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Ice house of Empress Anna Ioannovna. Anna Ioannovna's Ice House Anna Ioannovna's Ice House

PART ONE

Chapter I
Review

What a mixture of clothes and faces,
Tribes, dialects, states!

Pushkin "The Robber Brothers".

With a pensive head drooping,
It's time to spring it with love, longing
I rushed in front of him,
The eyes of beauties are languid,

And songs, and feasts, and fiery nights.
Everything came to life together; and my heart raced
Farther...

Pushkin "Andrei Chenier"

My God! What kind of noise, what kind of fun in the courtyard of the Cabinet Minister and Chief Jägermeister Volynsky? Sometimes, with Peter the Great of blessed memory, they would not have asked such a question, because fun was not considered a curiosity. The king was terrible only for vice, and even then he did not remember evil for a long time. Then at court and among the people they amused themselves without looking back. And now, even though we are only on the fourth day of Christmastide (note, 1739), now all of St. Petersburg is silent in the silence of the cells, where those condemned to seclusion read their prayers in a whisper. After not asking, what kind of revelry is this in one of Volynsky’s houses?

As soon as the bells sounded silent, announcing the end of the mass, all the pilgrims, one by one, many in twos, go home, silently, with their heads bowed. They don’t dare talk on the streets: now an eavesdropper will swoop in, translate the conversation in his own way, add, subtract, and, lo and behold, the interlocutors go to the police, from there and beyond, to catch sables or to the school of a backsmith. Here, we said, people are coming home from churches, sad, boring, as if from a funeral; and in one corner of St. Petersburg they are amusing themselves wide open and making noise to the point that it is cracking in the ears. The motley crowd in the courtyard boils and shimmers. What clothes and adverbs are missing here? Of course, all the peoples living in Russia sent several of their representatives here. Chu! Yes, here is a Belarusian diligently blowing his bagpipes, a Jew warming up his cymbals with a bow, a Cossack plucking a kobza; So they dance and sing, despite the fact that the frost takes their breath away and numbs their fingers. The terrible bear, walking on a leash around the post and digging up snow out of frustration, echoes the musicians with its roar. A real Sabbath of Satan!

Orthodox Christians walking past this demonic fun, spit and cross yourself! But we, sinners, will enter Volynsky’s courtyard, fight our way through the crowd and find out in the house itself the reason for such a riotous confusion of languages.

- Mordovians! Chukhons! Tatars! Kamchadals! and so on... - a great, great, or, better said, superior someone calls out from the crowd, one by one, from the crowd. This someone, whose height could be shown at Maslenitsa in a booth, is His Excellency’s guide. He settled down in the entryway, dancing involuntarily to the pinch of frost and often blowing into his fingers a song of curses against all the master's undertakings. The giant's voice is like the sound of a sea trumpet; in response to his call, the required couple appears in order with trepidation. Away with her sheepskin coats, and her nationality is shown in all its beauty. Here, not too politely, he wipes with the cloth of his sleeve another’s cheek or nose, which has turned white from the frost, and, having shaken off each one, hands it over to two walkers. These await their victims on the first step of the stairs, placing their silver maces against the stone, patterned railings. Light as Mercury, they pick up the couple and either rush up the stairs with them, so that you can barely keep up with the beautiful panache blowing on their heads, and the shiny sheen of their silk stockings, or with kicks they show the way to their clumsy followers. Speaking about fast walkers, I cannot help but recall the words of my nanny, who once, when talking about golden antiquity, expressed regret that the fashion for human runners was replaced by the fashion for trotters and pacers. “These walkers were truly a miracle,” said the old woman, “they did not experience shortness of breath, because their lungs were poisoned by potions. And the clothes, the clothes, my child, were all burning like heat; on the head is a cap embroidered with gold, as if with wings; in his hand is a magic cane with a silver knob: he waves it once, twice, and the mile is gone!” But I started talking to the old woman. Let's return to the upper canopy of Volynsky. Here the marshal looks at the couple like a short-sighted small seal, straightens it, with two fingers he lightly removes a fluff, a snowflake, in a word, everything that is superfluous in the master’s chambers, and, finally, proclaims henchmen from different nations. The door is wide open, and his exclamation is repeated in the hall. My God! look again. Will there be an end? Now. Here the castellan and the wardrobemaid, having looked at the couple thoroughly and explaining to her in words and movements what she should do, leads her into the next room. A phalanx of servants, powdered, in livery caftans, in striped silk stockings, in shoes with huge buckles, gives her a place. And here is a poor couple, transported by a magic wand of a mighty whim from the wilderness of Russia, from the gods and their family, from a hut or yurt, to St. Petersburg, into a circle of one and a half hundred couples, of which one is missing, completely similar in clothing and hardly in language; transported to the new world through various kinds of ordeals, not knowing why all this is being done, tortured, distraught, she finally appears in the nobleman’s hall before his court.

