The name of this woman is known today to any student. There is hardly a person who will not answer, what was the name of Pushkin’s nanny Alexander Sergeyevich. But what do most of our compatriots know about her origin and biography? It so happened that her life has always been in the shadow of the biography and work of her famous pupil. This, of course, is not surprising. Do not realize Pushkin as
a successful and recognized poet, we would hardly have ever known who Arina Rodionovna is. However, Alexander Sergeyevich himself did not get tired of repeating and emphasizing her important role in his formation and already in adulthood. The nanny A.S. Pushkin undoubtedly deserves recognition for her share.
The origin and early years of Arina Rodionovna
She was born in April 1758 in one of the small villages of the St. Petersburg province. Her parents were serfs. The surname of Arina Rodionovna, the nanny of Pushkin, is Yakovlev. In addition to her family, there were six children. In the first year of her life, the future nanny of A.S. Pushkin was considered a serf belonging to Count Fedor Apraksin. But in 1759, Abram Petrovich Hannibal, the great-grandfather of the famous Russian poet, bought the surrounding lands, along with villages and peasants inhabiting them. In 1781, Arina got married and moved to the village of Kobrino with her husband. With the move, she becomes the fortress of Osip Hannibal, the poet’s grandfather. Around this time, she was taken to serve in a landowner’s house,
for
child care activities
. At first she was a nanny to Nadezhda Osipovna, Pushkin’s mother, and over time, for her children - Alexander, Olga and Leo - she became a nanny. In 1972, she was taken by the grandmother of the future poet Maria Alexandrovna as a nanny for her nephew Alexei. Three years later, Arina Rodionovna received a hut in Kobrino as a gift from the landowner family for her impeccable service.
Nanny A.S. Pushkin
In 1879 Olga Pushkina (the elder sister of the poet) was born, and in 1799 the future Russian classic himself. Arina Rodionovna, of course, has a new responsibility on the upbringing of these children. Interestingly, the Hannibal family in 1807 sells the land that was once bought, which included the village of Kobrino. However, by that time the nanny was already attached not to the land, but to the owners, so the sale did not extend to her. She moves with her family to the Pskov province, to the village of Mikhailovskoye. The subsequent period is perhaps the brightest page of her
of life.
The image of this woman often appeared in the poetry of Alexander Pushkin. His poems give her a very complete description. The classic's sister Olga recalled Arina Rodionovna as a real representative of Russian nannies, with a reverent and tender attitude towards children. At the same time, the nanny of A.S. Pushkin was attached to her pupils not only during their childhood, but throughout life. So, during the Mikhailovsky exile of Alexander Sergeevich (1824-26), in which the poet was imprisoned for two years for freethinking, a woman was constantly beside him, brightening up the poet’s loneliness. Here, in Mikhailovsky, Pushkin saw her for the last time in September 1827. Nine months later, Arina Rodionovna died at the age of 70 years. After which she was buried in St. Petersburg at the Smolensk cemetery.