Ekaterina Laval was the wife of a Decembrist. Princess Trubetskaya: from Paris to Transbaikalia and from childlessness to motherhood

Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya Artist Zaryanko S.K. Image from polit.ru

The film "Star of Captivating Happiness" made a splash in 1975. The Khrushchev thaw was already beginning to be forgotten, dear Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev on TV, although not very old, but already quite fed up. And suddenly - another sip of something fresh, invigorating. Maybe even freedom.

Excellent acting, Okudzhava's romance, officers devoted to their idea, a young tsar, but already senile, carriages and wagons, snow, snow, snow. The very title of the film was fascinating - it was necessary to pull out such a wonderful phrase from Pushkin's boring, in general, poem "To Chaadaev".

And most importantly, of course, the fate of the Decembrist wives, in particular, Ekaterina Trubetskoy. Their decision to follow their husbands to hard labor is, by and large, humane, natural, as any real heroism is.

katasha

Frame from the film "Star of Captivating Happiness"

The contemporary of the nineteenth century Katasha Trubetskaya, nee Laval, was born at the end of 1800 in St. Petersburg, in a luxurious family palace. Katsha was destined for glory from birth, but, however, another - a brilliant court lady.

Father - the manager of the Third Expedition of the Special Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a Frenchman by blood, Jean (Ivan Stepanovich) Laval. Mother - Alexandra Grigorievna, nee Kozitskaya, the personification of wealth (the heiress of the innumerable fortune of a Middle Volga merchant, owner of fifteen iron works) and enlightenment (her salon thundered throughout the capital). What else?

Nineteen years old Katasha, while in Paris, met another resident of the capital, Prince Sergei Trubetskoy. At first, Katsha did not particularly like the prince - he was old (the difference was ten years), ugly, not a dancer. True, the young lady herself was not the embodiment of charm - short, plump, on her face - traces of smallpox suffered in childhood.

Sister Zinaida claimed: “She was less good-looking, because, thanks to smallpox, her skin, rough and darkened, still retained some traces of this disease.”

But did all this ever interfere with the innermost girlish dreams? Moreover, according to the same Zinaida, she had "the most beautiful hands in the world."

But dreams are dreams, and Katasha from childhood was not stupid. She was able to appreciate the mind, and nobility, and easy character, and masculinity of yesterday's fearless hero. Napoleonic war with more than promising prospects.

But it turned out that not everything is so smooth here. The prince was then already one of the most active members of the secret "Union of Welfare" and was plotting a coup. Katasha found out about this after the wedding.

Moreover, it was presented to like-minded people. She tried to dissuade both her husband and other future Decembrists from the risky undertaking. By the way, I thought about myself. In particular, she said to Muravyov-Apostol: "For God's sake, think about what you are doing, you will destroy us and lay your heads on the chopping block."

Not surprisingly, her father left France for a reason, but to escape the French Revolution. He was sure that nothing threatened him in conservative, monarch-loving Russia. And his daughter was convinced too.

And suddenly find out that her husband is the same Jacobin, if not worse.

But, of course, Katasha failed to dissuade the rebels.

And then there was 1825. Cold December, Senate Square, a terrible catastrophe that unexpectedly hung over the Russian monarchy.

However, everything worked out for the monarchy, which cannot be said about the rebels. Five were put in a noose, hundreds were subjected to repression. Dictator, of course, one of the first. Although, formally speaking, the dictator did not come out of it - Prince Trubetskoy did not appear at the Senate. Why is still not clear. Apparently, he was simply at a loss, immersed in the usual reflections for a Russian intellectual.

But it didn't matter anymore.

There is no more Katashi. Now she is Ekaterina Trubetskaya, the wife of a state criminal.

No longer Catasha

Franz Krueger. Portrait of Nicholas I (1852). Image from wikipedia.org

Not all, however, is lost. Even before her marriage, Ekaterina Ivanovna had a chance to briefly talk with Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich - then not Nicholas the First and not Nikolai Palkin. They danced and cooed sweetly. She made an impression, the future emperor called her "the most enlightened girl high society».

And so, we met again. The disposition is completely different. He is already Nicholas the First (although he has not yet become Nikolai Palkin, this honorary title awaits him in the future), and she is still not clear who at all. The tsar gives a chance - to forget about the five-year marriage with Trubetskoy and start a new life. And what? They didn’t make children, Sergey Petrovich’s prospects changed to exactly the opposite.

The emperor is excited, goes on shouting: “Why do you need this Trubetskoy, huh ?! From now on, you, princess, are free, no longer bound by the bonds of marital union with the convict Trubetskoy. We want it that way. We command!”

The choice, however, is not that made - there really was no choice. Shortly before the highest audience, Katasha wrote to Sergei Petrovich in the Peter and Paul Fortress: “I really feel that I cannot live without you. I am ready to endure everything with you, I will not regret anything when I am with you. The future doesn't scare me. I will calmly say goodbye to all the blessings of the world. One thing can please me: to see you, share your grief and devote all the minutes of my life to you.

The future sometimes worries me about you. Sometimes I am afraid that your hard fate will not seem to you beyond your strength ... But for me, my friend, everything will be easy to bear with you together, and I feel, every day I feel more strongly that no matter how bad it is for us, from the depths of my soul I will bless my lot if I'm with you."

The king with his proposals is interesting only as a person capable of giving permission to follow her husband. On one side of the scale is love, fidelity, and on the other there is nothing at all. Deprivation of all rights, inhuman physical suffering - all this is simply not taken into account and, accordingly, is not discussed.

Nikolai Pavlovich quite recently personally interrogated the state criminal Trubetskoy. He could not resist and threw a caustic phrase in his face: “What a surname, Prince of the Trubetskoy Guards Colonel, and in what business! What a lovely wife! You killed your wife!"

We, of course, do not know the true feelings of the king and do not intend to build fantasies on this score.

“Well, go, I will remember you,” said the king.

And then the empress, who was present at this conversation, spoke out quite inopportunely: “You are doing well that you want to follow your husband. If I were you, I wouldn't hesitate to do the same."