A couple enters the stairs, another couple descends, and in this incessant ebb and flow of the tide, a rare wave, stubbornly rearing up, resists for a moment the force of the wind that propels it; in this herd, which is driven by the scourge of whim, rarely does anyone discover a person in themselves.

It would be something for our contemporaries to marvel at in the nobleman’s hall! Deep windows, like a camera obscura, decorated with intricate bas-reliefs of different colors, columns on the walls, entwined with vines, huge stoves made of colorful tiles, with Chinese paintings and columns, with vases, with porcelain shepherdesses that look like marquises, and awnings that look like shepherds, with Chinese dolls, patterned plasterwork on the ceiling and in the middle of it huge glass chandeliers, in which the edges are played out with extraordinary brilliance: we could admire all this. Poor savages do not know where to stand so as not to step on their own figure, reflected in the polished piece floor. It’s funny to see how our simple-minded ancestors, entering the hall of a nobleman, mistook paintings in golden frames for icons and piously made the sign of the cross in front of them.

In the middle of the hall, in rich armchairs, sits a stately man of attractive appearance, wearing a silk light purple caftan of French cut. This is the owner of the house, Artemy Petrovich Volynskoy. He is known at court and among the people as one of the most handsome men. In appearance, he can be considered to be in his early thirties, although he is much older. The fire of his black eyes is so powerful that the one on whom he fixes them involuntarily lowers his own. Even married, lively women are embarrassed by them; Mothers, releasing them with the sign of the cross to the kurtags, strictly warn pretty girls to beware of Volynsky’s eyes more than fire, from which, they say, more than one of their sisters died.

From behind the high back of the chairs, a black, shiny head is visible, wrapped in a snow-white turban, as if to give even more dignity to its rare blackness. One could consider it to be the head of a doll, so motionless it is, if the Arab’s face did not pour out a sublimely kind soul and his eyes did not sparkle with either indignation or pity at the sight of the suffering or captivity of his neighbor.

A few steps from Volynsky, on his right side, sits at a desk a little man who could easily be hidden in a bear’s muff. His face is pulled into a fist, like that of an old monkey; It also shows the cunning of this kind of animal. He is tight-fisted in his movements, compliant or evasive in his speeches, his eyes and ears are always on guard. Not a single serviceable guardhouse manages to salute so quickly as he is ready for all the answers. This is a small scribble, learned, sophisticated and ugly, like a hieroglyph, - the secretary of the cabinet minister, Zuda. He writes down the names and nicknames of the persons appearing at the review, comments flying to him from the heights of his chairs, and his own. What Volynskoy does not say, he adds.

