007.2. Empress Elizaveta Petrovna / Елизавета Петровна

The next verse that Golicyn (110) credits to Elizabeth is what he describes as a "popular" or "folk song" (народная песня), that begins with the line "In the village, the village of Pokrovskoe" (Во селе – селе Покровском). Here again we are in the realm of legend. Golycin reports that Elizabeth wrote the song prior to 1740 on the occasion of her proposed marriage with Prince Ludwig of Braunschweig, better known in English as Duke Louis Ernest of Brunswick. Louis Ernest's star in Russia rose sharply at the end of 1740, during the brief (thirteen-month) reign of his nephew, Ivan VI, and fell at the end of 1741, when Elizabeth wrested the throne away from Ivan, or rather from Ivan's mother (who was both the effective ruler of Russia and Louis Ernest's sister-in-law) and, apparently unconvinced that a union with the House of Brunswick was desirable, had herself crowned Empress. 

Why do some think this verse was written by Elizabeth?[1] According to Golicyn, it was attributed to her only in the 1820s, a fact which indubitably raises some questions. Before that time, "In the Village of Pokrovskoe" had appeared in "almost all" Russian song collections, however, and was included in the opera "Fedul and the Children" (Федул с детьми, 1791), performed at the Hermitage Theater under Catherine.[2] One source for the full text of the song is the libretto of the one-act "Fedul", although the version below, taken from Pesni russkich poetov (Songs of the Russian Poets), has the benefit of modern punctuation:

  Во селе, селе Покровском,
  Среди улицы большой,
  Разыгралась-расплясалась
  Красна девица-душа,
  Красна девица-душа,
  Авдотьюшка хороша.
  Разыгравшись, взговорила:
  "Вы подруженьки мои,
  Поиграемте со мною,
  Поиграемте теперь;
  Я со радости, с веселья
  Поиграть с вами хочу:
  Приезжал ко мне детинка
  Из Санктпитера сюда;
  Он меня, красну девицу,
  Подговаривал с собой,
  Серебром меня дарил,
  Он и золото сулил.
  'Поезжай со мной, Дуняша,
  Поезжай, - он говорил, -
  Подарю тебя парчою
  И на шею жемчугом;
  Ты в деревне здесь крестьянка,
  А там будешь госпожа;
  И во всем этом уборе
  Будешь вдвое пригожа!'
  Я сказала, что поеду,
  Да опомнилась опять.
  'Нет, сударик, не поеду, -
  Говорила я ему,-
  Я крестьянкою родилась,
  Так нельзя быть госпожой;
  Я в деревне жить привыкла,
  А там надо привыкать.
  Я советую тебе
  Иметь равную себе.
  В вашем городе обычай -
  Я слыхала ото всех:
  Вы всех любите словами,
  А на сердце никого.
  А у нас-то ведь в деревне
  Здесь прямая простота:
  Словом мы кого полюбим,
  То и в сердце век у нас!'
  Вот чему я веселюся,
  Чему радуюсь теперь:
  Что осталась жить в деревне,
  А в обман не отдалась!"

My own quick impression is that this text has very little to do with Elizabeth Petrovna and her marital concerns. To begin with, why should we suspect an empress of desiring or being capable of composing poetry in such an obviously folkloric style? And why would she describe herself as a peasant named "Avdot'juška" or "Dunjaša" (both diminutives of "Avdot'ja") in the happy circle of peasant girlfriends? The real basis for the link is probably "Pokrovskoe", a fairly common placename that was also the name for the site of a palace belonging to Elizabeth, now found within the Moscow city limits. During the reign of Anna Ioannovna, Pokrovskoe was Elizabeth's primary residence.[3]

Let us note in passing that this verse is quite striking for other reasons, namely its evident connection to well-known literary texts by Nikolaj Karamzin and Aleksandr Pushkin. Its rather clichéd subject matter, an urban nobleman's attempt to seduce a country lass, was made famous in Russian literary history with the publication of Karamzin's "Poor Liza" (Бедная Лиза) in 1792. The overlapping plots and adjacent years of the song's appearance on the Hermitage stage and the story's publication suggest a dialogue between Catherine's court and Karamzin more than between Elizabeth and Louis Ernest. Moreover, the name of the peasant maid in this song – not Liza, but Dunjaša –suggests that it might have been a source for Pushkin's later story, "The Stationmaster" (Станционный смотритель, 1831), a semi-parodic retelling of "Poor Liza" and, more generally, of the familiar nobleman-seduces-peasant-girl plot, that prominently features Dunja in the role of the stationmaster's beguiled daughter. In short, "In the Village of Pokrovskoe" has some interesting connections in Russian literary history and would seem to merit translation on that basis alone.

"In the Village of Pokrovskoe" ends on a lighter note than either Karamzin's or Pushkin's stories, however: both personal tragedy and class conflict are averted when Dunja proclaims to her would-be seducer that she has no wish to rise above her station, that the riches he plies her with (silver, gold, embroidered fabrics, pearls) only serve to make her uncomfortable, and that he ought to find someone more appropriate to his own social position. It seems quite unlikely that Elizabeth would have assumed this stance with respect to Louis Ernest.

It is also true that popular biographical accounts often describe Elizabeth as behaving unusually during her years at Pokrovskoe: carefree and at great remove from Anna's court, she dresses now like a man, now like a peasant, arrays her peasants in stylized folkloric finery and has them sing in chorus, or sings with them. But would she have written or sung this song about herself? That it may be read as an allegory of Elizabeth's choice not to marry is clear enough from the fact that it has since been attributed to her as such. But what is the comment being made here on that choice? On the surface, the lyrics suggest that Elizabeth was common and provincial with respect to her prospective mate, but if we are going to entertain the idea that Elizabeth herself wrote them, they must be read as playfully ironic, admiring of a slyly demure princess who adroitly extricates herself from an unwanted match.