Or, on the contrary, it may be very useful.

Must go. On the road immediately.

First of the first

Wives of the Decembrists in Irkutsk. Picture. Image from spletnik.ru

Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya went down in history as the first wife of a Decembrist who obtained permission to follow him. All the rest, by and large, followed in her wake. She was the one who led the way.

From that moment, Ekaterina Ivanovna began a new life.

Calm, durable and light
A wonderfully well-coordinated carriage;

The count-father himself more than once, not twice
Tried it first.

Six horses harnessed to it,
The lantern inside was lit.

The count himself corrected the pillows,
I made a bear cavity at my feet,

Making a prayer, scapular
Hung in the right corner

And - sobbed ... Princess-daughter ...
Going somewhere tonight...

This is Nekrasov, the poem "Russian Women". The first part, which is called so - "Princess Trubetskaya".

At first they hid from her where the party of prisoners was sent. As Obolensky wrote, "for a long time they tormented her with various evasive answers."

Then Ekaterina Ivanovna, together with Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya, who arrived in Irkutsk, was stunned by a freshly drawn up regulation on the wives of exiled convicts: a complete waiver of rights, titles (it also applied to future children), a ban on independent correspondence, sending and money transfers - all this is exclusively through superiors, meetings with husbands, also at the behest of the authorities.

Maybe he won't sign?

Signed: “Everything? Now can I go? Tell me to give horses!

Then she was told that there were no horses. If you want, follow along with the prisoners, with shackles.

“They go in groups of five hundred people and die like flies along the way,” Irkutsk governor Ivan Bogdanovich Zeidler shouted at Ekaterina Ivanovna.

She agreed: “I am ready to overcome these 700 miles that separate me from my husband, in stages, shoulder to shoulder with convicts, but just don’t delay me anymore, I beg you! Send me back today!”

And the last argument of Princess Trubetskoy: “Our Church honors marriage as a sacrament, and nothing can break the marriage union. A wife must always share the fate of her husband, both in happiness and in misfortune, and no circumstance can serve as a reason for her to fail to fulfill her most sacred duty.

There was nothing to object to. A few careless words and you yourself will go to Siberia, straight from the governor's chair. The horses were immediately found. And the governor admitted that he acted on the orders of the king.

Which, however, was understandable. Trubetskaya perfectly understood that Nikolai Pavlovich's promise to "remember" actually meant "to build all sorts of obstacles."

And in February 1827, in the Blagodatny mine (today the city of Nerchinsk), the first meeting of Ekaterina Ivanovna with her husband took place - after more than a year of separation.

She saw him through a crack in the prison fence and fainted. The former brilliant officer looked so creepy.

By and large, this is where the story of a great feat begins. Everyday, every minute, which we, sitting in cozy apartments, in principle, are not able to imagine.

Hell frost. Hut with mica windows. A furnace that burns "in a black way", buckets of water freezing along the road from the well. Lack of warm clothes, medicines and normal food. Lack of money to buy all this.

“You lie with your head against the wall - your legs rest against the door. You wake up in the winter morning - your hair is frozen to the logs - there are ice cracks between the crowns.

Frostbitten, always aching, swollen legs. Leaky, worn-out shoes - from fur boots she sewed another Decembrist, Yevgeny Obolensky, a warm hat. Meeting with her husband in a prison cell.

Yes, with all our desire we cannot imagine this. But each of us can try to put ourselves in the place of a young, spoiled and pampered woman, whose husband suddenly turned from a respected officer into a convict, into a state criminal in one second. For the sake of ideals, which she categorically does not share. And when the emperor personally offers to forget everything, to start life from scratch.

Recall that Ekaterina Ivanovna went for her husband first, she did not even know if other Decembrist wives would follow her or if she would have to live next to the prison alone.

In 1820, Catherine Laval met the captain imperial guard Prince Trubetskoy. They married on May 12, 1821 in Paris. At the end of 1824, the prince in Trubetskoy, appointed adjutant to the governor-general of Kyiv and the regions belonging to him, set off for his destination. His wife accompanied him. But by the end of 1825, they asked for a vacation and arrived in St. Petersburg, from where they then had to return to Kyiv. On the night after the Decembrist uprising (December 14, 1825), Prince Trubetskoy was arrested. His wife did not know that he was at the head of the conspiracy, and even for a moment did not allow the thought that the charge presented to her husband could be justified.

But later a note was received from Prince Trubetskoy, he wrote: “Do not be angry, Katya ... I lost you and ruined myself, but without malicious intent. The sovereign orders me to tell you that I am alive and will remain alive. Now there was no more doubt or hope.

As promised by the sovereign, Prince Trubetskoy was spared his life, he was sentenced to life. The sentence was carried out. The survivors were shackled and sent to Siberia.

Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya, the first of the wives of the Decembrists, turned to Nikolai with a request to allow her to follow her husband.

Her father, the French emigrant Count I.S. Laval, knew the whole aristocratic Petersburg. In his luxurious mansion on the English Embankment, which has survived to this day, the elected St. Petersburg society gathered.

Balls were given here, and in that hall, shortly before December 14, 1825, Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich danced a mazurka paired with Count Laval's daughter, Ekaterina Ivanovna.

On December 14, 1825, Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich became Emperor Nicholas I, and Ekaterina Ivanovna's husband was sentenced to eternal hard labor ...

Having received permission to travel, Trubetskaya left for Siberia on July 24, 1826, the day after her husband was sent to hard labor. On that day, the last striped barrier of the St. Petersburg outpost closed behind her, a motley strip fell, as if cutting off her entire previous life.

She was accompanied on the road by her father's secretary, Mr. Voshe. He looked with surprise at the obsessed young woman, who was in such a hurry that she could hardly close her eyes in short stops. When her carriage broke down about a hundred versts from Krasnoyarsk, she got into a folding cart, set off for Krasnoyarsk, and from there sent a tarantass for her companion, who could not endure the hard journey in a cart along the shaky Siberian road.

