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The Denisyev cycle is called the most lyrical and poignant in the work of Fyodor Tyutchev. The addressee of these poems is the muse and last love of the poet Elena Denisyeva. For the sake of love for Tyutchev, she sacrificed everything: her social status, the location of her family, the respect of others. Their relationship lasted a long 14 years. They were sweet and painful at the same time.

Portrait of Elena Alexandrovna Denisyeva.

Elena Aleksandrovna Denisyeva came from an old but impoverished noble family. Her mother died when Elena was still a child. Some time later, the father married again, but the stepmother did not like the rebellious stepdaughter too much. Therefore, the girl was urgently sent to St. Petersburg to be raised by her father's sister Anna Dmitrievna Denisyeva. She was the inspector of the Smolny Institute. This position allowed the aunt to arrange for her niece to study at the Institute of Noble Maidens.

Usually strict with the pupils, Anna Dmitrievna didted on Elena and spoiled her. She bought outfits for her niece, took her out into the world. The young beauty with perfect manners was noticed by both overgrown society lions and ardent young men.

Years of study at Smolny allowed Elena Alexandrovna to master the art of court etiquette, to speak without an accent in German and French and acquire other skills necessary for pupils. A completely successful arrangement of her fate awaited the girl: after graduating from the Smolny Institute, she should have become a maid of honor at the imperial court, if not for the big scandal that erupted right before the release of Denisyeva.

Ernestina Tyutcheva, wife of Fyodor Tyutchev. F. Dürk, 1840

The daughters of Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev studied in the same class with Elena Alexandrovna, so Denisyeva was a frequent guest in his house. The poet's daughters came with their girlfriend for home tea parties. Gradually, Tyutchev began to pay more attention to the girl than etiquette required. The poet's wife saw how he was caring for a young beauty, but did not give it of great importance. Ernestina Feodorovna, mindful of her husband's past intrigues with aristocrats, considered that his attachment to an orphan girl did not pose any threat.

Elena Denisyeva with her daughter.

In March 1851, just before graduation from Smolny and subsequent distribution to future posts, an incredible scandal erupted. It turned out that Denisyev's pupil was pregnant and would soon give birth. The director arranged for Elena Alexandrovna to be shadowed and found out that she secretly met with Fyodor Tyutchev in a rented apartment not far from the Smolny Institute. Denisyeva gave birth in May of the same year.

Auntie was immediately expelled from her place of work, however, having appointed a generous pension, and almost everyone turned away from Elena. Her father cursed her and forbade her relatives to communicate with her daughter. Only the aunt supported her niece and took her to live with her.

Fedor Ivanovich Tyutchev is a Russian poet.

Then Denisyeva was 25 years old, and Tyutchev was 47. For him, the young and stately Elena Alexandrovna was a muse, an all-consuming passion. Their painful relationship lasted for fourteen years.

Tyutchev was not going to terminate the official marriage, but he was not able to part with his beloved either. They had three children. Elena Alexandrovna forgave Tyutchev both infrequent visits and life in two families. When asked by the children about why dad is practically never at home, the woman lied that he had too much work.

Only a few weeks a year abroad, Elena Alexandrovna was truly happy. After all, no one knew her history there, and when she checked into a hotel, she resolutely called herself Madame Tyutcheva.

In Russia, Denisyeva again had to put up with the position of a half-wife, half-lover. She perfectly understood that she was engaged in self-flagellation, but she could not help herself, because she loved the poet too much.

And yet, sometimes this submissive woman could not stand it and showed her temper. When she announced that she was pregnant for the third time, Fedor Ivanovich tried to dissuade her from giving birth. Then Denisyeva flew into a rage, grabbed the figurine from the table and threw it at Tyutchev with all her might. She did not hit him, but only beat off the corner of the fireplace.

Their painful relationship would have continued, but in 1864 Elena Denisyeva died suddenly of tuberculosis. Tyutchev was inconsolable.

All day she lay in oblivion - And shadows covered her all over - Warm, summer rain poured down - its streams Sounded merrily through the leaves. And she slowly came to her senses - And began to listen to the noise, And listened for a long time - carried away, Immersed in a conscious thought ... And now, as if talking to herself, Consciously she said: (I was with her, killed, but alive) "Oh, how I loved all this!” You loved, and like you, to love - t, no one has yet been able to - Oh Lord! .. and survive this ... And my heart did not tear to shreds ...

Frame from the movie " Last love Tyutchev" (2003)

After the death of his beloved, Tyutchev wrote to his friend: “... The memory of her is that the feeling of hunger in the hungry, insatiably hungry. I don’t live, my friend Alexander Ivanovich, I don’t live ... The wound is festering, it doesn’t heal. Whether it's cowardice, whether it's impotence, I don't care. Only with her and for her I was a person, only in her love, her boundless love for me, I was aware of myself ... Now I am something meaninglessly living, some kind of living, painful insignificance. It may also be that in some years nature in man loses its healing power, that life loses the ability to be reborn, renewed. All this can be; but believe me, my friend Alexander Ivanovich, he is the only one who is able to assess my position, who out of a thousand and one has had a terrible fate - to live fourteen years in a row, hourly, every minute, with such love as her love, and survive it.

[…] I am ready to accuse myself of ingratitude, of insensitivity, but I can’t lie: it didn’t get easier for a minute, as soon as consciousness returned. All these methods of opium numb the pain for a minute, but that's all. The effect of opium will pass, and the pain is still the same ... "

Fedor Ivanovich Tyutchev wrote many interesting poetic works. But his best love lyrics recognized as the magnificent Denisev cycle. This is a vivid poetry dedicated to the last love of the great Russian poet.

The romantic story began in 1850, when the mature author was already 47 years old. His chosen one was a young graduate of the Institute of Noble Maidens - Elena Aleksandrovna Denisyeva. The love affair was long and had a rather tragic end. The beloved woman of Fyodor Tyutchev passed away at a fairly young age due to a fatal illness.

However, despite such sad events in the finale of the relationship, the poet had something to remember ... The affair with the beautiful chosen one was fantastic, overflowing with tender feelings of mutual love, passion and madness. They were condemned by those around them for the illegality of the relationship, and these slander made Elena Denisieva unhappy. Fedor Ivanovich tried in every possible way to protect his beloved from evil tongues, but all his aspirations were in vain ...

During a long relationship, Elena Denisyeva gave birth to three children. Tyutchev acknowledged paternity without hesitation and legally adopted them, but even such a responsible step could not change the opinions of others. They did not want to see the chosen one of the poet in society, all doors were closed to her person. She existed in a terrible exile, and this attitude towards her personality did not allow her to plunge headlong into the pool of happiness and love with the chosen man.

The negative influence of society led to serious changes in the character of Elena Alexandrovna. There is no trace left of the once sweet and friendly girl. Now her behavior was dominated by irascibility, resentment and irritability. But, even such characteristic changes in the image of the beloved did not affect the poet's sincere feelings of love.

Soon, misunderstandings, frequent scandals, reproaches and unrest began to appear in the relationship of lovers. It is not known how this story of forbidden love would have ended, but by the will of fate they were presented with a terrible separation. Denisyeva died of tuberculosis (then still an incurable and fatal disease) at the hands of Tyutchev.

