On the authorship of a letter to V. A. Zhukovsky about the death of A. I. Turgenev

Introduction

The death of Alexander Ivanovich Turgenev (1784-1845), a well-known statesman and public figure, historian, archaeographer, traveler and writer, an elder friend of A. S. Pushkin ^[29], which followed on Monday, December 3, 1845, caused a lot of sympathetic responses: both from Westerners (to whom the deceased was close in his views), and and Slavophiles ^{[4, p. 239-251] [26, p. 634]} (cf. obituaries of A. I. Turgenev, printed as in Russian ^{[10] [15] [34]}, so in foreign ^{[60] [61]} periodicals). Several letters of condolence were received by Turgenev's old friend, the poet Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky (1783-1852), who lived at that time in Frankfurt am Main ^{[1, pp. 277-279] [26, pp. 634-639] [37, pp. 550-552] [38, pp. 136-138] [42, pp. 321] [51] [54, l. 5-7]}, a number of Zhukovsky's own responses to the death of a friend have also been preserved ^{[1, p. 280] [16, p. 253] [24, p. 421-425] [37, p. 552] [38, p. 133-135, 138-142] [41, p. 509-511]} (cf. summary of 1845, made by in the diary: "Turgenev wanted to live with us before his departure to Carlsbad. It was our last date in this world. On December 3 (15), he died in Moscow. [...] 1845 [g.] concluded with the sad news of Turgenev's death" ^{[23, p. 282]}).

Our focus will be on the "letter of an unknown person about the death of A. I. Turgenev", sent to V. A. Zhukovsky on January 15, 1846 and first printed by P. I. Bartenev in the April book of the "Russian Archive" for 1899 ^{[26, pp. 637-639]}. In this article we will try to conduct a comparative analysis of this text with other sources in order to prove as argumentatively as possible that this letter was undoubtedly written by a close Moscow friend of A. I. Turgenev, the hostess of the literary and philosophical salon Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Sverbeeva (1808-1892). Comparing the letter of January 15, 1846 with other documents, we will introduce it into a broad historical and cultural context and show its importance in the series of responses to the death of A. I. Turgenev.

In addition, I think our research may be of interest in the broad context of the methodology of source studies. Along with the importance of general techniques and methods for determining the authorship of a document, the materials collected and compared by us may be of value from the point of view of observing research practice. As will be shown below, widely using the comparative method in the study of correspondence, we carefully thought out possible ways to find the author of the letter to Zhukovsky. At the same time, I would like to hope that this article will be an occasion to return to the question of the presence/absence of the problem of so-called habitual attributions, to reflect on the boundaries of the application of the comparative method in the study of epistolary sources.

Overview of sources

The "letter of an unknown person" ^{[26, pp. 637-639]} is the only document published in the "Russian Archive" dedicated to the last months of the life and death of A. I. Turgenev and written by a woman who was close friends with Alexander Ivanovich.

We will compare this letter to V. A. Zhukovsky, first of all, with three letters from Turgenev's neighbor in the Old Stable Settlement in Moscow, the writer Nikolai Alexandrovich Melgunov. (1804-1867) ^{[7] [21] [27] [36, pp. 315, 317]} to V. A. Zhukovsky ^{[26, pp. 634-637, 639-641]}. We do not know where the originals of the letters published in the "Russian Archive" are; we only know that they were given to P. I. Bartenev by Zhukovsky's son Pavel ^{[26, p. 623]}. It is also important to note that Melgunov calls the letter of January 15, 1846 a "postscript" to his letter: "I think that you have already received my letter, with a postscript from K. A. S., forwarded through Princess S. G. Volkonskaya. S—va corrects and supplements me in his postscript" ^{[26, p. 641]}. At the same time, due to the lack of information about the original document, based only on how it was published in the journal, we can say that the postscript to Melgunov's letter was made on a separate sheet (cf. P. I. Bartenev's forewarning: "The following letter was preserved in the papers of V. A. Zhukovsky about the death of A. I. Turgenev" ^{[26, p. 637]}; our italics. — M. B.). In addition, it is unclear to which letter of Melgunov the postscript was made. We consider it unlikely that it was made to a letter dated December 18 (30), 1845 ^{[26, pp. 634-637]}, followed by a journal publication.

Letter or postscript of an "unknown person" (hereinafter the words "letter" and "postscript" are used as synonyms) we also compare it with the letter of E. A. , which has not been published in full . Sverbeeva to graduate of the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, Master of Law, future famous historian and jurist Alexander Nikolaevich Popov (1820-1877) ^{[6] [8]} dated December 28, 1845 ^[48] (partially printed in the works of M. V. Batshev ^{[6, p. 12]} and T. V. Medvedev ^{[31, p. 19]}, who kindly provided us with this text; the relationship of A. N. Popov with A. I. Turgenev is briefly described in the article by M. V. Batshev ^{[6, p. 11]}).

