant Years". The proposal was accepted, and "Memoirs" from 1872 began to be published in "Russian Antiquity", in 1873 they were banned, but in 1876 they were again allowed to be printed. In 1878-1879. "Memoirs" was released as a separate edition in two volumes. Then T.P. again set out to publish a magazine, this time for children. In 1880, on February 3rd, the 1st issue of her magazine "Toys" was published. This magazine enjoyed loud and well-deserved fame. But in the midst of his success, T.P. suffered another grief. Her second son, who helped her with his literary works in the publication "Toy", became seriously ill, and she had to leave everything and go abroad with him, where he soon died. Upon returning from abroad, torn by grief and very short of money, T. P. continued her publication of "Toys" and brought it to 1887, when on October 1 she handed it over to her employee A. N. Tyufyaeva-Toliverova (Jacobi). In recent years, with the assistance of loved ones, Passek undertook the publication of the 3rd volume of "From Distant Years", which she completed a week before her death. T. P. had a sound practical mind, but her realism was not crude: it was softened by her good-heartedness and rare responsiveness. She retained her interest in the idea of ​​humanity until the end of her life, until the age of 80; her constant company were writers, who all loved and respected this "literary grandmother".

"New Time" 1889, No. 4696; "Week" 1889, No. 14. Acquaintances. Album by M. I. Semevsky. St. Petersburg, 1888, pp. 69 and 132; "World Illustration" 1889, vol. XLI, pp. 265-267, art. N. Leskova; "Historical Bulletin" 1889, vol. XXXVI, May, p. 468; "From the early years, from the distant life." Memories of T. P. Passek. 1810-1842 - "Russian Antiquity" 1872, 1873 and 1876 Wahrheit and Dichtung. Article by D. Golokhvastov about the memoirs of T.P. Passek - "Russian Archive" 1874, No. 4, pp. 1053-1095; 1876, No. 6, pp. 231-236; Podlevsky. Reported by A. S. Lomachevsky - "Russian Antiquity" 1876, vol. XVII, No. 9, pp. 174-175. (Regarding "Notes" by T. Passek).