Biography
1739: Birth in the Smolensk province and study at the seminary
Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin was born on September 13/24, 1739 in the village of Chizhov, Smolensk province, in the family of a small nobleman of a retired garrison major Alexander Vasilyevich Potemkin; lost his father early.
Some biographers talk about Potemkin's studies at the Smolensk Seminary. So, Potemkin's nephew L.N. Engelhardt writes: "Until the age of twelve, he was brought up with his parents. Due to the lack of educational institutions, his father enrolled him in the Smolensk seminary. " From his youth, Gregory was distinguished by ambition; many contemporaries remembered his phrase that he was going to become a "bishop or minister."
1746: Moving to Moscow after the death of his father and studying in the German settlement
Most biographies say that after the death of his father (1746), his mother moved him to Moscow, to the family of his uncle and godfather, retired president of the Chamber College Grigory Matveevich Kislovsky ( in a number of Kozlovsky sources), and that Potemkin, together with his cousin Sergei Kislovsky, attended the educational institution of Johann-Philip Litken (or Litke) in German Sloboda.
1755: Admission to the gymnasium at Moscow University
On April 26/May 7, 1755 , gymnasiums of Moscow University were opened for nobles and raznochintsy, among those admitted to the first was Grigory Potemkin. At first, his training was marked by brilliant successes. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, he was always distinguished by a unique memory: in his youth, in a few days he could remember almost by heart a whole tome - such as the volume from Buffon's Natural History. In his mature years, with an absent appearance listening to military reports, he subsequently quoted them verbatim; especially deep were his knowledge of theology.
In 1756, on the anniversary of the opening of the university, Potemkin was awarded a medal ( as reported in the Addition to the first issue of the university newspaper Moskovskiye Vedomosti).
In the summer of 1757, he was among the students and gymnasium students, "who showed the greatest diligence to others," for which they were taken by the director of the university I.I. Melissino for presentation to St. Petersburg (Moscow Vedomosti No. 57 of July 18, 1757 ). The disciples were received in the houses of the nobles of the capital and among foreign envoys, and Potemkin made a particularly good impression on many with his resourcefulness and wit, as well as information in theology and the "Hellenic-Greek" language. On July 27, at the kurtag in Peterhof, the curator of the university, I.I. Shuvalov, introduced the pupils to Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, who "favored them to her hand, and some were awarded her conversations" (Moscow Vedomosti No. 63 of August 8, 1757 ).
1760: University expulsion for absenteeism due to religion craze
Returning from St. Petersburg, Potemkin became less interested in classes. In April 1759 , at the solemn act of the university, graduates of university gymnasiums were first promoted to students, but Potemkin was not among them, and at the beginning of 1760 he was on the list of those expelled from the university "for being lazy and not entering classes" ("Moscow Vedomosti" No. 34 for 1760 ; this list also includes the future outstanding enlightener N.I. Novikov). The biographer recalls the following funny case: during a visit to the university during the years of his fame and power, Potemkin turned to Professor A.A. Barsov with the question: "Do you remember how you turned me off from the university?" - "Your lordship then deserved this ," - answered his former mentor. One of the reasons for carelessness in university studies was Potemkin's fascination with religion.
