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Tatiana's Garden: Noble Sensibilities and Estate Park Design in the Romantic Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Priscilla R. Roosevelt
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Extract

In “Baryshnia-krestianka” Aleksandr Pushkin introduces us to Grigorii Ivanovich Muromskii, a “nastoiashchii russkii barin” reduced to living on his one remaining estate, who squanders his remaining wealth creating an “Angliiskii sad.” The gardening revolution of eighteenth century England, inspired by the overgrown ruins of Rome and Naples and by a new feeling for untrammeled nature, set in motion a vogue for informal, picturesque landscaping that swept across Europe, altered garden design in the United States, and reached Russia in the reign of Catherine as the harbinger of a later, more pervasive aristocratic Anglomania. As Muromskii's landscaping proclivities suggest, by the early nineteenth century the English or “irregular” garden had become a universal form for the Russian country estate, its basic motifs carried out on whatever scale an estate owner could afford.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , Fall 1990 , pp. 335 - 349
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1990

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References

1. Pushkin, Aleksandr S., Sochineniia, 3 vols. (Moscow: Goslitizdat, 1962) 3: 254 Google Scholar.

2. See in particular the conclusion to Lotman, 's essay, “Poetika bytogo povedeniia v russkoi kul'ture XIII veka,” Trudy po znakovym sistemam, no. 8 (Tartu, 1977), 65–89 Google Scholar.

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5. The elder Vul'f daughter may have influenced Pushkin's portrait of Tatiana. See the speculation to this effect by Granovskaia, Nina I., Vsesoiuznui muzei A. S. Pushkina (Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1985 Google Scholar, in the chapter “Pushkin v Trigorskom,” 101-108. Trigorskoe was on one side of Mikhailovskoe, while Petrovskoe, the Gannibal estate, was located on the other side, across a sizable lake from Mikhailovskoe. For a detailed, handsomely illustrated description of the Pushkin estate complex see P., Volkov, ed., Priiut, siian'em muz odetyi (Moscow: Planeta, 1988 Google Scholar.

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8. “Sobstvennoruchnoe pis'mo Ekateriny II k g-zhe B'elke o Tsarskom sele, Petergof i obraze zhizni imperatritsy,” ibid., 259.

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10. See, for example, the highly flattering Aleksandrovna, uveselitel'nyi sad ego imperatorskogo vysochestva blagovernago gosudariia velikago kniazia Aleksandra Pavlovicha (St. Petersburg, 1792), 3.

11. Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova, 40 vols. (Moscow, 1870-1895) 6: 304; cited by Cross, Anthony G., “By the Banks of the Thames”: Russians in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Newtonville, Mass.: Oriental Research Partners, 1980), 248 Google Scholar.

12. On the continuing popularity of the formal garden, see the memoirs of Elizaveta P. Yankova, published by her grandson. She described a wealthy, elderly provincial neighbor's elaborate formal garden of the 1790s, with trees shaped not only like pyramids and umbrellas but even like bears, and commented that such topiary was very pleasing at that time ( Blagovo, Dmitrii D., Razskazy Babushki [St. Petersburg: A. S. Suvorin, 1885], 82 Google Scholar).

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14. Kurakin, “Souvenirs d'un Voyage. “

15. Kurakin pointedly renamed the estate (formerly Borisoglebskoe) Nadezhdino to symbolize his hope of returning to favor at court.

16. One English gardener hired by a Russian was impressed by the lucrativeness of Russian Anglomania. Writing home, he reported, “The nobles who have been in England are so much enraptured with the English pleasure gardens that they are cried up here. This has set them all gardening mad. Any of the nobility will give 100 pounds per annum for an English gardener” (cited by Miles, Hatfield, A History of British Gardening [London: Spring, 1969], 218Google Scholar).

17. Cited by A. Golumbevskii, “Pokinutaya usad'ba,” Starye gody, January 1911, 17. The park at Nadezhdino was large, but not unusually so. Parks varied widely in size: the garden of Nadezhdino was about five times the size of Ostafievo. See Ivan A., Kosarevkii, Iskusstvo parkogo peizaiha (Moscow: Stroiizdat, 1977), 6–69 Google Scholar, for a description of forty-five Ukrainian parks ranging in size from 45 to 1, 500 acres, and Pod'iapol'skaia, Pamiatniki arkhitektury moskovskoi oblasti 2: 135, for a scaled plan of Ostafievo.

18. Fleming, Laurence and Gore, Alan, The English Garden (London: Michael Joseph, 1979), 96 Google Scholar. A description of the proper proportions of such a walk— “six or seven Yards wide at least “—appears in Stephen Switzer's Ichnographica Rustica, or, the Nobleman, Gentleman, and Gardener's Recreation (London, 1718).

19. Cited by Golumbevskii, “Pokinutaya usad'ba,” 17.

20. Kartashov, “Illiustratsiia,” no. 30 (1848), cited by Golumbevskii, “Pokinutaya usad'ba,” 19.

21. See, for example, Gur'ianov, I., “Progulka v Liublino,” Otechesvtennye zapiski, no. 66 (1825), 201–228Google Scholar; K., B., “Vecher i utro, provedennyie v Pavlovske,” Syn otechestva, 1815, chap. 24, no. 34, 41–55Google Scholar; A. Raevskii, “Okrestnosti Moskvy,” ibid., 1815, chap. 25, no. 40, 53-65; Chiliaev, Egor G., Chudesnoe istselenie, Hi Puteshestvie k vodam spasitelia v selo Rai-Semenovskoe, prinadlezhashchee g. tainomu sovetniku, desitvitel'nomu kamergeru i kavaleru A. P. Nashchokinu (St. Petersburg: Pavi'shchikova, 1817)Google Scholar.

