Home Grape There is no love for a newborn child. Mother's love. I do not feel anything. Came to childfree in adulthood

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There is no love for a newborn child. Mother's love. I do not feel anything. Came to childfree in adulthood

Introductory article.

N.I. Ponomareva

The name of Maria Klavdievna Tenisheva (1867?-1928) is one of the names undeservedly forgotten. It, like some others, sort of “dropped out” of the history of national culture. Even the memory of her was not preserved. The street in Smolensk, named after Tenisheva in 1911, when Maria Klavdievna became an honorary citizen of the city, was renamed after her death. The museum "Russian Antiquity", a unique collection of Russian antiquities, donated by her to Smolensk in 1911, does not keep her memory; the museum's collection, reshuffled many times and hidden from our eyes, perishes in storerooms.

And what about Talashkino - the estate of M.K. Tenisheva near Smolensk? Talashkino is a world-famous center of Russian culture at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, which today should be no less famous than Mamontov's Abramtsevo. And there the spiritual life froze, and the last, miraculously surviving monuments of architecture are threatened with death from destructive restoration ...

But the manuscripts, according to Bulgakov, fortunately, do not burn. And those 35 notebooks that her friend Princess Ekaterina Konstantinovna Svyatopolk-Chetvertinskaya preserved after Tenisheva’s death, and then published by the Russian Historical and Genealogical Society in France in 1933, now - almost 60 years later - saw the light in the homeland of Maria Klavdievna.

And this is an event of great importance, not only because we are fulfilling our duty to the memory of Tenisheva and thereby restoring historical justice, but also because we are returning to our national culture at least a particle of what was done by it. Unfortunately, due to many years of undeserved oblivion in the homeland, a lot of "research" time has been lost and a significant part of the facts of Tenisheva's biography is already irreplaceable. Almost everyone who knew Maria Klavdievna, all the students of her agricultural school, passed away, her archive was lost in France; so far it has not been possible to find her relatives who lived with her in Paris in the 1920s. And every day multiplies these losses ...

Why does it seem necessary to us now, bit by bit, to restore all the creative activity of M.K.Tenisheva? First of all, because all Tenishev's undertakings of a hundred years ago have not lost their relevance at the present time. And the main thing depends on our understanding of the meaning of the activities of outstanding Russian educators-philanthropists, such as M.K. Talashkino.

The book has long become a bibliographic rarity, and it was possible to get acquainted with it only through photocopies or microfilms. This re-edition of Tenisheva's memoirs, conceived by the Leningrad branch of the publishing house Art, was also prepared from a photocopy made by him from a copy stored in the State Public Library. M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. At the very end of the work, Alexander Alexandrovich Lyapin, who lives in Paris, the grandson of the remarkable Russian artist Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov, came to Leningrad and brought two copies of Tenisheva’s book, one of which he donated to the Teremok Museum in Talashkino, and the other to the author of these lines.

It must be said that A.A. Lyapin and other representatives of the Russian emigration in Paris, who keep the memory of M.K. Tenisheva and her deeds for the benefit of the fatherland, provided us with all possible assistance in the search for archives and materials related to Maria Klavdievna. Frankly, it was painful to realize that there, in Paris, the memory of Tenisheva was better preserved than in her homeland. Involuntarily, M.K. Tenisheva herself predicted such a turn of fate for herself: “My country was my stepmother, while in the West I was greeted with open arms.”

"Impressions of my life" - a book-confession. It is original in terms of genre. According to E.K. Svyatopolk-Chetvertinskaya, the notes were not intended for publication by Tenisheva. They were diary entries. But we are immediately surprised by one of their non-diary features - the absence of dates. It cannot be assumed that this is a coincidence. There is not a single letter from Maria Klavdievna or a note written by her, wherever the date is affixed. And in the book, dates begin to appear only in the second half of the story. The finale of the book is focused on the date, and not only on the date, but also on the hour (these lines were written at seven o'clock in the evening on December 31, 1916). “Now there are only 5 hours left until the end of this ill-fated year. Does 1917 promise us something?

The image of time in the book is an image of the flow of life. The farther from the first phrase: “Early childhood, a foggy vision”, the closer to the “shore”, to the final point, the more clearly time milestones are visible ... I think, however, that it was not a poetic image that forced Tenisheva to deliberately not indicate a single exact date, which would suggest the year of her birth, because the facts stated by her in the notes - the meeting with I.S. Turgenev (not later than 1883), the improbably early first marriage and the birth of her daughter, the departure in 1881 to Paris - does not correspond to the specified year birth - 1867.

Larisa Sergeevna Zhuravleva - one of the few researchers of the life and work of M.K. Tenisheva - found in the documents another date of her birth - 1864 - but this date probably needs to be clarified. So, in John Boult's article "Two Russian patrons Savva Morozov and Maria Tenisheva" under the photographs of Tenisheva are the dates: 1857-1928.

We touched on this issue only because a study striving for truth must be based on reliable data, and in order to restore the picture of the life of M. K. Tenisheva, we still have to finally establish the date of her birth, still hidden from us.

The origin of M.K.Tenisheva remains a mystery. The girl did not know her father. “Strange ... - Tenisheva writes in her diary. “I grew up under the name of Maria Moritsovna, and then, as in a dream, I remembered that a long time ago, in a foggy childhood, my name was Maria Georgievna.”

In the memoirs of Olga de Clapier, a student of Tenisheva during the years of emigration, we read the following: “Manya's father was killed when she was 8 years old. She clearly remembered the extraordinary activity that began in the afternoon in a large mansion on the Promenade des Anglais. When they sang “With the saints, rest in peace” and Manya knelt down, among the women’s sobs behind her, the words were often heard: “My God. My God! They killed the king...” We are talking about the murder of Alexander II, according to de Clapier, the father of M.K. Tenisheva ...