Analysis of the "Denisiev cycle"

All these intense events and changes in the personal relationship between Denisyeva and Tyutchev formed the basis of a fascinating and rather romantic collection of poems - "The Denisyeva Cycle". This book was dedicated to the last love of the great Russian poet.

This magnificent collection contains the most dramatic and romantic stories based on the author's real feelings. Tyutchev quickly conveyed his worries and feelings about what happened, and at the same time, he told his reader about great love, unshakable by numerous difficulties and misunderstanding on the part of others.

These wonderful poems have a deep meaning. They clearly show destructive passion, a crazy struggle for justice, emotional tension and a challenge to a misunderstood community. With all my love for Elena Alexandrovna, great poet could not enter into legal relations with the chosen one, but he showed the public in every way his sincere attitude towards the young girl, chosen by heart and soul.

Since the poet was a fairly public person, his stormy romance with Denisyeva was instantly criticized by the public. These condemnations gave rise to numerous traumas in the soul of the poet and his mistress, and the author conveyed all the events experienced in his lyrical works, published in the unique collection "Denisiev Cycle".

Many of the poems in this book are filled with romantic notes and passion. The poet sings of his love, comparing these extraordinary feelings with some natural phenomena.

Each work from the cycle carries a certain meaning. Some verses are filled with tragic feelings and hopelessness, while others sing the beloved woman and reveal to the world the real feelings that struck the hearts of two people doomed to misunderstanding.

Tyutchev carefully considers the problem of human wrongdoing, lies and falsity of friendly relations. His heroes seem to oppose the whole world, which wants to destroy the tender and reverent relationship of lovers.

Summing up, we can draw a very obvious conclusion. "Denisiev cycle", unlike other works of Tyutchev, is based on real events and experiences of the author. In these poems, Fedor Ivanovich independently analyzes his life and relations with Elena Alexandrovna. These magnificent poems are filled with philosophical and psychological meaning, sound reasoning and the poet's personal thoughts regarding the events that took place.

O my prophetic soul!
Oh heart full of anxiety
Oh how you beat on the threshold
As if a double existence!..
So, you are a resident of two worlds,

Your day is painful and passionate
Your dream is prophetically obscure,
Like a revelation of spirits...

Let the suffering chest
Fatal passions excite -
The soul is ready, like Mary,
To cling to the feet of Christ forever.

A novel in verse about great and sincere love

"Denisiev cycle" many literary critics called a real novel in verse. All works from this collection can be divided into chapters, which tell about the most beautiful and unfortunate feelings of the protagonist and heroine. Their stormy romance was doomed to malicious condemnations, but, by the will of fate, all the most painful slander fell like an irresistible burden on the fragile female shoulders of the poet's beloved.

In the Denisiev cycle, love is unhappy in its very happiness, the heroes love and in love itself remain enemies. But, in this novel there is another meaning: the strong seeks salvation from the weak, the protected from the defenseless.
N. Berkovsky

In Tyutchev's poetic novel, there is a psychological upheaval that reminds the experienced reader of the often suffering heroine from Dostoevsky's magnificent novels.

Denisyeva's cycle is almost entirely devoted to the experiences of a beloved woman. In some poems, the writer speaks from Elena Alexandrovna herself. Already from the first lines, one can feel the comparison of sincere and mutual love with evil fate that destroys the life of a young girl. In many poems, the epithet "fatal" is repeated - day, look, passion, merger and meeting.

The woman prayed with all her heart and cherished her feelings and passionate relationship with her beloved, but fate prepared a terrible sentence for her, and everything that was built by quivering and sincere love turned into dirt and condemnation of the crowd. Denisyeva perfectly understood, and even felt with all her heart, deep and crazy love from Fyodor Ivanovich, but this love brought neither happiness and serenity, but sorrow and painful tears.

The sun is shining, the waters are shining,
A smile on everything, life in everything,
The trees tremble with joy
Swimming in the blue sky
The trees sing, the waters sparkle,
Love dissolves the air
And the world, the blossoming world of nature,
Intoxicated by the abundance of life.
But in excess of ecstasy
There is no stronger rapture
One smile of tenderness
Your tormented soul.

"Oh, how deadly we love..."

The poetic novel in verse begins with the delightful work "Oh, how painfully we love ...", based on a high and rather tragic note. When reading this poem, sometimes it even seems that with these words the poet is trying to make the final part. However, it is with these high-profile lines that the story of great and unrecognized love is just beginning, which entailed the most painful consequences for a couple in love.

This lyrical work consists of ten quatrains, and at the very beginning and at the end of the verse, the poet repeats the same phrase, the most emotional, reflecting main idea the entire poem. When writing, the author uses various epithets and many punctuation marks that draw the reader's attention to important nuances. With the help of an oxymoron, the author skillfully expresses a lyrical concept.

If we analyze this work by meaning, we can distinguish three main parts. In the first, the poet points to his memories, trying to find the answer to numerous questions that often torment the soul and thoughts of a man in love. In the second part, he already finds the answer and tells the reader how such an unforeseen event happened in his fate, which radically changed his whole subsequent life. The last part is the final one, it already clearly shows the result of these relations. As it becomes clear from the first lines of the poem, the main characters of the lyrical work are Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev himself and his last love, Elena Aleksandrovna Denisyeva.

Oh, how deadly we love
As in the violent blindness of passions
We are the most likely to destroy
What is dear to our heart!
How long have you been proud of your victory?
You said she's mine...
A year has not passed - ask and tell
What is left of her?
Where did the roses go,
The smile of the lips and the sparkle of the eyes?
All scorched, burned tears
Its combustible moisture.
Do you remember when you met
At the first meeting fatal,
Her magical eyes and speeches
And the laughter of an infant is alive?
And now what? And where is all this?
And was the dream durable?
Alas, like northern summer,
He was a passing guest!
Fate's terrible sentence
Your love was for her
And undeserved shame
She lay down on her life!
A life of renunciation, a life of suffering!
In her soul depth
She had memories...
But they changed it too.
And on the ground she became wild,
The charm is gone...
The crowd, surging, trampled into the mud
That which bloomed in her soul.
And what about the long torment
Like ashes, did she manage to save?
Pain, the evil pain of bitterness,
Pain without joy and without tears!
Oh, how deadly we love
As in the violent blindness of passions
We are the most likely to destroy
What is dear to our heart!

In the cycle dedicated to Elena Denisyeva, one can see philosophical problems, clearly focused on clarifying the meaning of human life. The hero of lyrical poetry is immersed in special dreams, he constantly reflects on what is happening, compares some facts and draws reasonable conclusions.

The reality surrounding the main character proves the opposite meaning of true love. Now, the hero understands that this feeling is built not only on the joyful and pleasant for the soul. Love often presents numerous trials and tormenting experiences, which the author of the brilliant novel in verse, Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev, clearly felt.

All day she lay in oblivion,
And shadows covered it all.
Lil warm summer rain - its jets
The leaves sounded merry.

And slowly she came to her senses
And I started listening to the noise
And listened for a long time - passionate,
Immersed in conscious thought...

And so, as if talking to myself,
Consciously she spoke
(I was with her, killed, but alive):
"Oh, how I loved all this!"
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

You loved, and the way you love -
No, nobody has succeeded yet!
Oh my God! .. and survive it ...
And my heart didn't break into pieces...