In addition to these letters, which talk about the last days, the death and fate of the archive of A. I. Turgenev, we have attracted the materials of correspondence between V. A. Zhukovsky and P. A. Vyazemsky ^[1], F. von Mueller ^[38], A. Ya. Bulgakov ^{[41] [51]} and A. P. Elagina ^{[37, pp. 550-554]}, as well as letters from V. A. Zhukovsky to E. A. Sverbeeva ^{[24, pp. 421-425]} (in this edition Ekaterina Alexandrovna is also called an "unknown person"; V. S. Kiselyov ^{[1, p. 530 (approx. 4)]} identified the addressee and clarified the dating of this letter), N. I. Turgenev to V. A. Zhukovsky ^[54], E. A. Sverbeeva to N. I. Turgenev ^[47] and V. A. Zhukovsky ^[49], V. D. Olsufiev to V. A. Zhukovsky ^{[42, p. 321]}, A. I. Turgenev to N. D. Shakhovskaya ^[58] and N. D. Sverbeev to N. D. Shakhovskaya ^[46], in which the listed plots also reflected. Additional sources necessary to prove that the letter of January 15, 1846 came from the pen of E. A. Sverbeeva, the materials of P. Ya.'s correspondence serve. Chaadaev ^[56], the Khomyakov ^[55] and Aksakov families ^[2].

Historiography Review

Attention to the letter of January 15, 1846 was already attracted by the publisher. P. I. Bartenev wrote in the editorial notice: "In the papers of V. A. Zhukovsky, the following letter has been preserved about the death of A. I. Turgenev. Who is this woman who poured out her sorrow so beautifully, we do not know" ^{[26, p. 637]}.

Nine years later, publishing new materials about the duel and the death of A. S. Pushkin and describing A. I. Turgenev, Bartenev noted: "Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Sverbeeva wrote Zhukovsky a beautiful heartfelt letter about the last days of Turgenev's life" ^{[3, p. 427]}. At the same time, the editor-publisher of the "Russian Archive", for some reason unknown to us, did not give any reference.

A. N. Veselovsky in the work "V. A. Zhukovsky. Poetry of feeling and heartfelt imagination" (when selectively rereading this monograph in September 2018, we found a link to a publication in the "Russian Archive" that had not previously come into our field of vision), bringing together several responses to the death of A. I. Turgenev, quoted only the letters of N. A. Melgunov ^{[9, pp. 463-464However, it is important to note in general that the literary historian managed to deeply analyze the "senile appearance" of Alexander Ivanovich [9, pp. 297-298, 459-463]}.

In 2012 , the researcher of the Sverbeev family T. V. Medvedev in the report ""Beloved about the "Russian Archive" Peter Ivanovich..." (Sverbeev and P. I. Bartenev)" claimed: "... except for her letter [E. A. Sverbeeva] to V. A. Zhukovsky, provided for the “Russian Archive" by Pavel Vasilyevich Zhukovsky, nothing related to E. A. Sverbeeva was not published in the magazine" ^{[30, p. 422]}. This statement was made without reference to any source. Later, the researcher informed us that she had only indirect information about the mentioned letter, extracted from various sources (personal message of T. V. Medvedev).

In 2021 , V. S. Kiselyov , in comments on the correspondence between Zhukovsky and Vyazemsky , called E. A. the author of a letter dated January 15 , 1846 . To Sverbeev ^{[1, p. 530 (note 2)]}. It is not known exactly what the commentator relied on when defining Ekaterina Aleksandrova as the addressee. Most likely, V. S. Kiselyov proceeded from the general context of the letter, the response letter of V. A. Zhukovsky ^{[24, pp. 421-425]} (here it is dated March — April 1846; V. S. Kiselyov dates it to May 21 (June 2) 1846 ^{[1, p. 530 (approx. 4)]}), the letters of N. A. Melgunov ^{[26, pp. 634-637, 639-641]} and, possibly, the information of P. I. Bartenev and T. V. Medvedev. It is clear that due to the unavoidable brevity of the comment, the researcher could not provide any reasoned evidence in favor of his point of view.

It seems that the potential evidence we have listed, which V. S. Kiselyov might have had in mind, is not enough. Realizing this, we repeat, we decided to make public our arguments in favor of the authorship of E. A. Sverbeeva, relying on a variety of sources (including unpublished or not fully introduced into scientific circulation), which contain additional arguments confirming our point of view.

