Georgy Blyumin, doctor of technical sciences and professor of cultural studies, consultant of the company "Terra-Nedvizhimost", author of the book "Royal Road", continues a series of stories on the history of Rublyovka.
250 years ago in the family of the Moscow governor Prince Boris Grigoryevich Yusupov and his wife Irina Mikhailovna, nee Zinovieva, son Nikolai was born. Subsequently, Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov would become the richest man in Russia. In his possession there will be estates not only in all the provinces of Russia, but also in almost every county. When asked if he had an estate in such and such a district, he usually answered: I don’t know, I need to ask the manager. The manager came with a memorial book under his arm, opened it - and almost always the estate was located. Here is an incomplete list of the positions that the prince held during his long life: Minister of the Department of Appanages, who was in charge of all imperial and grand ducal estates and palaces, president of the Manufactory College, director of imperial theaters, first director of the Hermitage and the Armory, commander of the Kremlin expedition and all porcelain and glass factories of Russia, member of the State Council. He had the highest rank of a real privy councilor of the first rank, was awarded all the orders of the Russian Empire and many foreign ones, so when they did not know what else to award him, they came up with a pearl epaulette specially for him, which the prince wore on his right shoulder and which no one else had. By the way, as the chief manager of the imperial theaters, Prince Nikolai Borisovich invented the numbering of rows and seats: before in the theater they sat where they had to.
The prince was also Russia's envoy to Italy, where he acquired many rare books, mainly by ancient authors, which later adorned his famous library in Arkhangelskoye. In the same place, in Italy, he managed to convince Pope Pius VI to give permission for the complete copying and transportation to St. Petersburg of the famous loggias of Raphael, now located in the Hermitage. In his youth, the prince studied a lot and stubbornly, spoke five languages fluently, so that later he surprised with his learning many luminaries of European science, whom he became closely acquainted with while traveling around Europe with letters of recommendation from Empress Catherine II. Courteous and outwardly very handsome, the prince, as they said in court circles, at one time was the lover of the queen. In any case, in his office in Arkhangelsk there was a picture in which he and Catherine were presented naked in the form of Apollo and Venus. Paul I, having ascended the throne, ordered this picture to be removed.
"The envoy of a young crowned wife," in Pushkin's words, was friendly with Voltaire, Diderot and Beaumarchais. Beaumarchais dedicated an enthusiastic poem to him. In Europe, Yusupov was received by all the then monarchs: Joseph II in Vienna, Frederick the Great in Berlin, Louis XVI and Napoleon Bonaparte in Paris. The prince bought sculptures and paintings by the best masters abroad and brought them to the Hermitage, not forgetting about his Arkhangelskoye estate near Moscow, which he eventually turned into a classically completed estate ensemble - Versailles near Moscow. Prince Yusupov was the supreme marshal at the coronation of three Russian emperors - Paul I, Alexander I and Nicholas I - and all of them were his guests in Arkhangelsk.
Prince Nikolai Borisovich belonged to one of the oldest noble families in Russia, dating back to the legendary prophet Muhammad (VI century AD). The father-in-law of the great prophet named Abubekir ruled the entire Muslim world. Three centuries later, his descendant and new ruler of the Muslims was pompously titled as Emir el-Omr, prince of princes, sultan of sultans. He united in his person governmental and spiritual authority. The names of the ancestors of the Russian princes Yusupov are constantly found on the pages of "A Thousand and One Nights", in the fairy tales of Scheherazade. The ancestors of Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov were emirs, caliphs and sultans with royal power in the entire ancient East - from Egypt to India. It was then they began to say and write that the Yusupovs come from Tatars. In Russia in the 15th - 16th centuries, every stranger from the West was called a German, and from the east - a Tatar. There were simply no other nationalities. The exception was, perhaps, the Italians who built the Kremlin: they were called "Frya", or Fryazins. And to this day there are villages Fryazevo, Fryazino, Fryanovo, granted to him, near Moscow.
Many graves of the "Tatars" - Yusupov's ancestors are located in Mecca and the Kaaba, sacred to Muslims. Their reign is remembered by Damascus, Antioch, Egypt, Mesopotamia, India.
Approximately a thousand years after the reign of the reigning ancestors of the Yusupovs in the East, A.S. Pushkin will dedicate his famous "Message to a nobleman" to the Russian prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov, inspired by visits to Arkhangelsk:
Freeing the world from the northern shackles,
Only on the fields, flowing, marshmallow dies,
As soon as the first linden turns green,
To you, friendly descendant of Aristippus,
I will come to you; see this palace
Where is the architect's compass, palette and chisel
Your learned whim was obeyed,
And inspired in magic competed.
Pushkin calls the prince a descendant of Aristippus. In 1903, a bust of Pushkin with quotes from his message to Prince Yusupov, carved on a pedestal, will be installed in Arkhangelskoye. It says "pet of Aristippus." This is understandable: after all, the main thesis of the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher is happiness in pleasure. And Nikolai Borisovich followed this principle all his life. But Pushkin has a descendant of Aristippus. Why? The fact is that the philosopher, a Greek by birth, lived on the land of present-day Libya, on the border with Egypt in the city of Cyrene and was related to the rulers of Egypt, where the ancient roots of the Yusupov family go.
About four centuries have passed, and among the rulers of the East we meet the name of the descendant of Abubekir Sultan Termes. This sultan happened to be born far in the north, where his father traveled in his youth. The enmity of former friends and brothers made Termes remember his homeland. He calls out to fellow believers, many respond to the call and, pressed by hostile circumstances, move from Arabia to the north, where they settled in the vast space between the Urals and the Volga. The Russians called this settlement the Nogai Horde. The direct descendant of Termes was the closest friend and associate of the great conqueror Tamerlane, or Timur. His name was Edigei. It was he who, in single combat in front of the army, killed the Mongol Khan Tokhtamysh, who shortly before this burned Moscow. Edigey also defeated the troops of the Lithuanian Khan Vitovt on the Vorskla River in 1339. Finally, he conquered the Crimea and founded the Crimean Horde there.
Edigei's great-grandson was called Musa-Murza and, as usual, had five wives. The name of the first, beloved wife of Kondaz. From her, Yusuf was born, who gave the surname to the Russian princely family of the Yusupovs. For twenty years, Yusuf-Murza was friends with Ivan the Terrible himself, the Russian Tsar. Yusuf-Murza had two sons and four daughters. He married his daughters to neighboring kings: Crimean, Astrakhan, Siberian and Kazan. The wife of the Kazan Tsar was the beautiful Suyumbeka, in whose honor the seven-tiered Suyumbeki tower was erected in the Kazan Kremlin, repeated in the architecture of the Moscow Kazan railway station. Later, she was the queen of the Kasimov kingdom and was buried in 1557 in the local tomb. Her descendant, Russian Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov, Jr., thinks so when he writes in his book: "Scarlet rose hips with milky bird cherry shower this forgotten tomb with flowers!" The beautiful Suyumbeka was sung by the poet M.M. Kheraskov in his poem "Rossiyada". In 1832, the composer Glinka's ballet "Suyumbek and the conquest of Kazan" was performed with great success in St. Petersburg, where the famous ballerina A.I. Istomin. The great-great-grandson of Prince Nikolai Borisovich, Prince Felix Yusupov, writes about this in his memoirs.
The sons of Yusuf-Murza enter the Russian service, while maintaining the Muslim faith. In the 17th century, the grandson of Yusuf-Murza, Seyush-Murza, received the whole city of Romanov with a settlement (today's Tutaev) in the Yaroslavl province. And today in the city you can see an ancient mosque among the numerous churches. It was in this city that an event took place that radically changed the life of Murza. The son of Seyusha-Murza named Abdul-Murza received Patriarch Joachim in Romanov. It was a fast day, and the host, out of ignorance of the Orthodox fasts, fed the guest a goose. The patriarch ate the goose, saying: your fish is good, prince! He should remain silent, but he would take it and say: “This is not a fish, your Holiness, but a goose. The patriarch, no matter how full he was, became angry and upon his arrival in Moscow told the whole story to Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich. He, as a punishment, deprived the Murza of all previous awards, and the rich suddenly became a beggar. Abdul-Murza thought for three days and decided to accept Orthodoxy.
He was baptized in one of the churches of the same city of Romanov under the name Dmitry, and he came up with a surname for himself in the old Russian way: Yusupovo-Knyazhevo. So the Russian prince Dmitry Seyushevich Yusupovo-Knyazhevo appeared. All possessions were returned to him, and he married a Russian. This was the great-grandfather of the hero of our story, Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov. Since then, the image of a goose has been found in the interior of the Yusupov palaces in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rakitny and Crimea.
But on the same night, Prince Dmitry Seyushevich had a vision: a certain ghost clearly told him that from now on, for betraying the faith, in every tribe of his family there will be no more than one male heir, and if there are more of them, then none of them, except for one, will not survive the age of 26 years. The most amazing thing is that looking back over four centuries of Yusupov's history, we see that the terrible prediction came true. Dmitry Seyushevich Yusupovo-Knyazhevo was succeeded by his son Prince Grigory Dmitrievich, General-in-Chief and head of the Military Collegium. He was an associate of Peter I and a participant in all his battles. It was the emperor who ordered him to be called simply Prince Yusupov. The son of Grigory Dmitrievich, Prince Boris Grigorievich Yusupov, was first vice-governor, and then governor of Moscow, a real privy councillor. And the next and again the only heir was Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov - a friend of kings and emperors, an interlocutor and relative of A.S. Pushkin: after all, the ancestors of both came from North Africa. Among the highest awards of the empire, titles, stars and estates of the prince, the highest, of course, is the message to him by A.S. Pushkin, consisting of 106 poetic lines. In this poem, Pushkin gave a vivid and detailed description of the prince - a prominent representative of Russian culture.
A.S. Pushkin, as calculated by meticulous Pushkinists, twice visited N.B. Yusupov in his Arkhangelskoye estate near Moscow. This happened at the end of April 1827, and then at the end of August 1830. For the first time, Pushkin's companion was his friend S.A. Sobolevsky, they arrived in Arkhangelsk on horseback, "and the enlightened nobleman of the Catherine's century received them with all the cordiality of hospitality," according to the memoirs of a contemporary. On the second visit, Pushkin was accompanied by the poet Prince P.A. Vyazemsky, and this visit is reflected in the painting of the French artist Nicolas de Courteille, who was then working in Arkhangelsk. Pushkin writes in his message:
You are the same one. Stepping on your threshold
I am suddenly transported back to the days of Catherine.
Book depository, idols, and paintings,
And slender gardens testify to me
Why do you favor the Muses in silence,
With them in idleness you breathe noble.
I listen to you: your conversation is free
Full of youth. Influence of beauty
You feel alive. You enthusiastically appreciate
And the shine of Alyabyeva and the charm of Goncharova.
Carelessly surrounded by Corregion, Canova,
You, not participating in the unrest of the world,
Sometimes you look out the window mockingly at them
And you see the turnover in everything is circular.