In the distance, almost at the front door, stands a young man. In terms of clothing, he is neither a soldier nor an officer, although he is in uniform; His appearance, vulgar, branded from head to toe with the stamps of the lowest slave, you would not agree to take for all the riches of the world. What's missing from it? And stupidity, and depravity, and baseness. One lead nose is a sufficient explanation of the feats accomplished by its owner, and an indicator of the path along which he walks. This is Ferapont Podachkin, freed from Volynsky and serving as a bailiff. He was tasked with delivering to St. Petersburg from Tver one hundred mixed-tribal couples collected there from different places in Russia - delivering them alive and unsullied by frost. By what protection did he receive such an important post? His mother is a noble lady in the house of the cabinet minister. She dreamed and saw to make her son an officer, that is, into such people who can have their own people: the highest degree of ambition of this class and education of women! Volynskaya, although an intelligent and noble man, had the weakness not to refuse Podachkina’s request, remembering the old merits of her husband, his former uncle: for the correct, honest and diligent performance of the work entrusted to Ferapont, he was promised the first officer rank. And then, who knows what height he would have climbed, having opened the gates to the temple of honors with a fourteenth-class key! It should be noted that at that time there was no need for a certificate for the rank of collegiate assessor - oh, oh! This is already a certificate! And now Ferapont, according to Father Avksentievich, is already close to his goal. One more step, one lordly thank you - and your new honor in Russia. His fate must be decided at today's review: either noble dignity, or sticks on his back. He now hung his head unusually low - a sign that his spirit was alarmed and he expected adversity for some failure or blunder.

Compare the white face of the candidate for nobility and the black face of the slave: it seems that they have exchanged their appointments. Where is the mother of this terrible ambitious man? – Do you see to the right, at the door of the buffet, this Queen of Spades, this mummy, tied with a dark brown scarf, in a jacket and undershirt of the same color? She is motionless with her body, elongated like a pole, although her head is shaking, probably from the use of strong rubbing in long-gone times; her wrinkled hands, running a quarter away from her sleeves, are folded crosswise, like those of a dead person; For centuries she has been clapping and blinking incessantly, and if she stops them, it is in order to look at her creation, at her treasure, at her glory. Please note carefully: this is she, the dearest parent of the precious child.

We have already said that Podachkina (by name and patronymic Akulina Savvishna) is a noble lady. This title in the old days was very important: the wives of an honored valet, butler, uncle, and similar honorary servant were usually elected to it. She was present at her mistress's dressing, was in charge of her wardrobe, served as her household newspaper, often as a reporter on the secret affairs of her husband's half, and played a mediating role in her courtyard between rulers and servants. Note that she is a lady, but only a lordly one!.. Only the feudal arrogance of our nobles of that time could have come up with this title. Subsequently, the minor nobles also adopted such an official. Even now, in the wilderness of the steppe, the name of the noble lady sometimes sounds, but it has already lost its strong meaning.

Not a single jester, not a single fool or fool in the hall! From this we can judge that Volynskoy, boldly disregarding the customs of his time, was ahead of him.

-What do you think, Zuda? - said the cabinet minister, turning with noticeable pleasure to his secretary, - we will give a glorious and funny holiday to the empress!

“That’s all they talk about in St. Petersburg,” answered the secretary, standing up a little from his chair. “I think that he will be a hundred-thousand-year-old rumor for a long time and will grab several pages in history.

The Cabinet Minister signaled with his head for the secretary to sit down and continued, grinning:

“Will our Mr. Tredyakovsky deign to preserve it in his verses...

– Which everyone is shouting about so much.

- Because no one understands them.

“It is known, however, that your Excellency has for some time become the most zealous admirers of our Phoebus and very often deign to draw from his hiding place.

– You mean, from the time the dear Moldavian princess began to learn Russian. Yes, the former pompous schoolboy Tredyakovsky, now Vasily Kirillovich, in my eyes is a great, unappreciated person; I would shower him with gold: wasn’t he the one who taught Marioritsa the first word she said in Russian?.. And if you knew what word!.. It contains the eloquence of all your Demosthenes and Ciceroes, all the poetry of the chosen brother of Apollo . Vasily Kirillovich will certainly be named professor of eloquence for him! I promised him this and I will stand by my word.

Volynsky spoke with particular fervor; only the words: Moldavian princess, Marioritsa, he tried to pronounce so quietly that it seemed to him that only the secretary heard them. This one, noticing that the face of the noble lady, who had perhaps caught several ambiguous words on the fly, filled the cat with joy, tried to turn the conversation to something else.