A. I. Turgenev and the Sverbeev family

Before proceeding to the comparison of the texts of the letters of A. I. Turgenev's friends and acquaintances, it is necessary to say what kind of relations connected Alexander Ivanovich with the Sverbeev family (a number of researchers have already written about their character ^{[5, p. 61] [6, p. 9-12] [18, p. 12-13] [30, p. 410, 421, 426 (approx. 49)] [31, p. 11-19] [32, p. 471] [33, p. 153 (approx. 15)] [40, p. 8] [44, p. 16-18] [45, p. 652-654]}). This will allow us to better understand the general context of the letter of January 15, 1846, and also to see more clearly that these relationships are part of the broad panorama of Moscow intellectual life of the 1830s and 1840s.

The Sverbeev family are the closest Moscow friends of A. I. Turgenev. Turgenev was also a very close friend of the Sverbeevs. This is evident not only from Alexander Ivanovich's correspondence with Ekaterina Alexandrovna and her husband, retired diplomat and future remarkable memoirist Dmitry Nikolaevich (1799-1874) ^{[45, pp. 643-661] [59]}, but also from the fact that in September 1845 Alexander Ivanovich became the godfather of the fourth son of the Sverbeevs, Dmitry (1845-1921) ^{[36, pp. 316, 320]}.

The warm relations between the Sverbeevs, Alexander Turgenev and his younger brother, the Decembrist Nikolai (1789-1871), in addition to letters, are evidenced, for example, by the diary of E. A. Sverbeeva for 1833 ^[18], which she conducted during a foreign trip, as well as "My notes" by D. N. Sverbeev and especially his obituary to N. I. Turgenev ^{[45, pp. 490-501]}.

It is usually believed that the Sverbeevs met Alexander Turgenev in the summer of 1833 (see, for example, the introductory note by S. R. Dolgova to the diary of E. A. Sverbeeva ^{[18, p. 11]} and the accompanying article by M. V. Batshev to "My Notes" by D. N. Sverbeev, published in the series "Literary Monuments" ^{[45, p. 653]}). At the same time, researchers refer to a letter from Vyazemsky to Turgenev dated June 3, 1833 ^{[35, p. 238]}, not noticing earlier mentions of their meetings contained in the diary of Alexander Ivanovich himself (entry dated October 23, 1831 ^{[14, p. 126]}), as well as in the diary of V. A. Zhukovsky (entry dated November 7, 1831 ^{[22, p. 318]}). The Sverbeevs met with Alexander and Nikolai Turgenev in September 1833 in Geneva at a time when preparations were underway for the wedding of N. I. Turgenev ^{[18, p. 34] [45, p. 491]}.

Later, Alexander Ivanovich became a regular at the Moscow salon of Ekaterina Alexandrovna, who, as V. A. Milchina believes, may have been Turgenev's last great love ^{[32, p. 471]} (cf. letters of A. I. Turgenev to E. A. Sverbeeva ^{[52, p. 23-24]} and I. S. Gagarin ^{[13, p. 337]}; see also in the work of T. F. Pirozhkova: "A. I. Turgenev loved her" ^{[40, p. 8]}). In addition, it is believed that Alexander Turgenev vied for E. A. 's attention . Sverbeeva with her cousin P. Ya . Chaadaev ^{[18, p. 13] [33, p. 153 (approx. 15)] [40, p. 8] [56, p. 156-166] [57, p. 116-119]}.

D. N. Sverbeev also helped Alexander Ivanovich in selecting part of the materials on the history of Russia collected by Turgenev in foreign archives for publication in the failed P. A. almanac. Vyazemsky's "Antiquity and Novelty", and also used these documents in the course of his own "archeographic studies" ^{[30, pp. 420-421, 426 (approx. 49)]}.

The words confirming the fact of Alexander Turgenev's constant visit to the Sverbeevsky salon will be found in Alexander Ivanovich's letters to P. A. To Vyazemsky: "... I spend two hours every day in the evening at the gossip, and this is a great joy for me: she is still sweet" ^{[36, p. 320]}; "... my life is in the salon of Sverbeeva. From there, others are cold to me and to me" ^{[36, p. 335]}.

Let us also recall a well - known passage from the memoirs of P. A. Vyazemsky about an old friend:

"Someone described Turgenev's stay in Moscow as follows:

He is an eternal saint and an eternal philanderer,

At the feet of [Sverbeev]oh or Metropolitan" ^{[12, p. 337]}.

(Apparently, the expression "Turgenev at the feet of Sverbeeva" was really common in the circle of Moscow acquaintances and friends of Alexander Ivanovich and Ekaterina Alexandrovna. As proof, we refer to a letter from E. M. Khomyakova, the wife of the Slavophile A. S. Khomyakov, to his elder brother, the poet N. M. Yazykov (early 1840s) ^{[55, p. 106 (1st page)]}, as well as to Chaadaev's message to Sverbeeva dated July 10, 1842 ^{[56, p. 150]}.)

