It is believed that consanguineous marriages sharply increase the likelihood of genetic hereditary diseases in such people. A marriage is consanguineous if the man has a common ancestor in 3-4 previous generations. The higher the degree of relationship, the higher the risks. Parents and their children, brothers and sisters have the highest degree of kinship.

Each child receives a certain set of genes from his mother and father. When a child is conceived as a result of a relationship between relatives, the damaged gene of one parent cannot be replaced by the healthy gene of the other, since close relatives have a combined set of genes. Thus, the risk of a child inheriting damaged genes and genetic hereditary diseases increases, as well as the risk of having a congenital development, a stillborn child and the risk of miscarriage.

Influence of various factors

Often, carriers of a recessive damaged gene are healthy themselves and find out about its presence only after they have a sick child who has inherited such a gene. In an ordinary marriage, the probability of having a child with a pathology is 2-4%, and in a related marriage it increases to 4-6%. At first glance, the difference is not that big. But if there were previously hereditary genetic diseases in the family, the risk increases to an average of 12-14%. This possibility can be identified by consulting a geneticist, who will recommend testing necessary tests.

In general, according to statistics, close relatives often give birth to talented and gifted children, as well as mentally and physically retarded ones, but ordinary children are born less often. It's a kind of lottery. In addition, there is no guarantee that healthy child in the future the offspring will be healthy.

The danger of incest between siblings is much higher than between first and second cousins. The latter were quite common in ancient times, especially among the families of the nobility and rulers.

Relationships between relatives over several generations are especially dangerous. Over time, the genetic material deteriorates, accumulating mutations and damage, and requires fresh genes to prevent degeneration.

If incest occurs once in a family, the likelihood of having a normal child is quite high. But if it is practiced from generation to generation, then the probability of deformity and birth defects can reach 50% and even 100%. The more genetic diseases there are in the family, the more complicated the situation becomes.

Religion and science do not approve of marriages between relatives. This is because the risk of having sick offspring is too high.

Meanwhile, history knows many facts of related marriages. They were not always concluded out of love. There were financial and geopolitical reasons for this.

IN medical encyclopedia related (otherwise inbred) is a union between a man and a woman who have at least one common ancestor.

There is another term - “incest”, which means the entry into sexual relations of close relatives, incest.

The Bible and Koran condemn incest. History mentions tribes in which In an effort to preserve the purity of the family, it was customary to marry relatives. Almost all of them are extinct or on the verge of degeneration.

Until now, in most civilized countries of the world, marriages between blood relatives to a certain degree of kinship are not just condemned by the public, but:

• Prohibited by law;
• Equal to a criminal offense.

The veto is explained not only by physiological, but also by moral considerations.

In Russia Art. 14 of the Family Code does not allow between citizens who are related in a direct ascending/descending line:

• Parents, children;
• Grandfather, grandmother and grandchildren.

The same article prohibits weddings between:

• Brothers and sisters (full/half-blood);
• Adoptive parents and adopted children.

In this case, documentary confirmation or refutation of family ties in the registry office is not required.

In the latter case, the prohibition is unambiguous, but creation between a relative of the adoptive parent and the adopted child is allowed.

Meanwhile, the law in our country does not prevent the creation of a family between:

• Uncle and niece;
• Aunt and nephew;
• Cousins.

Although this is accepted and condemned by society, it is not formally prohibited, and therefore possible.

Conditions and reasons for strengthening ties between relatives

At the insistence of genetic scientists, in many progressive countries of the modern world, marriage between blood relatives is prohibited at the legislative level.

The Family Code of the Russian Federation also does not allow consanguineous people to join a family union. relatives under no circumstances. IN in this case Even a possible woman is not grounds for official registration of a relationship.

In fact, marriages between relatives can be registered. When submitting to the registry office, the law does not establish the obligation of newlyweds to confirm or deny existing kinship. If they are silent about the presence of family ties, the marriage will be registered, but later it may be recognized.

Official registration of marital relations between the adoptive parent and the adopted child is possible only if the adoption is cancelled.

Features of marriage

In Russia, legal significance is attached only to an officially registered marriage.

The Family Code defines conditions that prevent marriage. One of them is the close family ties of the bride and groom.

The law prohibits registry office employees from officially registering relationships between siblings, parents, grandparents and children. However, marriages, for example, between first and second cousins ​​are not prohibited. The process of filing an application by future spouses and legitimizing relations in such a situation is no different from traditional actions when registering a marriage.

In our country there is another unofficial form of marriage -. It is not prohibited by law, it is alternative and acceptable among couples who are closely related.

Why is marriage between relatives considered undesirable?

The opinion that the closer the parents are in blood relationship, the mentally and physically weaker their offspring, has existed for more than a decade. This fact is explained by the fact that the probability of encountering the same pathological genes is too high.

We are talking about very serious defects: hemophilia, Down syndrome, dementia and other pathologies of the nervous system.

If, in an ordinary marriage, the likelihood of having a child with serious disabilities is:

• Genetic (congenital) defects;
• Mental retardation

is no more than 4%, then in a closely related marriage the risk increases 5 times.