The wife of Prince Nikolai Borisovich was Tatyana Vasilievna, nee Engelhardt, the native niece of His Serene Highness Prince Grigory Alexandrovich Potemkin-Tavrichesky. Several children were born in their marriage, but only one heir, Prince Boris Nikolaevich, survived to adulthood. At first, the couple lived in Arkhangelsk, in the Big House, and then Tatyana Vasilyevna wished to live separately from her husband and settled in the Kapriz Palace, mainly doing business at the Kupavinsky textile factory owned by Yusupov. The reason for the departure was the extraordinary womanly love of Prince Nikolai Borisovich. Many of his contemporaries noted this trait of his, but the Moscow ladies forgave him, given the prince's erudition and secular manners, and mindful of his eastern origin. In his office, first in the Moscow Palace, and then in the Arkhangelsk Palace, there hung three hundred portraits of women, whose favor he enjoyed. In the garden of Arkhangelsk, where everyone was allowed to walk, the prince showed special attention to the ladies, and if he met a woman he knew or did not know, he would certainly bow, kiss her hand and find out if she wanted anything.
Nikolai Borisovich knew Pushkin when the future poet was barely three years old. The fact is that from 1801 to 1803, the poet's father, Sergei Lvovich, rented an apartment on the second floor of the left wing of the Yusupov Palace on Bolshoi Kharitonevsky Lane in Moscow. This Moscow house of the prince, granted to his grandfather by Emperor Peter II, was surrounded by the quaint oriental Yusupov Garden known throughout Moscow. Yusupov garden Pushkin mentions in his autobiography. In the garden, for example, an oak tree grew, entwined with a gilded chain, along which a huge fluffy toy cat with green eyes, designed by Dutch mechanics, went up and down. The movement of the cat was carried out according to a specially developed algorithm; while the cat also spoke, but in Dutch. Little Pushkin walked in the garden with his grandmother Maria Alekseevna or with his nanny Arina Rodionovna and, according to his recollections, at the same time promised to translate the cat's stories into Russian. The prologue to Pushkin's poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" is almost completely "written off" by the poet from the Yusupov Garden; at the same time, the perception of the child, of course, is multiplied by the brilliant fantasy of the poet.
An interesting fact is that despite the almost half a century difference in age, Yusupov and Pushkin became friends and were with each other on you. As you can see, they had a lot to talk about. Pushkin eagerly listened to the prince's stories about the Catherine's age, about his travels in Europe and the East. Many of these stories were reflected in the works of the poet in the Boldin autumn of 1830 that followed their meeting. It is also interesting that Prince Nikolai Borisovich, with all his love interests, did not age at all; It was rumored that during his stay in Paris, he received from the hands of the famous adventurer Comte Saint-Germain the elixir of youth.
Pushkin shared with the prince his plans for the upcoming marriage. In his message there is an amazing characterization of the elderly nobleman: "You enthusiastically appreciate both the brilliance of Alyabyeva and the charm of Goncharova." Try to appreciate the charms of beauties in the eightieth year of age! Prince P.A. Vyazemsky tells about Yusupov: “He was of a prosperous constitution in flesh and in spirit, in worldly and moral terms. On the street his eternal holiday, in the house an eternal triumph of celebrations. There were pots with lush, fragrant flowers on the windows; cages with different singing birds; in the rooms there was a sound of wall clocks with sonorous chimes. Everything about him was luminous, deafening, intoxicating. Himself, in the midst of this radiance, this luxurious vegetation and melodiousness, he exhibited a ruddy, joyful face, blooming like a double red peony.
The Dictionary of Memorable People of the Russian Land, published in 1836, gives the following general description of Prince Yusupov: venerable old age brought a tribute of surprise to the fair sex.
Many of the most beautiful girls in the prince's theatrical chapel were his mistresses. A portrait of 1821 of the serf singer Anna Borunova, the sister of the architect I.E. Borunova, who was a "master's lady". The eighty-year-old prince took the eighteen-year-old serf ballerina Sophia Malinkina as his concubine. Since 1812, N.B. Yusupova was supported by a talented ballerina, a student of Didlo, Ekaterina Petrovna Kolosova. She was then 18 years old. A marble slab recently unearthed from the ground in the village of Spas-Kotovo (now the city of Dolgoprudny), where Prince N.B. Yusupov. On the plate there is an inscription in Latin letters - the name of the ballerina and the dates of her life. From Yusupov, Ekaterina Petrovna had two sons, Sergei and Pyotr Nikolaevich. The prince came up with the name Gireysky for them - in memory of the Crimean khans Girey, the ancestors of the Yusupov princes. E.P. Kolosova died only 22 years old, and her sons are depicted in the picture of the same Nicolas de Courteille of 1819, stored in Arkhangelsk. Peter died at the age of seven, and Sergei Nikolaevich lived comfortably, mostly abroad.
When Yusupov was the head of the Kremlin expedition, young A.I. worked for him. Herzen. In Past and Thoughts, Herzen tells in detail how Prince Yusupov seconded him for three years to study at Moscow University. In 1826, a young girl, Vera Tyurina, sister of E.D. Tyurin, who worked a lot in Arkhangelsk. The prince offered her 50 thousand rubles on the condition that she give herself to him. The girl left, saying that she did not need even a million. And when, a year later, two of her brothers were arrested for participating in a student secret organization of the Kritsky brothers, Prince Nikolai Borisovich again offered Vera Tyurina to belong to him in exchange for the release of her brothers. The girl again refused. One brother was imprisoned in the Shlisselburg fortress, and the other was exiled.
Pushkin married N.N. Goncharova and gave a ball for close friends in his new apartment on the Arbat. Prince N.B. Yusupov got into his gilded carriage and set off on a winter journey from Arkhangelsk to Moscow, invited by Pushkin. The Moscow postmaster Bulgakov wrote to his brother in Petersburg: “The glorious Pushkin gave a ball yesterday. Both he and she treated their guests wonderfully. She is charming, and they are like two doves. God grant that it always goes on like this. Since the society was small, I also danced at the request of the beautiful hostess, who herself engaged me, and on the orders of the old man Yusupov, who also danced with her: “And I would still dance if I had the strength,” he said.
Prince Yusupov died in 1831 in his beloved Arkhangelsk, and not at all from old age, but from cholera, which then raged in the Moscow region. This news greatly upset Pushkin. "My Yusupov died," he says bitterly in one of his letters. A nobleman of such a high rank and fortune could be buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow or at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg. But the prince bequeathed to bury himself next to the grave of his mother in the small estate of Spas-Kotovo near Moscow, on the Klyazma River. There, in their arms, the peasants carried his coffin from Arkhangelsk, and there he was buried in a stone tent attached to the Church of the Savior Not Made by Hands. The grave and the church have been preserved near the current station of the Vodniki Savelovskaya railway.
With the death of the grandson of Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov, Jr., who was the vice-director of the Public Library in St. Petersburg and an honorary member of the Paris and Rome conservatories, the male line of a glorious family was cut short. The only heiress was the beautiful Princess Zinaida Nikolaevna Yusupova. Under her, at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, artists, artists and musicians again began to gather in Arkhangelsk. She was the wife of the Moscow Governor-General Count F.F. Sumarokova-Elston, and famous artists Serov and Makovsky painted her portraits. So that the glorious family does not fade away, the count was also ordered to be called Prince Yusupov. Their son, Prince Felix Yusupov, Count Sumarokov-Elston, was married to the niece of Emperor Nicholas II and is known as the organizer of the assassination attempt on Rasputin in December 1916. He died in exile in Paris in 1967. Today, his granddaughter Ksenia Nikolaevna lives in Greece, married to Sfiri, whose only daughter Tatyana no longer speaks Russian.
The life of Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov was brilliant. His great-granddaughter Princess Zinaida Nikolaevna shone like a bright star in the cultural life of Russia. And a glorious family in history died out.
Yusupov Nikolai Borisovich (1750 - 1831) - diplomat, collector and philanthropist, owner of the Arkhangelskoye estate. He came from an old Nogai princely family. Enrolled in the Life Guards from birth, at the age of 20 he entered active military service with the rank of lieutenant, but left it a year later for an unknown reason. After retiring in the summer of 1772, Yusupov went on a trip to Europe: he listened to lectures at Leiden University, met with Beaumarchais, Voltaire, and others, and began to collect a collection of paintings. In 1781 he returned to Russia and the following year accompanied his heir, the future Paul I, with his wife on a trip to Europe. In 1783, Yusupov was appointed envoy extraordinary to Turin, to the court of the Sardinian king. In 1789 he returned to Russia. Active energy and breadth of interests allowed him from 1791 to become director of the imp. theaters, at the same time heading the Glass and Porcelain factories. Tapestry manufactory. In 1796, after the accession of Paul I to the throne, by order of the imp. became director of the Hermitage. In 1802, after the accession Alexander I, Yusupov, senator, active Privy Councilor, left for France. In 1810, he purchased from the widow N.A. Golitsyn Arkhangelsk estate near Moscow with unfinished buildings. Yusupov, who had a colossal fortune (real estate in 15 provinces, silk and cloth factories, a saltpeter factory, over 21 thousand souls of peasants, etc.), turned this estate into a model of a palace and park ensemble. Yusupov, from 1823 appointed member of the State. council, the greatest nobleman of four reigns, who participated in the coronation of three monarchs, an enlightened lover of the arts, owned a wonderful serf theater, a rich collection of paintings, and an excellent library. Although the general public did not have an entrance to Arkhangelskoye, its treasures were known to most of the cultural community. During the Patriotic War of 1812 the estate was not damaged. In 1827 Yusupov's palace was visited by A.S. Pushkin, subsequently writing a poetic message to Yusupov "To a nobleman", in which he gave a portrait of an enlightened bearer of the traditions of Russian-French culture of the 18th century.
Used materials of the book: Shikman A.P. Figures of national history. Biographical guide. Moscow, 1997.
Yusupov Nikolai Borisovich (10/15/1750-7/15/1831), prince, real state councilor, senator, member of the State Council. In infancy enrolled in the Life Guards Horse Regiment. In 1755 he was granted the cornets, in 1761 he was promoted to second lieutenant, in 1771 - to lieutenant. In 17772 he was appointed chamber junker to the royal court. Dismissed from service in the same year, he traveled around Europe for several years. Upon his return to Russia in 1781, he was granted a full chamberlain and appointed to the presence in the Commission on Commerce. In 1782 he was part of the retinue of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich and his wife, who traveled around Europe under the name of Count and Countess of the North. In 1783 he was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Turin, to the court of the Sardinian king. In the same year, he went on royal command to the Neapolitan court. In 1784 he was sent to Rome to express gratitude to Pope Pius IV. Yusupov also defended Russia's interests in Venice. In 1788 he was promoted to privy councilor and in the same year was appointed to the presence in the Governing Senate, and upon his return to St. Petersburg, he sat in the 1st department of the Senate and on a survey expedition (1790). In 1791-1799 he was the director of the imperial theaters: he established a theater office, control over theatrical collections, etc. In 1792, Yusupov was entrusted with the management of a glass factory, a state-owned porcelain factory and a state-owned trellis manufactory. In 1793 he was a member of the commission that considered the reasons for the extraordinary fall in the exchange rate in Russia. In 1796 he was appointed president of the Manufacture College. Then he was promoted to active privy councilor and appointed supreme marshal at the upcoming coronation of the emperor. In 1797 he was awarded the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, on November 20, 1797 he was appointed chief director of the Manufacture College. In 1798 he was assigned to the Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and was awarded the Commander of the Order. In 1800 Yusupov was appointed minister of the specific department. In 1801, on the occasion of the coronation of Alexander I, he was appointed supreme marshal at the coronation. In 1802, according to the petition, he was dismissed from all positions and went abroad for treatment. In 1811 he returned to Russia and settled in Moscow. In 1812, he readily accepted the appointment of a member of the Committee for Orders on Food Troops in Moscow. In 1814 he was appointed chief of the expedition of the Kremlin structure, as well as over the workshop and the Armory. In 1816 he was appointed to the presence in the 6th department of the Senate in Moscow. In the same year he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir 1st degree, and the following year he was ordered to be present in the 1st department of the 6th department of the Senate. Member of the State Council (since 1823). In 1826, for the third time, he was appointed supreme marshal on the occasion of the upcoming coronation of Emperor Nicholas I. He was married to the widow Tatyana Vasilievna Potemkina (née Engelgart) and had a son, Boris, from this marriage. Yusupov collected a huge collection of paintings, sculptures, works of applied art, a rich library.