Based on the above, we believe that none other than E. A. Sverbeeva could have written to V. A. Zhukovsky about A. I. Turgenev: "I have lost a faithful friend in him. His last stay in Moscow will be memorable to me. He certainly spent every evening with me [...] Our evenings lasted until the second hour of the morning" ^{[26, p. 637]}.

Zhukovsky responded to these lines with the following words: "I will tell you that [...] I do not undertake [...] to apologize to you, how could I, in such a case, where it was necessary to act soon, delay more than a month in responding to your last letter and not respond with all the voice of my heart to the first one, where you are so many, many precious things were said to me about the last minutes of our kind, only friend. [...] Your first sweet letter touched me deeply; you described our friend and his last time so simply and correctly in it, whose best moments were devoted to you" ^{[24, pp. 421-422]}.

In the fall of 2018, we shared our thoughts about the "letter of an unknown person" not only with T. V. Medvedev, but also with V. A. Milchina and A. L. Ospovat. All three researchers agreed with several of our arguments, which we will state in full below, however, the following lines aroused doubt in A. L. Ospovat: "... on the last day of his life [Turgenev] wrote to my son: "Now we need to take care of our own place" ^{[26, p. 638]}. Alexander Lvovich quite correctly named Turgenev's addressee — this is the Sverbeevs' firstborn, Nikolai (1829-1860) — but doubted that the 16-year-old boy would take up the "adult business": to bother about a place for a homeopathic doctor and a self-taught artist M. G. To Svoekhotov, "a poor man with a family", who "abandoned the place in order to go with Valuev" "and closed his eyes in Novgorod" ^{[26, p. 638]} (reported by V. A. Milchina; historian, editor and publisher Dmitry Aleksandrovich Valuev (1820-1845) — the nephew of A. S. Khomyakov and D. N.. Sverbeeva, cousin of N. M. Yazykova — died of consumption on November 23, 1845 in Novgorod, on his way to the southern coast of France ^{[17] [19, p. 209] [25, by decree.] [28] [39] [40, by decree.] [45, pp. 154-155, 299]}).

The doubt can be dispelled, firstly, by T. V.'s correspondence answer. Medvedeva, who wrote that the elder son of the Sverbeevs was the main assistant of the parents, could participate in various common family concerns, perform "secretarial duties", act as their "confidant" (personal message of T. V. Medvedev). Secondly, we recall the fact that in the last years of his life A. I. Turgenev closely communicated and resorted to various services of Nikolai Sverbeev. Alexander Ivanovich appreciated Nikolai's letters and confessed that "his friendship comforts me" ^{[53, p. 273]}, asked the Sverbeevs' eldest son to help him in business contacts with M. P. Pogodin ^{[4, p. 238-239]}. Thirdly, with the phrase: "Now we need ..." — the lines from the letter of V. A. Panov to A. S. Khomyakov correspond: "As Turgenev lived his life, so he ended it: his last thought was a good deed. [...] he wrote to [aterina] And [leksandrovna] a note where he said about Svoekhotov that we need to think about him immediately" ^{[6, p. 12]}.

Concluding this section, let us linger on the words: "I wrote to my son" ^{[26, p. 638]}. Apparently, it was the note to N. D. Sverbeev about the fate of Svoekhotov that was mentioned in another letter from Ekaterina Alexandrovna to Zhukovsky: "[A] few hours before his death [Turgenev] wrote him the last note ..." ^{[49, L. 2]}.

Below we will conduct, firstly, a comparison of the texts of Melgunov's letters to Zhukovsky with the "postscript from K. A. S." and, secondly, a comparison of the "postscript from K. A. S." with the letter of E. A. Sverbeeva to A. N. Popov dated December 28, 1845.

Comparison of N. A. Melgunov's letters to V. A. Zhukovsky with the letter of an "unknown person"

As already mentioned, we will begin by comparing the letters of N. A. Melgunov to V. A. Zhukovsky, on the one hand, and the "postscript from K. A. S." dated January 15, 1846, on the other.

E. A. is of great concern . Sverbeeva was caused by the fate of A. I. Turgenev's papers, which, as usual, were kept partly by Ekaterina Alexandrovna, partly by the Turgenev brothers' cousin Alexandra Ilyinichna Nefedieva, in whose house Alexander Turgenev died in Bolshoy Vlasyevsky Lane. Sverbeeva did not want to entrust the valuable Turgenev materials to the official heirs — Alexander Ivanovich's nephews. N. A. Melgunov hastened to inform about this: "They [the heirs] decide not to touch all the papers of the deceased until your arrival or your decision. But since none of them knows yet that you postponed your return until next year, and S., fearing that otherwise they would not dispose of the papers arbitrarily, hides from them the change of your intention, and she asked me about the same [...] The best, in my opinion, it would be better to sell or give up all the papers in one hand" ^{[26, p. 641]} (highlighted by N. A. Melgunov. – M. B.; Zhukovsky was forced to stay abroad until the second half of 1847 ^{[24, p. 424] [26, p. 640] [41, p. 511]}).