N.I. Nadezhdin writes: "The young man's imagination was again embarrassed by one point - by the bishops. From the former Kuryachy [1] Kuryatny., Who then had a university, five steps only to the Zaikonospassky Monastery, where the famous Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy flourished at that time. Potemkin did not care to include himself among the students of the academy: this would impose on him the previous duties, without giving any special rights. But he tried to get closer to the monks studying and commanding at the academy, to find their location and patronage. In the seminary, he could not help but acquire some theological concepts and information that, through university teaching, should have received a particularly original color unfamiliar to the pets of cells. This gave interest to the young man, who willingly cloned his head under the hood, was ready to make eternal vows. The clergy were then in a situation of crisis: it had the need to reinforce itself with talented and dexterous people, with eagle vigilance and with serpent wisdom. Such was Potemkin, who was not guessed by university wigs. His fatherly arms were opened, and he threw himself into them with heat, as if really carried away by the true 'vocation'. He fell in love with monastic conversations, gained a passion for theological studies and disputes; a passion that remained with him for life, not exterminated either by the noise of war or by the scattering of light. God knows what would have happened if Potemkin had established himself in this field, for which he was preparing from childhood. A person like him would not remain in the shadows and under the black cassock. But according to the main features of his character, willfulness and presumptuousness, he was more likely to expect his formidable lot of Arseny than the brilliant fate of Gabriel and Plato[2] To Potemkin's happiness, he was recognized and loved by Ambrose Zertis-Kamensky, then Archbishop of Krutitsky; that famous Ambrose, who later, as archbishop of Moscow, suffered martyrdom at the hands of a rebellious black. The enlightened shepherd seduced that the young man was not created at all for the cell, that he would be cramped and stuffy there. With noble disinterestment, he pointed out to him another, completely opposite field - military service. Potemkin, who could not stay on the same idea for a long time, always rushed to the news, longed for change - and he himself already felt cooled to the compressed, monotonous path of monastic life, now considered near him. The civil service leading to the ministry required knowledge and work that he could not get used to at the university. There remained, of course, one military field, where his perfectly masculine physiognomy, magnificent growth, lively, fast abilities and, finally, the most character flaws, wayward and self-confidence, could go into motion, celebrate the happiest use, have a brilliant effect. But for this it was necessary to serve in the guard, go to St. Petersburg. To get to St. Petersburg, you needed money. Ambrose gave Potemkin five hundred rubles! "
Potemkin went to military service in St. Petersburg, where he made a dizzying career, eventually becoming the favorite (or even morganatic spouse) of Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna and the first dignitary of Russia. And in his mature years, he was several times close to leaving the light, taking the monastic [3]
1791: Death on the road from Iasi to Nikolaev
Potemkin died on October 5/16, 1791 on the way from the capital of the Moldavian principality of Iasi to Nikolaev, in the vicinity of the village of Radeniy Veki (modern Moldova).
Potemkin and music
Main article: Music in Russia in the XVIII century
Materials of Andrey Penyugin's article "Potemkin and Music" were used
Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin, being one of the largest transformers of the Russian state, amazed contemporaries and continues to amaze descendants with the versatility of his activities. Improving Russia, His Grace Prince tried to reform everything that he considered imperfect. Many of his seemingly utopian ideas were brilliantly implemented, and the implementation of other projects was interrupted only by the death of the prince. Such a project was the first Russian conservatory in Yekaterinoslav.
Potemkin, unlike many nobles and regal persons of his time, did not play music, but music and musicians surrounded him all his life. Close to the empress, Potemkin occupied the chambers in the Winter Palace and the sound of the Court Orchestra, one of the best in the world, pleased his ear. He commissioned music for Italian virtuosos who served in the orchestra.
1776: Patronage of violinist Lolly
An announcement in the St. Petersburg Gazette of November 18, 1776 reads: "Five sonatas and one [4] "on the hide and bass of the composition of Anthony Lolli, presented to his lordship Prince Grigory Potemkin, are sold at Weibrecht." Antonio Lolli was at that time the accompanist of the Court Orchestra. Undoubtedly, the prince patronized the Italian virtuoso, the favorite of the empress and one of the most famous violinists of his time. Lolly gave public concerts, which were then a novelty, including in the Potemkin Palace (in the late 1770s, such was the palace donated by Empress Anichkov, rebuilt to the taste of the prince by the architect I.E. Starov). After leaving Russia, Lolli dedicated to his former patron the Violin School, set forth for the quartet (L'école du violon en quatuor, 1784).
This composition is a small suite in which the first violin part shows the development of violin technique from a simple scale to virtuoso passages.
1778: Orders to bandmaster Paisiello and his own orchestra of Russian musicians
In 1778, for the festivities on the occasion of the birth of Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich, Potemkin ordered the court bandmaster Giovanni Paiziyello the cantata "Surprise of the Gods." By the birthday of Alexander in 1781, by order of the prince, the same composer wrote the cantata "The Wonderful Spring from Oreb."