Denisyeva's date of birth is not precisely established - 1826 - date of death: August 4, 1864 St. Petersburg.

About Elena Alexandrovna Denisyeva, the last, passionate, secret and painful love of F.I. Tyutchev, a poet and a brilliant wit - a diplomat, who was often in a low voice - they did not decide loudly - Fyodor Ivanovich was too absent-minded about his magnificent Gift, - they called him "the heir to Pushkin's traditions", almost nothing is known .. and too much is known!

She is the addressee of more than fifteen of his poems, which have become the most precious masterpieces of Russian lyrics of the second half of the nineteenth century. This is a lot for a woman who selflessly loved. And - too little for the heart, which tore itself with this Love. For almost two hundred years now we have been reading lines dedicated to her, admiring the painful and burning power of Tyutchev’s feelings for her, in fact, a very secretive person and despising all “sentimental nonsense”, we are thinking about whether such a sinful passion was justified, Is she sinful at all?

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Elena Aleksandrovna Denisyeva was born in 1826 into an old but very impoverished noble family. She lost her mother early, with her father, Alexander Dmitrievich Denisiev, an honored military man, and his second wife did not develop relations almost immediately. Recalcitrant and quick-tempered for the new "mother" Elena was hastily sent to the capital, St. Petersburg - to be raised by her aunt, father's sister, Anna Dmitrievna Denisyeva - the senior inspector of the Smolny Institute.

The privileged position that Anna Dmitrievna, the oldest of the educators, occupied in this educational institution, famous throughout Russia, allowed her to raise a half-orphan niece on a common basis with the rest of the Smolyanka girls: the girl acquired impeccable manners, a slender posture, an excellent French-German pronunciation, full mess in the head on the course natural sciences and mathematics, a solid knowledge of economics and cooking, and an exorbitant ardor of the imagination, developed by reading sentimental novels and poetry at night, furtively from classy ladies and pepinieres *. (* on-duty tutors of younger girls from senior classes - author.)

Anna Dmitrievna, overly strict and dry with her subordinates and pupils, passionately became attached to her niece, in her own way: she spoiled her, that is, she began to buy her clothes, jewelry, trinkets early and take her out into the world, where she was wearing an elegant, graceful brunette , with an extremely expressive, characteristic face, lively brown eyes and very good manners - both experienced womanizers and ardent "archival youths" quickly drew attention (students of the historical and archival faculties of St. Petersburg and Moscow universities, representatives of ancient noble, often impoverished, families.

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Elena Alexandrovna, with her natural mind, charm, deep thoughtfulness, seriousness - after all, the life of an orphan, whatever you say, leaves an imprint on the soul and heart - and very refined, graceful manners could count on a very good arrangement of her fate: the Smolny Institute was under the tireless guardianship of the Imperial Family, and the niece, almost an adopted daughter, of the honored teacher, they were going to appoint the maid of honor of the Court at the time of graduation!

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Of course, Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev also belonged to such "quite secular" acquaintances.

His eldest daughters from his first marriage, Anna and Ekaterina Tyutchev, graduated from the Smolny graduation class with Elena. They were even very friendly with each other, and at first, m - lle Deniseva gladly accepted an invitation to a cup of tea in the hospitable, but a little strange house of the Tyutchevs. Strange because everyone lived their own life in it, despite reading aloud in the evenings in the brightly lit living room, frequent tea parties together, noisy family trips to theaters or balls.

Internally, everyone in this brilliantly - intelligent, deeply aristocratic - in spirit, views, worldview - family was closed and carefully hidden in his own shell of deep experiences and even "lost" in them.

A certain inner coolness always reigned in the house and the flame of love, hidden under a bushel of restraint and aristocratic coldness, never flared up in full force.

Especially confused, restless in this "half-ice atmosphere" seemed to Elena the wife of the most kind, always slightly selfishly absent-minded, Fyodor Ivanovich, delicate, very restrained Ernestine Feodorovna, nee - Baroness Pfefel, a native of Dresden.

She always tried to be inconspicuous, frowned when she was paid too much attention, according to her concepts, but the thin, graceful features of her face, huge brown eyes, always seemed to "chill" from the spiritual "draught" that reigned in the house, begged for more a look or a fleeting warm word addressed to her. She adored her Theodora immensely and even encouraged his passion for the graceful and lively friend of her adopted, but sincerely beloved daughters, which surprised Elena very much at first.

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Wise with brilliant secular experience, Mrs. Tyutcheva *

(* Her father, brother and first husband - Baron Dernberg - were in the service of the Bavarian royal court all their lives, and in general, their whole family was cordially friends with the name of the King of Bavaria himself, Ludwig, at whose court balls "dear Nesterle" always shone with a bright star ", as she was called in the family. - author.) it was thought that a passionate romance

The infatuation of her "piitic" husband with a naive young beauty - Smolyanka will be, although stormy, but short-lived

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The novel developed frighteningly - rapidly!

Alexander Georgievsky, the husband of Elena's half-sister, Maria Alexandrovna, recalled in 1861, when from the day of the first - and fatal! - a meeting of lovers in the reception hall of the Smolny Institute - the Tyutchevs came there to visit their daughters on a day off - ten years have passed: "Worship of female beauty and the charms of female nature was Feodor Ivanovich's constant weakness from his earliest youth, - worship, which was combined with very serious, but, as a rule, a short-lived and even very soon transient passion for one or another particular person.But in this case, his passion for Leleya * (* Elena Alexandrovna's home name - the author.) Aroused from her side such a deep, such selfless, such a passionate and energetic love that she embraced his whole being, and he remained forever her prisoner, until her very death! And then Alexander Georgievsky adds with a certain degree of bitterness, already on his own behalf: “Knowing his nature, I don’t think that he has not been fond of anyone else for a long time, but these were fleeting hobbies, without any trace, Lelya is undoubtedly tied him to her with the strongest bonds": ..

Elena Alexandrovna at that time was twenty-five years old, Tyutchev - forty-seven. Their stormy relationship soon became known to the manager of the Smolny Institute, who attacked the trail of the apartment rented by Tyutchev nearby for secret meetings with Elena Alexandrovna. The scandal erupted in March 1851, almost before graduation and court appointments. Smolyanka Denisyeva at that time was already expecting a child from a poet - a chamberlain! The eldest daughter of Elena Denisyeva was born from Tyutchev on May 20, 1851 - the author.) All hopes for her career as maids of honor of the Court, and Anna Dmitrievna's aunt, as a cavalry lady, of course, were immediately forgotten!

Anna Dmitrievna was hurriedly escorted out of the institute, however, with an honorary pension - three thousand rubles a year, and poor Lelya "everyone left." (A. Georgievsky)

She almost didn't have any friends she didn't know in the world. In her new apartment, where she lived with her aunt and her newborn daughter, also Elena, only two or three friends visited her, the most devoted of them: Varvara Arsentievna Belorukova, the class lady of Smolny, who after Elena’s death took care of the children and elderly aunt, and a few relatives.

Alexander Georgievsky wrote about Elena Alexandrovna and her Fate as follows: “It was the most difficult time in her life, her father cursed her, and did not want to see her anymore, forbidding all other relatives to see her.