When E.I. Trubetskaya in September 1826 reached Irkutsk, her husband was still within the Irkutsk province. Zeidler nevertheless did not allow his wife to see him on the grounds that “with the current distribution among the factories, they can have a message by extraneous ways and even receive and send their trusted people and find ways to deliver letters and do similar unauthorized acts, which even for the strictest supervision is not worth the opportunity to warn.

We must pay tribute to the perspicacity of the Irkutsk governor. Indeed, Ekaterina Ivanovna, while in Irkutsk, had already entered into “unauthorized correspondence” through a Doukhobor sectarian, established a connection with the famous Siberian merchant E.A. Kuznetsov, who later became one of the most reliable intermediaries in the illegal relations of the Decembrists; handed over the letters to K. Voshe, who had returned to St. Petersburg.

The wives of the Decembrists who followed their husbands were placed in Siberia in a special, exceptionally difficult position.

At that time, Lavinsky was the governor-general of Eastern Siberia. Penal servitude was subordinate to him, and he was disturbed by the spreading rumors that their wives were going to go there after their husbands. Princess Trubetskaya, Princess Volkonskaya and Muravieva, nee Countess Chernysheva, have already received permission to travel. Such high representatives of aristocratic Petersburg had never been in hard labor, and Lavinsky naturally faced the question of what conditions the wives of convicts should be placed in Siberia and how to behave with them. To clarify the questions that confronted him, Lavinsky came to St. Petersburg.

He turned to the Chief of the General Staff, Adjutant General Dibich, for advice, and informed him of his thoughts on this matter. Dibich knew that Nicholas I himself was also interested in this question, and on the same day, on the morning of August 31, 1826, he reported Lavinsky's thoughts to the tsar.

The king responded with unusual speed. He ordered immediately and secretly to create a special committee to discuss the issue, which met on the same day at seven o'clock in the evening.

The very next day, Lavinsky urgently sent the Irkutsk governor Zeidler, for information and execution, exceptionally strict rules that regulated the position of the wives of the Decembrists in hard labor and in exile.

Trubetskoy, who was the first to leave Petersburg for Siberia to visit her convicted husband, had a particularly difficult time: she had to sign a document that for many years to come determined the life of herself and the wives of the other Decembrists, the life of their husbands and all the Decembrists.

Governor Zeidler was the first to apply the instructions received from Petersburg to her, and with her he behaved with particular firmness and perseverance. Zeidler was well aware that if he did not manage to reject Trubetskaya from visiting her husband, he would thereby open the way to Siberia for other wives of the Decembrists. Trubetskaya, and after her Volkonskaya, had to show - and showed - great willpower, perseverance and courage in order to break through this wall erected by Nicholas I between the Decembrists and their loved ones.

Seeing that the horrors of penal servitude and the future difficult conditions of life did not frighten Trubetskaya, Zeidler said he was ill, and Trubetskaya could not get a meeting with him for a long time.

Trubetskaya waited patiently. Five months had passed since her arrival in Irkutsk, and Zeidler still did not let her out. Her husband continued to write to her from hard labor without ceasing to hope for her arrival. Finally Zeidler accepted her. Seeing that no arguments could break Trubetskoy's will, he announced to her that he would allow further travel, but only along the stage, together with convicts, under escort. At the same time, he warned Trubetskaya that at the stages people were dying like flies: five hundred people were sent, and no more than a third reached the place.

Trubetskaya did not stop this either ...

Zeidler could not stand it and finally gave permission. It was January 19, 1827. Trubetskaya left that day and soon arrived at the Bolshoi Nerchinsk plant.

Trubetskaya arrived first. Seeing through the gap of the prison fence her husband, the former prince, in shackles, in a short sheepskin coat, girded with a rope, she fainted. One must imagine Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya, a tender, delicate woman of soul, in order to understand what confusion arose in her soul.

Trubetskaya saw her husband twice a week - in prison, in the presence of an officer and a non-commissioned officer, they could not convey to each other even a thousandth of what they felt. On the rest of the days, the princess took a bench, climbed the slope of the hill, from where the prison yard was visible - so she sometimes managed to look at Sergei Petrovich at least from a distance.

Once, in a bitter cold, Trubetskaya came to a meeting with her husband in worn-out boots and had a severe cold on her feet: from her only new warm boots, she sewed a hat for Obolensky so that the ore that fell during work in the mine did not get on her hair.

The princess often went on a cart to Burnashev, with a report on their daily expenses. She returned back with purchased provisions and sacks of potatoes. Counters always bowed to her ...

In the middle of 1845, the girls’ institute of Eastern Siberia was opened in Irkutsk, where the Trubetskoys placed their two younger daughters in the very first year of opening, and at the same time moved to live in the city, in the Znamensky suburb, where they bought a house.

“Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya,” writes the Decembrist Obolensky, was not good-looking, but nevertheless she could charm everyone with her kind character, pleasant voice and intelligent, smooth speech. She was educated, well-read and acquired much scientific knowledge during her stay abroad. Educationally, she had a considerable influence on her acquaintance with representatives of European diplomacy, who visited the house of her father, Count Laval.

Therefore, at the moment when Ekaterina Ivanovna decided to follow her husband to Siberia, she was forced to overcome not only the force of family affection, the resistance of loving parents, persuading her to stay, not to commit madness. She not only lost all this magnificent society, with its balls and luxury, with its foreign voyages and trips to the Caucasian "waters", her departure was a challenge to all these "members of the royal family, the diplomatic corps and the St. Petersburg beau monde." Her decision to go to Siberia divided and split this brilliant society into those who openly sympathize with her, those who secretly bless her, those who secretly envy her, those who openly hate her.

Six months after Trubetskoy's departure from St. Petersburg, the path to hard labor was opened. She opened it not only for herself, but also for all the wives of the Decembrists who came to Siberia after her.

Prince Trubetskoy was sentenced to 20 years of hard labor, after which he had to settle forever somewhere in Siberia. He spent 13 years in hard labor, after which everyone was sent to a settlement, but not in one place, as it was before - they were separated and settled in different areas, more or less remote from each other.

