Anna Chertkova
Anna Konstantinovna Chertkova (maiden name Diterikhs,[1][2] September 17 [29], 1859, Kiev, Russian Empire - October 11, 1927, Moscow, USSR) was a children's writer, social activist, folklore collector, memoirist, and a model of Russian group of painters known as The Itinerants (Peredvizhniki).[3] Her literary pseudonyms are "A. Ch." and "A. Ch-va".[4]
Anna Diterikhs was born into a family of professional military officers, married Vladimir Chertkov, an important publisher and public figure in the Russian government's opposition, was a close friend of Leo Tolstoy, and was known to her contemporaries as an active propagandist of Tolstoyan movement and vegetarianism. She worked actively in the publishing company "Posrednik" and in the popular magazines of her time "Svobodnoye slovo" and "Listki svobodnogo slova". Anna Chertkova wrote small literary works (one of them was republished 12 times in 24 years), memoirs about Leo Tolstoy and literary articles. She published several editions of religious songs of Russian sect's members.
Anna Chertkova was portrayed by Nikolai Yaroshenko in the famous paintings "Cursist" (1883) and "In Warm Lands" (1890). Chertkova is also depicted on Mikhail Nesterov's programmatic canvas "In Russia. The Soul of the People" (1916), next to her husband and Leo Tolstoy.[3]
Biography
Anna Diterikhs was born in Kiev in the family of a professional military man (then a General of the Infantry, Konstantin Alexandrovich Diterikhs (1823-1899), who had served to the rank of full general. During the Caucasian War, Leo Tolstoy met Diterikhs and used his "Notes on the Caucasian War" to write "Hadji Murat". Anna's mother was the aristocrat Olga Iosifovna Musnitskaya (1840-1893).[5] Anna was the eldest daughter and second child of the family. In the early 1860s, Anna's family lived on the Volga River in a two-story wooden house with a mezzanine and a front garden in the town of Dubovka. She later described in her childhood memoirs her strong impression of the fires that took place there in 1861-1862 and her fear of the arsonists, who were never discovered. The girl preferred to walk barefoot and did not pay much attention to clothes, especially bright colors. Later she remembered that as a child she wanted to be a boy. Among the most pleasant impressions of her childhood, she emphasized music and especially singing. According to Diterikhs, music "hypnotized" her. In the family, the girl was called Galya, not Anna, according to the order introduced by her maternal grandfather, General Osip Musnitsky, according to her memoirs, half-Polish, half-Lithuanian.[6] Her mother was a deeply religious person, a firm supporter of Orthodoxy, while her father, who lived for a long time in the Caucasus, was interested in Islam as well as Christian sects: the studies of the Molokans and Dukhobors.[7]
References
- ^ Черткова А. К. Из автобиографии // Книга. Исследования и материалы. — М.: Книга, 1979. — Т. XXIX. — P. 161.
- ^ Эльзон М. Д. [Публикация] Автобиографии и биографии деятелей книги в собрании С. А. Венгерова // Книга. Исследования и материалы. — М.: Книга, 1979. — Т. XXIX. — P. 150—161.
- ^ a b Пащенко М. В. Чертков Владимир Григорьевич. Жена Черткова // Русские писатели, 1800—1917. Биографический словарь в семи томах. Главный редактор Б. Ф. Егоров. — М.: Научное издательство «Большая Российская энциклопедия», издательство «Нестор-История», 2019. — Т. 6. С—Ч. — P. 643.
- ^ Анна Константиновна Черткова (1859—1927). Писательницы России (материалы для биобиблиографического словаря). Составитель Ю. А. Горбунов. 26 January 2021.
- ^ Ореханов Г. В. Г. Чертков в жизни Л. Н. Толстого. — М.: ПСТГУ, 2015. — P. 32, 176.
- ^ Черткова А. К. Из моего детства. Воспоминания А. К. Чертковой. — Товарищество И. Н. Кушнерев и К, 1911. — Т. LII. — P. 6—14, 33—36, 82—85, 90.
- ^ Ореханов Г. В. Г. Чертков в жизни Л. Н. Толстого. — М.: ПСТГУ, 2015. — P. 32.