Only her deep religiosity saved her from complete despair, only prayer, good works, donations to the icon of the Mother of God in the cathedral of all educational institutions near the Smolny Monastery, for which all the few decorations she had went.

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She had another "God" - Fedor Ivanovich Tyutchev and one more consolation: his Love and affection for her! She called him that: "My God." She forgave him absolutely everything: frequent absences, permanent life for two families *, (* he was not going to, and could not leave the faithful and knowledgeable Ernestina Feodorovna and the ladies-in-waiting - daughters, his service as a diplomat and chamberlain - the author) selfishness, irascibility, frequent, absent-minded inattention to her, and in the end - even semi-coldness - and even the fact that she often had to lie to children, and to all their questions:

"Where's Papa and why does he only have dinner with us once a week?" - hesitantly answer that he is in the service and very busy.

Free from sidelong glances, contemptuous pity, alienation, and all that accompanied her false position of half-wife - half-lover, Elena Alexandrovna was saved only by a short stay with Tyutchev abroad - several months a year, and even then - not every summer. There she did not need to hide from anyone, there he freely and proudly called himself: Madame Tutchef, in

freely and proudly called herself: Madame Tutchef, in the registration books of hotels, without hesitation, with a firm hand, in response to a courteous question from the receptionist, wrote down:

"Tutchef avec sa famille" * (Tyutchev with his family - French - author).

But - only there!

For the circle in which Elena Alexandrovna Denisyeva lived in Russia, until the end of her life she was a "paria", an outcast, a stumble.

Undoubtedly, Elena Alexandrovna, very smart, sensitive to everything and understanding, knew perfectly well that she was engaged in self-deception, but her torn, too ardent heart carefully built her own "theory", thanks to which she lived all her difficult and at the same time, selfless for fourteen long years.

To Alexander Ivanovich Georgievsky, in the hour of frank and bitter confessions, shedding tears, she said this: “But I have nothing to hide and there is no need to pretend from anyone: I am more his wife than all his former wives, and no one in the world has ever seen him like this. loved and did not appreciate, as I love and appreciate him, no one has ever understood him as I understand him - every sound, every intonation of his voice, every mine and wrinkle on his face, every look and smile; I live his whole life , I am all his, and he is mine: "and the two will be one in flesh", and I am one with him and the spirit is one ... ... ... ... Isn't it true, I am in a real marriage ?!" ……………………….. I was deeply shocked by the conversation, and was stricken silent. of his marriage of church blessing, this is because he has been married three times already, and the church does not crown the fourth marriage, according to some kind of canonical rule! *(* This is indeed the case: it does not marry, but, in fact, Tyutchev was married only twice, only the wedding ceremony took place in both cases, too - twice - according to the Catholic and Orthodox rites. Both his wives were Catholic - Lutheran faith. It is quite possible that Fyodor Ivanovich misled Elena Alexandrovna about his tangled family circumstances quite deliberately! author.) And with amazing, heart-piercing sincerity, Elena Alexandrovna ended that difficult, memorable conversation with Georgievsky, with these words: "God was pleased to magnify and at the same time humble me with such a marriage, depriving us of the opportunity to ask for a church blessing on this marriage, and now I am doomed to remain in this miserable and false position all my life!

Amalia von Krüdener, Tyutchev's first wife

But sometimes this restrained - quiet and deeply religious nature still could not withstand the cross of "humility and obedience to God's permission", a temperament, bright and stormy, but crushed by the bitter circumstances of life, from time to time "boiled" in her, and then in the Tyutchev family - Denisiev, there were scenes similar to the one described by Al. Georgievsky in his unpublished memoirs:

“Before the birth of the third child, Feodor Ivanovich tried to divert Lelya from this risky step, * (And quite rightly, because he knew for sure that illegitimate children did not have any property rights and would be equated with peasant ones. Feodor Ivanovich had to do a lot later, after the death of Beloved, beat the thresholds, and raise to their feet a whole crowd of high-society acquaintances, before he managed to attach orphans-children to the nobility educational establishments; This is evidenced by the documents preserved in the archives of the Muranovo estate! - the author.), but she, this loving, kind, and generally adoring Lelya, went into such a frenzy that she grabbed the first bronze dog on malachite that she came across from her desk and threw it at Feodor Ivanovich with all her urine, but, fortunately , didn’t hit him, but into the corner of the stove, and beat off a large piece of a tile in it: there was no end to Lely’s remorse, tears and sobs after that ..

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Over time, the crack, the break in the relationship between Tyutchev and Denisyeva intensified, and it is not known how their fifteen years of suffering would have ended if it were not for the sudden death of Elena Alexandrovna from transient consumption in August 1864, at the age of 37 incomplete years!

Vladimir Veidle, a historian and publicist who did a lot of research and creativity and biography of Tyutchev, wrote in his brilliant psychological essays - studies analyzing the lyrical world of poetry and the very soul of the Poet:

“Tyutchev was not a“ owner ”, but he could not be possessed either. Elena Alexandrovna told him:“ You are my own ”, - but, probably, precisely because he was neither her nor anyone else, and by her very nature Hence the captivating, but also the “creepy and restless” that was in him: both in the passion itself, inexhaustible spirituality, and in the tenderness itself, something like the absence of a soul.

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With such an experience of love, it is not surprising that those who loved Tyutchev remained unsatisfied with his love; it is also not surprising that for him there was fidelity, which did not exclude betrayal, and betrayal, which did not exclude fidelity. !!!

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Tyutchev was looking for more and more closeness. The theme of false loyalty and love of others for him runs through his whole life and is reflected in his poetry. "V. Weidle. "Tyutchev's Last Love".

So fourteen years passed. In the end, Elena Alexandrovna fell ill a lot (she was tuberculosis). Her letters to her sister, relating to the last year and a half of her life, have been preserved. It is in them that she calls Tyutchev "my God", and in them she compares him with the unentertained French king. It also appears from them that in the last summer of her life, her daughter, Lyolya, almost every evening went with her father to ride on the Islands. He treated her to ice cream; they returned home late. Elena Alexandrovna was both pleased and saddened by this: she remained alone in the stuffy room or in the company of some compassionate lady who volunteered to visit her. That summer, Tyutchev especially wanted to go abroad, he was weary of Petersburg; we know this from his letters to his wife. But then he suffered a blow from which he never recovered to death.

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J. Keats had an insight that it is common for a poet to be deprived of a clearly defined, convex personality; this applies more to Tyutchev than to any other of the Russian poets.

Back in 1851, he complained to his wife: “I feel that my letters are the most vulgar and sad. They say nothing and look like windows smeared in the summer, through which nothing is visible and which indicate departure and absence. the misfortune of being so completely devoid of personality." Much later, three years after the death of Elena Alexandrovna, he wrote to another correspondent: "Thanks to my low-energy and unstable personality, it seems to me that there is nothing more natural than to lose sight of me."

And two months after her death, in a letter to Georgievsky, he gave the key to his entire fate: "Only with her and for her I was a person, only in her love" ... I was aware of myself.