Trubetskaya often corresponded with her relatives, but neither her father, Count Laval, nor her mother - in general, none of her relatives made an attempt to visit her in exile. Apart from two boys who died in childhood, Trubetskoy had four more children in Siberia.

Everything experienced during the years of hard labor and exile had a heavy effect on Trubetskoy's health. She was ill for a long time and on October 14, 1854, in the arms of her husband, she died in Irkutsk. She was stricken with a serious illness. Deep mental fatigue, a cold, the hardships of endless roads and migrations, longing for the homeland and parents, the death of children - everything that this amazing woman endured, who knew how to remain outwardly calm and cheerful in difficult moments of her life, had an effect. She was buried in the fence of the Irkutsk Znamensky Monastery.

Having walked hand in hand with her husband the hard twenty-eight-year path of hard labor and exile, Trubetskaya did not live only two years before the day when the Decembrists and their wives were finally allowed to return to Russia.

After 10 years of unsuccessful attempts to have children, the princely couple Trubetskoy had four daughters and three sons. The Siberian penal servitude, to which the wife of the Decembrist followed her husband, became a brilliant doctor-reproductologist.

She was the daughter of a French count and the wife of a Russian prince. The first half of her life flew by in the splendor of aristocratic salons, the second - stretched among the endless roads of hard labor Siberia. She chose this fate herself. Perhaps everything could have been different, but the Decembrist's wife, Princess Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya, never regretted her choice.

1800-1821. golden dawn

Catherine Laval (that was the name of the future Princess Trubetskoy) was very lucky - both with her parents, and the place, and with the time of birth. She saw the light in St. Petersburg on November 27, 1800, in a magnificent mansion on the English Embankment. Catherine's father Jean-Francois (in Russian - Ivan Stepanovich) Laval left revolutionary France just in time, and happily married in Russia - Anna Grigorievna Kozitskaya, heiress of the estates, factories and mines of a family of millionaires-miners.

In childhood and adolescence, Countess Catherine had everything you could wish for. She received an excellent home education. She had the opportunity to meet with the most prominent people of her time - both in Russia and on trips abroad.

The meeting that determined Catherine's fate took place in Paris in 1819 (where else would Russians get to know each other if not in Paris - especially in the years following the defeat of Napoleon!). Prince Sergei Petrovich Troubetzkoy, captain of the guard, participant Patriotic War 1812, a representative of one of the most noble Russian families, in truth, was not particularly handsome. Yes, and the young Catherine herself could rather be attributed to smart girls, and not to beauties. But spiritual intimacy often turns out to be much more important than external beauty ... As Zinaida Lebzeltern, sister Katrin, wrote in her memoirs, they “ They talked for a long time and gradually became attached to each other. My sister was sweet and kind, the prince was the embodiment of cordiality, modesty and spiritual nobility, they had to suit each other.

The wedding of Catherine Laval and Sergei Trubetskoy took place in the city of Paris, in the Russian Orthodox Church on Berry Street on May 12, 1821. In the autumn of the same year, they returned to St. Petersburg and settled on the English Embankment, in the house of the parents of Princess Catherine.

1821-1825. Hope time

Happy family life The Trubetskoy couple was overshadowed only by the fact that neither a year, nor two, nor five years after the marriage they had children. Princess Ekaterina Ivanovna repeatedly traveled to European resorts, turned to the best doctors - but in vain.

From the healing waters of Baden-Baden there was no use. And not a single European luminary could say why a young, completely healthy and needless woman does not get pregnant in any way.

Ekaterina Trubetskoy failed to become a mother in the first years of marriage. But she was a faithful friend of her husband - and was well aware of his affairs, secret and open. And Prince Sergei Petrovich continued to make a successful military career - on the one hand, and actively participated in the activities of secret societies - on the other ...

1825-1826. Crash. “It will be easy for me to endure everything with you together ...”

The regiments that entered the Senate Square on December 14, 1825 were dispersed by volleys of buckshot. All those who survived were hastily dragged under arrest. The elected head of the performance of the Guards, Colonel Prince Trubetskoy, was no exception. By the way, he had no chance of dying on the square - since he did not actually appear at the place of the uprising. After the investigation, Trubetskoy said that he had lost faith in the success of their case ...

However, we will leave aside what and how Trubetskoy said during the investigation. Our story is primarily about the fate of Ekaterina Ivanovna. Let's just say that in conclusion, Sergei Trubetskoy was more fortunate than other Decembrists - he was immediately allowed to correspond with his wife. For six months, from December to July, they wrote each other about two hundred letters each.

On July 12, 1826, the thirty-five-year-old Prince Sergei Petrovich Trubetskoy, the head of the Northern Secret Society, the recognized head of the military rebellion on December 14 on Senate Square, heard his verdict: “ on deprivation of ranks and nobility to send to hard labor forever ".

On July 24, 1826, twenty-five-year-old Ekaterina Trubetskaya left St. Petersburg. She will never go back there again.

1826. Way to the East

The origin, family ties and proximity of the family to the imperial court played a role - Ekaterina Ivanovna did not put any obstacles on her way to Siberia. So far - not set.

Ekaterina Ivanovna overcame a distance of five thousand miles, despite delays and illness, a little slower than the tsar's couriers in courier troikas did. Less than 2 months later, on September 16, she was in Irkutsk. She managed to see her husband - before he was sent further east, to the Nerchinsk mines.

And then for Princess Trubetskoy began months of painful waiting and struggle with the imperial bureaucratic machine - in the person of the Irkutsk governor Zeidler. He had an unspoken decree from Emperor Nicholas - to prevent the wives of the Decembrists from following their husbands. Dissuade, and if it doesn’t work out, intimidate.

Ekaterina Ivanovna had to sign an extensive paper with a list of prohibitions, which, among other things, stipulated the possibility of meeting with her husband only in the presence of security, as well as the threat that children born in hard labor would be recorded as state factory peasants. But Trubetskaya was not stopped by any threats. In January 1827, she crossed the frozen Baikal and came to her husband.