Despite the fact that cousins ​​are not blood relatives, it is also undesirable for them to start a family.

According to geneticist I. Gershkovich, in such a marriage the following increases compared to unrelated ones:

• 24% risk of birth dead child or intrauterine fetal death;
• There is a 34% risk of baby death in early age;
• There is a 48% risk of developing fetal deformities.

Another geneticist, Vladimir Pavlovich Efroimson, identified a stable pattern in the frequency of diseases, congenital deformities, mental and physical disabilities in children born as a result of consanguineous marriages. It is worth noting that his point of view on this issue is shared by specialists in many countries.

When studying hereditary diseases, great importance is given to consanguineous marriages, when parents have at least one common ancestor. The role of incest is especially significant in the study of rare hereditary diseases.

From our detailed information you can find out how to divide a car during a divorce.

Interesting facts about consanguineous marriages in different countries and cultures

Science has proven that marital relations between relatives lead to:

• Genetic mutations;
• Degeneration of offspring.

Our ancestors knew about this, prohibiting marriages between siblings, taking as wives girls from afar, from other settlements. It was not for nothing that the peoples of Africa or the North living in an isolated space had a custom: a stranger was obliged to conceive a child to a chosen woman.

It was believed that such children turned out healthy and beautiful: after all, there were no common relatives in their family.

Meanwhile, in history there are many examples of related marriages:

In the 19th century, the famous English lord and poet Byron could not resist the intelligence, charm and beauty of his sister Augusta. From this relationship a daughter was born. Society did not approve of such a union. The girl was sent to a monastery, where she died at the age of 5.

Egyptian queen Cleopatra is the daughter of two brothers and sisters. At the same time, the beauty herself also married blood relatives several times. The traditions of Egypt did not prohibit this; on the contrary, they welcomed the absence of “foreign blood” in the royal families.

The English naturalist Charles Darwin was married to his cousin Emma Wedgwood. Their marriage produced 10 children, many of whom were sickly and weak in childhood. Three died at an early age. It is known that Darwin's children achieved success in social activities.

Historical fact: the royal dynasties of all Europe were closely related. Monarchs preferred to create families without going beyond “their circle.” This happened because people of famous families did not want to mix royal blood with any other. There is an assumption that one of the reasons for the disappearance of some famous families (Bourbons, Habsburgs) was precisely incest.

In India (Andhra Pradesh) there are castes where a niece and uncle can marry. The situation is similar in Japan. In a number of states in this country, marriages between first cousins ​​account for up to 10% of the total.

According to research by American geneticist Kurt Stern, the frequency of marriages between brothers and sisters in the USA, Brazil, Sweden, and the Netherlands is low and amounts to only 0.05%.

The problem of marriages between cousins ​​is brewing in Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan.

If previously this phenomenon was typical for small settlements, now it is also observed in cities. Parents often seek to marry their daughter to a relative in order to protect her from abuse. As a result, thousands of hemophilia patients live in Azerbaijan.

Starting a family is one of important stages In human life. In all civilized countries, marriage between relatives is considered illegal. Russia is no exception. A direct prohibition on registering a marriage between closely related people is indicated in Art. 14 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation. Meanwhile, there are no legal obstacles to the creation of families by brothers and sisters who do not have common parents: first cousins, second cousins.

Before finding out who Yesenin’s parents were, we must honestly admit that the whole story will ultimately come down to the life and work of the poet himself. And you can write about him endlessly, because fans have always been interested in the people who influenced the formation of his personality, and the environment in which this unique Russian nugget grew up, close in size to Pushkin and Lermontov, the path of love for whom to this day is not overgrown .

Motherland

Yesenin's birthday took place in a picturesque corner of Russia on October 3, 1895. This magnificent Yesenin region today receives a huge number of visitors every day. The future poet was born in Konstantinovo (Ryazan region), in an ancient village, which was freely spread out among forests and fields on the right bank of the Oka. The nature of these places is inspired by God, it is not for nothing that a genius with a devoted Russian soul was born here.

Yesenin's house in Konstantinovo has long become a museum. Wide carpets of flooded meadows and picturesque lowlands near the river became the cradle of the great poet’s poetry. The homeland was the main source of his inspiration, to which he constantly fell, drawing the strength of Russian love for his father’s home, the Russian spirit and his people.

Yesenin's parents

The poet's father, Alexander Nikitich Yesenin (1873-1931), sang in a church choir from his youth. He was a peasant, but he was not at all suitable for peasant work, since he could not properly harness a horse. That’s why he went to work in Moscow with the merchant Krylov, who ran a butcher shop. Alexander Yesenin was very dreamy. He could sit thoughtfully by the window for a long time, very rarely smiled, but at the same time he could tell such funny things that everyone around him rolled with laughter.

The poet's mother, Tatyana Fedorovna Titova (1873-1955), was also from a peasant family. She lived almost her entire life in Konstantinovo. The Ryazan region practically captivated her. Tatyana Fedorovna gave her son Sergei strength and confidence in his talent, without this he would never have decided to go to St. Petersburg.