Elena Alexandrovna died in St. Petersburg or at a dacha near St. Petersburg on August 4, 1864. She was buried at the Volkovo cemetery. On her grave there was a cross, now broken, with an inscription consisting of dates of birth and death and the words: "Elena - I believe, Lord, and I confess." About her dying days and hours and about Tyutchev's despair, verses speak:

All day she lay in oblivion -

And shadows covered all of it -

Lil warm, summer rain - its jets

The leaves sounded merry.

And slowly she came to her senses -

And I started listening to the noise

And listened for a long time - passionate,

Immersed in conscious thought...

And now, as if talking with myself

Consciously she said:

(I was with her, killed, but alive)

"Oh, how I loved all this!"

You loved, and the way you love -

No, no one has yet succeeded -

Oh Lord! .. and survive this ...

And my heart didn't break into pieces...

On the day after the funeral, Tyutchev wrote to Georgievsky: "It's all over ... Yesterday we buried her ... What is it? What happened? What I'm writing to you about - I don't know ... Everything is killed in me: thoughts, feelings, memory "That's it... I feel like a complete idiot. Emptiness, terrible emptiness. And even in death I do not foresee relief. Oh, I need it on earth, and not there somewhere... My heart is empty, my brain is exhausted. Even to think about her, to call her alive in my memory, how she was, looked, spoke, and I can’t do it. Terrible, unbearable ... I can no longer write, and what to write? .. "

Five days later, he wrote to him: "Oh, come, come, for God's sake, and the sooner, the better. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Perhaps "..." you will be able, at least for a few minutes, to lift this terrible burden , this burning stone that presses and suffocates me ... The most unbearable thing in my present situation is that with all possible tension of thoughts, relentlessly, relentlessly, I keep thinking about her, and yet I cannot catch her ... Simple madness would be more gratifying... But... I still can't write about it, I don't want to; how can I express such horror..."

By the same time, probably, an excerpt from a letter to an unknown addressee, reported at one time by F.F. Tyutchev, the son of Elena Alexandrovna: “My state of mind is terrible. Day after day, I languish more and more in a gloomy bottomless abyss ... The meaning of my life is lost, and nothing else exists for me. What I feel cannot be expressed in words and if my last day came, I would greet it as a day of liberation ... My dear friend, life here on earth is impossible for me. And if "she" exists anywhere, she should take pity on me and take me to myself..."

Fet visited Tyutchev in those days and spoke about it in his memoirs: “Silently shaking hands, Tyutchev invited me to sit next to the sofa on which he was reclining. He must have been feverish and shivering in a warm room from sobs, since he was all He was covered with a dark gray plaid with his head, from under which only one exhausted face was visible. There is nothing to say at such a time. After a few minutes, I shook his hand and quietly left. "

It was impossible to stay in Petersburg. Tyutchev wanted to go to the Georgievskys in Moscow, but changed his mind, perhaps due to the call of his wife, and at the end of the month went to her, abroad. Through Germany, stopping several times along the way, he went to Switzerland, and from there to the French Riviera. Turgenev, who saw him in Baden, wrote to Countess Lambert: "I saw F.I. Tyutchev here, who was very sad that he did not see you. His condition is very painful and sad. You probably know why."

Remembering this time, Anna Feodorovna Tyutcheva, the maid of honor of Empress Maria Alexandrovna and the tutor of the little princess, wrote in her diary: “I took communion in Schwalbach. On the day of communion, I woke up at six in the morning and got up to pray. I felt the need to pray with a special diligence for my father and for Helen D. During mass, the thought of them again came to me with great vivacity. A few weeks later I learned that on that very day and at that hour Elena D. had died. I saw my father again in Germany .he was able

was less agitated, but still plunged into the same agonizing grief, the same despair at the loss of earthly joys, without the slightest glimpse of aspiration for anything heavenly. With all the strength of his soul, he was chained to that earthly passion, the subject of which was gone. And this grief, ever growing, turned into despair, which was inaccessible to the consolations of religion and brought him, by nature affectionate and just, to irritation, barbs and injustice in relation to his wife and to all of us. I saw that my younger sister, who is now with him, suffered terribly. How many memories and painful impressions of the past have resurrected in me! I felt engulfed in hopeless suffering. I could no longer believe that God would come to the rescue of his soul, whose life had been wasted in earthly and illicit passion."

In early October, from Geneva, Tyutchev wrote to Georgievsky: “... The memory of her is that the feeling of hunger in the hungry, insatiably hungry. It doesn’t live, my friend Alexander Ivanovich, it doesn’t live ... The wound fester, it doesn’t heal. Be it faint-heartedness, whether it be impotence, I don't care, only in her presence and for her I was a person, only in her love, her boundless love for me, I was aware of myself ... Now I am something meaninglessly living, some kind of living, painful It may be that in some years nature in man loses its healing power, that life loses the ability to be reborn, renewed. All this may be; but believe me, my friend Alexander Ivanovich, he is only able to assess my situation, to whom out of a thousand one, a terrible fate fell - to live fourteen years in a row, hourly, every minute, with such love as her love, and outlive it ... Now everything is known, everything is decided; now I am convinced by experience that there is nothing in me of this terrible emptiness fill in. What I have tried in those these last weeks: both society and

nature, and, finally, the closest kindred affections; ... "

Tyutchev's state of mind, as can be seen from the notes of his eldest daughter, could not but upset and irritate his family members. However, Darya Feodorovna was hardly right when she wrote in November from Nice to her younger sister in Moscow: “Dad has a healthy look. He leaves home for the whole day. When he does not think about it, he has fun. However, he wants to appear sad ..." Tyutchev really tried to have fun. In Lausanne, in Ouchy, in Montreux, he visited friends, went to lectures and to the theater, from Geneva he traveled with a large company to Ferney. The shores of Lake Geneva have long been dear to him. But it wasn't easy to forget about it. Once, returning home from a sermon by Bishop Mermilho, he dictated to his youngest daughter, Maria, to whose diary we owe information about Tyutchev's pastimes abroad, the verses:

The biza subsided ... Breathe easier

Azure host of Geneva waters -

And the boat sails on them again,

And again the swan sways them.

All day, like in summer, the sun warms,

The trees shine with variegation -

And the air is a gentle wave

Their splendor cherishes the decrepit.

And there, in solemn peace,

Exposed in the morning -

Shining white mountain

Like an unearthly revelation.

Here the heart would forget everything,

I would forget all my flour,

Whenever there - in his native land -

There was one grave less...