Materials of the book are used: Sukhareva O.V. Who was who in Russia from Peter I to Paul I, Moscow, 2005.
Yusupov Nikolai Borisovich (1750-1831). Prince Yusupov, having a craving for knowledge, studied abroad, then was in the diplomatic service. Returning to his homeland, he reached high ranks and titles, was, in particular, the director of the imperial theaters. Having headed the Hermitage, he contributed to the transformation of the court collection of art and antiquities into a palace museum. Under him, the Armory Chamber, the oldest Kremlin repository, became a museum.
Abroad, Yusupov began to collect books, paintings, engravings, sculptures of famous masters. The library contained more than 20 thousand volumes of the rarest publications from the beginning of printing to the beginning of the 19th century. Among them are the Ostroh Bible by Ivan Fedorov, samples of editions of the famous printing house Aldov - 32 volumes and Elsevirov - 82 volumes, French books with illustrations by F. Boucher, J. Moreau, J. Fragonard, publications of French enlighteners, including the famous "Encyclopedia" by Diderot and Delambert, as well as 70 volumes of Voltaire's works. Russian literature was well represented (864 volumes): the most valuable books printed in the printing house of N. I. Novikov, the works of A. D. Kantemir, M. V. Lomonosov, D. I. Fonvizina, N. M. Karamzina, R. Derzhavina, I. A. Krylova, A. S. Pushkin, rarities of Peter's time.
This is practically the only personal library of a nobleman in our country, which has been preserved exactly where it was located, albeit with losses, in the Yusupov estate - Arkhangelskoye.
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Yusupov Nikolay Borisovich. In 1830, readers of the Literaturnaya Gazeta read for the first time Pushkin's later famous poem, which we now know as the message "To the Noble". In the first publication, it was entitled "Message to K. N. B. Yu ***".
Under the initials "K. N. B. Yu.” Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov, an old Catherine’s nobleman, was hidden, about whom contemporaries who knew him said that “he was distinguished by his enlightened mind, refined taste for everything elegant, sharpness, courtesy, gaiety of disposition, vast memory, loved scientists and artists ... " .
You understood the purpose of life: a happy person,
For life you live. Your long clear age
You also smartly diversified from a young age,
I was looking for the possible, moderately mischievous;
Fun and ranks came to you in succession.
Messenger of a young crowned wife,
You appeared in Ferney - and a gray-haired cynic,
Minds and fashion leader sly and bold,
Loving your dominion in the North,
He greeted you with a grave voice.
Yusupov traveled a lot in his youth. Was in Ferney with Voltaire, met in Paris with Diderot, in London - with Beaumarchais. He was friends with the sculptor Canova. For several years he was the Russian envoy in Turin. Later he served as the director of theaters, was in charge of the Hermitage, led the expedition of the Kremlin building in Moscow and the Armory. Cavalier of all the highest orders of the Russian Empire. He lived in the Arkhangelskoye estate near Moscow, famous for its wonderful palace and magnificent park. Possessing a huge fortune, Yusupov collected a library of up to thirty thousand volumes, an excellent collection of engravings and prints, and an art gallery of rare richness with masterpieces by Correggio, Rembrandt, Rubens, and David. All this was housed in a palace decorated with great pomp and solemnity.
...Stepping on your threshold,
I am suddenly transported back to the days of Catherine.
Book depository, idols, and paintings,
And slender gardens testify to me
That you favor the muses and silence...
The message "To the Nobleman" reflected the author's real impressions of visiting Arkhangelsk and talking with its owner. This was in the early spring of 1827 and in the autumn of 1830. In January 1831, Pushkin was in Yusupov's Moscow mansion and, at the request of P. A. Vyazemsky, asked him about Fonvizin. The last meeting of the poet with the nobleman known to us took place at the end of February 1831 at a party hosted by Pushkin and his young wife.
“My Yusupov is dead,” Pushkin informed the poet and literary critic P. A. Pletnev on July 22, 1831.
Pushkin's message was misunderstood in society and in the responses of the press. The poet was reproached for flattery and servility. In addition, Yusupov's reputation was not impeccable, and A. S. Griboyedov even called him "an old court scoundrel." It was not clear to Pushkin's critics that the poet was not at all going to sing of the old prince. Yusupov in his poem became a kind of artistic symbol of the age of enlightenment, and his biography served the poet to recreate a whole historical period. The most accurate assessment of Pushkin's plan was given by V. G. Belinsky, who saw in the message "only the highest degree of artistic comprehension and depiction of an entire era in the person of one of its most remarkable representatives."
L.A. Chereisky. Pushkin's contemporaries. Documentary essays. M., 1999, p. 206-207.
Literature:
Kuznetsova I.A. Collection of paintings of the book. N.B. Yusupova // Age of Enlightenment. Russia and France: Mater, scientific. conf. "Vipper Readings - 1987". M. 1989. Issue. 20;
About the family of princes Yusupov. SPb., 1866 - 1867. Part 1 - 2.
Moscow
Official positions held: chief manager of the Armory and the Expedition of the Kremlin Building, director of the Imperial Theaters (1791-1796), director of the Hermitage (1797), headed the palace glass, porcelain and tapestry factories (since 1792), senator (since 1788), active privy councilor ( 1796), minister of the Department of Appanages (1800-1816), member of the State Council (since 1823).
Biography
The only son of the Moscow mayor Boris Yusupov, a representative of the richest princely family of the Yusupovs, who died on his great-granddaughter Zinaida.
Helping to acquire works of art for Empress Catherine II and her son Paul I, the prince was an intermediary in the execution of imperial orders by European artists. Thus, the Yusupov collection was formed from the same sources as the imperial one, therefore, the Yusupov collection contained works by major landscape painters. Family traditions and membership in the service of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs had a significant impact on his personality and fate. In its long life, several stages can be distinguished that were of decisive importance for the formation of the collection.
First of all, this is the first educational trip abroad in 1774-1777, staying in Holland and studying at the University of Leiden. Then an interest in European culture and art arose, and a passion for collecting arose. During these years, he made a Grand Tour, visiting England, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Austria. It was presented to many European monarchs, was adopted by Diderot and Voltaire.
My books and a few good pictures and drawings are my only entertainment.
N. B. Yusupov
In Leiden, Yusupov acquired rare collectible books, paintings and drawings. Among them is the edition of Cicero, issued by the famous Venetian firm of Aldov (Manutius), with a commemorative inscription about the purchase: “a Leide 1e mardi 7bre de l’annee 1774” (in Leiden on the first Tuesday of September 1774). In Italy, the prince met the German landscape painter J. F. Hackert, who became his adviser and expert. Hackert painted by his order the paired landscapes “Morning in the Outskirts of Rome” and “Evening in the Outskirts of Rome” completed in 1779 (both - the Arkhangelskoye State Museum-Estate). Antiquity and modern art - these two main hobbies of Yusupov will continue to determine the main artistic preferences, consonant with the era of the formation and development of the last great international artistic style in European art - classicism.
The second important stage in the formation of the collection was the 1780s. As a person versed in the arts and well-known at European courts, Yusupov entered the retinue and accompanied the Count and Countess of the North (Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna) on a trip to Europe in 1781-1782. Possessing great knowledge, a taste for the fine arts, he performed the instructions of Pavel Petrovich and significantly expanded his ties with artists and commission agents, for the first time visited the workshops of the most famous artists - A. Kaufman in Venice and P. Batoni, engraver D. Volpato, widely known for reproduction engravings from the works of Raphael in the Vatican and Rome, G. Robert, C. J. Vernet, J.-B. Greuze and J.-A. Houdon in Paris. Then relations with these artists were maintained over the years, contributing to the replenishment of the personal collection of the prince.
1790s - the rapid rise of Yusupov's career. He fully demonstrates his devotion to the Russian throne, both to the aging Empress Catherine II and Emperor Paul I. At the coronation of Paul I, he was appointed supreme coronation marshal. He performed the same role at the coronations of Alexander I and Nicholas I.
From 1791 to 1802, Yusupov held important government posts: director of the imperial theatrical performances in St. Petersburg (since 1791), director of the imperial glass and porcelain factories and tapestry manufactory (since 1792), president of the manufactory board (since 1796) and minister of appanages (since 1800). ).
In 1794, Nikolai Borisovich was elected an honorary amateur of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. In 1797, Paul I gave him control of the Hermitage, where the imperial art collection was located. The art gallery was headed by the Pole Franz Labensky, who had previously been the curator of the art gallery of King Stanisław August Poniatowski, whom Yusupov accompanied during his stay in St. Petersburg. A new complete inventory of the Hermitage collection was carried out. The compiled inventory served as the main inventory until the middle of the 19th century.
The government posts held by the prince made it possible to directly influence the development of national art and artistic crafts. He acquired the Arkhangelskoye estate near Moscow, turning it into a model of a palace and park ensemble. Yusupov is the founder of the famous tribal assembly, an outstanding and most striking personality. He collected a large collection of paintings (over 600 canvases), sculptures, works of applied art, books (over 20 thousand), porcelain, most of which he placed in the estate.
- Examples of paintings from the collection of N. B. Yusupov
| The only thing Moscow is now busy with is the death of Prince Yusupov. On Tuesday, he was still quite healthy, dined with great appetite, ate a lot of peaches, grapes and melons. At night he complained of stomach pains. The people, fearing that it might not be cholera, sent for a doctor. Then came vomiting. People, seeing that the doctor was in great fear, sent for the priest, who was kept hidden next to the patient's room, when the patient was offered to fulfill his duty to the church, he gladly agreed and they confessed him and communed him. After that, he felt even worse, and by 6 o'clock in the morning he was gone. |
Personal life
Wife - Tatyana Vasilievna, nee Engelhardt (1769-1841), widow of M. S. Potemkin, niece of Prince G. A. Potemkin, one of the heirs of the latter. Sons:
- Boris (1794-1849) - chamberlain, honorary guardian. Since 1827 he has been married to Zinaida Ivanovna Naryshkina.
- Nicholas (died in infancy).