Yesenin’s parents were not happy in their marriage, but his mother lived all her life with a heavy heart and terrible pain in her soul, and there were serious reasons for this.

Brother Alexander Razgulyaev

Not everyone knows, but next to the poet’s grave there is also the grave of Yesenin’s maternal half-brother, Alexander Ivanovich Razgulyaev. The whole point is that Tatyana Fedorovna, while still very young, did not marry Alexander Nikitich for love. Yesenin’s parents somehow didn’t get along right away. Immediately after the wedding, the father returned to Moscow, to the butcher shop of the merchant Krylov, where he had previously worked. Tatyana Fedorovna was a woman of character and did not get along with either her husband or her mother-in-law.

She sent her son Sergei to be raised by her parents, and in 1901 she herself went to work part-time in Ryazan and there she met, as it seemed to her then, her great love. But the obsession quickly passed, and from this sinful love a son, Alexander (1902-1961), was born.

Tatyana Fedorovna wanted to get a divorce, but her husband did not give it. She had to give the boy to the nurse E.P. Razgulyaeva and write it down in her last name. From that moment on, her life turned into a nightmare, she suffered and missed the baby, sometimes visited him, but could not take him away. Sergei Yesenin found out about him in 1916, but they met only in 1924 in the house of his grandfather, Fyodor Titov.

Alexander Nikitich Yesenin wrote to his eldest daughter Ekaterina, who was then living with Benislavskaya, so that they would not accept Alexander Razgulyaev, since it was very painful for him to endure this. The poet also had resentment towards his mother. Although he understood that brother Alexander, they did not have a warm relationship either.

Alexander Ivanovich Razgulyaev, of course, was proud of his brother. He lived the life of a humble worker railway, who raised four children. He described all his terrible memories of his orphan childhood in his Autobiography.

Sisters

Yesenin also had two beloved sisters: Ekaterina (1905-1977) and Alexandra (1911-1981). Catherine followed her brother from Konstantinovo to Moscow. There she helped him in literary and publishing matters, and then after his death she became the custodian of his archives. Ekaterina married close friend Yesenin - Vasily Nasedkin, repressed and executed by the NKVD in 1937 in the fabricated “case of writers”. She herself received a two-year sentence. She died of a heart attack in Moscow.

The second sister's name was Alexandra. She also put a lot of work and effort into creating Yesenin museums, providing photographs, manuscripts and other valuable family heirlooms and exhibits. She was 16 years apart from her brother. He affectionately called her Shurenka. At the end of 1924, returning from abroad, he took her to Moscow with him. Her mother blessed her with the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God, which is now in the Poet adored her sisters and received great pleasure from communicating with them.

Grandfather and grandmother

Yesenin was raised for a long time by his mother’s parents. The grandmother's name was Natalya Evtikhievna (1847-1911), and the grandfather's name was Fyodor Andreevich (1845-1927). In addition to their granddaughter Seryozha, their three more sons lived in their family. It was thanks to his grandmother that Yesenin became acquainted with folklore. She told him many fairy tales, sang songs and ditties. The poet himself admitted that it was his grandmother’s stories that pushed him to write his first poems. Grandfather Fyodor was a believer who knew church books well, so every evening there were readings in their house.

Moving to my father's place

After graduating from the Spas-Klepikovskaya church-teacher school in 1912 and receiving a diploma as a teacher of the literacy school, Yesenin immediately moved to his father in Moscow on the street. Pinch to Bolshoi Strochenovsky Lane, 24 (now the Yesenin Museum is located there).

Alexander Yesenin was glad of his arrival and thought that his son would be a reliable assistant, but he was very upset when he told him that he wanted to become a poet. At first he helped his father, but then he began to bring his ideas to life and got a job in the printing house of I. D. Sytin. And then we will not once again retell his entire biography, which is already quite well known, but rather we will try to understand what kind of person he was.

Bawdy and brawler

Many unpleasant things were often said about him. Debauchery and drunkenness were indeed not uncommon in the poet’s life, but he took his talent and service to poetry quite seriously and with great respect. According to the poet himself and from the words of people close to him, for example, such as Ilya Shneider, he did not write while drunk.

As a poet of conscience, he could not remain silent and, feeling pain for the country, which was plunging into complete chaos, devastation and hunger, he began to use his poems as a weapon against the authorities (“The golden grove dissuaded me...", “We are now leaving little by little... ", "Soviet Rus'" and "Leaving Rus'").

His last work bore a symbolic title - “Country of Scoundrels.” After writing it, Yesenin’s life changed dramatically; they began to persecute him and accuse him of rowdyism and drunkenness. The poet was repeatedly interrogated by people from the GPU, who “sewed up” a case for him. At first they wanted to convict him of anti-Semitism, then there were some other developments. Leo Tolstoy's granddaughter Sophia helped him escape persecution in the winter of 1925 by agreeing with the head of the hospital, Professor Gannushkin, to provide the poet with a separate room. But informants were found, and Yesenin was again “at gunpoint.” On December 28, he is brutally killed under the guise of suicide.