1826-1839. Hard labor and unexpected happiness

The Blagodatsky mine, where Ekaterina Trubetskaya lived until the middle of autumn 1827, is a backwater of the Empire, five hundred miles from Chita, almost on the border with China, remarkable only for its reserves of silver-lead ores. Ekaterina Ivanovna now walked not on the marble floors of her parents' house, but along the snow-covered paths in winter and muddy paths in spring. She, along with her friend in misfortune, Maria Volkonskaya, lived in a black hut, where it was difficult to stretch out to her full height. The two former princesses themselves tidied up, washed clothes, washed floors. They prepared food for their imprisoned husbands, while they themselves ate bread and kvass, since their spending was strictly controlled by the prison authorities.

Ekaterina Ivanovna could visit her husband only twice a week (and in the presence of security). On other days she could only see Sergei Petrovich from a distance. Trubetskaya did not neglect a single opportunity to meet - she stood for hours in the snow, one day her legs got frostbitten, she left the house in a snowstorm and rain ... As the family story says, Sergey Petrovich collected and left bouquets of flowers on the path along which they were taken to work, and Ekaterina Ivanovna picked them up afterwards...

In the autumn of 1827, the prisoners of the Nerchinsk mine were transferred to Chita, where other Decembrists were kept. In a new place, Ekaterina Ivanovna settled down more comfortably - in her own, albeit small, house. And it became easier for Sergei Petrovich to live in the truest sense of the word - on August 1, 1828, six-kilogram shackles were removed from all the Decembrists. Meetings with her husband Ekaterina Ivanovna were allowed two days later on the third, and since 1829 - not even in prison and under supervision, but in her own house and without prying eyes.

And then an event occurred, having learned about which, the European luminaries of medicine would be very surprised. What trips to European resorts and consultations could not help the best doctors- helped four years of life in completely, it would seem, unbearable conditions for a pampered aristocrat. On February 2, 1830, the Trubetskoy's daughter Alexandra was born.

In medical terms, the Siberian climate has completely restored the reproductive health of the Trubetskoy couple. Then their children were born one after another. The second daughter, Elizabeth - in 1834, son Nikita - in 1835, Zinaida - in 1837, Vladimir - in 1838, Ivan - in 1843, Sophia - in 1844 ...

Over the years, the Trubetskoys have changed more than one refuge. From September 1830 to 1839, the Decembrists were kept in the prison of the Petrovsky Plant, which is three hundred miles closer to Europe than Chita. There, Ekaterina Ivanovna built the tallest house in the city - two-story and with a balcony, from which she could see her husband walking around the prison yard behind a seven-meter fence. Yes, visits, of course, continued - at the end of the conclusion, husbands were generally allowed to live in their wives' apartments.

1839 - 1854. "If I were destined to live it all over again, I would do exactly the same"

At the end of her penal servitude and ordeals in the Siberian villages, Ekaterina Ivanovna managed (still with the help of influential relatives) to achieve the right to live with the whole family, with her husband and children, in Irkutsk. They lived in a beautiful house with a garden (the last gift Trubetskoy's mother made to her daughter). There was, in general, the usual secular life of the provincial city, the children of the Trubetskoys were growing up, their daughters were getting married ... and Ekaterina Ivanovna's health was getting worse. Frostbitten feet made themselves known - in last years life Trubetskaya could not walk.

Princess Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya died of consumption on October 14, 1854. She was 54 years old. She was buried in the fence of the Znamensky Convent in Irkutsk. People still bring fresh flowers to the tombstone.

« But for me, my friend, everything will be easy to endure with you together, and I feel, every day I feel stronger, that no matter how bad it is for us, from the depths of my soul I will bless my lot if I am with you...» , - Ekaterina Trubetskaya wrote these lines to her husband in the fortress in December 1825. And she kept her word. For life.

Ekaterina and Sergei Trubetskoy

Ekaterina Ivanovna was born on November 27, 1800 in the family of a French emigrant de La Vall, who fled to Russia from the French Revolution and took the name Ivan Stepanovich Laval here. Her mother was a wealthy merchant heiress of Myasnikov's millions Alexandra Grigorievna Kozitskaya, the owner of two estates in the Penza and Vladimir provinces with twenty thousand serf souls, a large mining plant in the Urals and gold mines. The Laval family was reputed to be immensely rich, their capital was estimated at 2 million 600 thousand silver rubles. At one time, Alexandra Grigoryevna lent 300 thousand francs to the King of France Louis XVIII, who was in exile, for which Laval was later thanked royally: in 1814 Ivan Stepanovich was elevated to the dignity of count of the French kingdom, passing on to all his descendants.

In Russia, Laval started as a simple teacher of the Naval Cadet Corps, then served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the head of a department for 30 years, becoming a rather prominent diplomat.

The childhood and youth of Katashi, the eldest of Laval's three daughters, were carefree and happy. Brought up in the midst of luxury, from an early age she saw herself as the object of attention and care of both her father, who dearly loved her, and her mother. Katerina Ivanovna was considered an enviable bride, many noble suitors sought her hand. Ekaterina Laval was not a beauty - short, plump, but charming, cheerful, playful with a beautiful voice. She was a very educated and well-read young lady, knew languages, sang well, played the piano perfectly. She had a significant educational impact on her acquaintance with representatives of European diplomacy, who often visited their house.

At the Christmas ball in 1818, Katasha dances with Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich, the future Emperor Nicholas I. The Grand Duke was fascinated by this sweet girl, he is gallant and polite as ever, and will call her "The most enlightened girl of high society."

In Paris in 1819, Catherine Laval met Prince Sergei Petrovich Trubetskoy. He was the son of Prince Peter Sergeevich Trubetskoy, a real state councilor, the Nizhny Novgorod provincial marshal of the nobility and His Grace Princess Daria Alexandrovna Gruzinskaya.