On the way from Geneva to Nice, Tyutchev examined Lyon, Marseille, Toulon, Cannes. In Nice I tried to have fun, as in Geneva, I rode around the neighborhood, saw many acquaintances and friends. But on December 8, he wrote to Polonsky: “My friend Yakov Petrovich! You asked me in your letter to write to you when I feel better, and that’s why I haven’t written to you until today. Why I’m writing to you now, I don’t know. because everything is the same in the soul, and that this is the same - there are no words for this. A man was given a cry for suffering, but there are sufferings that even a cry does not completely express ... From the minute I met you last summer in the Summer Garden and for the first time spoke to you about what disgusted me, and to this moment, if a year ago everything I experienced and felt I dreamed with some vividness, then it seems to me that, without waking up, I immediately on the spot and died of fright. Perhaps there was no human organization better organized than mine for the most complete perception of a certain kind of sensations. Even during her lifetime, when I happened to be in her presence, in front of her, I vividly recall something from our past, I remember what a terrible longing my whole soul was then poisoned, and at the same time I, I remember saying to her: "My God, it may happen that all these memories - all this, that even now, already now it's so terrible - one of us will have to repeat to the lonely one, having outlived the other," - but this thought pierced the soul and disappeared immediately. And now? My friend, now everything has been tried, nothing has helped, nothing has consoled me, I can’t live, I can’t live ... Only one need is still felt, hurry to you, where there is still something left of her, her children, friends, all her poor home life, where there was so much love and so much grief, but all this is so alive, so full of her, so that for that day, lived with her, my then life, I would gladly buy, but at the price - at the price of what ? This torture, every minute torture, this lot, what life has become for me now ... Oh, my friend Yakov Petrovich, it’s hard, terribly hard, I know you experienced part of this yourself, part, but not all. You were young, you are not fourteen years old ... (Tyutchev did not add it - ed.) Once again I am drawn to St. Petersburg, although I know and foresee that there too ... but at least there will not be that terrible split in the soul, which is here. Here there is even nowhere to shelter my grief ... I would almost like to be called to Petersburg in the name of our committee, for which, it seems, there is also a reason - due to Komarovsky's ill health - what is he, poor? It will be very, very gratifying to see you, my dear Yakov Petrovich. Say the same for me and Maikov. I thank you both from the bottom of my heart for your friendship and I value it much, much... The Lord is with you. Sorry and see you soon. F. Tyutchev".

Two days later, he writes to Georgievsky: “My friend Alexander Ivanovich! That moment was fatal for me when I changed my intention to go to Moscow with you ... This completely ruined myself. What happened to me? now? Is there anything left of that former me that you once, in some other world, there, in her presence, knew and loved - I don’t know. Some kind of burning, vague memory remains of all this, but also she often changes, only one thing is inherent and relentless - this feeling of boundless, endless, suffocating emptiness. Oh, how scared I am of myself ... But wait ... I am not able to continue now. How long have I been rushing and struggling with the thought, whether to write to you or not... Woe like mine is the same leprosy. illnesses that simply repel participation and must close in and complete their process inside a person...

At the end of November or in December, poems were written:

Oh, this south, oh, this Nice! ..

Oh, how their brilliance disturbs me!

- Life is like a shot bird,

Wants to get up but can't...

There is no flight, no span -

Broken wings hang

And all of her, clinging to the dust,

Trembling with pain and impotence ...

Tyutchev sent this and two previous poems to Georgievsky in early December.

At the end of January, Tyutchev was, according to his daughter, unwell and full of sad forebodings. The Mediterranean could not heal his sadness. In early February, he married his daughter, and a month later he left with his wife for Russia. On the way, he stopped for ten days in Paris, saw friends there, dined with Herzen (who wrote to Ogarev: "Tyutchev is even more honey and milk") and once again spoke about his grief with Turgenev, who later recalled: "We, in order to talk , went into a cafe on the boulevard and, asking themselves out of decency for ice cream, sat down under a trellis of ivy. I was silent all the time, and Tyutchev spoke in a painful voice, and the chest of his shirt at the end of the story turned out to be wet from the tears falling on it ... "

In the last days of March, still in a very depressed state of mind, he returned to St. Petersburg. Here they demanded poems from him on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the death of Lomonosov, which was celebrated on April 4, and on the eve of that day he sent them to Maikov with a note: “Here you are, my friend Apollo Nikolaevich, a few poor rhymes for your holiday, in my current disposition not I can do more."

Soon another loss was to befall him. Tuberculosis, inherited from her mother, fell ill with the eldest daughter of Elena Alexandrovna, Lelya, who bore her father's surname, like her two brothers (all three were adopted by Tyutchev with the consent of his wife Ernestina Feodorovna). The girl was fourteen years old. In the winter, when Tyutchev was abroad, it happened

trouble that took its toll on her health. At a reception at the famous boarding house madame Truba, where she was brought up, some lady unfamiliar with Tyutchev's family circumstances asked her how her mother was doing, meaning Ernestina Fedorovna. When Lyolya Tyutcheva understood the reason for the misunderstanding, she ran home to A.D. Denisyeva and announced that she would not return to the boarding house. She had a nervous attack, and by the spring transient consumption was discovered, on May 2 she died, and on the same day her little brother Kolya, who was not even three years old, died. Only five-year-old Fedya survived and outlived his father by many years. He studied at prestigious institution- Lyceum Katkov, and for a long time was in the care of the eldest daughter of the poet, Anna Feodorovna Tyutcheva and her husband Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov.

Two years later, on a completely different occasion, which did not concern him personally, Tyutchev wrote to his wife: "Here is the difference between physical and spiritual wounds: the former add up one with the other, while the latter most often exclude each other." Perhaps this thought was the fruit of his own experience, what he experienced that spring, after returning from Nice to Petersburg. It can be assumed that this new double loss did not so much become a new grief for Tyutchev, but deepened and prolonged the old one. These days he wrote

“There is a dead night in me and there is no morning for it ...

And soon it will fly away - invisible in the darkness -

The last, meager smoke from an extinct fire.

True, a week after these lines, a madrigal poem dedicated to N.S. Akinfieva, but it only testifies to the need in society, especially women's, which Tyutchev never left. Under this cover of tenderness, sociability, talkativeness, complete emptiness continued to gape, which received its deepest expression in the verses "There is also in my suffering stagnation ...". The deadness of the soul, dull anguish, the impossibility of realizing oneself are opposed in them to burning, but living suffering, just as during the life of Elena Alexandrovna, the power of her love was opposed to the inability to love that you experienceddfk gj'n? when he was conscious of himself as "a lifeless idol of your living soul."

Here I am wandering along the high road

In the quiet light of the fading day,

It's hard for me, my legs freeze ...

My dear friend, do you see me?

Everything is darker, darker above the ground -

The last reflection of the day has flown away...

This is the world where we lived with you,

Tomorrow is a day of prayer and sorrow

Tomorrow is the memory of a fateful day...

My angel, wherever souls hover,

My angel, do you see me?

This month Tyutchev was especially hard. Relatives note his irritability: he wanted them to show more participation in his grief. On August 16, he writes to M.A. Georgievskaya: “My vile nerves are so upset that I can’t hold a pen in my hands ...”, and at the end of September she was from St. in verses to gr. Bludovoy will say that "surviving does not mean living." "There is no day that the soul does not ache ..." written in the same year in late autumn. The next spring, Tyutchev did not want to go abroad and wrote to the Georgievskys: "It is even more empty there. I have already experienced this in practice." In the summer of the same year, he complained from Tsarskoye to his wife: “I am becoming more and more unbearable every day, my usual irritation is greatly facilitated by the fatigue that I experience in the pursuit of all kinds of fun and not to see a terrible emptiness in front of me.”