Yesenin family

Since 1914 Yesenin lived in civil marriage with proofreader Anna Romanovna Izryadnova (1891-1946). She gave birth to his son Yuri, who, having graduated from the Moscow Aviation College, passed military service in Khabarovsk, but he was shot in 1937 on false charges. The mother died without knowing the fate of her son.

In 1917, the poet married Zinaida Reich, a Russian actress and future wife of director V. E. Meyerhold. Yesenin's family acquired two more children: Tatyana (1918-1992), who later became a writer and journalist, and Konstantin (1920-1986), who became a journalist and football statistician. But things didn’t work out for the couple again, and in 1921 they officially divorced.

Almost immediately, Yesenin met with an American dancer, whom he married six months later. Together they traveled around Europe and the USA. But upon returning home, unfortunately, they separated.

A dramatic story played out with Yesenin's secretary who was his real and true friend in his most difficult moments. He met with her and sometimes lived with her. They met in 1920. After the poet’s death in 1926, she shot herself at his grave at the Vagankovskoye cemetery. She was buried next to him.

Yesenin also had an illegitimate son from the poetess Nadezhda Davydovna Volpin - Alexander. He was born on May 12, 1924, emigrated to the United States as an adult and became a mathematician. Alexander died quite recently - in March 2016 in Boston.

Latest family relationships Yesenin built with Sofia Tolstoy. He wanted to start new life, however, death cut short all plans. On Yesenin’s birthday, October 3, 2015, the whole country celebrated 120 years. This talented poet would have reached that age.

Epilogue

During the Leningrad blockade, Yesenin’s son Konstantin, who fought at the front and asked for leave, appeared on one of the gloomy days of 1943 at the intersection of Nevsky and Liteiny Prospekts. A soldier in a cap pulled down and a frayed and burnt overcoat suddenly saw that the Old Book store was open, and without any purpose he simply walked into it. He stood and looked at it. After the stinking swamps and slimy trenches, being among the books was almost bliss for him. And suddenly a man approached the saleswoman, whose face was very tired and bore traces of hunger and difficult experiences, and asked her if they would have a volume of Yesenin. She replied that now his books are very rare, and the man immediately left. Konstantin was surprised that during the blockade, in a harsh and desperate life, someone needed Yesenin. And what’s surprising is that at that very moment soldier Konstantin Yesenin, the poet’s son, appeared in the store in bandages and dirty boots...

Not so long ago, families were large, when several generations of close and distant relatives lived under one roof or in the same neighborhood. People of the same kind were united by common interests and values. We still say: “Looks like an aunt; the spitting image of grandpa." We no longer know whether the child resembles his great-grandfather. The circle of relatives has narrowed: father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, sister, brother... The further the relationship, the more difficult it is to determine who is “the seventh water on jelly.” But the real confusion begins after the wedding, when new relatives appear.

• Father-in-law - husband's father
• Mother-in-law - husband's mother
• Father-in-law - wife's father
• Mother-in-law - wife's mother
• Brother-in-law - husband's brother
• Brother-in-law - wife's brother
• Sister-in-law - husband's sister
• Sister-in-law - wife's sister
• Brother-in-law - sister-in-law's husband
• Son-in-law - daughter's husband, sister's husband, sister-in-law's husband
• Daughter-in-law - son's wife in relation to father
• A daughter-in-law is a brother's wife, a son's wife for his mother, a brother's wife for
  towards another brother's wife; also used instead of daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, sister-in-law
• Matchmaker - the father of one of the spouses in relation to the parents of the other
• Matchmaker - the mother of one of the spouses in relation to the parents of the other
• Grandfather (grandfather) - father of father or mother
• Grandmother (grandmother) - mother of father or mother
• Great uncle - father's or mother's uncle
• Great aunt - father's or mother's aunt
• Grandson (granddaughter) - son (daughter) of a daughter or son in relation to a grandfather or grandmother. Accordingly, a cousin’s grandson (granddaughter) is the son (daughter) of a nephew or niece
• Nephew (niece) - son (daughter) of a brother or sister (siblings, cousins, second cousins). Accordingly, the child of a cousin (sister) is a cousin nephew, a second cousin (sister) is a second cousin nephew
• Great-nephew (niece) - grandson (granddaughter) of a brother or sister
• Uncle (uncle, uncle) - brother of father or mother, husband of aunt
• Aunt (aunt, auntie) - the sister of the father or mother in relation to the nephews. Uncle's wife in relation to his nephews
• Cousin - related by grandfather or grandmother to the children of their sons and daughters
• Second cousin - son of a great uncle or great aunt
• Cousin - daughter of an uncle or aunt
• Second cousin - daughter of a great uncle or great aunt

In addition to modern concepts of degree of relationship, it turns out that there are also more ancient names for relatives in use.

FIRST DEGREE OF RELATIONSHIP
Father and son.
Father and daughter.
Mother and son.
Mother and daughter.

SECOND DEGREE OF RELATIONSHIP
Grandfather and grandchildren
Grandmother and grandchildren.