The antiquity of the family, the position at the court of the parents, the merits of the ancestors opened wide career opportunities for Sergei Trubetskoy. In the future, he became one of the most famous members of the secret society in the reign of Emperor Alexander I (Decembrists).

Trubetskoy was ten years older than Ekaterina, secretive and withdrawn, with ugly features, lanky and unable to dance. But gradually their acquaintance developed, it was interesting for them to talk about everything. The prince was struck by her intellect and spiritual qualities, for the first time he met such an educated and inquisitive woman. And she fell in love for the first time. He was considered an enviable groom: noble, rich, smart, educated, went through the war with Napoleon and rose to the rank of colonel.

In 1820 the wedding took place. Catherine had a chance to become a general. A brilliant marriage was overshadowed by the absence of children. Ekaterina was very worried about this and went abroad to be treated for infertility.

Sergei Petrovich did not hide his political activity from his wife. He introduced her to like-minded people - meetings of a secret society were often held in Trubetskoy's office in the Laval house, under Catherine openly there were talks about the need to reorganize the socio-political structure in Russia, a lithographic machine was kept in her bathroom, used for the propaganda needs of society. The conspirators chose Trubetskoy as their leader, the dictator of the impending uprising. Of course, Ekaterina Ivanovna was worried about the fate of her husband and his friends, once she said to Muravyov-Apostol: "For God's sake, think about what you are doing, you will destroy us and lay your heads on the block." She, who from childhood could not stand the sight of blood, endlessly convinced her husband that terror was unacceptable for true Christians, happiness on the blood and misfortunes of others was immoral. To some extent, relatives were aware of Trubetskoy's plans: for example, Catherine's mother, Countess Alexandra Grigorievna, embroidered the banner of the rebels with silk with her own hands, but the dictator did not need it.

On the decisive day, Trubetskoy was confused and did not appear on Senate Square. The former combat officer was well aware that the forces were not equal: by giving the command "Pli", he would inevitably doom the rebels to death, but he did not want bloodshed; he considered the uprising premature and ill-prepared, moreover, a split and confusion occurred in the ranks of the leaders. Prince Trubetskoy was arrested on the night of December 14-15 and immediately taken to the Winter Palace. In total, 579 people were involved in the case of the Decembrists, 79% of them were soldiers of the tsarist army. Nicholas I did not forget his youthful sympathies for Ekaterina Laval, because, interrogating Colonel Trubetskoy, he mentioned her: “What is the name, Prince of the Troubetzkoy Guards Colonel, and in what business! What a lovely wife! You killed your wife!" And already on December 15, 1825, the emperor let Katsha know that her husband would survive. By resolution of the sovereign, the death penalty was replaced for Trubetskoy with eternal hard labor.

Even before the verdict was passed, Ekaterina Trubetskaya, brought up in patriarchal traditions, firmly decided to share the fate of her husband if he remained alive. She obtained a royal audience. The emperor tried in every possible way to dissuade her from the reckless venture to go to Siberia, threatening with the loss of noble privileges, property rights, all sorts of difficulties and hardships, and a life-long ban on returning to central Russia. “Why do you need this Trubetskoy, huh?! From now on, you, princess, are free, no longer bound by the bonds of marital union with the convict Trubetskoy. We want it that way. We command!” She insistently insisted that she agreed to any conditions, just to always be with her husband. Nicholas I issued a written permission to Trubetskoy to follow her husband to hard labor. “Well, go, I will remember you,” the emperor admonished her, and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna added: “You are doing well that you want to follow your husband. If I were you, I wouldn't hesitate to do the same."

Ekaterina Trubetskaya was the first of the wives of the Decembrists to leave for Siberia on July 24, 1826, the very next day after her husband was sent to hard labor. Her parents supported her decision, equipped her on the road, Countess Laval provided money, and her father allocated his secretary to accompany her. Seeing off his daughter, Count Laval cried, Katerina consoled him, asked for forgiveness, convinced that her duty was to be with her husband in difficult days for him. Having gone into the unknown in an icy hard labor land, she will never see her parents again.

On October 8, 1826, a party of exiles, in which Prince Trubetskoy was also, was sent to the Nerchinsk mines. She miraculously made it to the time of sending. The horses of the exiles were already moving, but Sergei Petrovich jumped out of the wagon; the hugs of the spouses were gentle, tears flowed from the eyes of both, he again asked her for forgiveness.

On January 19, 1827, the governor of Irkutsk Zeidler received her. She signed a renunciation of everything without hesitation, agreeing to lose her nobility and property rights to serfs, accepting that children born in Siberia would become state-owned factory peasants. Zeidler threatened to send her to Nerchinsk along a stage under escort along with convicts - "they go in groups of five hundred people and die like flies along the way," and did not guarantee her any safety among criminals who would have every right to consider her their own kind. But Trubetskaya is adamant: "I am ready to overcome these 700 miles that separate me from my husband, in stages."

According to the order, she handed over everything according to the inventory cash, valuables and jewelry for storage in the treasury, and on January 20, 1827, she went to the Nerchinsk mines, the then center of hard labor Transbaikalia, which was known as a hellish place.

In Nerchinsk, Princess Trubetskaya met with Princess Volkonskaya, who also went to hard labor to share the fate of her husband, and from that time on they became best friends for many years.

In February 1827, the princesses reached the Blagodatsky mine - the place of hard labor of 8 Decembrists, which consisted of one street with squalid houses. For 3 rubles 50 kopecks they rented a rickety hut with mica windows and a smoking stove to live in.

When through a gap in the prison fence, Trubetskaya for the first time in many months saw her prince, shackled, emaciated and haggard, overgrown with a beard, in a tattered sheepskin coat, she fainted.

A new stage of her life began, full of difficulties and hardships. She, who grew up in luxury in a palace with well-trained governesses and nannies, now stoked the stove herself, carried water, washed clothes, cooked food, darned her husband's clothes. She herself walked in such worn-out shoes that as a result she got frostbite on her feet and then was sick for a long time. All the money was confiscated from the wives of criminals, the authorities gave them such meager sums for "living" that the aristocrats almost became beggars.