“I hear that Mr. Tredyakovsky,” he said, “is really going to describe in detail, in several volumes, the holiday that you have been entrusted with organizing.”

“You and I, my dear, will reach out to the offspring in the line of buffoons.” Enviable glory!.. Our grandchildren will burst out laughing, and maybe even shrug their shoulders, reading in a pompous style that the cabinet minister was engaged in a clownish holiday with the same attention and fear as if it were about the structure of the state.

“Aren’t you doing something useful by consoling the sick mistress of the north, who favors you so much?”

- For one Courlander... Look, he will start some kind of celebrations, games, all under the guise of unlimited devotion to the empress; but just to keep me occupied and between actions to play my tricks more cleverly...

The gentlewoman again made a slight grimace; Her son craned his neck and tried to catch something in Volynsky’s words, but, lacking God’s gift, remained in his bewilderment, like a stupid puppy trying to catch a nimble fly in flight, but only clicking his teeth. Zuda hurried to lean towards his boss and whispered to him:

- Look around! you have forgotten the lessons of Machiavell...

The last word seemed to be a conditional password between the cabinet minister and the secretary. The first fell silent; another concentrated his remarks on those who came, whose variety of clothes, faces and dialects was so entertaining that they could really captivate any whimsical attention.

Here is a stately, beautiful girl from Torzhok, with a pearl crown, like a severed sugar loaf; it is lightly covered with a scarf made of the finest muslin, the ends of which, tied around the neck, are hidden on the chest. On the forehead, like three clusters of grapes, fall strands of large pearls, shimmering their milky pink whiteness over lightly outlined brown hair; a skillfully braided braid, the luxury of a Russian maiden, with a shiny bow and a ribbon of gold bat, almost touches the ground. The girl deftly threw her brocade sheepskin coat over her shoulders, from which the left sleeve, in local fashion, hangs carelessly; from under it appears a round mirror, an integral part of Novotorzh beauty. Her rich ferezia burns like heat. She walks lightly in colored morocco slippers embroidered with gold. Next to her is her chichisbey - are you laughing? Yes, chichisbey: woe to the girl there if she doesn’t have it! This is a sign that she is very bad: her mother will drive her out of the world, her friends will laugh. Once chosen, he is inseparable from her on evening and night walks. What a fine fellow! Prowess boils in his eyes: but he is reputed to be the first fist fighter in the massacre of Novotorzh. Behind them is a portly Mordovian woman in a shirt dotted with red wool along the shoulders, sleeves and hem, as if it were covered in blood; her chest is weighed down with silver coins of various sizes in several rows; in her ears there is a ball of swan fluff, and under it coins jingle, like plaques on a horse’s bridle. Here is a human face, painted with white and rouge, with arched eyebrows, under a huge kokoshnik in the shape of a shovel, embroidered with pearls, emeralds and yachts. This face is worn by a forty-bucket barrel in a damask sundress with gold pins; puffy sleeves made of the finest cambric inspire her. Blue woolen stockings show off her plump legs, and her high-heeled mules betray her cautious gait. I recommend my fellow countrywoman, Kolomna pastilnitsa. Next, the pretty, slender Cossack woman behaves in such a way that she seems to want to tap her national dance with copper horseshoes. So the Kalmyk opens his mole eyes to look at Russian wonders; with him all his life is a quiver of arrows and his gods, which he can execute and reward from his own hands. Here... But you can’t count all the interesting faces on stage.