THIRD DEGREE OF RELATIONSHIP
Great-grandfather and great-grandchildren,
Uncle and nephews
Aunt and nephews.

FOURTH DEGREE OF RELATIONSHIP
Cousins ​​and brothers,
Great-uncle and great-nephews (nieces),
Great-aunt and great-nephews (nieces).

FIFTH DEGREE OF RELATIONSHIP
Great uncle and great nephew (niece).

SIXTH DEGREE OF RELATIONSHIP
Second cousins ​​and brothers.

Getting to know the terms family relations, it should be remembered that the terms of consanguinity consist of keywords and definitions of the degree of relationship:

Grandmother, grandmother - mother of father or mother, wife of grandfather.
Brother - each of the sons of the same parents.
Bro, bro, bro, bro, bro - cousin.
Bratanna is her brother's daughter, brother's niece.
Brother - a relative in general, cousin or distant.
Bratych is a brother's son, brother's nephew.
Grandson - the son of a daughter, son, as well as the sons of a nephew or niece.
Granddaughter, grandson - the daughter of a son, daughter, as well as the daughter of a nephew or niece.
Grandfather is the father of the mother or father.
Grandfather, grandfather - uncle's aunt.
Dedich is the direct heir of his grandfather.
A daughter is a female person in relation to her parents.
Dsherich is his aunt's nephew.
Daughter's aunt's niece.
Uncle is the brother of father or mother. Thus, uncle and aunt are brother and sister of mother or father. “The aunt has a darling nephew, and the uncle has a niece,” notes popular wisdom.
A mother is a female person in relation to her children.
A father is a male person in relation to his children.
The father is the eldest in the generation.
Father, father-son, heir.
Nephew is the son of a brother or sister.
Nephew and niece are the son and daughter of a brother or sister. Great-nephews are the grandchildren of a brother or sister. By the way, grand-relatives are any relatives in the third degree (second cousins): a grand-brother can be called the son of a cousin. In a relatively recent era, these native Russian terms of kinship were supplemented by the French in origin words cousin and cousin, meaning cousins and sister, as well as any distant blood relatives in the same tribe.
Niece is the daughter of a brother or sister.
Nephew - relative, relative.
Progenitors are the first known pedigree couple from which the family originates.

Serfdom and Russian literature

Surprisingly, Russian literature should be grateful to what existed in Russia... serfdom, and especially to the fact that it lasted so long, until the second half of the 19th century. Today we can call a whole galaxy of Russian writers, whose mothers were serfs, and whose fathers were, respectively, those to whom they belonged. Often history has not preserved not only the surnames, but even the names of these women... It will be superfluous to say that all these writers were illegitimate or illegitimate from birth.

The first in this series will be Ivan Petrovich Pnin. His strange surname appeared thanks to the tradition that existed in Russia in the 18th century of giving illegitimate children only part of their family surname. In England, illegitimate children also had their own distinctive feature, and in the most literal sense. The name of this phenomenon is Bend Sinister. It is essentially a heraldic term meaning a slanted stripe drawn from the top left corner of the coat of arms to the bottom right. The corresponding Russian term is sling to the left. This strip was distinctive feature coats of arms that were given to the illegitimate children of aristocrats.

Bend Sinister in Russian translation “Under the Sign of the Illegitimate” was the title of Nabokov’s second English novel, written in 1947. In Germany, an illegitimate child was called the sonorous word “Bastard”, and in France – “batard”...

But let's return to Pnin... His father's full name is Repnin, Field Marshal Repnin. In 1773 his son Ivan was born. Ivan Petrovich Pnin (1773–1805) - Russian poet and publicist. At the age of 15, he wrote his first “ode,” which was followed by a number of others. The heyday of literary activity dates back to the 90s of the 18th century. Pnin could not ignore such a topic as the situation of the serfs. His odes “To Justice” and “Hope” are dedicated to this. As a follower of 18th-century French materialism, in particular Holbach, he advocated political equality. Looking ahead, let's say that among the illegitimate Russian writers he was far from the only one who not only spoke out, but also fought for political equality. In addition to odes, Pnin writes lyrical poetry and fables; the themes of his works are just as wide: from high philosophical and political reflections to erotica.

Having experienced the full brunt of the situation of illegitimate children (Repnin died in 1801 without mentioning his son in his will), Pnin in 1803 turned to Alexander I with a note “The Cry of Innocence,” in which he demanded an improvement in the situation of illegitimate children, who were completely undeservedly doomed by law to material poverty. and moral punishment (the article was first published in the Historical Bulletin, 1889, No. 1).

In the book “An Experience on Enlightenment Concerning Russia,” Pnin, based on the idea that enlightenment cannot tolerate slavery, speaks out for the liberation of the peasants, with whom “the landowners treat worse than the cattle that belong to them.” Pnin's premature death caused widespread regret...

The tradition of receiving truncated surnames was continued by Ivan Yegorovich (Yuryevich) Betsky (1818–1890), translator, prose writer, publisher, illegitimate son of Prince Trubetskoy, who was not only a writer, but also a famous “donor” who donated a significant number of valuable exhibits to museums.