It is hard to resist connecting this song with another historical figure, the actress Elizaveta Sandunova, née Uranova, whose name has been raised repeatedly in connection with "In the Village of Pokrovskoe."[4] While the details of her story are murky, a circumstance that certainly simplifies transferring them to Elizabeth, the essential emotional and motivational elements required for singing this tune "from the heart" and using it to discourage an unwanted suitor are all present in Sandunova's story. My version here largely follows that of opera historian Vsevolod Češichin from 1905 (82-83).

Sandunova, then Uranova, but still better known by her stage name "Lizan'ka" (an influence on Karamzin?), was a very popular actress, who surprised the audience one evening in 1791 when, instead of singing her part (presumably in the opera "Fedul and the Children"), she walked to edge of the stage in sobs with a note for Empress Catherine in her hand. Lizan'ka's note, passed to the Empress, complained of her mistreatment by the Director of the Hermitage Theater, who refused to let Uranova marry her beloved, actor Sila Sandunov. Since Lizan'ka was being pursued at the time by the powerful statesman Aleksandr Bezborodko, the Director thought it useful to keep her unmarried and thus wholly available. Catherine used this opportunity to become Uranova's saviour, however, instructing her to marry right away and even providing her with a dowry. Marriage offered little shelter from Bezborodko, however, whose persistence inspired Lizan'ka to address him from the stage in 1794 with a "derisive couplet" (in Češichin's words), for which she was fired.

What did Lizan'ka sing to Bezborodko? Perhaps a few lines from "In the Village of Pokrovskoe"? Maybe the entire song? Golicyn (110) hints at this song's special relevance for Sandunova by indicating that it was "inserted" into the opera "Fedul and the Children" at her own initiative; he also states that this was done in 1796, however, when Sandunova was no longer in Petersburg, having moved to Moscow after her dismissal in 1794. At any rate, she would have been justified in singing some or all of those those lines to Bezborodko. And its not hard to imagine how elements of Sandunova's legend could have been grafted onto the Empress Elizaveta Petrovna: the confused and contradictory reports of Lizan'ka's tribulations, with their confrontation between male magnate and female actress and link to a bonafide Empress; her personal association with the verses found in "Fedul and the Children"; together with the common tendency of each generation to associate half-understood anecdotes about the past with major figures, rather than with names fading into obscurity -- all of this might have encouraged Russians in the 1820s to substitute the name of Elizaveta Petrovna in tales about Elizaveta Sandunova. Meanwhile, blog post by blog post, we continue to amass evidence in support of the idea that attributing literary works to Russian women rulers was a well-established national pastime. 

FURTHER READING:

Gusev, V. E., ed., Pesni russkich poetov v dvuch tomach. Vol 1. Leningrad: Sovetskij pisatel', Leningradskoe otdelenie, 1988.

Češichin, Vsevolod. Istorijarusskoj opery (s 1674 po 1903). Vtoroe izdanie. SPb., P. Jurgenson, 1905.

F. Göpfert (Гёпферт) i M. Fainshtein, sost., Predstatel'nicy muz. Russkie poetessy XVIII veka, Wilhelmshorst: Verlag F. K. Göpfert, 1998. 

NOTES:

[1] The idea that Elizabeth wrote this song endures today. See, for example, F. Göpfert (Гёпферт) and M. Fainshtein (24-25), who include it in their anthology of women's poetry with the date 1761 (the year Elizabeth died).

[2] For detail on these song collections, dating from the 1770s, see V. E. Gusev (588); in Gusev's view (588), Elizabeth's authorship has not been established. It is interesting to note that the text of the one-act "Fedul and the Children" has itself been subject to authorship debates. The opera is generally attributed to Catherine II (by Golicyn, for example, as well as many others), a view discounted by оpera historian Vsevolod Češichin (47), however, who states that its author is frankly unknown: "либретто неизвестно чье." He credits the music for "In the Village of Pokrovskoe" to Vicente Martín-y-Soler, a Spanish-Italian composer working in Petersburg, who wrote the music for all of "Fedul" together with Vasilij Paškevič (66).

[3] See, for example, the discussion of this historical site on the Uznaj Moskvu (Get To Know Moscow)website. 

[4] A connection between "In the Village of Pokrovskoe" and Sandunova was made by Pavel Vavilov in 1810 (Gusev 588), by Golicyn in 1889, and by Češichin in 1905 (82-83).

ILLUSTRATIONS:

1. Portrait of Elizabeth Petrovna as a young girl by Louis Caravaque, circa 1715-1720 (courtesy of Russian Wikipedia).

2. Portrait of Duke Louis Ernest of Brunswick (courtesy of Wikipedia).

3. Photo of Elizabeth's palace in Pokrovskoe (courtesy of "Progulki po Moskve"). 

4. Illustration for Pushkin's "The Stationmaster" by Mstislav Dobužinskij, 1905 (courtesy of "K uroku literatury").

5. "Portrait of Elizaveta Petrovna on a Horse with a Moorish Boy (на коне с арабчонком)" by Georg Christoph Grooth (Гроот), 1743 (courtesy of "Nase nasledie").

6. Portrait of Elizaveta Sandunova from the early 1800s by an unknown artist (courtesy of Russian Wikipedia).

7. Portrait of Elizaveta Petrovna by Ivan Višnjakov, 1743  (courtesy of Artcyclopedia.ru).