Prince of Princes -The Life of Potemkin [Simon Sebag Montefiore] (fb2) читать постранично, страница - 3
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History Museum, photo by Sergei Bereninich, photo author's collection Princess Ekaterina Dolgorukaya by Johann Baptist von Lampi (1751-1830), Portraits Russes by Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich, picture courtesy of the British Library
Countess Sophia Potocka by Johann Baptist von Lampi (1751-1830), Portraits Russes by Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich, picture courtesy of the British Library
Prince Platon Zubov by Johann Baptist von Lampi (1751-1830), Weidenfeld &
Nicolson picture collection Potemkin's death, 1791, Odessa State Local History Museum, photo by Sergei
Bereninich, photo author's collection Potemkin's funeral, Weidenfeld & Nicolson picture collection
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Over several years and thousands of miles, I have been helped by many people, from the peasant couple who keep bees on the site of Potemkin's birthplace near Smolensk to professors, archivists and curators from Petersburg, Moscow and Paris to Warsaw, Odessa and Iasi in Rumania.
I owe my greatest debts to three remarkable scholars. The inspiration for this book came from Isabel de Madariaga, Professor Emeritus of Slavonic Studies at the University of London and the doyen of Catherinian history in the West. Her seminal work Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great changed the study of Catherine. She also appreciated the remarkable character of Potemkin and his relationship with the Empress, and declared that he needed a biographer. She has helped with ideas, suggestions and advice throughout the project. Above all, I must thank her for editing and correcting this book during sessions which she conducted with the amused authority and intellectual rigour of the Empress herself, whom she resembles in many ways. It was always I who was exhausted at the end of these sessions, not she. I lay any wisdom in this work at her feet; the follies are mine alone. I am glad that I was able to lay a wreath on her behalf on Potemkin's neglected grave in Kherson.
I must also thank Alexander B. Kamenskii, Professor of Early & Early- Modern Russian History at Moscow's Russian State University for the Humanities, and respected authority on Catherine, without whose wisdom, charm and practical help, this could not have been written. I am deeply grateful to V. S. Lopatin, whose knowledge of the archives is without parallel and who was so generous with that knowledge: Lopatin and his wife Natasha have been so hospitable during Muscovite stays. He too has read the book and given me the benefit of his comments.
I must also thank Professor J. T. Alexander for answering my questions and Professor Evgeny Anisimov, who was so helpful during my time in Petersburg. The advice of George F. Jewsbury on Potemkin's military performance was most enlightening. Thanks to Professor Derek Beales, who helped greatly with Josephist matters especially the mystery of the Circassian slavegirls. I should mention that he and Professor Tim Blanning, both of Sidney Sussex, Cambridge, were the supervisors whose compelling teaching of Enlightened Despotism, while I was an undergraduate, laid the foundations for this book. I want to stress my debt too to three recent works that I have used widely - Lopatin's Ekaterina i Potemkin Lichnaya Perepiska, the aforementioned book by Isabel de Madariaga, and J. T. Alexander's Catherine the Great.
*
I would like the thank the following without whom this could not have been written: His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, for his kind help in connection with his work for the restoration of St Petersburg and the Pushkin Bicentenary. Sergei Degtiarev-Foster, that champion of Russian history who made many things possible from Moscow to Odessa, and Ion Florescu who made the Rumanian-Moldovian expedition such a success. Thanks also to Lord Rothschild, Professor Mikhail Piotrovsky and Geraldine Norman, chairman, president and director of Hermitage Development Trust, who are creating the permanent exhibition of Catherine the Great's treasures, including the famous Lampi portrait of Potemkin, at Somerset House in London.
I owe a debt to Lord Brabourne for reading the entire book and, for reading parts of it, to Dr Amanda Foreman, Flora Fraser, and especially to Andrew Roberts for his detailed advice and encouragement. William Hanham read the sections on art, Professor John Klier read the Jewish sections, and Adam Zamoyski read those on Poland.