Couples came and went alternately, we said. The manager of the holiday, with the attention of a milliner, examined the clothes (note) of beautiful women, no matter what tribe they were, and even invited some of them to stay in the hall to warm up. The affectionate attention of a noble gentleman, whom our great-grandfathers revered as a demigod, and a handsome gentleman at that, lit a friendly fire in the eyes of Russian girls and, as the old ladies of that time would have said, bewitched them to him. Several more couples flashed by. Suddenly the owner of the house thought deeply. His head dropped to his chest; long black hair fell in disarray on the beautiful, flushed face and formed a thick network over it; thoughts began to crowd in his eyes; Finally, a cloud of sadness overshadowed them. He was in this position for a long time. None of the family was surprised at this, for such an attack had recently happened to him quite often, even at friendly feasts and court kurtags; whether it was really a painful attack, or a whim of a nobleman, or an urgent tribute to some kind of premonition, we cannot say. Everyone in the hall was silent, afraid to move; It seemed that everyone turned to stone in an instant, like the inhabitants of Pompeii under the lava that rushed towards them. Where were Volynsky’s thoughts then? Where did he go? Didn’t he play carefree on his native ashes among his childhood comrades; didn’t he smash the drained cup to the ground at a feast, entrusting his soul forever to the friend of one evening; did he accept a playful, smiling child from the hands of his dear wife, or, like a thief, in the wilderness of the night, under the club of a jealous husband, did he intercept from the lips of a beauty a kiss, red-hot with raging delights? Why not also believe that he sat in the Cabinet, where he hurled thunders of eloquence at slander and oppression, or in a friendly circle plotted the fall of a temporary worker? Who knows, maybe he looked menacingly into the eyes of the executioner when he raised the ax at him! Where Volynsky’s thoughts were then is unknown to us; but, judging by his character, they could be wherever we gave them a place. In his soul, good and bad passions, violent and noble, reigned alternately; everything in him was unstable, except honor and love for the fatherland.

Married for eight years to a pretty, sweet woman, he meanwhile sought, wherever he could, love adventures, which he was a great skill at turning to his advantage. However, nothing violated the couple’s agreement. Volynsky’s heart did not know constant passion, and after a momentary frivolity, he always returned as a fiery lover to the feet of his wife. He was able to better appreciate her mental and external merits after comparison with other objects of his red tape. They also said, or he said, that his wife seemed to look rather coolly at his pranks. He did not have children, but always wanted them. While caressing strangers, he forgot that they were not his, and this love for children, combined with the thought that fate had refused him to be a father, sometimes made him especially sad. For some time, his wife was visiting her relatives in Moscow, where she fell dangerously ill. There were even rumors that she had died. Perhaps Volynsky himself tried to confirm them. During this separation, the noble lady compiled a decent journal of his mischief to present to her mistress; One new number in particular, due to its extraordinary importance, required a lot of work to clean.

But he was a flighty man in matters of the heart and in matters of state, and if the impulses of his fiery soul had not sometimes destroyed the creations of his mind, then Russia would have had in him one of its best ministers. He tried to develop his natural gifts by reading the best foreign writers, especially political ones, for the translation of which he kept Zuda, a scholar, cunning, cautious, who served as his secretary and translator, mentor and confidant. Loving his fatherland above all else, he watched with great indignation as Biron slashed him with his whip, and looked for an opportunity, revealing everything to the empress, to snatch the instruments of execution from the hands to which she had entrusted only the helm of her state. At a time when the servile mob fell before the common idol and kissed the cold platform of the temple, spattered with the blood of the victims; when the iron level was constantly being leveled over Russia, only Volynsky, with his friends, did not bow his noble brow before him. His exalted character was given by this courage and the need for him on state affairs and the merciful attention to him of the empress, who knew his devotion to her and love for the fatherland. It was difficult to dissuade the empress from this. Biron, seeking the opportunity to destroy his rival, not only did not show that he was offended by his pride, but, on the contrary, seemed especially attentive to him and, in any case, tried to turn Her Majesty’s favors on him. However, both measured each other in order to drop it more accurately and deftly. One of them was bound to fall.

We left the thread of our story in Volynsky's hall when he became lost in thought. These minutes sunk into eternity - he perked up, raised his head, put his black curls behind his ears and looked around. A gypsy and a gypsy stood in front of him. The latter, a beauty in the full sense of the word, but a beauty already faded, examined the nobleman from head to toe with eagle-like insight. She seemed to admire him. If we were asked what she thought then, we would have said: she wanted such a brave man for her daughter! Can you believe it? - the cabinet minister was ashamed that he was caught in his fit by the gaze of the gypsy, fixed intently on him! However, it was like this: he was embarrassed, as if struck by something.

