009*. N. P. Averina / Н. П. Аверина


N. P. Averina is out of chronological order as well, and while I am anxious to return to the 18th century, I also want to tidy up the list and put her in her rightful place.



I have been unable to find Averina's first name; her patronymic was "Pavlovna." Golicyn (8) credits her with two publications: reminiscences regarding her father, Pavel Ivanovič Averin (1775-1849), a prominent political figure, and a published letter commenting on a biography of statesman Мichail Michajlovič Speranskij. More on him coming soon.



Averina's memoirs of her father appeared shortly after his death in the first (1852) volume of "Soirée" (Раут), a three-volume "Historical and Literary Collection" published by Nikolaj Vasil'evič Suškov for the "Use of the Educational Institute for Noble Girls of the Office of the Tutelage of the Poor". This is an important, if largely impersonal biographical source on Averin, dedicated to his professional activities and career. Speranskij, one of her father's most illustrious acquaintances, figures prominently in the text and its appendices, thus these memoirs are related to Averina's later book review of the Speranskij biography (written by baron Мodest Andreevič Korf), which appeared in a Moscow newspaper (Moskovskie vedomosti, no. 275) in 1861.



Of Averina's family history, we know that her father was born in Riga, the son of a Moscow merchant who had moved there, and that from this socially modest background, he had a stellar and geographically complex career: Averin served in Kursk, Kiev, Petersburg, Krakow, and Italy, and as governor of Volhynia and of Bessarabia. In 1820, it seems that Averin married a certain Amalija Ejnik in Derpt (Tartu); it is likely that she was the mother of N. P. Averina. How often Averina herself relocated or where she was born, lived, and died is unknown.


There might not be much here for translating, but Averina's writings are not without interest for the study of biography in this era or for details on Averin and/or Speranskij. A striking feature of her memoir, in my view, is the context of its publication. Not only was it selected and perhaps solicited with a view towards educating women, but it links her to editor N. V. Suškov and thus to the extended network of women writers linked to the Suškov clan. Suškov was himself a writer; he was also the son of Marija Vasil'evna Suškova (1752-1803), née Chrapovickaja, an important poet and translator from the previous generation, whom we will discuss in a later post. In the 1800s, the Suškov family came to include memoirist Ekaterina Suškova (1812-1868) and writer Evdokija Rostopčina (née Suškova, 1811-1858). Meanwhile, Suškov was married to Dar'ja Ivanovna Tjutčeva, sister of the renowned poet Fedor Tjutčev. The couple hosted an important literary salon in Moscow that was visited by many well-known writers of their day, including both Turgenev and Tolstoj. It is easy to imagine that Averina would have thrilled to publish her own writing in a project associated with this family.

That said, even such illustrious connections were not sufficient to preserve Averina's first name, much less an identifiable portrait or photograph of her. Her writing was dedicated to Important Men and she herself is a ghostlike presence behind these texts. The illustrations on this page depict some of the men that she knew, patchwork squares from a woman writer's quilt of invisibility.


FURTHER READING:

Averina, N. P. "Vospominanie o Pavle Ivanoviče Averine." In Raut (1852).Istoričeskij i literaturnyj sbornik. Ed. N. V. Suškov. Moscow: Tip. Vedomost. Moskov. Gorod. Policii, 1852. Pp. 8-45.

Kuzina, L. N. Commentary on F. I. Tjutčev's letters to D.I. and N. V. Suškov, 1836-1858. In S. A. Makašin, K. V. Pigarev, T. G. Dinesman (eds.), Fedor Ivanovič Tjutčev. Literaturnoe nasledstvo, vol. 97. Moscow: Nauka (AN SSSR, Institut mirovoj literatury im. A. M. Gor'kogo), 1988. Kn. 1, pp. 487-93.

P. P., "Pavel Ivanovič Averin." In Russkij biografičeskij slovar',vol. 1, SPb. Tip. I. N. Skorochodova, 1896. Pp. 34-36.

"Suškov, Nikolaj Vasil'evič". In Russkij biografičeskij slovar',vol. 20, SPb. Tip. Tovariščestva "Obščestvennaja Pol'za", 1912. Pp. 215-17.



ILLUSTRATIONS:

Portrait of P. I. Averin by an unknown artist (Courtesy of Russian Wikipedia).

Photo of N. V. Suškov from 1854-1856 (Courtesy of Russian Wikipedia).


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