The "unknown person" develops Melgunov's idea, naming the one into whose hands the deceased's papers should fall: "Turgenev's papers are sealed and waiting for heirs. We must hope that you will have time to rescue them, because this property belongs to one of his brothers" ^{[26, p. 639]}. In Zhukovsky's reply we read: "If the heirs certainly want to give the papers to Nikolai Ivanovich, then so be it" ^{[24, p. 423]} (cf. Zhukovsky's letter to an old friend, Moscow post director A. Ya. Bulgakov ^{[41, p. 509-510]}).

N. A. Melgunov and the author of the postscript to his letter differed in their assessment of the historical papers collected by A. I. Turgenev. Melgunov claimed that "During the inspection, there were some historical papers that were not of great importance. [...] The sealed papers contain neither your letters nor the protocols of the Arzamas Society. At the expense of these latter, you can be completely calm" ^{[26, pp. 635-640]}. "K. A. S.", on the contrary, wrote that the copies and originals of documents on the history of Russia collected by A. I. Turgenev-archeographer are "a wonderful work. His collection is curious and precious for science" ^{[26, p. 639]}.

Interestingly, Melgunov's judgment coincided with the conclusion of Colonel I. D. Luzhin, who corrected the position of the Moscow chief of police (he, after reviewing the deceased's papers, wrote that their "content [...] does not contain any particular importance" ^{[20, p. 666]}), and the words of the author of the postscript - with the assessment of V. A. Zhukovsky, who, of course, perfectly understood the significance of Turgenev's materials and offered to partially print them ^{[24, pp. 423-424]} (see also P. A.'s note). Vyazemsky ^[11] and his letter to Zhukovsky ^{[1, pp. 277-279]}).

Zhukovsky's letters and the minutes of the meetings of the Arzamas literary society, which were usually conducted by Vasily Andreevich, were found in the "Paris" part of the materials left after A. I. Turgenev. This was reported by N. I. Turgenev, sending documents to the poet ^{[54, l. 16-17]}.

Both Melgunov and the "unknown person" emphasize that on his last visit to Moscow (Alexander Ivanovich arrived in the Mother See on August 14, 1845 ^{[36, p. 314]}) Turgenev, "... despite the warm welcome made to him by Moscow and especially by the circle in which he lived (where [... in Turgenev, as before, only an educated and noble man was seen), in spite, in a word, of the freedom of life here, Turgenev was sad, impatiently waiting for departure from here, kept talking about his affairs, hurried and hurried others, and in frank moments, through his usual gaiety, looked gloomily at his future. [...] This indecision and at the same time haste showed in part what state his soul was in and how he was in a hurry to live. He had a premonition, perhaps without admitting it, of his near end" ^{[26, pp. 634-635]}.

"It was strange, it was scary to see this fussy insatiability. He often repeated one thing to me: "I don't have long to be with you, don't bother me"" ^{[26, p. 637]}, is confirmed in the postscript.

In both letters compared, it is said that Turgenev did not send an old friend a message, the contents of which can only be guessed: "... he did not write to you for a long time because, as he himself said, he could not gather his courage. He [...] wanted to believe his secret sorrow; but at the same time, as a friend, he did not want to upset. A few days before his death, he finally decided to write to you and wrote a long letter, which he tore into small pieces. “I [...] poured out my whole soul in this letter; and this would have upset Zhukovsky: he would have been scared after reading it. [...] wrote [another letter], forced himself. But he won't like the letter; he won't recognize me in it [...]; Zhukovsky will be displeased"" ^{[26, p. 635]}.

Let's compare: "He wrote to you shortly before his death, but the letter that reached you was already different: he tore up the first one. […] “I wrote to Zhukovsky, I wrote a lot, a lot, [...] I thought that this letter would upset him, leave a sorrowful feeling in the soul of a friend. [...] I tore up the letter and wrote another, concise, short one, he does not recognize me in it. But what to do, it was necessary to send it today, and it was no longer written to me what I had expressed before"" ^{[26, pp. 637-638]}.

The final lines of both compared documents are devoted to the news about the family of Zhukovsky 's niece A. P. Elagina: "This autumn Avdotya Petrovna was here for a few days [...]. She had tears in her eyes and a smile on her face: tears about her deceased son, and a smile about the impending marriage of Vasily, with whom she came for various purchases and preparations. They will all be here soon" ^{[26, pp. 636-637]}.