“A wonderful play of nature!” he exclaimed, finally turning to Zuda. - Do you notice?

“I saw it... only three times... and I was struck by the unusual similarity,” answered the secretary, narrowing his eyes slyly.

During this negotiation, some kind of confusion shimmered on the gypsy’s face; however, having defeated him, she, with her bold gaze, went to meet the inquisitive gaze of the cabinet minister and his secretary.

- What is your name? – Volynsky asked her.

“Mariuloy,” she answered.

– Even the name!.. Wonderful!.. Do you know, Mariula, that your face is the happiest?

“It is also talented because your honor has fallen in love with it.”

- Stay here; I'll talk to you again.

The gypsy thanked him, putting her hand to her heart and bending down a little, then stood behind the nobleman’s chairs, at some distance.

A Little Russian woman appeared, alone.

- Where are her couple? – was Artemy Petrovich’s menacing question. - Hey, Podachkin! I'm asking you.

At this question, Podachkin’s leaden nose turned white; His mother shook her shoulders unusually and shook her head, like a puppet that had been pulled strongly by a spring. This question raised all the evil spirits from the bottom of their souls.

The ruling bailiff took a few steps forward and, hesitatingly, answered:

- This is a drunkard, Your Excellency, despicable, and angry, and stubborn, Your Excellency...

- So what? couldn't you calm him down?

- On the way, I tried to persuade him. Yes, near St. Petersburg he began to snap at me, Your Excellency, we were already afraid that he would bite. Remembering the duty of the oath and the exact meaning of the instructions given to me, I hastened to put the stocks on him.

- You're lying! you have been given instructions to treat the people you are entrusted with as best as possible: this was the empress’s own will.

“I swear to God, Your Excellency, that I’ll go to hell, the pads are very light, and if you allow me, I’ll walk a whole mile in them without breaking a sweat.” And he rode in them, and even in a covered wagon!

-Where has he gone now?

“The stocks were knocked off him when they brought him here for inspection, and he somehow disappeared...

- Slacker! I know everything... I just wanted to test you... you are selling me to your favorite... Hm! people are sold off like a filthy cat!.. people disappear in broad daylight! But I will find it, even if it’s dead... even if I tear out the remains from the wolf’s mouth!.. It’s time, it’s time for the wolf to go to the kennel!

- Savvishna! - Volynsky added menacingly, looking at the noble lady, - admire the exploits of your son. Do you think it’s not enough to hang him for such a thing?

Savvishna bowed with folded hands and answered in a voice of deepest humility:

- Be your master's will, father! You are our ruler, and we are your slaves.

“You are not a participant in these matters,” Volynsky continued, softening his voice, “I know that you have always been devoted to our family.” But this swindler should have filled the pads, just as light... if only I hadn’t given myself a word...

- Father! dear father! - the noble lady screamed, - have mercy on my late husband and your uncle for the service. And I, my dear, serve you as much as I can, I’m ready to die for your little one... That’s what you, stupid, have done,” she added, turning to her son and sobbing bitterly.

- Out of my sight, scoundrel! Happy that you don't have a father and mother. Now leave me, all of you, except you, my dear Zuda, and you...

Here Artemy Petrovich gave a hand sign to the gypsy so that she would not leave.

- See the rest tomorrow!

. ...they go to the police, from there and beyond, to catch sables, or to the school of a shoulder master - that is, to Siberia, to hard labor or to the executioner.

Mercury is the patron saint of travelers; depicted with wings on his headdress and sandals (ant. myth.).

There is a saying in Torzhok: You grow, grow, braid, to a silk belt; When you grow up, braid, you will be a beauty for the city. (Author's note.)

Why not also assume that he sat in the Cabinet... - The Cabinet of Ministers established by Anna Ioannovna, in 1739, the empress’s rapporteur on cabinet affairs was A. Volynsky.