Of course, time, as they say, "did its job." Another year has passed. The mention of Elena Alexandrovna in the correspondence disappears. But it is known that in the autumn of this year, at one of the meetings of the Council of the Main Directorate for the Press, of which he was a member, Tyutchev was very upset and drew or wrote something with a pencil on a piece of paper lying on the table in front of him. After the meeting, he left in thought, leaving a piece of paper. One of his colleagues, Count

Kapnist noticed that instead of business notes there were poetic lines. He took the sheet and kept it in memory of Tyutchev:

No matter how hard the last hour -

That incomprehensible to us

The languor of mortal suffering, -

But even worse for the soul

Watch how they die in it

All the best memories.

Another Petersburg winter passed, then spring ... In June, Tyutchev wrote:

Again I stand over the Neva,

And again, as in the old days,

I look, as if alive,

To these slumbering waters.

No sparks in the blue sky

All was quiet in a pale charm,

Only along the thoughtful Neva

A pale glow emanates.

In a dream, do I dream all this,

Or do I really look

On what with the same moon

Did we look alive with you?

This should be taken literally. He did not have enough life, and he did not have long to live. He died in July 1873 (In the essay on Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, I erroneously indicated: April 1873 - the author!)

Even in his last hobbies: romantic letters to Baroness Elena Karlovna Uslar - Bogdanova, madrigals to Nadezhda Akinfieva - Gorchakova, half-joking poetic lines Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna is just a "shine", easy breath Tyutchev's last Love, her flashes and shadows: This is just an attempt to fill the heart void that formed in the Poet's soul after the departure of the Beloved Woman. This is so natural for the Poet.. So understandable. But it's so sad! * In one of the recent publications in the periodical press, I came across a note that a chapel was built next to the grave of Elena Aleksandrovna Denisyeva at the Volkovo cemetery.

Whether the cross with the date of birth of the Last Muse of the Poet was restored on it was not reported .. I still don’t know when she was born ...

Monument to F.I. Tyutchev

last love

“From a long list of names desired by the poet’s heart, we know only four names, and only one Russian! But it's the only one Russian name became fatal for Tyutchev. They determined all the most significant in his love lyrics"(From the biography of Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev).

The three names are Amalia Krüdner (Adlerberg), Eleanor Peterson (the poet's first wife) and Ernestine von Dernberg (second wife).

The only Russian name belongs to Elena Alexandrovna Denisyeva (1826–1864), Tyutchev's unmarried wife and mother of his three children, the inspirer of the "Denisyev" cycle of his poems known to all lovers of Russian poetry.

I will not talk here about the stormy and at the same time tragic life of F. I. Tyutchev (December 5, 1803–July 15, 1873), about his marriages and love stories - enough has been written about this. Just a few lines as background for our "poem of the day".

So, Fedor Ivanovich first saw Elena Denisieva on July 15, 1850, at almost 47 years old. She was in her 24th year.

She was born in Kursk, in 1826, in an old impoverished noble family, she lost her mother early. Elena Denisyeva, the niece of the inspector of the Smolny Institute and his graduate, was friendly with the elder daughters of Tyutchev and met her love in their house, for the sake of which she sacrificed her position in society, the opportunity to become a maid of honor, sacrificed friends and relatives (they say her father cursed her). But only during infrequent trips abroad, she could be considered Tyutcheva - after all, the marriage of the poet with Ernestina was not terminated. And Elena had a daughter and two sons in 14 years.

“He, for example, had two wives with six children, two long relationships with five more children, and four big novels. But not one of these women “acquired” him completely, could not, I think, confidently say: he is mine, only mine ...

He called his momentary hobbies "cornflower blue tomfoolery" ...

- Favorite! Throw on a blanket. I will help you!

"Beloved" - that's what Ernestine's wife began to call him at the end of his life. She also called Tyutchev "charovnik". “The Enchanter is a happy person,” she wrote to her daughters, “because everyone is delighted with him ...”(Vyacheslav Nedoshivin, Novaya Gazeta, December 1, 2003).

In 1837, Tyutchev wrote to his parents about his wife Eleanor: “... Never a single person loved another like she did me ... there was not a single day in her life when, for the sake of my well-being, she would not agree, without a moment's hesitation, to die for me”.

“Mom is just the woman that dad needs - loving inconsistently, blindly and long-sufferingly. To love dad, knowing him and understanding ... you need to be a saint, completely detached from everything earthly., - wrote about Tyutchev's wife, Ernestine, his eldest daughter from his first marriage.

And the poet himself about Elena Denisyeva:

You loved, and the way you love -

No, nobody has succeeded yet!

“I don’t know anyone who was less than me, worthy of love,” Tyutchev once said of the women who idolized him. “Therefore, when I became the object of someone’s love, it always amazed me.”

About tenderness

“Oh, how in our declining years we love more tenderly and more superstitiously ...” - it was this phrase that made me do a little research on tenderness. This new motive in the lyrics of the 50-year-old Tyutchev was noted in his poem "Last Love" and 74-year-old Ilya Ehrenburg: "And tenderness turned out to be new ...".

“I highly appreciate temperament in an actor. But tenderness has no temperament. And tenderness is more important than love(Elena Kamburova, singer).

"Love sooner or later disappears, while tenderness is inevitable"(Jacques Brel, singer).

“That's all ... I won’t add anything else, because I’m afraid to become sad, which means angry, and because I don’t dare to confess to you those crazy dreams that are inevitable when you love and when love is huge, and tenderness is boundless”(Henri Barbusse, "Tenderness").

David Samoilov:

Pity is tenderer than piercing love.

Compassion prevails in her.

In harmony with another soul, the soul suffers.

Selfishness goes off the rails.

Passions that recently raged

And tried to demolish everything around,

towering suddenly

To selfless sorrow.

“Whoever knows tenderness is doomed. The spear of the Archangel pierced his soul. And there will be no peace for this soul, no measure ever! Tenderness is the meekest, most timid, divine face of love.(Faina Georgievna Ranevskaya).

Bella Akhmadulina, 1974:

Love for a loved one is tenderness

to everyone near and far.

And yet, I got the feeling that, up to a certain age, men are dominated by, in the words of Anna Akhmatova, “unsatisfied looks”, and only in their declining years do they come to the inevitability of tenderness.

Anna Akhmatova, December 1913:

You can't confuse real tenderness

With nothing, and she is quiet ...

In December 1913, Anna Akhmatova was 24 years old.

Marina Tsvetaeva, for example, already in her early poems, rather, in her early ones, this word occurs very often. Bella Akhmadulina wrote her lines about love and tenderness at the age of 37, but this is not the first time - they are just very aphoristic.

And it also seems to me that not only tenderness - "this is the meekest, most timid, divine face of love." After all, it has long been said in Russia that if he regrets, then he loves.

“I feel sorry for everyone” - and this phrase, uttered in a certain context, testifies to the same thing - about the “divine faces of love” - purified, non-futile, elevated to selfless sorrow.

Paloma, April 2007

A POEM DEDICATED
ELENA DENISIEVA

How many times have you heard the confession:
"I'm not worthy of your love."
Let her be my creation -
But how poor I am in front of her...

Before your love
It hurts me to remember myself -
I stand, I am silent, I revere
And I bow to you...

When, sometimes, so tenderly,
With such faith and prayer
Involuntarily bend your knee
Before the cradle dear,

Where she sleeps - your birth -
Your nameless cherub, -
Understand well and you my humility
Before your loving heart.