“Impressions of my life” are diaries and memories at the same time. The diary entry was supplemented by memories, which, in turn, corrected the diary. You will undoubtedly feel the powerful energy saturation of some episodes of the book. These "fiery" notes were clearly written under the strong impression of the event that had just happened. There are quite a few records of a different nature - carefully thought out, "cooled", clearly built.

According to V. Lakshin's figurative definition, "hell" and "honey" of memories collide in the book. "Hell" occupies a large part of the diary, which gives us reason to judge the degree of loneliness and secrecy of Maria Klavdievna, when she only relied on paper for the conflicts that had occurred. "Meda" is much less.

An interesting assumption about the origin of "Impressions ..." was expressed by O. de Clapier: "I would like to say how these" impressions "do not correspond to her personality. This wonderful woman, with the stamp of genius, had many talents, but - may her shadow forgive me this statement - not a writer's! She had a notebook in which for many years in a row she entered several pages occasionally, only annoyed by some kind of failure, upset by deceit: it has been known for centuries that very rich people are often victims of clever and unscrupulous seekers of easy money, intriguers and petitioners. This causes bitterness and annoyance in the victims of deception ...

Princess Maria, having written two or three pages of bitter lamentations, reassured and cheerful, went downstairs, joked, ate something forbidden by the doctor, quietly from Kit (Ekaterina Konstantinovna Svyatopolk-Chetvertinskaya. - N.P.), walked on the wet grass and completely no longer thought about the people who deceived her. She has already got rid of the “obsessive thought”.

Maria Klavdievna Pyatkovskaya was born in St. Petersburg on May 20, 1858 into a noble family, but was considered illegitimate. At the age of 16, she was married to a lawyer Rafail Nikolaev, but the marriage was unsuccessful. Leaving her little daughter Maria in the care of her husband, in 1881 she left for Paris, where she received her musical education and became a professional singer. There, Maria Klavdievna studies painting, and also begins to get involved in collecting art and folk life.

For the summer, Maria Klavdievna returned from France to Russia and lived in the estate of A.N. Nikolaev (husband's uncle) near Smolensk. There she found her best friend - E.K. Svyatopolk-Chetvertinskaya, nicknamed "Kitu", and also met the largest Russian industrialist, who subsidized the construction of the first car plant in Russia, one of the founders of electromechanical production in our country - Prince V.N. .Tenishev.

Despite the fact that the prince was 22 years older than Maria Klavdievna, in 1892 they got married after the prince's quick divorce from his first wife and the dissolution of the marriage by Maria Klavdievna. However, her husband's relatives did not recognize the dowry, and Maria Klavdievna was never included in the family tree of the princes Tenishevs.

Having received the title and money from Vyacheslav Nikolaevich, Tenisheva set about implementing her ideas.

The business of life for M.K.Tenisheva was Talashkino, which the couple purchased from "Kitu" in 1893, and a year later, the Tenishevs bought the Flenovo farm near Talashkino, opening there a unique agricultural school for those times - with the best teachers and the richest library. At the school, on the initiative of the princess, educational workshops of applied arts were created: carpentry, carving and painting on wood, chasing on metal, ceramics, dyeing fabrics and embroidery.

At the turn of the century, Talashkino became the spiritual and cultural center of Russia, similar to Abramtsevo near Moscow. It became a meeting place for prominent cultural figures inspired by the idea of a “new Russian Renaissance”. The educational idea attracted many outstanding Russian artists to Talashkino. V. D. Polenov, V. M. Vasnetsov, S. V. Malyutin, M. V. Vrubel, K. A. Korovin, V. A. Serov, N. K. Roerich visited and worked in the estate of the princess, offering their drawings for painting balalaikas, chests, furniture.

The works of Maria Klavdievna were appreciated and in France she was elected a full member of the Society of Fine Arts in Paris and a member of the Union of Decorative and Applied Arts in Paris. After an exhibition of her work in Rome, Tenisheva received an Honorary Diploma from the Italian Ministry of Public Education and was elected an honorary member of the Roman Archaeological Society.

The true passion of M. K. Tenisheva was Russian antiquity. The collection of Russian antiquities she collected was exhibited in Paris and made an indelible impression. It was this collection that became the basis of the Russian Antiquity Museum in Smolensk. In 1911, Tenisheva donated to Smolensk the first in Russia museum of ethnography and Russian arts and crafts "Russian antiquity".

After the revolution of 1917, Tenisheva, together with her close friend E.K. Svyatopolk-Chetvertinskaya, left Russia forever, settling in France.

Maria Klavdievna Tenisheva died on April 14, 1928 in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Cloud. In an obituary dedicated to Maria Klavdievna, I. Ya. Bilibin wrote: “She devoted her whole life to her native Russian art, for which she did an infinite amount.”

Contemporaries called Princess Maria Klavdievna Tenisheva "the pride of all Russia." Fate generously endowed Tenisheva, an outstanding educator and philanthropist, with communication, friendship with the brightest minds of the era - Repin, Turgenev, Tchaikovsky, Mamontov, Vrubel, Korovin, Roerich, Benois, Diaghilev, Malyutin, Serov. In many ways, she contributed to the enhancement of their fame: subsidized (together with S.I. Mamontov) the publication of the journal "World of Art", financially supported the creative activities of Benois, Diaghilev and others. They are remembered, and her name is only now returning from oblivion ...

Maria Pyatkovskaya was born in St. Petersburg. The exact year of birth is not known (between 1857 and 1867), only the number is considered reliable - May 20. She came from the capital's nobles, but was illegitimate.