Let's compare: "The Elagins are in the village and happy. The wedding was supposed to be on the 11th Gen [arya]. Alexey Andreevich and Nikolai were here in the first days of Genvar. Thank God that their family is now joyful with happiness, it seems, lasting. Avdotya Petrovna's heart will rest now" ^{[26, p. 639]}.

(The youngest son of Avdotya Petrovna and Alexey Andreevich Elagin, 19-year-old Andrey died "from some kind of nervous illness" on December 27, 1844; the eldest son, Vasily, married Catherine Moyer on January 14, 1846; Nikolai is the middle son of the Elagins ^{[26, p. 636 (approx. 3-4)] [37, pp. 534, 552-554]}.)

Thus, from comparing the texts of Melgunov and the "unknown person", we see that they have several similar plots: both sources give reflections on the fate of A. I. Turgenev's papers (to whom they should belong and what their value is; on the last question Melgunov and "K. A. S." disagreed), about the behavior of and the moral state of Alexander Ivanovich in the last months of his life (indecision and fussiness, gloominess and "ordinary cheerfulness"), about an unsent letter to Zhukovsky (apparently of a confessional nature), about the affairs of Zhukovsky's relatives, the Elagins-Kireevskys. At the same time, the text of the postscript in places "corrects and supplements" the texts of Melgunov's messages.

Comparison of the postscript of the "unknown person" with the letter of E. A. Sverbeeva to A. N. Popov dated December 28, 1845.

Now we will proceed to compare the "postscript from K. A. S." with the letter of E. A. Sverbeeva to A. N. Popov dated December 28, 1845, as a result of which we will be able to make even clearer that the "postscript from K. A. S." is "a postscript from K[aterina] A[lexandrovna] S[verbeeva]".

At the beginning of both compared texts, the addressee apologizes for not writing for a long time: "I wanted to write to you immediately then, but it was sad and heavy on my heart," the postscript says. — Then the illness of my child, the danger in which he was for a long time, exhausted me, I fell ill afterwards" ^{[26, p. 637]}.

In a letter to Popov, family circumstances are specified: "... the sad news about Valuev upset me greatly; Turgenev's death and the troubles that followed worried me, and after my Olga's illness tired me; she had a fever and erysipelas on her head, lasted two weeks and did not give me an hour free from terrible anguish, the danger passed only yesterday. She is weak and will recover slowly — but thank God she will recover" ^{[6, p. 12] [48, l. 16 vol.]} (Olga Dmitrievna Sverbeeva (1839-1914) is the third daughter of the Sverbeevs; erysipelas, or erysipelas, is an acute infectious disease manifested by a rash on the face and limbs and accompanied by fever and intoxication).

Both documents emphasize that the death of Turgenev, as well as the sudden death of D. A. Valueva, very saddened the author of the letters, became a grievous loss for her: "The loss is great for me, it makes me sad to get used to it" ^{[26, p. 639]}.

Let's compare: "A little time has passed and two losses in our circle, both are hard for me; Valuev will always be missed by all of us, he loved each of his friends well and strongly. [...] I just found out Valuev's death and Turgenev was gone" ^{[48, l. 15]}.

The lines given above can be compared with a phrase from a letter from I. S. Aksakov to his family dated December 11, 1845, which shows that a person close to Sverbeeva perfectly understood her emotional state in those days: "You write to me about Valuev, and at the same time from Al [exandra] Osip [aries] [Smirnova-Rosset. — M. B.] I learned about the sudden death of Al[exander] Iv[anovich] Turgenev. I think Sverbeeva is very impressed by these two deaths that are close to her" ^{[2, p. 234]}.

More than once in the correspondence of A. I. Turgenev 's friends we will find an exclamation: "Good Turgenev!" ^{[1, p. 277] [24, p. 421] [51, p. 24]}. In the letter of the "unknown person" it occurs three times ^{[26, pp. 637-638]}, in the letter of E. A. Sverbeeva to A. N. Popov — twice ^{[48, L. 16]}.

Friends of the deceased could not but worry about the fate of Alexander Turgenev's younger brother, Nikolai. Anxiety is read in the lines of the "postscript from K. A. S.": "Poor Nikolai Ivanovich! What news do you have about him?.. I wrote to him after the death of our friend and I will write again. The blow is heavy for him. But it will be no less difficult for him later on. What a beneficent love the Lord deprived him of. May He strengthen him!" ^{[26, p. 639]}.

The same feeling is expressed in a letter to Popov: "His poor brother, his last connection with Russia has been interrupted, he remains an orphan in a foreign land. May God strengthen him! I wrote to him, asked him to answer me – maybe there will be news about him soon, although not from him yet. Poor Nikolai Ivanovich, this sorrow will be hard for him" ^{[48, l. 15 vol.-16]}.

(Old friends of the Turgenev brothers V. A. Zhukovsky ^{[41, p. 509]} and A. Ya. Bulgakov ^{[51, p. 25-26]} also expressed concern about how the future life of Nikolai Ivanovich would develop in correspondence with each other.)

