Tatyana Petrovna Zheltukhina, nee Veshnjakova
(1796-1856)
Tatyana Petrovna is the sister of
Maria Petrovna Ilyina
, the wife of
Alexander Ivanovich Ilyin
,
that is, our great-great-great-grandmother’s
sister.
The Veshnyakovs, who came from Moscow nobles, also served the father of
Ivan the Terrible, Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich.
Tatyana Petrovna, having received a good upbringing at home, was married
in due time to the chamber cadet
Vladimir Fedorovich Zheltukhin
,
13 years
older than her. Zheltukhin was rich, owned estates in Spassky,
Tsarevokokshaysky and Laishevsky districts, as well as in Samara province.
He had about 2,400 souls of serfs (in the Kazan province 1,489 souls and in the
Saratov province 939 souls), came from a highborn noble family, whose
ancestors served Ivan the Terrible, and owned two stone houses in Kazan: on
Voskresenskaya
, diagonally from the university (now - house No. 21 on
Kremlevskaya Street), where Tatyana Petrovna lived with him in the winters
and organized the most luxurious balls, and on
Nikolaevskaya Square
, which
is now the Lenin Garden, not far from the Black Lake. After the death of
Vladimir Fedorovich, this house will be sold by Tatyana Petrovna and will
serve as a hotel for the city.
Vladimir Fedorovich
in 1799 — page, participant in the battle
of Austerlitz in 1805, in 1806 — lieutenant, official on special
assignments under the trustee of the Kazan educational
district, state councilor, chamberlain, in 1846-1848 - Kazan
provincial marshal of the nobility, knight of the Order of St.
Anna 2nd degree, full member of the Kazan Economic Society.
Zheltukhin was a cheerful man, he started cupids, as “her”
people from the staff reported to Tatyana Petrovna, with
maids, he loved to eat deliciously and drink sweetly and show
off in his court chamberlain uniform, which, however, was
welcomed by his wife. The staff of his servants, as the
Historical Bulletin magazine wrote about it in 1911, resembled
“partly the court ranks, partly the courtyard landowner
hierarchy that developed among the large Russian masters
during the 18th century, in imitation of the German and
French aristocrats, with the remnants of the
Moscow-patrimonial order."
The same huge staff of servants had Tatyana Petrovna, who considered
herself an aristocrat. As Professor Korsakov, who knew her personally, wrote,
at the head of the servants “
was the senior maid... This person, according to the
custom of the landlord’s life, was the lady’s closest confidant, conveyed gossip to
her about all the servants and peasants and monitored the morality of the
maids, entering with them, however, in the deals of this part. She was followed
by the lady's chief maid, who was in charge of her wardrobe and managed a
whole staff of maids of various degrees. Then they went: the housekeeper, the
wardrobe lady who handed out the linen, and the coffee-lady.
”
After the death of her husband in 1848, Tatyana Petrovna lost a lot, and her
character, not very soft and kind especially towards those who stood below
her on the social ladder, became even harsher and tougher. She was,
according to the recollections of her contemporaries, short in stature, petite
and rather thin, quick and sharp in her movements, she knew her worth and
constantly reminded people of it who, it seemed to her, did not value her
enough.
Tatyana Petrovna, as the predominant part of the landowners of that time,
considered all servants in general, all yard people and peasants, to be pariahs,
or people of a different breed, or “boorish spawn.” She was in the full sense
a “serf-woman,” considering serfdom a sacred privilege of the nobility”
(Historical Bulletin, vol. CXXV, pp. 480-482).
Tatyana Petrovna dressed simply and tastefully, and, according to the widow’s
“rank,” dark colors predominated in her clothes. The permanent accessories
of her wardrobe were a tortoiseshell snuffbox and a lorgnette, which, as she
apparently believed, gave her additional aristocracy.
Her trips from home were very interesting. Tatyana Petrovna never got into
the carriage herself. For these purposes, she had a traveling footman, Peter,
who, as Professor Korsakov recalled, “
usually took his lady in his arms, like
a small child, with Tatyana Petrovna hugging Peter with her right hand around
the neck, and seated her in the “charabanc”; he took her out of the carriage in
the same way and carried her in his arms up the stairs... They carried her into
the village church in the same way..
.”
It was known that she often rewarded her maids with slaps in the face. The
lowest category — the footmen, yard people and artisans of the peasants who
prepared her food, sheathed it, looked after the garden and vegetable gardens,
made chocolate and "coffee", she did not honor with "all-merciful" slaps in the
face, but gave orders to her managers, clerks and bailiffs ( if she lived in the
village) or asked the police chief through notes (when she lived in Kazan) —
and the offenders were whipped mercilessly, both in the village and in the
city.
However, Tatyana Petrovna also had good traits in her character — she raised
her niece, Elena Alexandrovna Libert, whom she later adopted, like her own
daughter, and her living rooms were constantly crowded with an incredible
number of guest relatives, and very distant ones, for whom the doors her
houses were always wide open.
In the winters, Tatyana Petrovna lived in the village of
Elan
of Laishevsky
district, which she inherited after the death of her husband, and in the
summer she moved — certainly with a huge cortege of hangers-on, relatives
and servants - to her native
Tagashevo
. According to Professor Korsakov,
from the winter of 1853-1854, Tatyana Petrovna began to pass the long winter
evenings in Kazan, in her house near Black Lake. From that time on, she
began to “take out” Elena Libert.
She did not have time to make a good match for her adopted daughter and
died in 1856, exactly five years before the famous “Manifesto on the Peasants”
of February 19, 1861. And if she had lived, then already on February 20, 1861,
she would have had a stroke, because something happened that, in Tatyana
Petrovna’s firm conviction, should never have happened.
Watercolour
Colorized photograph
Quote by: Leonid Devyatykh. “What do we know
about the life of the Russian nobility?”
http://www.topauthor.ru/
chto_mi_znaem_o_gizni_russkogo_dvoryanstva_d0b
8.html
Parents of Vladimir
Fedorovich
Zheltukhins and Lev Tolstoy
L.N. Tolstoy, while studying at Kazan University, attended
evenings and balls in the Zheltukhins’ house. There is a version
that in the story “After the Ball” a ball at the Zheltukhins is
mentioned: “.
.. on the last day of Maslenitsa I was at a ball at the
provincial marshal, a good-natured old man, a rich hospitable
man and a chamberlain. His wife acts as a host, who was as
good-natured as he was, in a velvet puce dress, with a diamond
feronniere on her head and with open old, plump, white shoulders
and breasts, like portraits of Elizaveta Petrovna...”
TATYANA PETROVNA
1796 - 1856
VLADIMIR
FEDOROVICH
ZHELTUKHIN
PETR
IVANOVICH
VESHNYAKOV
1756 - ?
ANNA ANDREEVNA
VSEVOLOZHSKAYA
Brothers and sisters:
Alexander, Ivan, Vassily, Andrey;
Ekaterina (Libert), Maria (Ilyina),
another six
PETR
ALEXANDROVICH
NADEZDA
NIKOLAEVNA
MOISEEV
BORIS
PETROVICH
NATALYA
NIKANOROVNA
SHCHERBAKOV
NATALYA
BORISOVNA
MARIA
PETROVNA
VESHNYAKOV
ALEXANDER
IVANOVICH
ILYIN
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