Among Yusupov's favorites were the French ballerina Bigottini and the St. Petersburg dancer Arina Tukmanova. In 1820, the prince took under his patronage the student Didlo, 18-year-old Ekaterina Petrovna Kolosova, who, according to the choreographer Glushkovsky, “was not a beauty, but a talented artist; the St. Petersburg public loved her very much.” She died after living with the prince for no more than four years and leaving him two sons. Yusupov gave the children the name Gireysky and put 50 thousand rubles each. to the Board of Trustees. One of them died at the age of seven, the other, Sergei Nikolaevich, received a good education and lived mostly abroad.
Awards
- Commander of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem (1798)
- diamond signs to the Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called (1801)
- Order of St. Vladimir, 1st class (1814)
- insignia for 50 years of impeccable service (08/22/1830)
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Notes
Literature
- Shilov D. N., Kuzmin Yu. A. Members of the State Council of the Russian Empire, 1801-1906: Bio-Bibliographic Reference. - St. Petersburg. : Dmitry Bulanin, 2007. - S. 890-893.
- Prakhov A.V. Materials for the description of the art collections of the Yusupov princes // Art Treasures of Russia. - 1906. - No. 8–10. - S. 180.
- Malinovsky K.V. The history of art collecting in St. Petersburg in the 18th century. - St. Petersburg. : Kriga, 2012. - S. 536. - 600 copies. - ISBN 978-5-901805-49-7.
- Ivanova V.I. Another Yusupov: (Prince N. B. Yusupov and his possessions at the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries): Historical essay. - M .: Griffin, 2012. - 144 p. - 300 copies. - ISBN 978-5-98862-091-4.(reg.)
- // Russian biographical dictionary: in 25 volumes. - St. Petersburg. -M., 1896-1918.
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An excerpt characterizing Yusupov, Nikolai Borisovich
Pierre did not see people separately, but saw their movement.All these people, the horses seemed to be driven by some invisible force. All of them, during the hour during which Pierre was watching them, swam out of different streets with the same desire to pass quickly; they all the same, colliding with others, began to get angry, fight; white teeth bared, eyebrows frowned, the same curses were thrown over and over, and on all faces there was the same youthfully resolute and cruelly cold expression, which struck Pierre in the morning at the sound of a drum on the corporal's face.
Already before evening, the convoy commander gathered his team and, shouting and arguing, squeezed into the carts, and the prisoners, surrounded on all sides, went out onto the Kaluga road.
They walked very quickly, without resting, and stopped only when the sun had already begun to set. The carts moved one on top of the other, and people began to prepare for the night. Everyone seemed angry and unhappy. For a long time, curses, angry cries and fights were heard from different sides. The carriage, which was riding behind the escorts, advanced on the escorts' wagon and pierced it with a drawbar. Several soldiers from different directions ran to the wagon; some beat on the heads of the horses harnessed to the carriage, turning them, others fought among themselves, and Pierre saw that one German was seriously wounded in the head with a cleaver.
It seemed that all these people now experienced, when they stopped in the middle of the field in the cold twilight of an autumn evening, the same feeling of unpleasant awakening from the haste that seized everyone upon leaving and the impetuous movement somewhere. Stopping, everyone seemed to understand that it was still unknown where they were going, and that this movement would be a lot of hard and difficult.
The escorts treated the prisoners at this halt even worse than when they set out. At this halt, for the first time, the meat food of the captives was issued with horse meat.
From the officers to the last soldier, it was noticeable in everyone, as if personal bitterness against each of the prisoners, so unexpectedly replacing the previously friendly relations.
This exasperation intensified even more when, when counting the prisoners, it turned out that during the bustle, leaving Moscow, one Russian soldier, pretending to be sick from his stomach, fled. Pierre saw how a Frenchman beat a Russian soldier because he moved far from the road, and heard how the captain, his friend, reprimanded the non-commissioned officer for the escape of a Russian soldier and threatened him with a court. To the excuse of the non-commissioned officer that the soldier was sick and could not walk, the officer said that he was ordered to shoot those who would fall behind. Pierre felt that the fatal force that crushed him during the execution and which was invisible during captivity now again took possession of his existence. He was scared; but he felt how, in proportion to the efforts made by the fatal force to crush him, a force of life independent of it grew and grew stronger in his soul.
Pierre dined on rye flour soup with horse meat and talked with his comrades.
Neither Pierre nor any of his comrades spoke about what they saw in Moscow, nor about the rudeness of the treatment of the French, nor about the order to shoot, which was announced to them: everyone was, as if in rebuff to the deteriorating situation, especially lively and cheerful . They talked about personal memories, about funny scenes seen during the campaign, and hushed up conversations about the present situation.
The sun has long since set. Bright stars lit up somewhere in the sky; the red, fire-like glow of the rising full moon spread over the edge of the sky, and the huge red ball oscillated surprisingly in the grayish haze. It became light. The evening was already over, but the night had not yet begun. Pierre got up from his new comrades and went between the fires to the other side of the road, where, he was told, the captured soldiers were standing. He wanted to talk to them. On the road, a French sentry stopped him and ordered him to turn back.
Pierre returned, but not to the fire, to his comrades, but to the unharnessed wagon, which had no one. He crossed his legs and lowered his head, sat down on the cold ground at the wheel of the wagon, and sat motionless for a long time, thinking. More than an hour has passed. Nobody bothered Pierre. Suddenly he burst out laughing with his thick, good-natured laugh so loudly that people from different directions looked around in surprise at this strange, obviously lonely laugh.
– Ha, ha, ha! Pierre laughed. And he said aloud to himself: “The soldier didn’t let me in.” Caught me, locked me up. I am being held captive. Who me? Me! Me, my immortal soul! Ha, ha, ha! .. Ha, ha, ha! .. - he laughed with tears in his eyes.
Some man got up and came up to see what this strange big man alone was laughing about. Pierre stopped laughing, got up, moved away from the curious and looked around him.
Previously, loudly noisy with the crackling of fires and the talk of people, the huge, endless bivouac subsided; the red fires of the fires went out and grew pale. High in the bright sky stood a full moon. Forests and fields, previously invisible outside the camp, now opened up in the distance. And even farther than these forests and fields could be seen a bright, oscillating, inviting endless distance. Pierre looked into the sky, into the depths of the departing, playing stars. “And all this is mine, and all this is in me, and all this is me! thought Pierre. “And they caught all this and put it in a booth, fenced off with boards!” He smiled and went to bed with his comrades.
In the first days of October, another truce came to Kutuzov with a letter from Napoleon and an offer of peace, deceptively signified from Moscow, while Napoleon was already not far ahead of Kutuzov, on the old Kaluga road. Kutuzov answered this letter in the same way as the first one sent from Lauriston: he said that there could be no talk of peace.
Soon after this, a report was received from the partisan detachment of Dorokhov, who was walking to the left of Tarutin, that troops had appeared in Fominsky, that these troops consisted of Brusier's division, and that this division, separated from other troops, could easily be exterminated. Soldiers and officers again demanded activity. Staff generals, excited by the memory of the ease of victory at Tarutin, insisted on Kutuzov's execution of Dorokhov's proposal. Kutuzov did not consider any offensive necessary. The average came out, that which was to be accomplished; a small detachment was sent to Fominsky, which was supposed to attack Brussier.
By a strange chance, this appointment - the most difficult and most important, as it turned out later - was received by Dokhturov; that same modest, little Dokhturov, whom no one described to us as making battle plans, flying in front of regiments, throwing crosses at batteries, etc., who was considered and called indecisive and impenetrable, but the same Dokhturov, whom during all the Russian wars with the French, from Austerlitz and up to the thirteenth year, we find commanders wherever only the situation is difficult. In Austerlitz, he remains the last at the Augusta dam, gathering regiments, saving what is possible when everything is running and dying and not a single general is in the rearguard. He, sick with a fever, goes to Smolensk with twenty thousand to defend the city against the entire Napoleonic army. In Smolensk, he had barely dozed off at the Molokhov Gates, in a paroxysm of fever, he was awakened by the cannonade across Smolensk, and Smolensk held out all day. On Borodino day, when Bagration was killed and the troops of our left flank were killed in the ratio of 9 to 1 and the entire force of the French artillery was sent there, no one else was sent, namely the indecisive and impenetrable Dokhturov, and Kutuzov was in a hurry to correct his mistake when he sent there another. And the small, quiet Dokhturov goes there, and Borodino is the best glory of the Russian army. And many heroes are described to us in verse and prose, but almost not a word about Dokhturov.
Again Dokhturov is sent there to Fominsky and from there to Maly Yaroslavets, to the place where the last battle with the French took place, and to the place from which, obviously, the death of the French already begins, and again many geniuses and heroes describe to us during this period of the campaign , but not a word about Dokhturov, or very little, or doubtful. This silence about Dokhturov most obviously proves his merits.
Naturally, for a person who does not understand the movement of the machine, when he sees its operation, it seems that the most important part of this machine is that chip that accidentally got into it and, interfering with its movement, is rattling in it. A person who does not know the structure of the machine cannot understand that not this spoiling and interfering chip, but that small transmission gear that turns inaudibly, is one of the most essential parts of the machine.
On October 10, on the very day Dokhturov walked halfway to Fominsky and stopped in the village of Aristovo, preparing to execute the given order exactly, the entire French army, in its convulsive movement, reached the position of Murat, as it seemed, in order to give the battle, suddenly, for no reason, turned to the left onto the new Kaluga road and began to enter Fominsky, in which only Brussier had previously stood. Dokhturov under command at that time had, in addition to Dorokhov, two small detachments of Figner and Seslavin.
On the evening of October 11, Seslavin arrived in Aristovo to the authorities with a captured French guard. The prisoner said that the troops that had now entered Fominsky were the vanguard of the entire large army, that Napoleon was right there, that the entire army had already left Moscow for the fifth day. That same evening, a courtyard man who came from Borovsk told how he saw the entry of a huge army into the city. Cossacks from the Dorokhov detachment reported that they saw the French guards walking along the road to Borovsk. From all this news, it became obvious that where they thought to find one division, there was now the entire French army, marching from Moscow in an unexpected direction - along the old Kaluga road. Dokhturov did not want to do anything, because it was not clear to him now what his duty was. He was ordered to attack Fominsky. But in Fominsky there used to be only Brussier, now there was the whole French army. Yermolov wanted to do as he pleased, but Dokhturov insisted that he needed to have an order from his Serene Highness. It was decided to send a report to headquarters.
For this, an intelligent officer, Bolkhovitinov, was chosen, who, in addition to a written report, was supposed to tell the whole story in words. At twelve o'clock in the morning, Bolkhovitinov, having received an envelope and a verbal order, galloped, accompanied by a Cossack, with spare horses to the main headquarters.
The night was dark, warm, autumnal. It has been raining for the fourth day. Having changed horses twice and galloping thirty miles along a muddy, viscous road in an hour and a half, Bolkhovitinov was at Letashevka at two o'clock in the morning. Climbing down at the hut, on the wattle fence of which there was a sign: "General Staff", and leaving the horse, he entered the dark passage.
- The general on duty soon! Very important! he said to someone who was getting up and snuffling in the darkness of the passage.
“From the evening they were very unwell, they didn’t sleep for the third night,” whispered the orderly voice intercessively. “Wake up the captain first.
“Very important, from General Dokhturov,” said Bolkhovitinov, entering the open door he felt for. The orderly went ahead of him and began to wake someone:
“Your honor, your honor is a courier.