The first seven months of life in the Blagodatsky mine were the most difficult - there was not enough money, food, warm clothes, and there were no medicines. After prison visits, women immediately shook out their clothes - the prison was infested with bedbugs. But they did not lose heart and did not give up, they supported their convicts with all their strength and capabilities.

On supervised dates, Ekaterina Ivanovna could not openly speak to her husband about her feelings and experiences. In order to see him more often, she climbed the slope of the hill, from which the prison yard was visible, secretly followed the convoy when the prisoners were taken to work or for walks. Prince Trubetskoy picked flowers on his way, made a bouquet and left it on the ground, and the unfortunate wife came up to pick up the bouquet only when the soldiers could not see it.

Nerchinsk penal servitude soon ended. In September 1827, the Decembrists were transferred to Chita, where the living conditions were greatly facilitated.

In Chita, a real miracle happened in the Trubetskoy family. Clean Siberian air turned out to be more healing for Catherine, who was painful from childhood warm waters Baden-Baden, where she went to be treated more than once. In 1830, after nine years of marriage, their first daughter Sashenka was born. The young parents were extremely happy. Then the children will begin to appear one by one.

Wives obtained permission to live with their husbands in prison cells.

At the end of 1835, by decree of the emperor, the end of hard labor for 10 exiled Decembrists was announced and they were transferred to the settlement. Ekaterina Trubetskaya asks Nicholas I for permission to move with her husband and children to Western Siberia. The king, not finding tearful lines with repentance and apologies in her letter, refused this request. He also will not allow Trubetskoy to come to St. Petersburg in 1846 to say goodbye to his dying father.

The Trubetskoy family was sent to settle in Oek, a small Buryat village 32 kilometers from Irkutsk. Settlers were allocated 15 acres of land "so that they could feed themselves." In the settlement, Prince Trubetskoy, having begun to study agriculture, closely acquainted with the peasants and their way of life.

Ekaterina Ivanovna found consolation and joy in raising children, teaching them to read and write, languages, music, and singing. In total, 9 children were born to her in Siberia, to her great sadness, five of them died at a young age, three daughters survived - Alexandra, Elizabeth and Zinaida, and younger son Ivan. In addition to their own children, the Trubetskoy family brought up the son of the politically exiled Kuchevsky, two daughters of the Decembrist Mikhail Kuchelbeker.

In 1845, the first Girls' Institute in Siberia was opened in Irkutsk, and Trubetskaya obtained permission to settle with her children in Irkutsk so that her older girls could attend the institute. The old Countess Laval last time before her death, she helped her daughter a lot by sending funds to buy a spacious - fourteen rooms - house overlooking the Angara in the Znamensky suburb of Irkutsk, next to the monastery. Soon Sergei Petrovich received permission to live with his family in Irkutsk.

All the beggars and cripples of Irkutsk knew the Trubetskoy house. Ekaterina Ivanovna, who experienced first hand what hunger and deprivation are, never refused a piece of bread to those in need, she provided all possible assistance to poor peasants, was a faithful parishioner of the Znamensky Monastery, did not spare donations for the church. The entire surrounding population went to her for medicines - she distributed medicines received from St. Petersburg to the sick. The Trubetskoy House, like the Volkonsky House, became one of the main centers of culture in Irkutsk.

Many contemporaries called Ekaterina Ivanovna the personification of inexhaustible kindness, an amazing combination of a subtle mind and a kind heart.

Ekaterina Trubetskaya did not live 2 years before the tsar's Manifesto on amnesty to the Decembrists. She died on October 14, 1854, she died of a serious lung disease early in the morning in her husband's arms.

After the Amnesty Manifesto, the old prince did not want to leave Irkutsk, he agreed to leave only in the name of the need for further education of his son Ivan, who in 1856 was only 13 years old. Before leaving, Trubetskoy sobbed until he lost consciousness at his wife's grave. He, insensible, was put in a wagon and taken away from Siberia forever. He died in Moscow at the age of 70 on November 22, 1860.

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Trubetskaya Ekaterina Ivanovna (1800-1854), princess, nee Countess De Laval, wife of the Decembrist S.P. Trubetskoy

Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya was the daughter of a French emigrant, Count I.S. De Laval, who in Russia was often called simply Laval. After the French Revolution, many aristocrats, fleeing the guillotine, moved to Russian empire. And the subsequent years in France were not calm - there were too many political storms and wars during this period French history. Laval remained in hospitable St. Petersburg. He taught at the Naval Cadet Corps. The count married A.G. for love, but not without benefit. Kozitskaya, by her mother - a representative of the rich merchant family of the Myasnikovs and the owner of a large fortune.

Ekaterina Trubetskoy's parents Jean-Francois Laval and Alexandra Kozitskaya

The De Laval family owned a luxurious palace on the English Embankment in St. Petersburg, where magnificent balls for high society, literary and musical evenings were often held.


Laval House in St. Petersburg

The count raised his daughters as Frenchwomen, and as soon as political circumstances allowed, he took them to France in order to better know the homeland of their ancestors.
Katsha (as Katrin was affectionately called by her relatives) during a trip met in Paris with Prince Sergei Petrovich Trubetskoy, a hero of the war of 1812. The girl immediately charmed him. According to the recollection of Zinaida, sister of Ekaterina Ivanovna, “before her marriage, Katasha looked elegant outwardly: of medium height with beautiful shoulders and delicate skin, she had the most charming hands in the light ... She was less good in face, because thanks to smallpox his skin, rough and darkened, still retained some traces of this terrible illness ... By nature, cheerful, in conversation she revealed sophistication and originality of thought, it was a great pleasure to talk with her. In handling, she was nobly simple. Truthful, sincere, enthusiastic, sometimes quick-tempered, she was generous to the extreme..