The first letter of E. A. Sverbeeva, sent to N. I. Turgenev after the death of his older brother (dated December 10 (22), 1845), begins with the words: "You already know the sad news. Who better than me can share your grief with you. I loved him sincerely, I knew the boundlessness of the love he had for you..." And further: "... his soul flew away to a better world [...], where there will be no suffering for him, where he is now praying for you. He will be your Guardian Angel from there. Humbly bear the weight of the Cross given to you by the All-merciful Creator, who, of course, called him in time, for him and you. [...] I will write to you again soon, now I have barely come to my senses. [...] I will look forward to hearing from you at least a few words — please write to us. May the Lord strengthen you!" ^{[47, l. 1-2]}.

As we have already seen, comparing Melgunov's letter and the postscript to it, a lot of space is devoted to the description of the internal state of A. I. Turgenev in the last months of his life. This topic, as well as the question of the state of health of Alexander Ivanovich, are reflected in the letter of E. A. Sverbeeva to A. N. Popov.

Let 's compare:

The motive of "rushing to do good", recorded in the comparable pair of passages under No. 2, is reflected, for example, in the letters that A. I. Turgenev wrote to his cousin P. Ya in the last months of his life. Chaadaev and the widow of the Decembrist F. P. Shakhovsky, Princess Natalia Dmitrievna Shakhovskaya (1795-1884) ^{[58, pp. 232-239]}, and the words about the good health of Alexander Turgenev shortly before his death, given in a comparable pair of passages under No. 3, are confirmed by the news received by V. A. Zhukovsky from P. A. Vyazemsky ^{[1, p. 275]}, A. P. Elagina ^{[37, pp. 550-551]} and V. D. Olsufiev ^{[42, p. 321]}.

The realization of Turgenev's tender love for friends and the feeling that "there is something to remember him with" after his death (a juxtaposed pair of excerpts under No. 4) are all imbued with the lines of Nikolai Sverbeev addressed to Natalia Shakhovskaya: "We knew Turgenev and we can thank the Lord for this — he loved us with that purity, maybe[it] may sometimes be too inflamed by the Father's love. Therefore, our prayer for him — the memory of him, expressed in a dear deed, will be gratifying to him there" ^{[46, l. 1 vol.]} (this letter dated January 17, 1846 was kindly provided to us by T. V. Medvedev; underlined in the text. — M. B.; cf. the first lines of D. I. Shakhovsky's publication: "An old envelope with letters is kept in my papers. On it, in the hand of my grandmother, Princess Natalia Dmitrievna Shakhovskaya, it is carefully written: "To the Holy memory of A. I. Turgenev"" ^{[58, p. 224]}). (N. D. Sverbeev carried the coffin with the body of A. I. Turgenev at the funeral in the Novodevichy Monastery ^{[47, l. 2] [49, l. 2]}, where N. D. Shakhovskaya was also present ^{[50, p. 369]}.)

Zhukovsky learned about the resting place of his friend from the postscript to Melgunov's letter; here it was also said about the symbolic meaning of this place: "Turgenev's ashes rest in the Maiden Monastery. He loved our Moscow and stayed in it" ^{[26, p. 639]}.

In a letter to A. N. Popov, the phrase: "He loved our Moscow and stayed in it" follows: "let's bow to his ashes in our White Stone — he belongs to her" ^{[48, L. 15]} (underlined in the text. — M. B.).

It is interesting to compare with these lines the words of A. I. Turgenev himself, who three years before his death wrote to his long-term boss and patron Prince A. N. Golitsyn: "I would like to die in Moscow, where I was born ..." ^{[43, p. 94]}.

The final lines of the letter to E. A. Sverbeeva to A. N. Popov, as well as Melgunov's letters to Zhukovsky, and "postscript from K. A. S.", are dedicated to members of A. P.'s family. Elagina: "The Elagins — Alex [her] Andr [yeevich], Nick [olai] Alex [yeevich] came here for a week shopping, they are all healthy and happy" ^{[48, l. 17]}.

So, from the comparison of the postscript of the "unknown person" with the letter of E. A. Sverbeeva to A. N. Popov shows, first of all, that both documents have several textual coincidences, similar constructions of phrases and speech turns. In both sources, at the beginning, there are apologies to correspondents for the fact that, including due to the daughter's illness, the addressee did not respond for a long time; then it is emphasized that the time of D.A.'s death is not far from each other. Valueva and A. I. Turgeneva became a bitter and heavy loss for E. A. In both letters, Ekaterina Alexandrovna expresses concern about the future fate of N. I. Turgenev; a significant place in both letters is occupied by a description of the general physical and moral condition of A. I. Turgenev in the last months of his life (somewhat more than Melgunov's); Zhukovsky and Popov are informed about the burial place of Turgenev and the symbolic significance of Moscow in the life of the deceased; the final lines of both messages (as well as Melgunov's letters) are dedicated to the members of the Elaginsky family.