In Moscow, I thank the Directors and staff of the RGADA and RGVIA archives; Natasha Bolotina, with her special knowledge on Potemkin, her mother Svetlana Romanovna, Igor Fedyukin, Dmitri Feldman, and Julia Tourchaninova and Ernst Goussinski, Professors of Education, all helped immensely. Galina Moiseenko, one of the brightest scholars of the History Department of the Russian State Humanities University, was excellent at selecting and finding documents and her historical analysis and precision were flawless.
Thanks to the following. In St Petersburg, I thank my friend Professor Zoia Belyakova, who made everything possible, and Dr Sergei Kuznetzov, Head of Historical Research of the Stroganov Palace Department of the State Russian Museum, and the staff of the RGIA. I am grateful to Professor Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage Museum (again), to Vladimir Gesev, Director of the Russian State Museum of the Mikhailovsky Palace; Liudmilla Kurenkova, Assistant to the Director of the Russian State Museum, A. N. Gusanov of the Pavlovsk Palace State Museum; Dr Elana V. Karpova, Head of the XVIII-early XXth Century Sculpture Department of the State Russian Museum, Maria P. Garnova of the Hermitage's Western Europe Department, and G. Komelova, also of the Hermitage. Ina Lokotnikova showed me the Anichkov Palace and L. I. Diyachenko was kind enough to give me a private tour, using her exhaustive knowledge, of the Taurida Palace. Thanks to Leonid Bogdanov for taking the cover-photograph of Potemkin.
In Smolensk: Anastasia Tikhonova, Researcher for the Smolensk Historical
acknowledgements xv
Museum, Elena Samolubova, and Vladimir Golitchev, Deputy Head of the Smolensk Regional Department of Education, responsible for Science. In Chizhova, the schoolteacher and expert on local folklore, Victor Zheludov and fellow staff at the school in Petrishchevo, the village nearest to Chizhova, with thanks for the Potemkin feast they kindly laid on.
For the south Ukrainian journey, I thank Vitaly Sergeychik of the UKMAR shipping company and Misha Sherokov. In Odessa: Natalia Kotova, Professor Semyon J. Apartov, Professor of International Studies, Odessa State University. At the Odessa Regional Museum of History - Leonila A. Leschinskaya, Director, Vera V. Solodova, Vice-Director, and, especially, to the knowledgeable, charming master of the archives themselves, Adolf Nikolaevich Malikh, chief of the Felikieteriya section, who helped me so much. The Director of the Odessa Museum of Merchant Fleet of the Ukraine, Peter P. Klishevsky and the photographer there, Sergei D. Bereninich. In Ochakov: the Mayor, Yury M. Ishenko. In Kherson: Father Anatoly of St Catherine's Church. At Dniepropetrovsk: Olga Pitsik, and the staffs of the museums in Nikolaev and Simpferopol; Anastas Victorevich of the Sabastopol Naval Museum. But above all, at the Alupka Palace, Anna Abramovna Galitchenko, author of Alupka A Palace inside a Park, proved a font of knowledge.
In Rumania, thanks to Professor Razvan Magureanu, Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, and loan Vorobet who drove us to Iasi, guarded us and made it possible to enter Moldova. In Iasi: Professor Fanica Ungureanu, authority on the Golia Monastery, and Alexander Ungureanu, Professor of Geography at Iasi University, without whose help I would never have found the site of Potemkin's death. In Warsaw, Poland: Peter Martyn and Arkadiusz Bautz-Bentkowski and the AGAD staff. In Paris: the staff of AAE in the Quai d'Orsay. Karen Blank researched and translated German texts. Imanol Galfarsoro translated the Miranda diary from Spanish. In Telavi, Georgia: Levan Gachechiladze, who introduced me to Lida Potemkina.
In Britain, I have many to thank for things great and small: my agent Georgina Capel, the Chairman of Orion, Anthony Cheetham, the Publisher of Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Ion Trewin, and Lord and Lady Weidenfeld. Thanks to John Gilkes for creating the maps. Great thanks
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