- I'm sorry, what? from whom? said a sleepy voice.
- From Dokhturov and from Alexei Petrovich. Napoleon is in Fominsky,” said Bolkhovitinov, not seeing in the darkness the one who asked him, but from the sound of his voice, assuming that it was not Konovnitsyn.
The awakened man yawned and stretched.
“I don’t want to wake him up,” he said, feeling something. - Sick! Maybe so, rumors.
“Here is the report,” said Bolkhovitinov, “it was ordered to immediately hand it over to the general on duty.
- Wait, I'll light the fire. Where the hell are you always going to put it? - Turning to the batman, said the stretching man. It was Shcherbinin, Konovnitsyn's adjutant. “I found it, I found it,” he added.
The orderly cut down the fire, Shcherbinin felt the candlestick.
“Oh, the nasty ones,” he said in disgust.
By the light of the sparks, Bolkhovitinov saw the young face of Shcherbinin with a candle and in the front corner of a still sleeping man. It was Konovnitsyn.
When at first the sulphurous tinder lit up with a blue and then a red flame, Shcherbinin lit a tallow candle, from the candlestick of which the Prussians gnawed at it ran, and examined the messenger. Bolkhovitinov was covered in mud and, wiping himself with his sleeve, smeared his face.
- Who delivers? Shcherbinin said, taking the envelope.
“The news is true,” said Bolkhovitinov. - And the prisoners, and the Cossacks, and scouts - all unanimously show the same thing.
“There is nothing to do, we must wake up,” said Shcherbinin, getting up and going up to a man in a nightcap, covered with an overcoat. - Pyotr Petrovich! he said. Konovnitsyn did not move. - Headquarters! he said, smiling, knowing that these words would probably wake him up. And indeed, the head in the nightcap rose at once. On Konovnitsyn's handsome, firm face, with feverishly inflamed cheeks, for a moment there still remained an expression of dreams far removed from the present state of sleep, but then he suddenly shuddered: his face assumed its usual calm and firm expression.
- Well, what is it? From whom? he asked slowly but immediately, blinking in the light. Listening to the officer's report, Konovnitsyn printed it out and read it. As soon as he read, he put his feet in woolen stockings on the dirt floor and began to put on shoes. Then he took off his cap and, combing his temples, put on his cap.
- Did you arrive soon? Let's go to the brightest.
Konovnitsyn immediately realized that the news he had brought was of great importance and that it was impossible to delay. Whether it was good or bad, he did not think and did not ask himself. It didn't interest him. He looked at the whole matter of the war not with the mind, not with reasoning, but with something else. There was a deep, unspoken conviction in his soul that everything would be fine; but that it is not necessary to believe this, and even more so, it is not necessary to say this, but one must only do one's own business. And he did his job, giving him all his strength.
Prince Nick. Bor. Yusupov. - The wealth of the Yusupov family. - Prince Grigory Yusupov. - The village of Arkhangelsk. - Prince Golitsyn, nobleman of Catherine's time. - Theatre. - A wealth of greenhouses. - The prudence of the Yusupov princes. - Directorate. - Yusupov's land wealth. - Anecdotes from the life of Yusupov. - T. V. Yusupova. - Prince B. N. Yusupov. - Ancestral home of the princes Yusupov in Moscow. - The working life of Prince B. N. Yusupov. - The Countess de Cheveaux.
One of the last grandees of the brilliant age of Catherine II was also in Moscow, Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov. The prince lived in his old boyar house, given for his service to his great-great-grandfather, Prince Grigory Dmitrievich, by Emperor Peter II.
This house stands in Kharitonievsky Lane and is remarkable as an old architectural monument of the 17th century. Here his grandfather treated the crowned daughter of Peter the Great Empress Elizabeth during her visit to Moscow.
The wealth of the Yusupovs has long been famous for its colossality. The beginning of this wealth comes from the time of Empress Anna Ioannovna, although even before that time the Yusupovs were very rich. Their ancestor, Yusuf, was the sovereign sultan of the Nogai Horde. His sons arrived in Moscow in 1563 and were granted by the tsar rich villages and villages in the Romanovsky district (Romanovsko-Borisoglebsky district of the Yaroslavl province). The Cossacks and Tatars settled there were subordinated to them. Subsequently, one of the sons of Yusuf was given some more palace villages. Tsar Feodor Ivanovich also repeatedly granted Il-Murza lands. False Dmitry and the Tushinsky thief granted Romanovsky Posad (county town of Romanov, Yaroslavl province) to his son Seyush.
Upon accession to the throne, Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich left all these lands behind him. The descendants of Yusuf were Mohammedans even under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Under this sovereign, the great-grandson of Yusuf, Abdul-Murza, was the first to accept Christianity; at baptism he received the name of Dmitry Seyushevich Yusupovo-Knyazhevo.
The newly baptized prince soon fell into the tsar's disgrace on the following occasion: he took it into his head to treat Patriarch Joachim with a goose at his dinner; the day turned out to be fasting, and for this violation of the charters of the church, on behalf of the king, the prince was punished with batogs and all his property was taken away from him; but soon the king forgave the culprit and returned what had been taken away.
There is an anecdote about this case. Once, the great-grandson of Dmitry Seyushevich was the chamber junker on duty during dinner with Catherine the Great. A goose was served on the table.
- Do you know how, prince, to cut a goose? Ekaterina Yusupova asked.
- Oh, the goose must be very memorable of my surname! - answered the prince. - My ancestor ate one on Good Friday and for that he was deprived of several thousand peasants granted to him at the entrance to Russia.
“I would take away all his property from him, because it was given to him on the condition that he does not eat fast on fast days,” the empress remarked jokingly about this story.
Prince Dmitry Yusupov had three sons, and after his death, all wealth was divided into three parts. Actually, the wealth of the Yusupovs was laid by one of the sons of the latter, Prince Grigory Dmitrievich. The descendants of the other two sons did not grow rich, but were divided and fell into decay.
Prince Grigory Dmitrievich Yusupov was one of the military generals of the time of Peter the Great - his mind, fearlessness and courage brought him the favor of the emperor.
In 1717, the prince was appointed, among other persons, to investigate the abuses of Prince Koltsov-Masalsky on salt collection in Bakhmut. In 1719 he was a major general, and in 1722 a senator. Catherine I promoted him to lieutenant general, and Peter II appointed him lieutenant colonel of the Preobrazhensky Regiment and the first member of the Military Collegium. He was also entrusted with the search for Solovyov, who was transferring millions belonging to the prince to foreign banks. Menshikov.
He also carried out an investigation about government things, hidden by the chief chamberlain, Prince I. Dolgoruky. In addition to this, as Karnovich says, he was engaged in the extremely profitable at that time food and quartermaster part, and also built ships. Peter II gave him a spacious house in Moscow in the parish of the Three Hierarchs, and in 1729 he granted him many of the villages of Prince Menshikov deducted to the treasury, as well as the estate with a suburban settlement leased from Prince Prozorovsky, into eternal hereditary possession.
The Spanish ambassador Duc de Liria characterizes Prince Yusupov as follows: “Prince Yusupov of Tatar origin (his brother is still a Mohammedan), a completely well-bred man, who served very well, quite familiar with military affairs, he was all covered with wounds; the prince loved foreigners and was very attached to Peter II - in a word, he belonged to the number of those people who always follow the straight path. One passion overshadowed him - the passion for wine.
He died on September 2, 1730, at the age of 56, in Moscow, at the beginning of the reign of Anna Ioannovna, he was buried in the Epiphany Monastery 67 (in Kitay-Gorod), in the lower church of the Kazan Mother of God. His gravestone inscription begins like this:
“Inspire, whoever passes away, semo, this stone will teach you a lot. The general-in-chief was buried here, etc., etc.
Yusupov left three sons, of whom two soon died, and the only remaining son, Boris Grigoryevich, received all his enormous wealth. Prince Boris was brought up at the behest of Peter the Great in France. He enjoyed Biron's special favor.
Under Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, Yusupov was president of the Commerce Collegium, chief director of the Ladoga Canal, and for nine years he managed the cadet land gentry corps.
During the management of this Corps, he was the first in the capital to start theatrical performances for his own pleasure and for the entertainment of a few dignitaries detained against their will by the affairs of service on the banks of the Neva. The court at that time was in Moscow; cadet actors acted out the best tragedies in the Corps, both Russian, composed at that time by Sumarokov, and French in translation.
The French repertoire consisted mainly of Voltaire's plays, presented in a distorted form. When the court returned from Moscow, the empress wished to see the performance, and in 1750, at the initiative of Yusupov, the first public performance of the Russian tragedy of Sumarokov’s work “Khorev” took place, and in the same year, on September 29, the empress ordered Trediakovsky and Lomonosov to compose based on the tragedy . Lomonosov a month later composed the tragedy "Tamiru and Selim". As for Trediakovsky, he, too, two months later delivered the tragedy "Deidamius", the "catastrophes" of which "was leading the queen to sacrifice to the goddess Diana." The tragedy, however, was not even worthy of publication at the Academy.
But we return again to Boris Yusupov. Empress Elizabeth, satisfied with the management of his gentry corps, granted him an eternal hereditary possession in the Poltava province, in the village of Ryashki, a state-owned cloth factory with all camps, tools and artisans and with a village attached to it, so that he would write Dutch sheep to this estate and led the factory into a better device.
The prince undertook to annually supply to the treasury first 17,000 arshins of cloth of all colors, and then put 20 and 30 thousand arshins.
The son of this prince, Nikolai Borisovich, as we have said above, was one of the most famous nobles who ever lived in Moscow. Under him, his estate near Moscow, the village of Arkhangelsk, was enriched with all kinds of artistic things.
He laid out a large garden there with fountains and huge greenhouses, containing more than two thousand orange trees.
One of these trees was bought by him from Razumovsky for 3,000 rubles; there was no one like him in Russia, and only two of these, located in the Versailles greenhouse, were a match for him. According to legend, this tree was already 400 years old.
The village of Arkhangelskoye, Upolozy too, is located on the high bank of the Moskva River. Arkhangelsk was the ancestral patrimony of Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Golitsyn, one of the educated people of the time of Peter the Great.
Under Empress Anna Ioannovna, the prince was exiled to Shlisselburg, where he died. During the disgrace, the prince lived in this estate; here, according to I. E. Zabelin, he had an elegant library and a museum, which at that time were inferior in their wealth only to the library and museum of Count Bruce. Most of the manuscripts from Arkhangelsk later passed into the collection of Count Tolstoy and then belonged to the Imperial Public Library; but the best ones were plundered during the inventory of the estate - they were used, as Tatishchev says, even the Duke of Courland Biron.
At the time of the Golitsyns, Arkhangelskoye resembled the old village life of the boyars in its unpretentiousness and simplicity. The prince's yard consisted of three small rooms, actually eight-yard huts, connected by a passage. Their interior decoration was simple. In the front corners there are icons, near the wall are benches, stoves made of yellow tiles; in one room there were two windows, in another four, in the third five; in the windows the glass was still in the old style in lead bindings or frames; oak tables, four leather chairs, a spruce bed with a featherbed and a pillow, in mottled and embroidered pillowcases, etc.