It was hard for illegitimate Mary in her mother's family. It was said that Mrs. von Desen, who had a very difficult character, could not forgive her daughter for her unwanted birth (there were even rumors that Emperor Alexander II was Masha's father). No, Maria did not lack anything, but she felt lonely. She studied at one of the best educational institutions in St. Petersburg - the Speshneva Gymnasium, which she successfully graduated from.
The sixteen-year-old was given in marriage to the twenty-three-year-old Rafail Nikolaevich Nikolaev. The marriage was unsuccessful.

The husband, an avid gambler, after another loss, lay on the couch for hours in the usual inactivity, indifferent to everything in the world. Maria Klavdievna could not bear to see how he humiliated himself, begging for money from relatives or mother-in-law. And - what was even worse - he forced his wife to take money from strangers.

After the birth of her daughter, Maria Klavdievna decided to break with the situation that weighed on her. Secretly, having sold part of the furniture in the St. Petersburg house, in 1881 she left through the Crimea to Paris to become a professional singer. After all, for three whole years before that, she studied singing with the famous vocal teacher Matilda Marchesi, Ch. Gounod, A. Thomas and A. G. Rubinstein listened to her performances. In Paris, she takes drawing lessons at the Louvre with the artist Gabriel Gilbert.

In the spring of 1885, Maria Klavdievna finally returned to Russia and successfully performed on stage, performing arias and romances. She became a professional singer, tried to get a job on a professional stage, auditioned at the Mammoth Opera, but unsuccessfully. However, this did not stop her - she continued to participate in concerts. At the same time, she was engaged in drawing a lot, painted pictures, mastered the art of painting. She began to collect works of Russian and European graphics, household items.

The daughter left with her husband was later sent by her father “to an institute” (which assumed a boarding school system) and became very distant from her mother, not forgiving her even in adulthood her desire for self-realization to the detriment of caring for her family and her.

For the summer, Maria Klavdievna returned from France to Russia and lived in the estate of A.N. Nikolaev (husband's uncle) near Smolensk. It was there that her lifelong friendship began with her neighbor, the owner of the Talashkino estate, E.K. Little thinking about who and what her daughter was teaching at that moment, the tireless princess, supported by Kita, organized in 1889 in Talashkino the first "literacy school" for local peasants.

Next to Talashkino were the lands of Prince Vyacheslav Nikolaevich Tenishev (1843 - 1903), the largest Russian industrialist, who subsidized the construction of the first car factory in Russia, one of the founders of electromechanical production. He came to the Smolensk region to hunt.

In one of the music salons they met. Tenishev was 22 years older than Maria Klavdievna, but the difference in age did not acquire significance when the relationship of souls was discovered. After the prince's quick divorce from his first wife and the dissolution of the marriage by Maria Klavdievna, they got married in 1892.

V.N. Tenishev gave his wife, in addition to his last name (although his relatives did not recognize the "dowry" and Princess Maria did not get into the family tree of the princes Tenishevs), spiritual support, a princely title, a large fortune and the opportunity to realize himself as an educator and philanthropist . Having received funds for the implementation of her projects, Tenisheva soon opened a school for artisan students near Bryansk (where her husband headed a joint-stock company), several elementary public schools in St. Petersburg and Smolensk. In those same years, she met I.E. Repin, whom she captivated with the idea of organizing drawing schools for gifted children from the people, as well as courses for the training of drawing teachers.

Maria Klavdievna subsidized (together with S. I. Mamontov) the publication of the journal "World of Art", financially supported the creative activities of A. N. Benois, S. P. Diaghilev and other prominent figures of the "Silver Age".

The cherished dream of M. K. Tenisheva was the enamel business, in which she was expected to be a huge success. It was thanks to the efforts of Tenisheva and her searches that the enamel business was revived, more than 200 tones of opaque (opaque) enamel were developed and produced together with the artist Zhakin, and the method of making “champlevé” enamel was restored.

The works of Maria Klavdievna were appreciated and in France she was elected a full member of the Society of Fine Arts in Paris and a member of the Union of Decorative and Applied Arts in Paris. After an exhibition of her works in Rome, Tenisheva received an Honorary Diploma from the Italian Ministry of Public Education and was elected an honorary member of the Roman Archaeological Society. She was invited to head the Department of the History of Enamel Art at the Moscow Archaeological Institute.

The true passion of M. K. Tenisheva was Russian antiquity. The collection of Russian antiquities she collected was exhibited in Paris and made an indelible impression. It was this collection that became the basis of the Russian Antiquity Museum in Smolensk (now in the collection of the Smolensk Museum of Fine and Applied Arts named after S. T. Konenkov). In 1911, Tenisheva donated to Smolensk the first in Russia museum of ethnography and Russian arts and crafts "Russian antiquity".

The life work of Maria Klavdievna was Talashkino - the family estate of her childhood friend, Princess Ekaterina Konstantinovna Svyatopolk-Chetvertinskaya, which the Tenishevs acquired in 1893, leaving the management of affairs in the hands of the former mistress. Tenisheva and Svyatopolk-Chetvertinskaya realized in Talashkino the idea of an "ideological estate": enlightenment, the development of agriculture and the revival of traditional folk art culture as a life-giving force.

Talashkino turned at the turn of the century into the spiritual and cultural center of Russia, where the community of outstanding artists of the era revived and developed traditional Russian culture. Roerich called Talashkino "an artistic nest", as famous in his time as Abramtsevo near Moscow. Neo-Russian style in art - "comes" from Talashkino.

In 1894, the Tenishevs bought the Flenovo farm near Talashkino, and opened there a unique agricultural school for those times - with the best teachers, the richest library. The use of the latest achievements of agricultural science during practical classes allowed the school to train real farmers, who were required by the Stolypin reform.