One of the most original amusements of Empress Anna Ioannovna, invented by chamberlain A.D. Tatishchev in 1740 and associated with the amusing marriage of the empress’s court jester, Prince Mikhail Alekseevich Golitsyn, and one of her hangers-on, Kalmyk Avdotya Ivanovna, who bore the surname Buzheninova. A special masquerade commission, chaired by Cabinet Minister A.P. Volynsky, chose a place on the Neva between the Admiralty and the Winter Palace for the construction of the “Ice House” [back in 1733, an ice fortress was built on the Neva; buildings made of ice, in the sense of curiosities, were also found in Western Europe]; under her supervision, a house was built exclusively from slabs of pure ice, laid one on top of the other and watered with water for connection; it was eight fathoms in length, two and a half in width and three in height. In front of the house there were six ice cannons and two mortars, at the main gate there were two dolphins, from whose mouths burning oil was gushing. The roof of the house was decorated with statues. The interior of the house was also made of ice. On the sides of the house were erected high pyramids with approximately clocks and lanterns on the windows; Nearby there was an ice elephant, from whose trunk a burning oil fountain was gushing, and an ice bath, which was heated with straw.

STUPIDITY WORTHY OF ITS CREATOR!..

Emerging from the darkness of the night with its lights, the ice house shone with a metallic sheen and cast its light far away onto the Meadow Line, outlining a motley semicircle of faces and legs; the square seemed paved with the tops of heads. Often the amplified cry of an ice elephant, or a fiery fountain gushing from its trunk, or a new funny figure on the windows forced spectators to invade the line ordered by the suburban tens and sots. Russian witticisms were often sprinkled under the Russian stick.

Look, brother,” one said, “in the first picture a German in a three-cornered hat, in a tattered caftan, thin as a match, wanders with a comb and a brush in his hand, and in the last picture he has grown fat, like a hog; his cheeks are like crumpets from the hearth; rides on a brown filly, on a golden saddle cloth, and hits everyone right and left with his butt.

What simplicity! - objected another, - there he entered Rus' on foot, and here he walks through it on horseback; there, you see, he was cleaning the horse, but here he is riding a cleaned one.

Vanka, oh Vanka! what kind of hut is this? - asked one.

Bathhouse, was the answer...

Eh! Master Tenant, save your broom for the front; Here, in the cold, it’s not a good idea to steam...

Go past, Mr. Sotsky; you see, we ourselves stand ahead of thousands.

Do you hear? The ice elephant is screaming!

And the stones cry out in times of trouble,” said some scribe in an important, instructive tone.

Thus, our bearded Beaumarchais, the area censors of their time, amused their eyes and tongues to their heart's content. It seemed that they were avenging their poverty and humiliation on the nobility with their witticisms and were warming themselves from the cruel, suffocating frost.

Empress, empress! - the sots shouted - and everything fell silent in reverent silence.

The snow, pressed with hundreds of horseshoes, creaked, it hissed from many cuts; A squadron of hussars appeared and then the empress’s sleigh, followed by a number of carriages. Several courtiers stepped out from the ice house onto the porch and Volynskaya was ahead of everyone. When the sleigh caught up with him, he was called to Her Majesty. She deigned to kindly ask him about the arrangement of the house and laughed at the very cartoonish images that often changed on the windows. The Cabinet Minister gave intricate explanations. Suddenly, at one change, someone behind the empress’s sleigh cried out with his heart:

Stupidity worthy of its creator!.. Extremely stupid!..

I don’t know whose side is stupid!..

COURT Jester

By personal order of the highest, for the “curious” wedding of Golitsyn and Buzheninova, two people of both sexes of all tribes and peoples subject to the Russian empress were brought to St. Petersburg, from different parts of Russia. There were three hundred people in total. The masquerade commission provided each couple with local folk clothing and a musical instrument.