There was a bathhouse near the svetlitsy, and in the yard, fenced with a lattice fence, various services - a cookery, a cellar, glaciers, barns, etc. Not far from the house stood a stone church in the name of the Archangel Michael, founded by the father of the prince, boyar Mikhail Andreyevich Golitsyn. But what did not correspond to the unpretentious simple boyar life then here were two greenhouses, very unusual for that time; overseas trees wintered here: laurus, nux malabarica, myrtus, kupresus and others.
Opposite the greenhouses was a garden with a length of 61 sazhens, a width of 52 sazhens, in it were planted: sambucus, chestnuts, mulberries, serengia (2 pcs.), 14 walnuts, God's trees, a small lily, etc .; on the ridges grew: carnation, catheser, chalcedony lychnis, blue and yellow iris (iris), kalufer, isop, etc.
Opposite the choir there was a garden 190 sazhens long and 150 sazhens wide, with prospective roads along which maples and lindens were planted. The last of the Golitsyns who owned Arkhangelsk was Nikolai Alexandrovich, married to M. A. Olsufieva. This Golitsyna sold Arkhangelsk for 100,000 rubles to Prince Yusupov.
After buying the estate, the prince cut down a lot of forest and set about capital construction of the estate. The house was designed in excellent Italian taste, connected by colonnades, with two pavilions, in which, as in the seventeen rooms of the house, 236 paintings were located, consisting of originals: Velazquez, Raphael Mengs, Perugini, David, Ricci, Guido Reni, Tiepolo and others . Of these paintings, Doyan's painting “The Triumph of Metellus” deserved special attention; from the marbles of Arkhangelsk, the group of Canova "Cupid and Psyche" and the cutter of Kozlovsky are remarkable, the beautiful statue "Cupid", unfortunately damaged during transportation in 1812. Yusupov collected art gallery for thirty years.
But the best beauty of Arkhangelsk is the home theater, built according to the drawing of the famous Gonzago, for 400 spectators; twelve scenery changes of this theater were painted by the brush of the same Gonzago. Yusupov also had another theater in Moscow, on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street, which formerly belonged to Pozdnyakov and where French performances were given during the French stay in Moscow in 1812.
Yusupov's library consisted of more than 30,000 volumes, including the rarest Elseviers and the Bible, printed in 1462. There was also a house in the garden called "Caprice". It was said about the construction of this house that when Arkhangelskoye belonged to the Golitsyns, the husband and wife quarreled, the princess did not want to live in the same house with her husband and ordered to build a special house for herself, which she called “Caprice”. The peculiarity of this house was that it stood on a small hill, but there were no porches with steps to enter it, but only a sloping path that sloped down to the very threshold of the doors.
Prince Yusupov was very fond of old bronzes, marbles and all sorts of expensive things; he once collected such a number of them that it was difficult to find another such rich collection of rare antique things in Russia: by his grace, money changers and junk dealers Shukhov, Lukhmanov and Volkov became rich in Moscow. Prince Nikolai Borisovich, in his time, received an excellent education - he was an envoy in Turin during the reign of Catherine. At the university of this city, the prince received his education and was a friend of Alfieri.
Emperor Paul at his coronation granted him the star of St. Andrew the First-Called. Under Alexander I, he was for a long time the minister of appanages, under Emperor Nicholas he was the head of the Kremlin expedition, and under his supervision the Small Nikolaev Kremlin Palace was rebuilt.
He had all the Russian orders, a portrait of the sovereign, a diamond cipher, and when there was nothing else to reward him with, he was granted one pearl epaulette.
Prince Yusupov was very rich, loved luxury, knew how to show off when needed, and being very generous, he was sometimes very prudent; Countess Razumovskaya in one letter to her husband describes a holiday in Arkhangelsk near Yusupov, given to Emperor Alexander I and King Frederick William III of Prussia.
“The evening was excellent, but the holiday was the most deplorable. It would be too long to tell everything, but here is one detail for you, by which you can judge the rest. Imagine, after a snack, we went for a ride on terrible roads and damp, ugly places. After a half-hour walk we drive up to the theater. Everyone expects a surprise, and for sure - the surprise was complete, the scenery was changed three times, and the whole performance is ready. Everyone bit their lips, starting with the sovereign. Throughout the evening there was a terrible turmoil. The most august guests did not know for sure what to do and where to go. The king of Prussia will have a good idea about the Moscow nobles. The stinginess in everything was unimaginable.
All the Yusupovs were not distinguished by extravagance and tried to collect more wealth. So, giving out brides from their kind, the Yusupovs did not give much as a dowry.
According to the will, for example, of Princess Anna Nikitichna, who died in 1735, only 300 rubles a year were assigned to her daughter for extradition, from household items: 100 buckets of wine, 9 bulls and 60 rams. When marrying Princess Evdokia Borisovna to the Duke of Courland, Peter Biron, only 15,000 rubles were given as a dowry. with an obligation on the part of the father of the bride to provide the future duchess with a diamond dress and other shells with a price indication for each item. The princess-bride was of dazzling beauty and did not live long in marriage to Biron.
After her death, Biron sent Yusupov her front bed and all the furniture from her bedroom as a keepsake; the furniture was upholstered in blue satin and silver.
Also interesting is the wedding contract between Prince Dmitry Borisovich Yusupov and the devious Aktinfov, who undertook to pay him 4,000 rubles if he did not marry his daughter to the prince by the appointed time. penalties - a very significant amount for half of the XVII century.
The village of Arkhangelsk has been honored more than once by the arrival of the highest persons; Empress Maria Feodorovna stayed for several days, and in the garden there are marble monuments with inscriptions about when and which of the highest persons was there. It is very clear that, accepting royal persons, Yusupov also gave magnificent holidays.
The last of these holidays was given by Yusupov to Emperor Nicholas after his coronation. Almost all foreign ambassadors were here, and everyone was surprised at the luxury of this lordly estate. The holiday came out the most luxurious and magnificent.
On this day in Arkhangelsk there was a dinner, a performance and a ball with illumination of the entire garden and fireworks.
Prince Nikolai Borisovich was a friend of Voltaire and lived with him at Ferney Castle; in his youth, he traveled a lot and was received by all the then rulers of Europe. Yusupov saw in full splendor the court of Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette; Yusupov was more than once in Berlin with the old king Frederick the Great, presented himself in Vienna to Emperor Joseph II and the English and Spanish kings; Yusupov, according to his contemporaries, was the most affable and nice person, without any pomposity or pride; with the ladies he was exquisitely polite. Blagovo says that when in a familiar house he happened to meet some lady on the stairs - whether he knows her or not - he always bows low and steps aside to let her pass. When in his summer in Arkhangelsk he walked in the garden, then everyone who wanted to walk was allowed to go there, and when he met, he would certainly bow to the ladies, and if he met even those known to him by name, he would come up and say a friendly word.
Pushkin sang Yusupov in his charming ode "To the nobleman." Prince Nikolai Borisovich managed the theaters from 1791 to 1799, and, like his father, who laid the foundation for the Russian drama theater in St. Petersburg, he also did a lot for art in this field; the prince had his own Italian buff opera in St. Petersburg, which gave pleasure to the whole court.
According to the biographer Nikolai Borisovich, he loved the theater, scientists, artists, and even in old age brought a tribute of surprise to the fair sex! It cannot be said that even at a young age Yusupov ran away from the fair sex; according to the stories of those who knew him, he was a big "ferlakur", as they called red tape then; in his village house there was one room, where there was a collection of three hundred portraits of all the beauties, whose favor he enjoyed.
In his bedroom hung a picture with a mythological plot, in which he was represented by Apollo, and Venus was a person who was better known at that time under the name of Minerva. Emperor Pavel knew about this picture and, upon his accession to the throne, ordered Yusupov to remove it.
Prince Yusupov, in his old age, took it into his head to go into business and started a mirror factory; at that time, all mirrors were more imported and were at a high price. The prince did not succeed in this enterprise, and he suffered heavy losses.
The last years of his life, Prince Yusupov lived without a break in Moscow and enjoyed great respect and love for his purely aristocratic courtesy with everyone. Only one thing harmed the prince a little, this is an addiction to the female sex.
Prince N. B. Yusupov was married to the niece of Prince Potemkin, Tatyana Vasilievna Engelhardt, who was previously married to her distant relative Potemkin. Yusupov's wife brought colossal wealth.
The Yusupovs did not know the account of either their millions or their estates. When the prince was asked: "What, prince, do you have an estate in such and such a province and district?"
They brought him a commemorative book in which all his estates were recorded by provinces and districts; he coped, and it almost always turned out that he had an estate there.
Prince Yusupov was very young in his old age and liked to tease his old peers. So, once when he blamed Count Arkady Markov about his old age, he answered him that he was the same age as him.
“Have mercy,” continued the prince, “you were already in the service, and I was still at school.
“But why am I to blame,” Markov objected, “that your parents started teaching you to read and write so late.
Prince Yusupov was friendly with the famous Count Saint-Germain and asked him to give him a recipe for longevity. The count did not reveal the whole secret to him, but said that one of the important means is to abstain from drinking not only intoxicating, but also any kind.
Prince Yusupov, despite his gallantry with women, when he was the director of the theater, knew how to be, when necessary, strict with the actresses subordinate to him. One day some Italian opera singer, out of a whim, came down sick; Yusupov ordered, under the guise of participation in her, not to let her out of the house and not to let anyone in except the doctor. This delicate arrest frightened the capricious actress so much that her imaginary illness was taken away from her.
Prince Yusupov, as we said, was married to the widow Potemkina. In the life of this rich woman, as Karnovich mentions, there was one remarkable circumstance: the very odd Duchess of Kingston, Countess Worth, who came to St. Petersburg under Catherine the Great, fell in love with Tatyana Vasilievna Engelhardt, still young at that time, that she wanted to take her with her to England and give her all his immeasurable fortune. The Duchess arrived in Petersburg on her own magnificent yacht, which had a garden and was decorated with paintings and statues; with her, in addition to numerous servants, there was an orchestra of music. Tatyana Vasilievna did not agree to the proposal of the duchess and, having become a widow, married Yusupov in 1795. The couple subsequently did not get along very well and did not live together, although they were not in a quarrel. The prince died before his wife, the latter died after him, ten years later. They had one son. It is remarkable that in this line of the Yusupovs, as in the younger line of the Sheremetevs, only one heir remained constantly alive. Now it seems that this has changed - the Sheremetevs have several, and the Yusupovs have none.
Tatyana Vasilievna Yusupova also did not differ in extravagance and lived very modestly; she managed all her estates herself. And out of some kind of frugality, the princess rarely changed her toilets. She wore the same dress for a long time, almost to the point of complete wear. One day, already in her old age, the following thought came to her mind:
“Yes, if I keep to that order, then my female servants will have a few belongings after my death.”
And from that very hour there had been an unexpected and drastic upheaval in her toilet habits. She often ordered and put on new dresses made of expensive materials. All her family and friends marveled at this change, congratulated her on her panache and on the fact that she seemed to have grown younger. She, so to speak, dressed up for death and wanted to replenish and enrich her spiritual testament in favor of her servants. She had only one expensive passion - it was to collect precious stones. The princess bought the famous diamond "Polar Star" for 300,000 rubles, as well as the diadem of the former Queen of Naples Carolina, Murat's wife, and also the famous pearl in Moscow from the Greek Zosima for 200,000 rubles, called "Pelegrina", or "Wanderer", once owned by King Philip II of Spain. Then Yusupova spent a lot of money on her collection of antique carved stones (cameo and intaglio).
