Natalya Pushkina

Natalia Nikolayevna Pushkina-Lanskaya (Russian: Наталья Николаевна Пушкина-Ланская, 8 September 1812 – 26 November 1863) (née Natalia Nikolayevna Goncharova) (Гончарова) was the wife of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin from 1831 until his death in 1837 in a duel with Georges d'Anthès. Natalia was married to Major-General Petr Petrovich Lanskoy from 1844 until her death in 1863.

Natalia (Natalya) Goncharova was born on 8 September 1812 (27 August 1812 Old Style) in Karian village in Tambov Governorate (in present-day Znamensky District, Tambov Oblast), where her family lived during the occupation of Moscow by the forces of Napoleon. Her father, Nikolay Afanasievich Goncharov, a scion of the family of paper manufacturers from Kaluga, was pronounced demented in 1815; the household was managed by his wife, Natalia Ivanovna Zagriajskaya, an imperious lady with connections within Muscovite nobility. Her ancestors included Petro Doroshenko, Hetman of Ukrainian Cossacks.

Natalie (as she was familiarly known) met Alexander Pushkin at the age of 16, when she was one of the most talked-about beauties of Moscow.

After many hesitations, Natalia eventually accepted a proposal of marriage from Pushkin in April 1830, but not until she had received assurances that the tsarist government did not intend to persecute the libertarian poet. They were officially engaged on 6 May 1830, and sent out wedding invitations. Because of the outbreak of cholera and other circumstances, the wedding was delayed for a year. The ceremony took place on 18 February (Old Style) or 2 March (New Style) 1831 in the Great Ascension Church on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street in Moscow.

During the six years of their marriage, Natalia Pushkina gave birth to four children: Maria (b. 1832, suggested as a prototype of Anna Karenina), Alexander (b. 1833), Grigory (b. 1835), and Natalia (b. 1836) (who married into the royal House of Nassau-Weilburg to Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau and became Countess of Merenberg). As the family lived in the country for prolonged periods, while Pushkin spent most of his time in the capitals, there was a sizeable correspondence between Natalia and Pushkin. Seventy-eight letters from Pushkin to Natalia remain; they are frequently written in a light-hearted tone with touches of ribaldry, but none of them could be called love letters. It is believed that the poet dedicated several poems to her, including "Madonna" (1830). Natalya's correspondence with Pushkin was lost except for one letter, written together with her mother Natalia Ivanovna.

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