Farmer graduates could engage in a wide variety of activities - from industrial horse breeding to beekeeping. Maria Klavdievna was looking for a new way of "training patriotic rural specialists" capable of creation. Therefore, handicraft workshops were organized at the school. Famous artists - Repin, Roerich, Vrubel, Korovin - offered their drawings for painting balalaikas, chests, and furniture. And in Stoleshnikov Lane in Moscow, a special store was opened to sell these products.

In 1907, Tenisheva's collections were exhibited at the Louvre. This event caused a huge resonance throughout Europe. For the first time, the public had the opportunity to get acquainted with traditional Russian art. The exhibition was visited by 78 thousand people. Maria Klavdievna was elected a member of several European academies, she was invited to head the department of the history of enameling at the Moscow Archaeological Institute.

The princess experienced many troubles when she started work on the creation of the famous museum of antiquities. The city authorities of Smolensk refused the proposal of Maria Klavdievna to open a museum of folk art here. Then she asked to sell her land in order to build the building herself - and again she was refused. And yet, having repurchased private property, the princess achieved her goal. In less than a year, a magnificent building was erected, which housed the exhibits of one of the first museums of arts and crafts in Russia.

During the events of 1905, the Black Hundred gangs tried to destroy the museum. Then, fearing for the collection, the princess took it to Paris. The exhibition at the Louvre continued for several months. A catalog was compiled and printed in French, which included more than six thousand exhibits. Many times Maria Klavdievna was offered a lot of money for her collection, but she nevertheless returned it to Russia.

A versatile man, the husband of M.K.Tenisheva did not share some of her hobbies and did not approve of her friendship with artists, wanting to see his wife only as a society lady. And yet he helped her, subsidizing all her undertakings, and she made his name sound like a philanthropist and philanthropist.

In 1903 Tenishev died. Now she alone disposed of the huge capital left to her as an inheritance. In 1906, she helped S.P. Diaghilev in organizing the Exhibition of Russian Art at the Autumn Salon in Paris, and an important section of the exhibition was made up of objects of Russian folk art collected by her. Subsequently, this collection formed the basis of the country's first Museum of Russian Decorative and Applied Art "Russian Antiquity", which in 1911 was donated by the princess to Smolensk. In those same years, the princess actively participated in the historical and archaeological study of Smolensk and its environs, and contributed to the opening of a branch of the Moscow Archaeological Institute in the city. In 1912 she received the title of honorary citizen of the city of Smolensk; one of the streets of the city was named after her (renamed in Soviet times).

After March 26, 1919, Tenisheva, together with her closest friend E.K. Svyatopolk-Chetvertinskaya, the maid Lisa and close friend and assistant V.A. Lidin, left Russia forever and went through the Crimea to France. Written in exile and published in Paris after her death, the memoirs of Princess Tenisheva - “Impressions of my life. Memories" - cover the period from the late 1860s to New Year's Eve 1917.

Tenisheva died on April 14, 1928 in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Cloud. In an obituary dedicated to Maria Klavdievna, I. Ya. Bilibin wrote: “She devoted her whole life to her native Russian art, for which she did an infinite amount.”

Princess, public figure, collector, philanthropist, enamel artist. Her fate is brilliant and tragic: having given Russia everything she had, from capital to talent, she died in oblivion.

The exact year of birth is not known (between 1857 and 1867), only the number is considered reliable - May 20. She came from the capital's nobles, but was illegitimate.

At the age of 16, the girl was married to a lawyer Rafail Nikolaev and gave birth to a daughter, Maria, but her marriage was unsuccessful. “Everything was so gray, ordinary, meaningless” she wrote later. The husband, an avid gambler, after another loss, lay on the couch for hours in the usual inactivity, indifferent to everything in the world. Maria Klavdievna could not bear to see how he humiliated himself, begging for money from relatives or mother-in-law. And - what was even worse - he forced his wife to take money from strangers.

From 1881 she studied in Paris: she took music and vocal lessons, wishing to become a professional singer, and did a lot of drawing. The daughter left with her husband was later sent by her father “to an institute” (which assumed a boarding school system) and became very distant from her mother, not forgiving her even in adulthood her desire for self-realization to the detriment of caring for her family and her.

For three whole years before that, she studied singing with the famous vocal teacher Matilda Marchesi, Ch. Gounod, A. Thomas and A. G. Rubinshtein listened to her performances. In Paris, Maria takes drawing lessons at the Louvre with the artist Gabriel Gilbert.

For the summer, Maria Klavdievna returned from France to Russia and lived in the estate of A.N. Nikolaev (husband's uncle) near Smolensk. It was there that her lifelong friendship began with her neighbor, the owner of the Talashkino estate, E.K. Svyatopolk-Chetvertinskaya ("Kitu") - a woman of close destiny, similar outlooks on life and aesthetic tastes.

In the vicinity of Talashkino there were also the lands of Prince V.N. Tenishev, the largest Russian industrialist, who subsidized the construction of the first car plant in Russia, one of the founders of electromechanical production. He came to the Smolensk region to hunt, he was 22 years older than Maria Klavdievna, but the age difference did not take on significance when the soul kinship was discovered. After the prince's quick divorce from his first wife and the dissolution of the marriage by Maria Klavdievna, they got married in 1892. She was in her twenty-sixth year, he was forty-eight.

In 1889, immediately after the wedding, the Tenishevs moved to the city of Bezhitsa near Bryansk, where the prince ran a rail rolling plant. Maria Klavdievna Tenisheva called the next four years of her life the first "battlefield". Faced with the life of the plant, Tenisheva draws attention to the life and living conditions of the workers. Overcrowded barracks, exploitation of child labor, drunkenness and disease, lack of schools and kindergartens.