Elena Aleksandrovna Denisyeva (1826-1864)

The girl from an impoverished noble family was twenty-four years old when the forty-seven-year-old Tyutchev drew attention to her. Their meeting took place at the Smolny Institute, where, together with Denisyeva, who was a volunteer, the poet's two daughters, Dasha and Katya, studied. A.I. Georgievsky (her sister's husband) wrote about Elena: ... nature endowed her with great intelligence and wit, great impressionability and liveliness, depth of feelings and energy of character, and when she got into a brilliant society, she herself was transformed into a brilliant young lady who ... always gathered many brilliant admirers around her ...»

The poet's hobby gradually grew into passionate love, which did not go unanswered. The news of the "criminal, shameful" connection quickly spread throughout St. Petersburg, a scandal erupted. Tyutchev tried not to pay attention to high-society whispering, but the more he "flaunted public opinion", the more Denisyeva got it. Before her, the doors of many houses were closed, where before she was a welcome guest. The father renounced his daughter, and, moreover, he forbade relatives to communicate with her.

The noisy scandal dealt Elena Alexandrovna a terrible blow, but did not force her to give up the love into which she rushed like a whirlpool. From Fedor Tyutchev, she gave birth to three children - Elena, Fedor and Nikolai. At the insistence of the mother, all children were recorded in the birth registers under the name of their father, but this did not give them any civil rights. By law, they were considered illegitimate. Loving Denisyeva, Tyutchev infinitely appreciated Ernestina until the end of his days. The wife knew about her husband's connection, but, like a wise woman, she experienced this tragedy in herself and did not take her feelings out to people. More than a year after meeting Denisyeva, Tyutchev wrote to his wife: “ Oh, how much better you are than me, how much higher! How much restraint, how much seriousness in your love - and how small, how pathetic I feel compared to you ...»

The Denisyev cycle is called the most lyrical and poignant in the work of Fyodor Tyutchev. The addressee of these poems is the muse and last love of the poet Elena Denisyeva. For the sake of love for Tyutchev, she sacrificed everything: her social status, the location of the family, the respect of others. Their relationship lasted a long 14 years. They were sweet and painful at the same time.

Portrait of Elena Alexandrovna Denisyeva.

Elena Aleksandrovna Denisyeva came from an old but impoverished noble family. Her mother died when Elena was still a child. Some time later, the father married again, but the stepmother did not like the rebellious stepdaughter too much. Therefore, the girl was urgently sent to St. Petersburg to be raised by her father's sister Anna Dmitrievna Denisyeva. She was the inspector of the Smolny Institute. This position allowed the aunt to arrange for her niece to study at the Institute of Noble Maidens.

Usually strict with the pupils, Anna Dmitrievna didted on Elena and spoiled her. She bought outfits for her niece, took her out into the world. The young beauty with perfect manners was noticed by both overgrown society lions and ardent young men.

Years of study at Smolny allowed Elena Alexandrovna to master the art of court etiquette, speak German and French without an accent, and acquire other skills necessary for the pupils. A completely successful arrangement of her fate awaited the girl: after graduating from the Smolny Institute, she should have become a maid of honor at the imperial court, if not for the big scandal that erupted right before the release of Denisyeva.

Ernestina Tyutcheva, wife of Fyodor Tyutchev. F. Dürk, 1840

The daughters of Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev studied in the same class with Elena Alexandrovna, so Denisyeva was a frequent guest in his house. The poet's daughters came with their girlfriend for home tea parties. Gradually, Tyutchev began to pay more attention to the girl than etiquette required. The poet's wife saw how he was caring for a young beauty, but did not attach much importance to this. Ernestina Feodorovna, mindful of her husband's past intrigues with aristocrats, considered that his attachment to an orphan girl did not pose any threat.

Elena Denisyeva with her daughter.

In March 1851, just before graduation from Smolny and subsequent distribution to future posts, an incredible scandal erupted. It turned out that Denisyev's pupil was pregnant and would soon give birth. The director arranged for Elena Alexandrovna to be shadowed and found out that she secretly met with Fyodor Tyutchev in a rented apartment not far from the Smolny Institute. Denisyeva gave birth in May of the same year.

Auntie was immediately expelled from her place of work, however, having appointed a generous pension, and almost everyone turned away from Elena. Her father cursed her and forbade her relatives to communicate with her daughter. Only the aunt supported her niece and took her to live with her.

Fedor Ivanovich Tyutchev is a Russian poet.

Then Denisyeva was 25 years old, and Tyutchev was 47. For him, the young and stately Elena Alexandrovna was a muse, an all-consuming passion. Their painful relationship lasted for fourteen years.

Tyutchev was not going to terminate the official marriage, but he was not able to part with his beloved either. They had three children. Elena Alexandrovna forgave Tyutchev both infrequent visits and life in two families. When asked by the children about why dad is practically never at home, the woman lied that he had too much work.

Only a few weeks a year abroad, Elena Alexandrovna was truly happy. After all, no one knew her history there, and when she checked into a hotel, she resolutely called herself Madame Tyutcheva.

In Russia, Denisyeva again had to put up with the position of a half-wife, half-lover. She perfectly understood that she was engaged in self-flagellation, but she could not help herself, because she loved the poet too much.

And yet, sometimes this submissive woman could not stand it and showed her temper. When she announced that she was pregnant for the third time, Fedor Ivanovich tried to dissuade her from giving birth. Then Denisyeva flew into a rage, grabbed the figurine from the table and threw it at Tyutchev with all her might. She did not hit him, but only beat off the corner of the fireplace.

Their painful relationship would have continued, but in 1864 Elena Denisyeva died suddenly of tuberculosis. Tyutchev was inconsolable.

All day she lay in oblivion -
And shadows covered all of it -
Lil warm, summer rain - its jets
The leaves sounded merry.
And slowly she came to her senses -
And I started listening to the noise
And listened for a long time - passionate,
Immersed in conscious thought...
And so, as if talking to myself,
Consciously she said:
(I was with her, killed, but alive)
“Oh, how I loved all this!”
You loved, and the way you love -
t, no one has yet succeeded -
Oh Lord! .. and survive this ...
And the heart was not torn to shreds ...

Frame from the movie "The Last Love of Tyutchev" (2003)

After the death of his beloved, Tyutchev wrote to his friend: “... The memory of her is that the feeling of hunger in the hungry, insatiably hungry. I don’t live, my friend Alexander Ivanovich, I don’t live ... The wound is festering, it doesn’t heal. Whether it's cowardice, whether it's impotence, I don't care. Only with her and for her I was a person, only in her love, her boundless love for me, I was aware of myself ... Now I am something meaninglessly living, some kind of living, painful insignificance. It may also be that in some years nature in man loses its healing power, that life loses the ability to be reborn and renewed. All this can be; but believe me, my friend Alexander Ivanovich, he is the only one who is able to assess my position, who out of a thousand and one has had a terrible fate - to live fourteen years in a row, hourly, every minute, with such love as her love, and survive it.

[…] I am ready to accuse myself of ingratitude, of insensitivity, but I can’t lie: it didn’t get easier for a minute, as soon as consciousness returned. All these methods of opium numb the pain for a minute, but that's all. The effect of opium will pass, and the pain is still the same ... "