The first musicians in the service of Potemkin appeared in the late 1770s. At the beginning of the next decade, the prince already had his own orchestra. The exact date of its occurrence has not been established, but it is known that the earliest surviving contract, with bandmaster Karl Iberal, was signed in 1782. The orchestra was composed of regimental musicians exclusively from Russians, which at that time was rarely met.
1785: Invitation of Handoshkin to the post of head of the conservatory, purchase of a horn chapel, orders of oratorios Sarti
In 1785, several important events took place in musical life related to Potemkin. First, the prince acquired from K.G. Razumovsky a horn chapel led by Karl Lau, which was considered one of the best.
Secondly, this year Potemkin's fruitful collaboration with the famous Italian composer Giuseppe Sarti, who took the post of court bandmaster a year earlier, began. By order of Potemkin in 1785, he wrote two "Russian oratorios" (as the author himself defined their genre): "Lord, appeals to You" and "Have mercy on me, God." In the first of them, Sarti used a new "purchase" of the prince - horn music.
The Easter oratorio "Lord, Appeals to You" (aka "May God Rise" and the so-called "Russian Oratorio") for soloists, 2 choirs and orchestra, including a horn orchestra, consists of three passages selected by Potemkin himself, taken from the liturgy of Good Friday, Psalm 67 - May God rise - and Psalm 150.
Both oratorios were performed at Lent 1785 in the Anichkov Palace.
Thirdly, 1785 dated the project of the first Russian conservatory. Potemkin wrote to Catherine II: "As in the University of Yekaterinoslav, where not only sciences, but also arts are taught to be taught, there should be a conservatory for music, then I accept the courage of the All-Underground to ask for the dismissal of the court musician Handoshkin there with a reward for his long-term retirement service and with the awarding of the rank of court mundshenka."
Potemkin became interested in Handoshkin's game, having heard his brilliant improvisation when performing the obligate violin part in one of Giuseppe Sarti's oratorios, written by the latter on the orders of the "lightest."
The choice of the prince could be dictated by their spiritual similarity with Handoshkin. His music was distinguished by its rare originality, depth of feeling, impulsiveness and asymmetry, which is exactly what Potemkin was. Unfortunately, Ivan Khandoshkin, apparently, did not actually participate in the short history of the Yekaterinoslav Academy of Music.
In the last years of Potemkin's life, Sarti, who left the court service, became his bandmaster. He headed the Yekaterinoslav Academy of Music, the project of which was resumed in 1787. As the writer S.N. Glinka wrote in his Notes, "in his kind Sartiy was as romantic as Potemkin: both of them thought that a soaring mind acts past the rules that cordon off human thought." Sarti actively began work in a new position. Famous musicians were involved in teaching at the first Russian conservatory (its actual seat was the city of Kremenchug): F. Brankino (oboe), A. Delfino (cello), F. Dal'Okka (harpsichord and solfeggio), etc.
The prince's horn orchestra was also replenished with students of the academy. An idea of the number of students can be obtained from petitions for the purchase of instruments: in 1787 6 oboes, 4 horns, 4 flutes were required, and in 1790 5 violins, 2 violas, 1 double bass, 2 cellos and 2 horns.
At the end of his life, Potemkin broke up with Sarti, who went to the service of Sheremetev, and after the death of the prince, the music academy in Kremenchug practically ceased to exist.
1789: Famous concerts on the occasion of the victories of Russian weapons
During the Russo-Turkish War (1787-1791), music always sounded at Potemkin's headquarters. Numerous memoirists from among the foreign officers in the Russian service, as well as diplomats who accompanied Catherine on her famous 1787 journey to southern Russia, left evidence of almost daily concerts. In addition to regimental musicians, a horn orchestra, a small Italian chapel (musicians from among the teachers Yekaterinoslav Academy) and singers in these concerts could also be attended by students of the academy. So writes the Spanish traveler de Miranda, who visited Kremenchug in 1787: "They listened to music again and again, and in between - a choir of young men who study at the conservatory founded by the empress here<...>. Then, until dinner, Boccherini quartets were performed. " The apotheosis of this camping musical life was the work of Sarti, performed in 1789, "The Glorious Cantata" We Praise You God, "composed and produced in Kremenchug to congratulate the imperial prince Potemkin-Tauride because he took the Ochakov fortress."