“Little by little, a whole picture of the true condition of the workers at the factory unfolded before me. I discovered that besides the jaded matrons and well-fed indifferent figures, there also lived in it small people, knocked down, scorched by the fire of foundry furnaces, stunned by endless hammer blows, by right, perhaps embittered, calloused, but still touching, deserving at least a little attention and care for their needs ... The deeper I delved into factory life, the more I became convinced of the wide field of action in this huge and complex machine.

Schools became Tenisheva's first concern. At the expense of the Tenishevs, a free vocational school for teenagers was opened. 60 students immediately enrolled, evening classes were opened for drawing. When the school ceased to accommodate everyone, in the park adjacent to the Tenishevs' house, a new two-story stone building was built, which was ideally suited for training: machines and machine tools from abroad, plumbing, electric lighting. Teenagers were trained in metalwork, metal and wood turning, and blacksmithing. Very soon, Tenisheva saw the results of her efforts. “Future people stood before me, consciously related to work, with zeal, diligently taking up a serious matter”. At the same time, there was a lower vocational school for younger children. Maria Klavdievna also opened a craft school for girls, where they learned needlework, cutting and sewing.

A folk canteen was created with dinners for a moderate fee, leisure activities were organized in the town: a theater for workers and a club for employees appeared. Tenisheva proposed to the plant management to allocate empty land around the plant to the workers and an allowance for the construction of a house for the resettlement of workers from barracks that were not suitable for life. The workers dearly loved the princess, they knew from whom to seek protection and patronage.

“Leaving the factory, I left, in addition to my vocational school, six well-maintained and special school buildings in which one thousand two hundred children studied”.

The Tenishevs spent their winters in St. Petersburg, and when Vyacheslav Nikolayevich left the board of the Bryansk factories, they settled down here thoroughly. Tchaikovsky, Scriabin, Arseniev and many other famous composers and performers visited the music salon of the Tenishevs.

Maria Klavdievna creates a workshop for herself for serious painting, but is immediately inspired by the idea of I. E. Repin to organize a studio to prepare future students for entering the Academy of Arts and gives her workshop to the studio. Repin himself undertakes to teach. The studio was free, furnished with study plasters and easels. There was no end to those who wanted to, the workshop was packed to capacity, “they worked five hours a day, not paying attention to the tightness and closeness.” Many artists who later became famous began their journey in the Tenishev studio: M. V. Dobuzhinsky, Z. E. Serebryakova, I. Ya. Bilibin and many others.

Talashkino, which the couple purchased from Kitu in 1893, left the estate under her management, became the lifework of M.K.Tenisheva. In Talashkino, Tenisheva and Kitu realized their common dream of an “ideological estate”, the foundations of which were to be enlightenment, the development of agriculture and the revival of traditional folk art culture as a “life-creating force”.
Maria Klavdievna created a very special creative atmosphere in Talashkino, which attracted many artists, musicians, and scientists here. Artists I. E. Repin, M. A. Vrubel, K. A. Korovin, N. K. Roerich, Ya. F. Zionglinsky A. N. Bakst, sculptor P. P. Trubetskoy, scientists A. V. Prakhov, I. F. Barshchevsky, V. I. Sizov, musicians V. V. Andreev, A. D. Medem and many others.

Being far from the capitals, Talashkino quickly turned into an art center, a center for talented, gifted, searching people: “The homely hearth is full of attention to the best modern products. The work of new artists, the awe of the dispute of exhibitions are close to everyone, ”N. K. Roerich wrote about the hospitable house of the princess.

Watching the development of art in Europe and Russia, actively participating in the artistic life of the capital, Maria Klavdievna more and more often turns to the fate of Russian national art.

A dream is born to revive the Russian style, not imitating antiquity, but only inspired by the epic, fabulous past, embodied in ancient Russian art: “For a long time I wanted to implement another idea in Talashkino. The Russian style, as it has been interpreted until now, has been completely forgotten. Everyone looked at him as something outdated, dead, unable to revive and take a place in contemporary art. Our grandfathers sat on wooden benches, slept on down jackets, and, of course, this situation no longer satisfied their contemporaries, but why couldn’t all our chairs, sofas, screens and dressing tables be built in the Russian spirit, not copying antiquity, but only being inspired by it? I wanted to try, try my hand in this direction... Each era, each generation can bring something new, say its word, but not by copying antiquity, but by being inspired by it.”

To do this, M. K. Tenisheva invites, on the recommendation of M. A. Vrubel, the artist S. V. Malyutin, who will head the art workshops. Ceramic, embroidery and dyeing workshops, a workshop for furniture, artistic forging and woodcarving began to work in 1900. And in Stoleshnikov Lane in Moscow, a special store was opened for the sale of products produced in these workshops.

The spirit of the new, the spirit of creative search in Talashkino inspired many famous artists. N. K. Roerich, M. A. Vrubel, K. A. Korovin, D. S. Stelletsky, A. P. Zinoviev, V. D. Beketov and many others worked here in search of a new language in Russian fine art. The students made products according to the sketches of artists, many things were developed by Maria Klavdievna herself.
In addition, Maria Klavdievna opened a school in the village of Sozh, a school in the village of Bobyri, a drawing school in Smolensk (she had previously done this in St. Petersburg), and built a theater.

Another pearl in Talashkino was the children's balalaika orchestra led by the famous musician V. A. Lidin. The Talashkino theater and orchestra became famous throughout the Smolensk region and gathered a lot of spectators at their performances. “The balalaika has also served me well. Our orchestra of 30 people (boys and girls) has reached perfection. The kids were into the game. Sometimes on holidays we arranged concerts in Smolensk under the direction of Lidin for charitable purposes. They played either in the People's House, or in the Duma Hall, or in the Assembly of the Nobility.