On February 6, 1740, on the day appointed for the celebration, after the wedding of the illustrious jester, celebrated in the usual manner in the church, “travelers” of different tribes pulled out from the assembly point in a long train. There were: Abkhazians, Ostyaks, Mordovians, Chuvashs, Cheremis, Vyatichi, Samoyeds, Kamchadals, Yakuts, Kyrgyz, Kalmyks, crests, Chukhons and many other “multilinguals and commoners,” each in his own national costume and with his fair half. Some rode on camels, others on deer, others on dogs, fourth on oxen, fifth on goats, sixth on pigs, etc., “with music belonging to each family and various toys, in sleighs made on the likeness of beasts and fish of the sea, and some in the form of strange birds.” The procession was opened by the “young ones”, who showed off in a large iron cage placed on an elephant.

The wedding train, driven by Volynsky and Tatishchev, with music and songs, drove past the palace and along all the main streets, and stopped at the arena of the Duke of Courland. Here, on several long tables, an abundant lunch was prepared, at which each couple had their own folk dish and their favorite drink.

During lunch, Trediyakovsky greeted the newlyweds with the following poem:

“Hello, married, fool and fool.
Also... that one and the figurine!
Now is the time for us to have some fun,
Now the commuters should be furious in every possible way...”

After dinner, the “multilingual” couples each danced their own national dance, to their own national music. This amusing spectacle greatly amused the empress and the noble spectators. At the end of the ball, the motley train, preceded by the still “young”, seated in a cage on an elephant, went to the “Ice House”, which burned with lights that spectacularly crushed and shimmered in its transparent walls and windows; ice dolphins and an ice elephant threw streams of bright flame; “funny” pictures were spinning in the pyramids, to the complete delight of the large public, who greeted the newlyweds with loud screams.

The newlyweds, with various ceremonies, were laid on an ice bed, and a guard was posted at the house, out of fear that the happy couple would not decide to leave their not entirely warm and comfortable bed before the morning...

Nine months after the “curious” holiday, Empress Anna Ioannovna died, bequeathing, as we know, the Russian throne to her nephew, Prince of Brunswick, Ivan Antonovich. During the latter’s early childhood, control of the state passed into the hands of his mother, Princess Anna Leopoldovna, a kind, gentle woman with excellent spiritual qualities. Anna Leopoldovna, on the very first day of her reign, fired all the jesters, rewarding them with decent gifts. From that time on, the official title of “court jester” was destroyed forever. Although later jesters continued to appear at court, but under a different name and not in jester clothes. In conclusion, it remains for us to say a few words about the further fate of Prince Mikhail Alekseevich Golitsyn.

In 1741 he retired to Moscow, where his Kalmyk wife soon died. From her he had two sons: Prince Alexei, who died single, and Prince Andrei, who married Anna Fedorovna Khitrovo and left numerous offspring. In 1744, Prince Mikhail Alekseevich married for the fourth time to Agrafena Alekseevna Khvostova and had three daughters with her: Varvara and Elena (the youngest), who died as girls, and Anna, who married the retired lieutenant of the horse guards Fyodor Grigorievich Karin, who, at the end of the last century, gained some fame for his literary works. Prince Mikhail Alekseevich died in 1778 at a ripe old age. His body was buried in the village of Bratovshchina, on the road from Moscow to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra.

This is the historical era, the image of which emerges from the pages of “The Ice House” “... A system of denunciations and espionage, refined to the point that looks and movements have their own learned interpreters, which has made of every house a Secret Chancellery, of every person a moving coffin where they are nailed up feelings, his thoughts; broken ties of friendship, kinship, to the point that the brother sees in his brother an eavesdropper, the father is afraid of meeting a slanderer in his son; a nation that is violated every day; Petrov's Russia, broad, sovereign, powerful - Russia, oh my God! oppressed now by a native” (Part I, Chapter V) - this is how Lazhechnikov’s hero sees his fatherland with patriotic bitterness and indignation.
Among the characters in “The Ice House” there are many historical figures and real events, although complexly transformed by the author’s imagination. In addition to Empress Anna, Biron, Volynsky, the Vice-Chancellor and de facto head of the Cabinet of Ministers Osterman, Field Marshal Minikh, and the poet Tredyakovsky appear on the pages of The Ice House. The names of people who once lived are borne by people from the environment of the temporary worker and his antagonist - such as Lipman or Eichler. