Evgenia Tur | |
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Portrait by Pimen Orlov
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Born |
Moscow, Russia |
August 24, 1815
Died | March 27, 1892 Warsaw, Poland |
(aged 76)
Genre | fiction, criticism, journalism |
Notable works |
The Shalonski Family Antonina |
Evgenia Tur (Russian: Евге́ния Тур) (August 24, 1815 – March 27, 1892) was a Russian writer, critic, journalist and publisher. Her birth name was Elizaveta Vasilyevna Sukhovo-Kobylina. Her full married name was Countess Elizaveta Vasilyevna Salias De Tournemire. The novelist Evgeny Salias De Tournemire was her son. The playwright Aleksandr Sukhovo-Kobylin was her brother. Her sister, Sofia, was a painter of some note
Elizaveta was born in Moscow into a noble family. Her father was Vasily Sukhovo-Kobylin (1782–1873), a veteran of the Napoleonic wars, and Marshal of the Nobility for the Podolsk district, Moscow province. Her mother was Maria Ivanovna Sukhovo-Kobylina, née Shepeleva (1789–1862).
Elizaveta received a good education at home. Her teachers were various professors from Moscow University.
As a young woman she had a romantic relationship with a man of lower social status named Nikolay Ivanovich Nadezhdin. They wanted to get married but Elizaveta's parents sharply opposed her marriage, seeing Nikolay as being unworthy of their daughter's hand. Elizaveta and Nikolay wanted to get married secretly, but their plan failed. Elizaveta was soon taken abroad by her parents.
In 1838, in France, Elizaveta married Count Andrey Salias de Tournemire, a nobleman from a very old French family, dating back to the year 1264. Soon the young countess and her husband returned to Russia and settled in Moscow.
In 1846, Andrey was expelled from Russia for participating in a duel. He went alone, virtually abandoning his wife and three children.
After the departure of her husband, Elizaveta began to lead an emancipated life. She became interested in literature, and arranged a literary salon that was considered one of the best in Moscow at that time. The salon was frequented by many popular writers and literary figures including Ivan Turgenev, Alexander Levitov, Vasily Sleptsov, Nikolai Leskov, Konstantin Leontiev, Nikolay Ogarev and others.