Talashkino's contemporaries will call Russian Athens, and Maria Klavdievna herself - "Pericles of Russian peasants", because she built her "Athens" for ordinary people.

In 1894, Tenisheva bought the Flenovo farm near Talashkino, where she decided to create a new type of agricultural school with an exemplary educational facility. “It was somehow ashamed to live in our cultural Talashkino in decoration and contentment and indifferently endure dirt and ignorance and impenetrable darkness around you. I was constantly tormented by the moral squalor of our peasants and the rudeness of their morals. I felt a moral duty to do something for them, and it was absolutely disgusting, in conversation with many of the rich landowners of our region, to hear how people, who often oppressed the peasants without mercy, called them "gray", despised, abhorred them ... Blind , under the unsightly bark, they overlooked what once turned into epics and fairy tales, and a quiet, pitifully sorrowful song about unrealizable happiness ... To find this soul, to wash off what has grown from a lack of culture, and on this stalled, good soil can grow any seed...”

In September 1895, a new school building with bright classrooms, a hostel, a dining room, and a kitchen opened its doors. Orphans, whom Tenisheva took on full support, had an advantage in entering the school. The training course lasted six years: three special classes and three preparatory classes. The following subjects were taught: agriculture, surveying, gardening, zoology, jurisprudence, the Law of God, cattle breeding, geodesy, chemistry, physics, gardening, drawing, beekeeping, geometry, botany, geography, Russian language, arithmetic, Russian history, calligraphy, Slavic reading.

At school, the child did not just get knowledge. Everything was aimed at ennobling the soul of a small person, developing hidden gifts and talents in him. “No, I firmly believe that every person can find a use and his own way”. Weak students were not expelled from the school, but they tried to teach them some useful business. Talented Tenisheva at her own expense sent to study further. “He comes to school an unconscious savage - he doesn’t know how to step, and there you look, little by little hewn, the rough bark peels off - he becomes a man. I loved to unravel these natures, to work on them, to direct them... Yes, I love my people and I believe that the whole future of Russia is in them, you just need to honestly direct their strengths and abilities.

M. K. Tenisheva was demanding in choosing teachers for her school: “A teacher should be not only a teacher in the narrow sense of the word, that is, from such and such an hour to such and such an hour to give lessons in the classroom; but he must also be a leader, an educator, he must himself be a rural leader ...; and besides, he was supposed to be their first teacher of moral rules, cleanliness, decency, respect for other people's property.

An exemplary educational farm, a meteorological station, an apiary and a beekeeping museum are being created in Flenovo. The hardest work in the school household was done by adults, everything else was done by the children themselves, learning various tricks. Classes in craft workshops were compulsory for all classes.

“I wanted to crown my creation [school] with the temple of God.” Thus began the construction of the Temple of the Spirit.

Not trusting herself, Tenisheva, in search of an image of the temple, first turns to Professor Prakhov, then to the architect Suslov, authorities in their field. But all the proposed projects did not satisfy Maria Klavdievna, and she herself creates the layout. “At that time, I was seriously suffering from a painful nervous illness and could hardly find the strength to get out of bed in the morning, get to my workshop, so that there, in some kind of spiritual self-forgetfulness, peaceful, in humility, work tirelessly all day long, living with the only desire to express that image that vaguely lived in my soul. Two models were made. At the end of the first one, I completely rejected it, while the second more and more approached my inner feeling, answered it, and, finally, corrected and supplemented, resulted in a form that met with approval even from the most indifferent people ... "

Tenisheva departs from the canons of modern church architecture. She is trying to combine images of Russian antiquity, impressions taken from her travels in the Russian North, with the silhouettes of local nature. Nicholas Konstantinovich Roerich, whom Maria Tenisheva met in 1903, supports her and helps in the construction. Sketches and paintings of the interior decoration of the temple, mosaics on the facade - these works revealed new facets of Roerich's talent.

In total, the temple was under construction for twelve years and was decorated with Roerich's grandiose mosaics and his paintings. Nikolai Konstantinovich also worked on sketches for the murals for the Temple in Gopsala (Estonia) in 1910. And the famous sketches of the mosaic "Savior" and "Queen of Heaven" were kept in the collection of the Tenishevsky Museum in Smolensk. Later, one of the most significant and diverse collections of works by the great artist will appear in this museum. The created temple embodied all kinds of art that flourished in Talashkino: architecture, ceramics, enamel, artistic sewing, painting, chasing, forging. In addition, in the decoration of the temple, it was decided to combine religious elements of various faiths. Both creators of the temple strove not only for artistic synthesis, but also for religious synthesis. N.K. Roerich recalled: “Recently, in her (M.K. Tenisheva) life in Talashkino, the thought of the synthesis of all iconographic representations was fascinated. That joint work that bound us before, crystallized even more on the common thoughts about a special museum of images, which we decided to call the “Temple of the Spirit”. Unfortunately, the official church failed to understand and accept this great idea. The temple was not consecrated, church services were not performed in it, in fact, it was a unique cultural monument.

Marriage gave the princess the opportunity to satisfy her passion for collecting. Having compiled an extensive collection of watercolors by Russian and foreign artists, the systematization of which was entrusted to A.N. Benois, Tenisheva arranged an exhibition of her collection in 1897, of which about 500 works were then donated to the Russian Museum, which was about to be opened. S.P. Diaghilev, whom Tenisheva met at that time, fascinated her with the idea of creating the journal "World of Art", which she founded and (together with S.I. Mamontov) financed in 1898-1904. In 1899 she was among the organizers of the first World Art exhibition in St. Petersburg.

In 1901, Tenisheva held an exhibition in Smolensk of works of applied art made in Talashkino.

In 1900, Nicholas II, at the suggestion of the Minister of Finance S.Yu. Witte appointed Vyacheslav Nikolevich Tenishev chief commissioner of the Russian department at the World Exhibition in Paris. This section made a splash - largely due to the works of Maria Klavdievna. In her memoirs, Tenisheva wrote that all her "attempts and undertakings in Russia were explained only by fantasy, ambition, the whims of a spoiled woman." Sometimes her husband did not understand her. A versatile man, an excellent musician, a prominent ethnographer, an amateur archaeologist, he, nevertheless, did not share Maria Lavdievna's passion for antiquity, did not approve of her friendship with artists. And yet he helped her, subsidizing all her undertakings, and she made his name sound like a philanthropist and philanthropist.

In 1903, Tenishev died, he died of heart disease, having lived for sixty years. Now she alone disposed of the huge capital left to her as an inheritance.

In 1906, she helped S.P. Diaghilev in organizing the Exhibition of Russian Art at the Autumn Salon in Paris, and an important part of the exposition was the objects of Russian folk art she collected herself. Subsequently, this collection formed the basis of the country's first Museum of Russian Decorative and Applied Art "Russian Antiquity", which in 1911 was donated by the princess to Smolensk. In those same years, the princess actively participated in the historical and archaeological study of Smolensk and its environs, and contributed to the opening of a branch of the Moscow Archaeological Institute in the city.

During the events of 1905, the Black Hundred gangs tried to destroy the museum. Then, fearing for the collection, the princess took it to Paris.

In 1907, Tenisheva's collections were exhibited at the Louvre. This event caused a huge resonance throughout Europe. A catalog was compiled and printed in French, which included more than six thousand exhibits. For the first time, the public had the opportunity to get acquainted with traditional Russian art. The exhibition was visited by 78 thousand people. Many times Maria Klavdievna was offered a lot of money for her collection, but she nevertheless returned it to Russia. She was elected a member of several European academies, she was invited to head the department of the history of enameling at the Moscow Archaeological Institute.

Meanwhile, in Smolensk, Tenisheva's purchases were remembered, and an article appeared about the "looting of the cathedral sacristy." The newspaper squabble turned into a court case. At one of the meetings, Maria Klavdievna was found guilty of “insulting in the press” and was subjected to ... seven days of house arrest. N. K. Roerich testified several times in her defense.

On May 30, 1911, the Tenisheva Museum became the property of the ancient Russian city. On a commemorative dish made by the princess herself, it was written: "Keep it, wise ones."

Maria Klavdievna donated a large collection of watercolors by Russian artists to the Museum of Emperor Alexander III (now the State Russian Museum).

In 1911, the City Duma of Smolensk awarded the title of honorary citizen to M.K. Tenisheva "for a donation to the Moscow Archaeological Institute of Antiquities, so that the museum would remain forever in Smolensk."

She was sent an address that said:

"Your Excellency, Dear Princess Maria Klavdievna. The day of May 30 was marked by a great event in the history of our city and in the history of the cultural work of a Russian woman - the transfer by you of the museum of Russian antiquity to the highest scientific institution - the Moscow Archaeological Institute, under the indispensable and happy condition for ancient Smolensk - leaving the museum for eternity in complete integrity in the city of Smolensk.
Smolensk, rich in monuments of Russian antiquity and military prowess of the past, is now a living evidence of ancient times, is revived even stronger, even brighter, having received from you, Your Excellency, with deep historical gratitude, your generous gift - the inestimable treasures of the museum, collected by you tireless work and worthy of deep astonishment with patience and energy and entrusted by you now to the enlightened leadership of the Moscow Archaeological Institute.
The sincerely grateful Smolensk City Duma bows before you for your generous gift and is proud to have in your person the embodiment of a Russian woman, in the best sense of the word, and an intelligent worker who gave all her indestructible energy, love and knowledge of domestic antiquity for the benefit of dear Motherland, wishing to imprint your name in the history of the city, in its meeting of May 31, 1911, it unanimously decided: to decorate the hall of the Duma sessions with your portrait and name the street where the museum is located, Tenishevskaya.
Sincerely grateful and appreciative Smolensk."

In Soviet times, the street was renamed.

At the same time, M.K. Tenisheva was a wonderful enamel painter. Among her works were large ones (an altar cross in silver and gold for the Church of the Holy Spirit, a door decor with the image of St. George the Victorious in the “Teremka” in Flenov, a double-leaf portal made of precious wood with enamel inlays) and very thin, small-sized works ( a dish with multi-colored enamel, which was later bought by the Museum of the Luxembourg Palace in Paris, enamel portraits of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich and Emperor Nicholas II with the heir-tsarevich for a gift to the sovereign in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty).

M.K. Tenisheva exhibited her works in the salon of the National Society of Fine Arts in France (1906-1908), the Union of Decorative Arts. In 1914 she exhibited enamels in Rome, receiving a diploma and an honorary membership in the Roman Archaeological Society.

Two years later, she defended her doctoral thesis on enamel and inlay at the Moscow Archaeological Institute. The text of the work, lost during the years of the revolution, was restored by her students in Prague in 1930. For her dissertation, she was awarded a gold medal and again received an invitation to head the department.

As an artist, collector and researcher of art, Tenisheva was elected a member of several European academies.

Her activities in this noble field were interrupted by the October Revolution. Since 1919, she has been in exile, living in France with Kitou and her daughter from her second marriage, Lisa, in the town of Vaucresson near Paris. This town was nicknamed "Small Talashkino": outstanding artists came there, and it quickly turned into one of the centers of the spiritual life of the Russian emigration. She continued to paint on enamel and taught enamel art to the children of emigrants.