Prince Sergei Petrovich Trubetskoy

The novel was fast paced. In May 1821, Prince Trubetskoy and Countess Laval were married in Paris. After the honeymoon, the newlyweds returned to St. Petersburg.
S.P. Trubetskoy in 1816 became one of the founders of the first Decembrist society, the Union of Salvation, and took part in the activities of the Union of Welfare. In 1822, he was considered one of the leaders of the Northern Decembrist Society, but on the day of the uprising on December 14, 1825, he did not appear on Senate Square, fearing possible bloodshed. He was arrested in the building of the Austrian embassy, ​​where on the night after the uprising on December 14, the Trubetskoy spouses were hidden by relatives - the sister of Ekaterina Ivanovna Zinaida and her husband, the Austrian diplomat Lebzeltern.
The day after the arrest of the prince, Ekaterina Ivanovna received a note from her husband. He wrote: “Do not be angry, Katya ... I lost you and ruined you, but without malicious intent. The Sovereign orders me to tell you that I am alive and will remain “alive”. Ekaterina Ivanovna answered: “I really feel that I can’t live without you. I am ready to endure everything with you ... I will not regret anything when I am with you together. The future doesn't scare me. I will calmly say goodbye to all the blessings of the secular ".

Monument to the Trubetskoy family in the Petrovsky Plant (now Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky), sculptor L.A. Rodionov

Trubetskoy was sentenced in the first category to life imprisonment. Ekaterina Ivanovna was the first of the Decembrists' wives to obtain permission to share her husband's fate. The day after Trubetskoy was sent to Siberia, she followed him. In Irkutsk, she was lucky to see her husband, but the date was very short. The governor of Irkutsk, Zeidler, did not give her permission to continue the journey for several months, persuading her to return home.
Trubetskaya did not succumb to persuasion and threats, she wrote Zeidler a letter in which she explained the reasons for her decision: “The feeling of love for a friend made me want to unite with him with the greatest impatience; but with all that, I tried to coolly consider my position and reasoned with myself about what I had to choose. Leaving my husband, with whom I was happy for five years, to return to Russia and live there in the circle of my family in every outward pleasure, but with a dead soul, or out of love for him, refusing all the blessings of the world with a clear and calm conscience, voluntarily betray myself humiliation, poverty, and all the incalculable hardships of his miserable situation in the hope that by sharing his sufferings, I can sometimes alleviate his grief with my love even a little? Having strictly tested myself and made sure that my spiritual and bodily strength did not allow me to choose the first, and my heart strongly attracts me to the second..
Zeidler, realizing that Ekaterina Ivanovna would not change her mind, announced to Trubetskoy that she would continue her journey. "on a rope", together with criminals, and gave her a road trip to the Nerchinsk mines, having previously taken a subscription to renounce all rights. "A woman with less firmness, - wrote A.E. Rosen - she would hesitate, make arrangements, slow things down by correspondence with St. Petersburg, and thereby keep other wives from a long, futile journey. Be that as it may, without diminishing the merits of our other wives, who shared the imprisonment and exile of their husbands, I must positively say that Princess Trubetskaya was the first to pave the way, not only a distant, unknown, but also very difficult, because the government gave an order to reject her in every possible way from the intention to unite with her husband ".
At the end of January 1827, Ekaterina Ivanovna arrived at the Bolshoy Nerchinsk plant, located next to the Blagodatsky mine, where the Decembrists worked. She settled in a cramped cold hut with M.N. Volkonskaya. Their lives were spent in heavy, unusual household chores.

House of Ekaterina Trubetskoy and Maria Volkonskaya in the Blagodatsky mine

The only joy was the rare visits with their husbands. A year later, the Decembrists were transferred to Chita, where the women who shared their fate settled. The active, cordial Ekaterina Ivanovna took an active part in caring for the prisoners, conducted their correspondence. In 1830, a special prison for the Decembrists was erected in Petrovsky Zavod, and wives received the right to live with their husbands in their cells. Ekaterina Trubetskaya spent nine long years in the prison of the Petrovsky Plant. Decembrist E.L. Obolensky in his Notes noted: “Amid all the vicissitudes of fate, their family happiness was based on such a solid foundation that nothing could shake afterwards. The event of December 14 and departure to Siberia is just an occasion for the development of those forces of the soul with which Ekaterina Ivanovna was gifted and which she used so well to achieve the lofty goal of fulfilling her marital duty..
In 1839, the Trubetskoys were transferred to a settlement, first in the village of Oyok, and then in Irkutsk. Ekaterina Ivanovna had eight children in Siberia, four of whom died at an early age.
Despite all the trials and vicissitudes of fate, Ekaterina Trubetskaya did not refuse to help anyone, unfortunate and destitute people found shelter and food in her house.

Trubetskoy House-Museum in Irkutsk

Ekaterina Ivanovna sought to give her children a good education. When the Women's Institute opened in Irkutsk, she secured the right for her younger daughters to study there. Trubetskoy's youngest daughter, Zinaida Sergeevna Sverbeeva, lived until 1920, and even received a pension from the Soviet government.
Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya until the end of her days retained meekness, kindness and peace of mind. She was everyone's favorite. A.E. Rosen characterized E.I. Trubetskaya: “... not a beautiful face, not slender, of medium height, but when she speaks - so your beauty and eyes - simply enchant with a calm, pleasant voice and a smooth, intelligent and kind speech, so everyone would listen to her. Voice and speech were the imprint of a kind heart and a very educated mind from legible reading, from traveling and staying in foreign lands, from approaching diplomacy celebrities..
She did not live only two years before the amnesty of 1856. October 14, 1854 E.I. Trubetskaya died after a debilitating illness and was buried in the cemetery of the Znamensky Monastery in Irkutsk. S.P. Trubetskoy wrote to his wife's sister: "She calmly left this world, leaning on my chest, so that I did not even notice her last breath".

Monument to the wives of the Decembrists in Irkutsk

Her husband survived Ekaterina Ivanovna for six years. He died in 1860 in Moscow, where he lived with his son. At the funeral of S.P. Trubetskoy gathered the surviving Decembrists and students who, from the Nikitsky Gates to the Novodevichy Convent, carried the coffin in their arms.