In orchestrating this cantata, Sarti used all the sound resources at his disposal: choir, orchestra, horn music and even cannons. Composition was a huge success and after a while was performed in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra for the empress and the St. Petersburg court.
1790: Janissary Orchestra in Iași
The fact that in Iasi, where his headquarters was in 1790, the prince kept a Janissary orchestra, reports Duke A.-E. de Richelieu.
Prince Tauride had the best orchestras and the most interesting jukeboxes, which became popular in the second half of the 18th century.
In almost each of the estates of Grigory Alexandrovich, an organ was arranged - the great-niece of Potemkin Elizaveta Ksaverievna Vorontsova (ur. Branitskaya). [5]
1791
Potemkin holiday on the occasion of the capture of Ishmael: polonez "Thunder of victory, give out!" Kozlowski
Built according to the projects of European engineers, which had a fortress fence over 6 km long, a moat 12 m wide and 6-10 m deep, Izmail was considered impregnable. By 1790, its garrison was 35 thousand people with 265 guns. In November 1790, Russian troops (up to 30 thousand people, over 500 guns) under the command of Lieutenant General I.V. Gudovich and P.S. Potemkin and Major General M.I. Kutuzov overlaid Izmail from land, and the Danube flotilla of Major General O.M. de Ribas blocked it from the river and from the sea. But on November 26, 1790, the military council decided, due to the approaching winter and the diseases of the soldiers, to lift the siege.
Upon learning of this, the commander-in-chief of the Southern Army, Field Marshal G.A. Potemkin, appointed General-General A.V. Suvorov as commander of all the troops near Izmail, and ordered the fortress to be taken. On December 2, Suvorov arrived near Izmail. For 6 days, he prepared the troops for the assault. After the commandant Ishmael refused to surrender the fortress ("Rather, the sky will fall to the ground and the Danube will flow up than Ishmael will be surrendered"), Suvorov subjected it to a 2-day powerful bombardment. December 11 at 5 o'clock. 30 minutes, Russian troops launched an assault, by 8 o'clock captured all the fortifications, and by 16 o'clock the fortress and the city were taken.
The brilliant echo of the Izmail victory was the famous Potemkin holiday, which thundered in St. Petersburg on Monday April 28, 1791, in the equestrian guard house of His Serene Prince of Tauride (now the Tauride Palace).
About three thousand persons of both sexes were invited to the celebration. G.R. Derzhavin writes in his description of the holiday: "As soon as the Highest visitors deigned to ascend to the places prepared by him, then suddenly voice and instrumental music of three hundred people rattled." On this day, the name of one of the most famous composers of the late XVIII - early XIX centuries arose in the history of Russian music. Osip Kozlovsky. As an officer of the Kinburn Dragoon Regiment of the Potemkin Army, he participated in the siege of Ochakov and was noticed by the prince, who helped the musician make a career in St. Petersburg. It was Kozlovsky who became the author of the musical design of the holiday in the Tauride Palace, for which he wrote polonaise choirs with the words of Derzhavin. The Victory Thunder polonaise, first played that evening, became an unofficial Russian anthem.
It is noteworthy that in addition to music for the Potemkin holiday, Kozlovsky wrote the music of the heroic opera The Capture of Ishmael.
William Winrow's Double Organ Watch Purchase Order
In 1791, by order of His Grace Prince G.A. Potemkin, William Winrow's organ clock was purchased for the Imperial Court by Master I. Gabran. For more information on the history of watches, see the Hermitage.
Potemkin's offer to invite him to Mozart's service
On September 15, 1791, the Russian ambassador to Vienna, Count Andrei Razumovsky, wrote to the prince that he was ready to "send to you the first harpsichordist and one of the most skilled composers in Germany - named Mozart - who, having some discontent here, would be disposed to accept this journey. He's in Bohemia now, but will be back soon. If you, Your Lordship, then allow me to invite him not for a long time, but simply in order to go to Your Lordship, so that you hear him and, if you find it necessary, then you would take him to your service. " But already on October 5, His Grace Prince died, and two months later Mozart was gone.