She died on April 14, 1928. Her daughter and Kit were buried in Saint-Cloud, near Paris. E.K. Svyatopolk-Chetvertinskaya kept the diaries and memoirs of Tenisheva. She also handed over the equipment of the Tenishev workshop, materials and technological recipes of Tenisheva to her emigrant friend and like-minded person T.N. Rodzianko, who, after receiving this gift, organized the School of Enamel Art in Prague.

The Russian Historical and Genealogical Society in France published posthumously the memoirs of M.K. Tenisheva and published a commemorative album "Temple of the Holy Spirit in Talashkino".

In a beautiful building of red brick, built in 1905 for the art and ethnographic museum "Russian Antiquity" at the expense of M.K. Tenisheva, housed an art gallery, the basis of which was a collection of her paintings, works of folk and applied art, historical and ethnographic material. An exposition dedicated to M.K. Tenisheva. Tenishev readings are regularly held, which have become the spiritual need of the Russian intelligentsia, the general public, the name of the street in Smolensk, which was canceled in the twenties, has been restored.

1. All quotes highlighted by the cursor are taken from the book: M. K. Tenisheva. Impressions of my life

Materials used in compiling the publication:
Website "New Acropolis http://www.newacropol.ru/activity/center/exibitions/maria-tenisheva/
Website of the Smolensk city portal http://www.smolinfo.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=199&Itemid=232
Natalya Pushkareva Encyclopedia Around the World http://www.krugosvet.ru/enc/kultura_i_obrazovanie/literatura/TENISHEVA_PYATKOVSKAYA_MARIYA_KLAVDIEVNA.html?page=0.0

Natalia TERNOVA

June 1 (old style - May 20) marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of an outstanding woman, whose contribution to the development of Russian culture is difficult to overestimate. Princess Maria Tenisheva was a collector, philanthropist, public figure and enamel artist. Turgenev regretted that he did not have time to write a story about her, she posed for Repin, Serov, Korovin and Vrubel. Contemporaries called her "the heroine of our time" and "the pride of all Russia", and today her name is hardly known to the majority and undeservedly forgotten.

Maria Klavdievna Tenisheva, nee Pyatkovskaya, was born into a noble family, but was illegitimate. According to rumors, Emperor Alexander II could be her father. Her mother remarried after her birth and was therefore not recognized by her stepfather's family. Maria did not need anything, but was completely left to herself. Later, in her memoirs, she wrote: “I was lonely, abandoned. When everything was quiet in the house, I silently, on tiptoe, made my way into the living room, leaving my shoes outside the door. My painting friends are there...”.

After graduating from the gymnasium, Maria married the lawyer Rafail Nikolaev and bore him a daughter, but she was not happy in marriage, as the spouses did not love each other. Later, Maria called this marriage "stuffy shell", because "everything was so gray, ordinary, meaningless." The husband was indifferent to everything in the world, except for playing cards. After 5 years, Maria sold part of the furniture and went abroad with her daughter with the proceeds.

In Paris, she began attending a vocal school, discovering a mezzo-soprano of rare beauty. Her mentor predicted her a career as an opera singer, but Maria decided that the stage was not for her: “Singing? It's fun... That's not what my destiny wants." Abroad, she also took art classes, spent a lot of time in museums and reading books.

A year later, Maria returned to Russia. The husband took his daughter away, sending her to a closed educational institution, and spoke contemptuously about his wife's creative successes: “I don’t want posters to ruffle my name on the fences!” And the daughter gradually moved away from her mother, never forgiving her that she decided to leave the family in the name of self-realization.

In difficult times, a childhood friend came to the rescue - Ekaterina Svyatopolk-Chetvertinskaya, who invited her to her family estate Talashkino. Since then, Mary's life has changed dramatically. There she met Prince Vyacheslav Tenishev, an entrepreneur, philanthropist and public figure. Despite the significant difference in age, they felt kindred souls in each other and soon got married.

Together with her husband, the princess moved to Bezhetsk, where Tenishev had a large factory. Maria Klavdievna became a trustee of a local school, then founded several more schools, organized a public canteen and a theater, and opened vocational schools for the children of workers. Later, the family moved to St. Petersburg, where a music salon was organized in the Tenishevs' house, which was visited by famous composers.

On the advice of Ilya Repin, Tenisheva opened a studio-workshop where students were trained for admission to the Academy of Arts. The princess also became a co-founder of the World of Art magazine, sponsoring exhibitions of the World of Art. In parallel, she took up collecting, the princess later transferred many paintings to the Russian Museum. In 1893, she acquired an estate in Talashkino and turned it into a cultural center, not inferior to the workshops in Abramtsevo. Repin, Bakst, Vrubel, Serov and other famous artists have been here.

On the Flenovo farm near Talashkino, the princess opened a school for village children, where the best teachers taught. A new school and a number of educational and economic workshops were also opened in Talashkino. There they were engaged in woodworking, metal chasing, ceramics, embroidery, etc. Orders for the works of Talashka masters were received even from abroad. The princess became interested in enamel and spent whole days in the workshop, on fire with the idea of reviving the enamel business. Her work has been exhibited abroad and enjoyed great success.

In 1903, Tenisheva's husband died, and soon all her beloved offspring died. After the revolution, life in "Russian Athens", as Talashkino was called, ceased. Potatoes were kept in the church built by the princess and painted by Roerich, the tomb of Tenishev was destroyed, the workshops were closed. About these days she wrote: “There is no doubt that it was a natural storm that flew over Russia. Blind, unscrupulous people ... These are those who stand up for the people, shout about the good of the people - and destroy with a light heart that little, those rare centers of culture that are created by individual hard efforts of individuals.

In 1919 the princess had to leave the country. She spent the last years of her life in exile, continuing to work on enamels despite her serious illness. Maria Tenisheva died in 1928 and was buried in France, and the emigrant was forgotten in her homeland.