Alexander Khristoforovich Vostokov (1781–1864), poet, Slavic philologist, was the illegitimate son of Baron Osten-Sacken, and his real name was Ostenek. Vostokov is its translation into Russian. Vostokov was a member of the Russian Academy (since 1820), academician (since 1841), participated in the compilation of the “Dictionary of the Church Slavonic and Russian Language”, and compiled the “Dictionary of the Church Slavonic Language”. For the first time he published the oldest dated monument of Slavic-Russian writing, “The Ostromir Gospel 1056–1057,” and was specially involved in the study of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.”

Anthony Pogorelsky. His full name is Alexey Alekseevich Perovsky (1787–1836). Today this name says little, which cannot be said about his father, Count Razumovsky. Being an illegitimate son, he lived in the family as a pupil.

After the death of his father in 1822, Perovsky settled on the Pogoreltsy estate in Ukraine (Sosnitsky district of Chernigov province), where he lived with his sister and nephew Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, born in 1817. Soon after his birth, his mother, Perovsky's sister, left her husband. There were rumors that Tolstoy, the future famous Russian poet, writer and playwright, was the fruit of Perovsky’s incestuous union with his own sister Anna, also a pupil of the gr. Razumovsky.

Here, on the estate, Perovsky wrote the stories “The Double, or My Evenings in Little Russia,” published under the pseudonym Antony Pogorelsky.

Literary scholars note that “The Double” is associated with the German fantasy tradition, and above all with Hoffmann’s “Serapion Brothers”. IN history of Russian literature the story became the prototype of “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” by Gogol and “Russian Nights” by Odoevsky, whose mother, Ekaterina Alekseevna (maiden name unknown), was also a serf...

Having finally retired in 1830, Perovsky devoted himself entirely to raising his nephew and traveled with him around Italy. He died of tuberculosis in June 1836 on the way to Nice for his treatment. He was buried on the way to Russia, in Warsaw.

Surnames have always been difficult for illegitimate people, whether men or women. The playwright and prose writer Olga Andreevna Golokhvostova (1840–1897) bore the name Andreevskaya before her marriage, although her parents were Rostopchina and Karamzin. Everything was explained simply - she was theirs illegitimate daughter, was raised in Switzerland in the family of a Geneva priest, and in 1863 she married Golokhvostov. Her play “Whose Truth” brought her fame.

The fate of an illegitimate child in itself is already dramatic, but the fate of the Russian poet Alexander Ivanovich Polezhaev (1804/1805–1838) turned out to be truly tragic. He was the illegitimate son of the landowner Struisky from his serf Agrafena Ivanova (according to other sources - Stepanida Ivanovna). Soon his mother was released and married to the Saransk merchant Ivan Ivanovich Polezhaev. For five years, Alexander, his mother and stepfather lived in Saransk, but in 1808 Ivan Polezhaev went missing, followed by Alexander’s mother.

In 1825, Polezhaev, under the influence of “Eugene Onegin,” wrote his own poem “Sashka,” containing criticism of the order at Moscow University, whose student he was at that time. And it had to happen that the poem fell into the hands of Nicholas I. Polezhaev was brought to the Kremlin at night, and the Tsar forced him to read the poem aloud in front of the Minister of Public Education. The Emperor, according to Polezhaev, suggested to him: “I give you the opportunity to cleanse yourself through military service.” IN next year Alexander is sent as a non-commissioned officer in the Butyrsky Infantry Regiment - by personal order of the Tsar.

And in June 1827, Polezhaev fled from the regiment in order to get to St. Petersburg and petition for exemption from military service. However, he is captured, returned to the regiment and put on trial (according to another version, Polezhaev returned to the regiment himself, “having come to his senses”). The poet, a non-commissioned officer, was demoted to the rank and file without length of service and was deprived of his personal nobility; now for the rest of his life he had to remain in military service as a private. And this was only the beginning of the misadventures that followed: binges, dungeons, the Caucasus and corporal punishment, which he could no longer endure.

In 1849, as an accomplice in the “Petrashevsky case,” Alexander Ivanovich Palm (1822–1885) spent eight months in the fortress. Palm was first sentenced to “death penalty by shooting,” but in view of the repentance he brought “for his rash actions,” he was finally sentenced to transfer “with the same rank” from the guard to the army...

Alexander Ivanovich was born into the family of a forester. His mother (Anisya Alekseevna Letnostorontseva) was a serf who received her freedom only after the birth of her son. He conveyed her image in his novel “Alexey Slobodin”. Palm entered the literary field in the 40s with short stories and poems, and then literary activity it was resumed only in the early 70s.

The thoroughly forgotten poet Gavriil Nikolaevich Zhulev entered the history of Russian literature under the name of the “Mournful Poet,” and not by chance. One of his collections was called “Songs of the Mournful Poet.”

He was born in 1834 into a family of servants of the landowner Smirnov and was soon released. Zhulev graduated from the St. Petersburg Theater School and became a professional actor. Literary scholars express the opinion that he was the illegitimate son of the landowner Smirnov.