The only son of Tatyana Vasilievna, Boris Nikolaevich, is known as a very active and caring person in the performance of his duties. According to the stories of his contemporaries, he died in the service and for the economic affairs of his vast estates, and the day before his death he was engaged in the affairs of the service. In the words of his biographer, "happiness opened up a brilliant field for him."
He was the godson of Emperor Paul and received the Order of Malta as a child, and the hereditary command of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. After passing the exam at the Testing Committee at the St. Petersburg Pedagogical Institute, he hastened to enter the civil service.
As we have already said, industrious activity was a hallmark of his character. The prince, owning estates in seventeen provinces, surveyed his vast estates every year. Even such terrible things as, for example, cholera, did not keep him from household worries; and at a time when the latter was raging in Little Russia, he was not afraid to come to his village of Rakitnoye, where this epidemic was especially destructive; without fear of infection, the prince walked everywhere in the village.
In domestic life, the prince shunned luxury; his whole morning was devoted to official and economic affairs.
But at lunchtime, he was always glad to meet his friends and acquaintances: he did not analyze and distinguish by rank, and, once invited by him, received access to him forever.
In conversation, the prince was playful and witty, and knew how to deftly notice the oddities of his acquaintances. In the evening, the prince was always at the theater, the love for which he inherited from his father, who had been managing theaters for a long time; the prince, however, only liked to be in Russian performances.
The prince played the violin excellently and had a rare collection of Italian violins. Boris Nikolaevich did not like his Arkhangelsk and never lived there for long; at one time he began to take out a lot from there to his Petersburg house, but the emperor Nikolai Pavlovich, who remembered his Arkhangelsk, ordered to tell the prince that he should not devastate his Arkhangelsk.
The prince never gave festivities on this estate and, when he came to Moscow, he usually stayed in his ancient boyar house, donated, as we said above, to his great-grandfather by Emperor Peter II.
This house in Zemlyanoy Gorod, in Bolshoi Kharitonievsky Lane, was a rare architectural monument of the late 17th century; before it belonged to Alexei Volkov. The stone two-storey chambers of the Yusupovs with annexes to the east side stood in a spacious courtyard; a one-story stone building adjoined their western side, behind a stone pantry, then there was a garden, which until 1812 was much larger, and it had a pond. According to A. A. Martynov, the first chamber has two tiers, with a steep iron roof on four slopes, or epancha, and is distinguished by the thickness of the walls, built of 18-pound bricks with iron ties. Strength and safety were one of the first conditions of the building. At the top, the entrance door has partially retained its former style: it has a broken lintel in the form of a semi-octagon and with a sandrik at the top, in a tympanum, the image of St. Right-Believing Princes Boris and Gleb. This is reminiscent of the cherished pious custom of Russians to pray before entering the house and when leaving it. Here were the boyar living room, dining room and bedroom; to the western side - a chamber with a vault, with one window to the north, apparently, it served as a prayer room. In the lower floor, under the vaults - the same division; below it are cellars, where barrels were kept with prescribed Fryazhsky overseas wines and with Russian set and loose honeys, berry kvass, and so on. Attached to the east, a two-story ward, which used to be one chamber, is now divided into several rooms.
Here, Prince Boris Grigorievich treated the sovereign daughter of Peter the Great, who loved her father's faithful servant. Above the chamber rises a tower with two windows, where, according to legend, there was a church; from it in the wall one can see the same hidden cache as is located in the Faceted Chamber. This house in the Yusupov family is about two hundred years old; in this house on major holidays gathered with bread and salt, according to the ancient established custom, a thousandth crowd of peasants to bring congratulations. The mortal remains of Prince Yusupov were also brought here in the hands of the same peasants for burial in the village of Spasskoye near Moscow. The Yusupov princes are buried in a special stone tent attached to the church; on the tomb of Boris Nikolayevich, the following inscription was carved, written by the deceased himself:
“Here lies the Russian nobleman Prince Boris, Prince Nikolaev, son of Yusupov, born on July 9, 1794, died on October 25, 1849,” his favorite saying is written in French below: “L'honneur avant tout” .
At the base, a golden cross and an anchor are visible; on the first is the inscription "Faith in God", on the second - "Hope in God". Prince Boris Nikolayevich was married twice: his first wife was Princess N.P. Shcherbatova (died October 17, 1820); the second, Zinaida Ivanovna Naryshkina, was born in 1810; in his second marriage to a foreigner, Comte de Chevaux. From his first marriage, the son, Prince Nikolai Borisovich, was born on October 12, 1817. The prince was considered the last in the family: he had no sons - there were only daughters.
Princess I.M. Yusupov. Record of the acquisition on the book of St. Demetrius of Rostov. 1786. GMUA.
Religious and moral education of children in Russia was usually assigned to the mother. Princess Irina Mikhailovna Yusupova was a woman of a modest, gentle, simple disposition, but firm, especially in the affairs of the Faith, character.
Little is known for certain about Princess Irina Mikhailovna and her relationship with her only son. One can only guess how touching they were. The princess bought books for her son, ordered his naive children's portrait in an officer's uniform. Nikolai Borisovich himself - in his old age one of the first Russian nobles - ordered to be buried next to his mother in her small family estate near Moscow, and not at all in a fashionable cemetery, where his surviving enemies could envy his magnificent gravestone ...
Irina Mikhailovna read not only fashionable French novels, which was then supposed to be done by any lady of high society. She spent many evenings reading the Menaion, the Lives of the Saints of Saint Demetrius of Rostov. For several centuries this extensive edition has been considered in Russia a favorite popular reading. Irina Mikhailovna became a great admirer of Saint Demetrius, who in the middle of the 18th century had just been canonized as an Orthodox saint who shone forth in the Russian Land. She dedicated her house church in the St. Petersburg house to the memory of the Rostov Metropolitan. The books of St. Demetrius were carefully kept in his library by Prince Nikolai Borisovich.
In the age of Voltairianism and fashionable mockery of religious feelings, Irina Mikhailovna managed to instill in her son a deep Faith, as evidenced by some documents from the prince's archive. It’s another matter that outwardly showing one’s personal religiosity in those days was supposed to be very restrained - after all, the Yusupovs were not enthusiastic converts that literally pester everyone with their petty religious problems and doubts.
Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov Jr., grandson of the prince, a man of a completely different time, was more open in his religious views. He provided considerable support to Orthodoxy in the difficult years of the approaching unbelief, one of the first to point out to Russian society the future saint, the righteous John of Kronstadt, through whose prayers several miracles happened in the Yusupov family.
In Arkhangelsk, a small bas-relief by the little-known Russian sculptor F. Titov is kept, where Irina Mikhailovna is depicted playing solitaire, a kind of “gymnastics for the mind”. This portrait was in the personal rooms of Nikolai Borisovich. The simplicity and gentleness of the mother's disposition largely passed on to the son, although the position of a great nobleman sometimes forced him to behave with strangers in a closed and emphasized arrogance. The sculptor also sculpted a profile bas-relief portrait of the youngest prince at the age of twelve or thirty, emphasizing some self-confident arrogance, so characteristic of adolescents. Apparently, the portrait adorned the rooms of Irina Mikhailovna in Spas-Kotovo. A small hole for a nail was made in the upper part of both bas-reliefs, so that the image would be more convenient to hang on the wall.
According to tradition, for the people of the circle of princes Yusupovs, home education was not limited only to classes with tutors. Nikolai Borisovich's father, taking advantage of his official position, as well as the love of the cadets and teachers of the Cadet Corps for him, invited them to study with his son. Among the teachers of the young prince there were many immigrants from Holland. The Dutch, as you know, had a great influence on the formation of the emperor-transformer Peter the Great and on the formation of the new capital of Russia - St. Petersburg. Indeed, the representatives of this people have a lot to learn. Constant communication with foreigners, an example of their "German" punctuality, developed perseverance in the young prince, the ability to work regularly. These skills allowed Nikolai Borisovich, already in his youth, to freely master five foreign languages - both living and dead. Moreover, living languages - not only French - were in constant use. This characterizes Yusupov as a person who constantly strived, at the behest of his own soul, to master new knowledge.
Nikolai Borisovich also had an excellent command of Russian; not so much literary as colloquial. Everyday intonation is constantly present in his written orders, to a certain extent conveying the style of the prince's oral speech with all its whimsical turns of a learned husband, often communicating with ordinary peasants. By the way, Yusupov was taught Russian, as was the custom then, by an ordinary deacon. That is why in the princely orders - and he did not write them with his own hand very often, traces of knowledge of Church Slavonic letters are clearly traced. For the eighteenth century, the phenomenon is quite common among people from high society.
“Those residents of St. Petersburg and Moscow who consider themselves enlightened people make sure that their children know French, surround them with foreigners, give them expensive dance and music teachers, but do not teach them their native language, so this is beautiful and expensive worthwhile education leads to complete ignorance of the motherland, to indifference and even contempt for the country with which our existence is inextricably linked, and to attachment to France. However, it must be admitted that the nobility that lives in the interior provinces is not infected with this unforgivable delusion. .
Count Alexander Romanovich Vorontsov, an older peer of Yusupov, who was related to him on the maternal side through his brother Semyon Romanovich, who was married to one of Zinoviev, - a man who belonged to the same circle with Nikolai Borisovich. Alexander Romanovich was born in 1741 and was ten years older than Yusupov. The sister of the brothers A.R. and S.R. Vorontsov was the famous Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova, president of two Russian Academies, a lady as educated as she was bilious, who left her much more famous Notes to posterity. A very wise essay by her brother, alas, is known mainly to a narrow circle of specialists in the history of the eighteenth century.
Count Alexander Romanovich Vorontsov, like Yusupov, was immensely rich, had many activities that were pleasant for the soul and mind - he loved the theater, collected paintings and graphics. The most intelligent people of the era became his interlocutors. It seemed that nothing prevented him from living as a free master-sybarite. However, Vorontsov also entered the civil service, occupied many responsible and troublesome positions, reached the highest rank in Russia of the State Chancellor (as the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs was then called) and did a lot of useful things for his country. Despite the fact that Catherine II and Paul I treated him personally, as well as the entire Vorontsov family, without the slightest sympathy - only business qualities were valued, because there were many simply nice people, few workers.
Here is a clear evidence of the quality of home noble education of that time: “Father tried to give us such a good upbringing as was possible in Russia,” recalled A.R. Vorontsov. “My uncle sent a governess for us from Berlin. We quietly learned French, and already from the age of 5 or 6 we showed a decided inclination to read books. I must say that although the education we were given was not distinguished by either the brilliance or the extra expenses used for this subject in our time, it nevertheless had many good sides. Its main advantage was that at that time they did not neglect the study of the Russian language, which in our time is no longer included in the education program. It can be said that Russia is the only country where they neglect the study of their native language and everything that concerns the country in which people were born into the world; It goes without saying that I mean here the modern generation.(8a).