22. Bolotov, Andrei T., Zhizn’ i prikliucheniia Andreia Bolotova opisannyia samym im dlia svoikh potomkov, 4 vols., appendix to Russkaia starina (St. Petersburg, 1873) 2: 344 Google Scholar.

23. Ibid. 3: 1137.

24. See Shchukina, E. P., “Natural'nyi sad russkoi usad'by v kontse XVIII v.,” in Russkoe iskusstvo XVIII veka, ed., Alekseeva, T. V. (Moscow: Nauka, 1973), 109–117 Google Scholar.

25. Bolotov, , Zhizn’ 3: 1163 Google Scholar.

26. Bolotov, who was an artist as well as a landscaper, has left us a painting of a gazebo he commissioned for Bogoroditsk; see fig. 105 in Anikst, M. A. and Turchin, V. A., eds., V okrestnostiakh Moskvy (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1979 Google Scholar. At least one specialist has termed Bolotov's achievements for the crown “naive and provincial” (see Iurii K., Makarov, “A. T. Bolotov i sadovoe iskusstvo v Rossii,” Sredi kollektsionerov, nos. 5-6 [May-June, 1924], 32 Google Scholar). Bolotov was undoubtedly very disappointed when Catherine failed to visit Bogoroditsk after his efforts on the garden, for he had prepared elaborate diagrams for her. (See Zhizn’ 4: 173.)

27. Occasionally, such statues as Sofievka's “Winter,” which depicted a gray-bearded man pulling a presumably wool cloak around his nude limbs, were to be found, although more common were copies of Greek, Roman, or Egyptian gods (see figs. 220 ( “Winter “) and 222 ( “Mercury “) in Kosarevskii, , Iskusstvo parkogo peizazha, 230, 232Google Scholar.

28. Bolotov, , Zhizn’ 2: 1148, 1163Google Scholar.

29. For a full account of Neelov's trip to England and subsequent labors for Catherine, see Cross, “By the Banks of the Thames,” 219-222.

30. Sedov, , Iaropolets, 19, 23, 33Google Scholar.

31. See Likhachev, Dmitrii S.'s chapter, “Melankholiia v sadakh romantizma,” in his Poeziia sadov (Leningrad: Nauka, 1982), 227–242 Google Scholar.

32. Bolotov, , Zhizn’ 4: 38 Google Scholar.

33. Sedov, , Iaropolets, 96 Google Scholar.

34. The estate of Sukhanovo, for example, had a neoclassical house flanked by pseudo-Gothic servants’ quarters (see Ivask, U. G., Selo Sukhanovo, podmoskovnaya svetleishikh kniazei volkonskikh [Moscow, 1915], 36 Google Scholar and facing illustration).

35. Sedov, , Iaropolets, 71 Google Scholar.

36. Bolotov, , Zhizn’ 2: 1148 Google Scholar.

37. Turchin, Anikst and, V okrestnostiakh Moskvy, plate 173Google Scholar.

38. Olga, Baranova, Kuskovo (Leningrad: Aurora, 1983), 54 Google Scholar. Kuskovo, used by the Sheremetevs for entertaining, was open to the public for weekly summer festivals in the late eighteenth century. In the 1770s the landscape park was added to the formal park, which was considered one of the most magnificent in Russia.

39. Bolotov, , Zhizn’ 2: 1156–1157 Google Scholar.

40. Anthony G. Cross describes the relation between translated and original works on gardening theory in this period in an illuminating article, “The English Garden and Russia: An Anonymous Identified,” Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia Newsletter 2 (September 1974): 25-29.

41. See plates 90 (I. Bakhromeev, “Plan sela Ostafieva, 1805 “) and 156 (F. Melnikov, “Plan angliiskogo sada v usad'be Ostafievo “) in Anikst and Turchin, V okrestnostiakh Moskvy. Both plans belong to the Ostankino Museum collection.

42. Kosarevskii, , Iskusstvo parkovo peizazha, 30 Google Scholar.

43. Turchin, Anikst and, V okrestnostiakh Moskvy, plate 156Google Scholar.

44. Pushkin, , Sochineniia 3: 222 Google Scholar.

45. Natalia Grot's wealthy uncle was an example. Describing the “iziashchnyi sad” of his estate in Lipetsk district, she says it would have compared well to the “samykh obrazovannykh utolkakh Evropy” and characterizes her uncle as a “zavziatyi angloman” ( N., Grot, hsemeinoi khroniki: Vospominaniia dlia detei i vnukov (St. Petersburg: I. N. Kushnerev, 1900), 96 Google Scholar.

46. Pushkin, , Sochineniia 3: 254–255 Google Scholar.

47. A contemporaneous painting of this picturesque village, which was further modified by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown in 1775, appears in Fleming and Gore, , The English Garden, 131 Google Scholar.

48. Pushkin, , Sochineniia 3: 30 Google Scholar.

49. Ibid., 28.

50. Ibid., 128.

51. Ibid., 123.

52. Ibid., 31.

53. A. T., Bolotov, “Nekotorye zamechaniia o sadakh v Rossii,” Ekonomicheskii magazin 20 (1784): 59 Google Scholar.

54. See Lotman, Lurii M. on Pushkin's emotions during his exile to Mikhailovskoe in his Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin (Leningrad: Prosveshchenie, 1983), 111–136 Google Scholar.

55. Pushkin, , Sochineniia 3: 120 Google Scholar.