Nikolai Mikhailovich Astyrev (1857–1894), a Russian fiction writer and statistician of the 19th century, was also the illegitimate son of a general. In 1886, Astyrev published part of his essays separately, under the title “In rural clerks. Essays on peasant self-government" (Moscow).

Nikolai Aleksandrovich Morozov (1854–1946) – poet, memoirist. The illegitimate son of the landowner Shchepochkin and the serf Morozova, who later received her freedom. Mother and son lived in Shchepochkin's house. From the age of twenty, Morozov took an active part in the fight against tsarism and did this not only with his pen. He became one of the leaders of the “Land and Freedom” organization, and in 1879 he joined the Executive Committee of “Narodnaya Volya” and took part in the preparation of a number of assassination attempts on Alexander II.” And although he did not directly participate in the murder of the emperor in 1881, in the trial of 20 he was sentenced to life imprisonment. In total, Morozov spent 25 years in prison and was released only in 1905.

The best part of humanity in our small study is represented by the writer and memoirist Tatyana Alekseevna Astrakova (1814–1892). The illegitimate daughter of a merchant and serf, she was raised in the family of a landowner. In 1838 she married the mathematician Astrakov.

For a long time she moved in the circle of Herzen, Ogarev, Ketcher, Granovsky. Memories of this circle became her main literary work.

Foreign mothers

History of Russia - Great Russian Empire- this is an almost continuous series of wars that the country waged quite successfully, constantly expanding into more and more new territories and absorbing more and more new peoples. It was customary to bring military trophies from military campaigns, including such exotic ones as beautiful women.

One day, his friend Major Mufel gave Tula landowner Afanasy Ivanovich Bunin “to raise,” or rather, gave him a young Turkish woman named Salha, who had been captured during the siege of the Bendery fortress. What came out of such an upbringing, or rather, who, is well known today - the outstanding Russian poet and translator Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky (1783–1852). At baptism, Turkish Salha received a new name - Elizaveta Dmitrievna... Turchaninova.

The boy was given the surname of the landowner Andrei Zhukovsky who adopted him, who lived as a hanger-on in the Bunins' house. This allowed the future poet to avoid the fate of an illegitimate child, but to obtain the nobility it was necessary to enroll the young Zhukovsky in fictitious military service (in the Astrakhan Hussar Regiment). In 1789, he was promoted to ensign, which gave him the right to nobility, and was included in the corresponding section of the noble genealogy book of the Tula province.

In the Bunin family, he grew up as... a pupil. The ambiguous position in the Bunin family was a source of deep inner experiences for Zhukovsky, which, in particular, was reflected in his poem “To A.I. Turgenev” (1808). In 1815, a twenty-five-year period of his court service began, first as a reader to the Empress, the widow of Paul I, and from 1825 as the tutor of the heir, the future Alexander II. In 1833, Zhukovsky wrote a poem, which he himself called “The Prayer of the Russian People,” but it became known to posterity as the Russian anthem.

In 1841, relations with the royal court deteriorated so much that, having received an honorable discharge, Zhukovsky decided to move to Germany, where in the spring of that year he married young Elizabeth, the daughter of his old friend the artist Reitern. The author of "Lyudmila" and "Svetlana", translator of Homer's "Odyssey" died in Baden-Baden on April 12 (24 n.s.) 1852. His ashes were transported to Russia and buried in St. Petersburg in the cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

In some ways, the fate of Nikolai Filippovich Pavlov (1803–1864), a talented prose writer, poet, critic and publicist, is similar to the fate of Zhukovsky. He was also the illegitimate son of a landowner, and his mother also ended up in Russia as a trophy. In 1797, Count Zubov brought... a Georgian woman from the Persian campaign and presented her to the landowner Grushetsky. The born boy was then assigned to the family of Philip Pavlov, the Grushetsky yard servant.

In 1811, after Grushetsky was killed by his eldest son, Pavlov was released. He was educated first at the Moscow Theater School, and then at Moscow University (Faculty of Law). In 1837, Pavlov married K. Janisch, the future famous poet Caroline Pavlova. Pavlov himself gained fame with his stories “Name Day”, “Auction”, “Scimitar”, which appeared in 1835.

Protest against feudal-noble oppression also found a place in Pavlov’s work. And in the story “Name Day” he poses the problem of the serf intelligentsia. The nameless hero of the story, a talented serf musician, says about himself: “I was a creature excluded from the book census of people, incurious, uninteresting, who cannot inspire thoughts, about whom there is nothing to say and who cannot be remembered”...

An indispensable attribute of the landowner life of the past were frequent trips abroad, mainly to Europe, from where our compatriots brought not only luxury goods and household items, but also... women.

From one of these trips, the wealthy landowner Yakovlev brought to Russia a young German woman, Henriette-Wilhelmina-Louise Haag, the daughter of a minor official, a clerk in the state chamber in Stuttgart. And on March 25 (April 6), 1812, a boy was born to them. His mother was only 16 years old. The newborn was given the name Alexander, and the father came up with the surname from the German word Herz. This surname was supposed to remind him of his heartfelt affection that he felt for this young German woman.