An important role in the education of the young Prince Yusupov was played by books that entered the life of Nikolai Borisovich early. Parents tried to lay the foundation for his future famous library, although they themselves were not great bibliophiles and hardly imagined that their son's library would become one of the largest in Russia and Europe. Books in the house were more like familiar interlocutors. Boris Grigoryevich, a great lover of reading, took the publications of interest to him at the Academy of Sciences for reading, and Irina Mikhailovna bought them.
One of the first books of the young prince was preserved in the Arkhangelsk library. This is the Court Letterbook, published in Amsterdam in 1696. On the flyleaf at the end of the book there is also the first ex-libris of the prince - the signature: “Prince Nicola a’ 9 ans.”. There is also a “self-portrait”, a figurine of a boy - a hand-drawn drawing of the nine-year-old prince Nicola.
Some educational drawings of the young Nikolai Borisovich have been preserved, and even a painting work - “The Cow”. Drawing was included in the circle of obligatory subjects of education for noble youth not only in the middle of the 18th century, but also much later, as evidenced by clearly amateur charade drawings from the Yusupov family album of the middle of the 19th century.
Irina Mikhailovna, one must think, quite often pampered her son with book gifts - another thing is that relatively little special children's or simply good educational literature was produced in the middle of the 18th century. So I had to donate books intended more for adult reading. In 1764, Irina Mikhailovna presented her 13-year-old son with the "History of Friedrich Wilhelm I, King of Prussia", about which a corresponding entry was made on the flyleaf of the book. It is still kept in the library of the Arkhangelskoye Estate Museum.
It was the library that could tell a lot about Prince Yusupov; to tell about what Nikolai Borisovich's contemporaries remained unknown to, and his descendants were not at all interested in. Unfortunately, the scientific catalog of the Arkhangelsky estate library, unique in its preservation, has not yet been introduced into scientific circulation, and a significant part of the Yusupovs' book collection remains inaccessible to researchers outside the museum.
Count A.R. Vorontsov: “My father ordered for us a fairly well compiled library, which contained the best French authors and poets, as well as books of historical content, so that when I was 12 years old, I was already well acquainted with the works of Voltaire, Racine, Corneille, Boileau and others. French writers. Among these books was a collection of almost one hundred volumes of numbers of the journal: The Key to Acquaintance with the Cabinets of European Sovereigns, beginning in 1700. I mention this collection because from it I learned about everything that happened in Russia, the most interesting and most remarkable since 1700. This edition had a great influence on my inclination towards history and politics; it aroused in me a desire to know everything that concerns these subjects, and especially in relation to Russia. .
Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov, no matter how paradoxical it may sound, studied all his life, because he read all his life and strove to acquire new knowledge. By his old age, he had collected a huge library, distinguished not only by bibliographic rarities, but also by great completeness. Many books on the most diverse fields of knowledge - both humanitarian and natural - have retained the prince's own notes, indicating that he was an attentive and interested reader, and not just a collector of books. It is no coincidence that S.A. Sobolevsky - the largest Russian bibliophile, a bilious person and by no means inclined to give out compliments, called Prince Yusupov an outstanding scientist - an expert on culture, not only foreign, but also Russian. The habit of everyday reading is usually laid down in childhood. By the way, Yusupov and Sobolevsky were clubmates and met more than once at the Moscow English Club.
The traditional education of boys and girls in Russia took place in a certain social circle. The children of Prince Yusupov were brought up with peers from familiar aristocratic families.
One of them is the family of the Counts Panins and their nephews, the princes Kurakin brothers. Yusupov was related to the Kurakins through sisters. Alexander and Alexei Kurakins became childhood friends of Nikolai Borisovich. One was a little older than him, the other, like the future Emperor Paul I, was several years younger. In childhood, as you know, even a small difference in age is very noticeable. Therefore, Yusupov cannot be called a childhood friend of the heir Pavel Petrovich. Closer and warmer relations arose only in early youth, and later strengthened when Nikolai Borisovich accompanied the heir to the throne and his wife on a trip abroad. Yusupov remained a close friend of the imperial couple until the death of Paul I and Empress Maria Feodorovna.
In the 18th century, court etiquette, of course, was observed very strictly, but for the children of nobles close to the court of Elizabeth Petrovna, quite understandable concessions were made - children are children. It is no coincidence that one of the Kurakin brothers called the heir to the throne, Pavel Petrovich, in letters simply and familiarly affectionately - Pavlushka. That's who observed the court etiquette to the smallest detail, so it's just the grown-up Paul I, who ascended the imperial throne after the death of his mother, Catherine the Great.
Much more information has been preserved about the first years of the life of the future emperor than about the childhood of the “simple” Prince Yusupov, although the circle of their occupations at that time did not differ much. Here are some extracts from the famous "Notebooks" for 1765 by S.A. Poroshin, who was constantly with the young heir to the throne and made notes immediately after the events.
March 27th. Shoe became, wood lice crawled; he was afraid that they would crush him, and he shouted. March 28th. Before that, he quarreled with the Grand Duke (Paul), forcing him to play music. Very reluctantly vulgar, he defended himself with his right that he was now completely dismissed from teaching; lazy person; after that he played chess with Kurakin; frolic, ate supper, went to bed. 30th of March. When they arrived, they played Kurakin and played chess ... before dinner, I watched the puppet theater. March 31. They played chess, rolled Kurakin and put him on a bottle, in a billbox. We sat down at the table, dined with us Pyotr Ivanovich (Panin), gr. Ivan Grigoryevich, Talyzin, Cruz, Stroganov. We talked about various poisons, then about the French ministry. We got up, again dragged Kurakin. April 5. We went to the kurtag, which was in the gallery. The Empress played picket. The Tsarevich stood like that. Arriving there, he teased Kurakin with his prank, and he did not stay for supper. After that, he became very polite.” .
The April 16 entry is perhaps the most remarkable. It shows how simplicity of morals was present in everyday court life, if even the enlightened educator of the heir, Count Nikita Ivanovich Panin, did not disdain the described "fun". “I played shuttlecocks. I learned very well. Fektoval. In berlan. Had supper. As soon as the undresser conceived, Nikita Ivanovich came and was here until the Sovereign lay down at half past ten. Then Nikita Ivanovich himself led Kurakin into the dark passage to Stroganov and, after a fright, returned. The others took Kurakin to Stroganov. There, Stroganov's servants dressed up in a white shirt and a wig. Kurakin was a cruel coward." The next day, the "frightening" of the tsar's friend Kurakin continued. Meanwhile, Paul, ten years old, already expressed quite sound thoughts; some of them are fixed: “we always want the forbidden, and that this is based on human nature” or “you study well: you always learn something new”.
Already at the age of 11, the future emperor knew firsthand about some of the problems of family life. Once at dinner, he said: “When I get married, I will love my wife very much and I will be jealous. I really don't want to have horns." Pavel very early turned his favorable attention to some court ladies, among whom, according to rumors, was one of the beautiful princesses of the Yusupovs, the sister of Nikolai Borisovich ...
In the reign of Empresses Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine the Great, the children of all people close to the Court began to go out early, much earlier than Natasha Rostova, by the way, the daughter of the foreman of the Moscow English Club, whose first ball is described by Count L.N. Tolstoy. Here is what Count A.R. recalled about his first trips to high society. Vorontsov.
“Empress Elizabeth, distinguished by benevolence and friendliness to all those around her, was even interested in the children of persons belonging to her court. She largely retained the old Russian customs, which were very similar to the old patriarchal customs. Although we were still children, she allowed us to be at her court on her reception days and sometimes gave, in her inner apartments, balls for both sexes of the children of those persons who were at court. I have a memory of one of these balls, which was attended by 60 to 80 children. We were seated for supper, and the tutors and governesses accompanying us dined at a special table. The Empress was very interested in watching us dance and dine, and she herself sat down to dine with our fathers and mothers. Thanks to this habit of seeing the yard, we imperceptibly got used to the great light and society. .
The children formed friendships "in the light" and outside the walls of the royal palace. “There was another custom,” recalled Count A.R. Vorontsov, - who contributed a lot to making us cheeky, namely, that the children of persons who were at court mutually visited each other on holidays and Sundays. Balls were arranged between them, to which they always went accompanied by tutors and governesses. .
“The spectacle is a public fun that corrects human morals,” wrote the famous Russian actor of the 18th century P.A. Melters about theatrical performances. Count A.R. Vorontsov in "Notes" said that, according to tradition, people of his circle attended theatrical performances from childhood. “French comedies were given twice a week at the court theater, and our father took us there with him to the box. I mention this circumstance because it greatly contributed to the fact that from early childhood we received a strong inclination towards reading and literature. .
It is clear that Nikolai Borisovich also visited the theater at the Cadet Corps, using his father's official box, he also attended court performances in the Winter Palace.
Theater, books, painting - all this occupied far from the last place throughout the life of Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov. He joined everything beautiful in childhood, which passed under the scrutiny of his father. The death of Prince Boris Grigoryevich was the first great loss of life for his eight-year-old son.
Meanwhile, as long as the young prince's home studies continued, his military career took shape by itself. In 1761, Nikolai Borisovich was promoted from cornet to second lieutenant of the same Life Guards Cavalry Regiment. According to the art critic Adrian Viktorovich Prakhov, at the age of 16, Yusupov entered active military service. However, this information may turn out to be erroneous - one of the first biographers of Prince Nikolai Borisovich introduced many unique documents of the Yusupov archive into scientific circulation, but in his dating of events and facts, confusion happened all the time, so that at the age of 16 Yusupov could "serve", as well as before, at home.
In 1771, Nikolai Borisovich was promoted to lieutenant, and the military service of the prince ended there. Was there some kind of "story" that caused the collapse of Yusupov's military career, which is a deaf mention in the two-volume book "On the family of the Yusupov princes"? Most probably not. It’s just that Nikolai Borisovich, according to the turn of his mind and character, was not intended to carry out commands and walk in formation, as well as prancing on a horse. The following year, he received his resignation and the title of chamberlain of the Imperial Court.
In the presence of "history", obtaining a court rank would be a difficult matter, even with great connections. Maybe the young prince lost a little at cards or got carried away by a married lady? Then such “sins of youth” were considered in the order of things and you can’t make a special “story” out of this with all your desire. In addition, Nikolai Borisovich, like his ancestors, always remained a person not only well-intentioned, but also very cautious.
It should be noted that Russian nobles, as well as nobles in all countries, from time immemorial have been divided into two very uneven categories. One, invariably large, was only listed in the service, while all matters were decided by ordinary secretaries and head clerks. The other - traditionally not numerous, was engaged in state affairs in the most serious way. Prince Yusupov belonged to the second. It would seem that he had very broad interests, backed up by huge material opportunities for their implementation, but instead of living for his own pleasure as a “great Russian master”, Prince Nikolai Borisovich devoted a lot of effort, attention and time to the performance of state duties, to which he regularly attracted all Russian emperors and empresses, from Catherine the Great to Nicholas I inclusive. At the same time, it must be remembered that the state salary-salary of a Russian official at all times remained quite modest - it goes without saying that the “sovereign man” would simply pronounce the cherished formula - “you have to wait”, and the rest depends on sleight of hand ... A study of Nikolai's half-century official activity Borisovich allows us to attribute him to a rare type of "not taking" officials. On the contrary, Prince Yusupov did his best to do good to his subordinates, including financially, giving them part of his salary, begging for them "at the top" awards and pensions.