Poetry
Among Potemkin's diverse talents, contemporaries noted the gift of writing; according to Ogarkov, in his youth the prince wrote poems, satires and epigrams. Unfortunately, little remains of what Potemkin wrote. Accidentally preserved only some of his impromptu like the following, composed at a dinner party and addressed to the writer Fyodor Grigorievich Karin (brother of Potemkin's fellow practitioners at the university gymnasium Nikolai and Alexander Karin):
You, Karin, -
Cute crean,
And lilies
I'm nicer!
Since his youth, Potemkin was friends with Vasily Petrovich Petrov, later a famous poet. Petrov taught Potemkin the ancient Greek language and translated the Iliad with him. Already such an episode belongs to their mature years. Petrov invited Potemkin to inspect the newly opened printing house and, demonstrating the work of the machines, typed and made an impression of his impromptu dedicated to Grigory Alexandrovich:
You are a warrior, you are a hero,
You love the music of creation,
And here is your opponent -
Hero of the print publishing house.
Potemkin did not remain in debt. Asking Petrov to show how the set is made, he immediately composed an answer, typed it and, with the help of a friend of his youth, made an impression:
Am I a hero? I don't approve.
I don't like to boast about myself,
But that I am your friend -
I know this very firmly!
Catherine II is addressed to a song attributed to Potemkin about a worm in love with a star:
"As soon as I saw you, I thought only of you. Your eyes captivated me, and I did not dare to tell you that the heart was deeply hidden. "
Potemkin also participated in the epistolary experiments of the empress herself: he ruled the syllable in the text of her opera Initial management of Oleg"" [6]and in other plays.
He continued to compose during his southern campaigns. So, during the campaign of 1788, " in his magnificent dugout, under the thunder of cannons, among the military movements, the Prince of Taurida found time to talk with muses, wrote poetry, translated the Church History of Abbot Fleury."
All these literary experiments would hardly deserve mention if it were not for Potemkin's only large-scale literary work that reached us - the Canon to the Savior Lord Jesus, written by him at the end of his life; it is this canon written in prayer verse that allows us to talk about Potemkin as a poet.
Potemkin's penitential canon
Main article: Potemkin's Penitential Canon
Potemkin's whole life was accompanied by an acute internal contradiction between the desire for monastic departure from the world and the insatiable thirst for glory.
Only a few close ones knew about Potemkin's spiritual grain. The French ambassador Segur, who managed to win the prince's friendship, wrote that "his favorite subject was theology."
Potemkin thought about repentance all the last years of his life. Before his death, Potemkin compiled a penitential canon (see Potemkin's penitential canon.
Notes
- ↑ Gate, This gate to Red Square (later - Iversky) in other sources is called Kuretny or
- ↑ . The named clergy are metropolitans of the Catherine era. Arseny (Matseevich) was deprived of dignity for opposing the secularization of monastery property, died in captivity; Gabriel (Petrov) and Plato (Levshin) are the most authoritative members of the Synod. —.
- ↑ tonsure of N.N. Pertsov "On the literary experience of Grigory Potemkin," Philological Sciences, 1, 2016.
- ↑ funTranslation into Russian of the word" divertissement
- ↑ Vladislav Vladimirovich Kozhin. Chief curator of the State Budgetary Institution of the Republic of Kazakhstan "Crimean Literary and Art Memorial Museum-Reserve," A.P. Chekhov House-Museum in Yalta; science consultant, ChU Museum "Estate of Princess N. A. Baryatinskaya" Estate Selbilyar. "Overture of Prince I.I. Baryatinsky: Art and History," "Humanitarian Paradigm," 2023. "
- ↑ Ogarkov V.V. G.A. Potemkin. His life and social activities. - SPb.: Type. Y.N. Ehrlich, 1892.
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