So Russian literature received another iconic name - Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812–1870). Just like Zhukovsky, Herzen grew up in his father’s family as a pupil, but unlike him, he managed not only to inherit his huge fortune, but also, most surprisingly, to take it abroad. This is what allowed him to subsequently lead a prosperous life in exile.

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (1820–1892), or rather it would be Fet, on the contrary, never sought to change his citizenship. But this was done against his will. In 1835, the Oryol spiritual consistory excommunicated the future poet from the Shenshin family. At the age of 14, he became a Hessian-Darmstadt subject and received the surname, as it was then decided, of his real father, Johann Vöth, an official who served in the Darmstadt court.

And it all started in 1820, when the landowner Shenshin returned to Russia from Germany... and not alone, but together with Caroline Charlotte Fet. Soon a boy named Afanasy was born, who at first bore the surname Shenshin, but he entered the history of Russian literature as Fet.

As an “illegitimate” Fet was deprived of nobility, the right of inheritance and his father’s name, but from his youth to adulthood he persistently and most different ways sought the restoration of lost rights and well-being. And only in 1873, with the permission of Alexander II, he was able to call himself Shenshin.

Family nests

Cohabitation between masters and their serfs was common in Russia. There are plenty of such examples in our history, although only those that were associated with various historical figures became widely known.

From a relationship with his serf mother, the wonderful Russian writer Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev had a daughter. Turgenev’s story about her birth is conveyed in memoirs by the poet Afanasy Fet: “Once, during my student days, having come to my mother’s vacancy, I became close to her serf laundress (in other sources she is called a civilian seamstress. - V.G- M.). But seven years later, returning to Spasskoye, I learned the following: the washerwoman had a girl, whom all the servants gloatingly called a young lady...” This happened in 1842...

And here is what Pushkin writes about the grandfather of his future wife: “Grandfather is a pig; he gives his third concubine in marriage with a dowry of 10,000, but cannot pay me my 12,000 and does not give anything to his granddaughter” (October 22, 1831 to Nashchokin).

In the mid-1790s, by order of the architect Lvov, the artist Borovikovsky painted a group portrait “Lizynka and Dashenka”, respectively 17- and 16-year-old girls, the Lvovs’ maids. Why would Lvov suddenly order famous artist portraits of your serfs?

The patience of the Russian peasant became a common noun, but when there was no longer any strength to endure, the issue was resolved in the most radical way. This is exactly what happened in the case of Mikhail Andreevich Dostoevsky, the father of the great Russian writer Fyodor Mikhailovich. Here is how Bursov, the author of the research novel “The Personality of Dostoevsky,” writes about it: “Mikhail Andreevich, of course, was himself a victim of his own character. The story of his murder by peasants is not entirely clear. Perhaps his Don Juanism, which memoirists write about, played a role.”

The “singer of the Russian peasantry,” the famous painter Alexei Gavrilovich Venetsianov, also lived with his courtyard wench Elena Nikitina. The top officials of the state did not stand aside either. And how can we not recall here the story that happened to the famous political figure during the reign of Paul I and Alexander I, Arakcheev.

Alexey Andreevich Arakcheev (1769–1834) was born in the village of Garusovo in the same Vyshnevolotsk district of the Tver province. This estate has survived to this day. Arakcheev made a brilliant career. In 1818, he even prepared a project for the treasury to buy out landowners’ estates with the goal of “abolishing serfdom,” which remained secret. And, as you know, the peasants had to wait another 43 long years for freedom. And therefore no one could stop Arakcheev himself, as they would say now, from time to time “feasting on strawberries.” He bought beautiful girls from ruined neighbors and hired them as his maids. And after a couple of months, he married off the annoying concubine, providing her with a modest dowry.

This was the case until the 19-year-old daughter of a coachman, Nastasya Minkina, came to the estate in 1801. Dark-skinned, black-eyed, impetuous, she resembled a gypsy, and Arakcheev liked such women the most. Soon she quickly became not just his friend, but also his assistant, and in fact she managed the estate. But she failed to adequately use the power that she accidentally inherited.

It is well known how it all ended. Tired of enduring Anastasia's bullying, the count's servants collected 500 rubles and persuaded the cook Vasily Antonov to kill the hated favorite. On the morning of September 10, 1825, Vasily climbed into the manor’s house and cut her throat with a kitchen knife...

Even in such a small and far from complete study, we saw numerous examples of what kind of morals actually reigned in many noble nests.

We chose only the literary community as the topic of our conversation, although we could just as easily take the topic of artistic creativity.

But if even such a narrow topic has given us so many numerous examples, then we can assume that illegitimate children in Russia during the times of serfdom numbered in the tens, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of people. And if so, then many noble estates became like Sodom and Gomorrah over time - the biblical cities destroyed for their vices. And then it becomes clear why the rebel people not only destroyed these nests, but did everything to wipe them off the face of the earth.

Text: Viktor Mikhailovich Gribkov-Maisky - member of the Union of Journalists of Russia, teacher - partner of the Academy of Montpellier, France