Conclusion

As a result of a comparative analysis of sources of personal origin undertaken in this article, we have argumentatively proved that the author of the "letter of an unknown person about the death of A. I. Turgenev" dated January 15, 1846, was Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Sverbeeva.

This can be seen not only from the general context of public life in Moscow in the 1830s and 1840s, which includes the relationship of A. I. Turgenev with the Sverbeev family, not only from the simple decoding of the initials "K. A. S.", but also from comparing the text of the letter or "postscript from K. A. S." with the texts presented in the same collection of letters N. A. Melgunova to V. A. Zhukovsky. It should be noted that the letter dated January 15, 1846, understandably has several similar plots with those reflected in Melgunov's messages, and in some moments the information reported by E. A. Sverbeeva, indeed, "correct and supplement" all three letters of Melgunov, which talk about the death of A. I. Turgenev:

—              Ekaterina Alexandrovna expresses concern about the fate of the papers left after A. I. Turgenev, which, in her opinion, as documents "precious to science" (here she differed in her assessment with N. A. Melgunov, who considered them "not of great importance"), should become the property of N. I. Turgenev;

—              Sverbeeva, like Melgunov, tells Zhukovsky about the state of mind of his old friend in the last months of his life: he was "in a hurry to live" and was embraced by "fussy insatiability", while not sending the poet a confessional letter, because he was afraid of "upsetting" a friend who, according to Turgenev, "does not recognize me";

— both messages end with information about the family members of Zhukovsky's niece A. P. Elagina, who recently visited Moscow.

In addition to the above, the authorship of E. A. Sverbeeva helps to establish a comparison of the "postscript from K. A. S." with Sverbeeva's letter to A. N. Popov (at the same time, a number of textual coincidences in both sources attract attention):

— the addressee in both cases apologizes to the addressee for not writing for a long time, including because of the daughter's illness (and the letter to Popov says this more specifically);

— both documents emphasize that the demise of the "good Turgenev", as well as the sudden death of D. A. Valueva, — a "great" and "heavy" loss, which is "sad to get used to";

— to both Zhukovsky and Popov, Sverbeeva admits that she is concerned about the difficult situation in which Nikolai Turgenev found himself after the death of his older brother;

— a lot of space in both letters is devoted to the story of Alexander Turgenev's well-being, the clarity of his statements, almost feverish activity, Turgenev's tender love for friends, for which they will remember him more than once;

—              Sverbeeva tells Zhukovsky and Popov where the "good Turgenev" is buried ("Turgenev's ashes rest in the Maiden Monastery"), emphasizing that the Mother See is a place of symbolic significance: Alexander Ivanovich "loved our Moscow and stayed in it", "he belongs to her";

— both Melgunov's letter and both of E. A.'s messages. Sverbeeva ended with news about A. P. 's relatives . Elagina.

Thus, the letter to V. A. Zhukovsky about the death of A. I. Turgenev dated January 15, 1846 occupies a special place among the responses to the death of Alexander Ivanovich because of its "beautiful sincerity" and "simple and faithful description [...] of the last time" of Turgenev's life in Moscow; it shows us A. I. Turgenev not only as an active participant in the cultural life of Moscow in the 1830s and 1840s, but also as a kind and sympathetic person who was sincerely loved by friends who belonged to different directions of public thought of the Nicholas era.

It should be especially noted that the question of attribution to Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Sverbeeva of the "sweet letter that deeply touched" V. A. Zhukovsky makes not only return to the plot about the relationship of A. I. Turgenev with the Sverbeev family, but also take a closer look at such a large, complex and interesting topic as the intellectual life of Moscow of the Nikolaev time, and also think about common problems of the methodology of source studies: possible ways to find the author of the document, the presence or absence of so-called habitual attributions, the boundaries of the comparative method in the analysis of epistolary sources.

Thanks

We consider it a pleasant duty to express our heartfelt gratitude to all those who helped us in the long-term development of the topic of this article: We are deeply grateful to A.V. Voznesenskaya, I. V. Grebenchenko, A. A. and K. A. Zhiltsov, E. O. Larionova, A.V. and V. V. Latonov, A. A. Levandovsky, M. V. Lenchinenko, V. A. Milchina, E. N. Mukhina and A. L. Ospovat for constant professional and/or friendly support, useful instructions according to the bibliography, valuable tips and important comments made at different stages of work on the article. We especially thank T. V. To Medvedev: for providing a number of archival documents that are important for our research, several useful theoretical comments, references to the latest literature and constant support.