Zenaǐde Wolkonsky

Princess Zinaida Aleksandrovna Volkonskaya (Зинаида Александровна Волконская; 14 December 1792 – 24 January 1862), was a Russian writer, poet, singer, composer, salonist and lady in waiting.

She was an important figure in 19th-century Russian cultural life. As an amateur opera singer, she performed in Paris and London.

She was born in Turin in the family of a Russian ambassador, Prince Alexander Beloselsky-Belozersky, and descended in the male line from the medieval rulers of White Lake City. Her mother was a Tatischev, also of Rurikid ancestry.

Zinaida was lady-in-waiting to Queen Louise of Prussia in 1808 and was close to Emperor Alexander I of Russia, who became her lifelong correspondent and, possibly, lover. To stem gossip, Zinaida married Alexander's aide-de-camp, Prince Nikita Volkonsky, in 1810. They were prominent during the Congresses of Vienna and Verona.

She moved to Russia in 1817, and to Moscow in 1822. In the 1820s the "Corinna of the North" hosted a literary and musical salon on Tverskaya Street in Moscow, in a mansion later rebuilt into the Yeliseyev food store. Adam Mickiewicz, Yevgeny Baratynsky, Dmitry Venevitinov, and Alexander Pushkin frequented her house. Pushkin's verse epistle to her, "The queen of music and beauty", is well known.

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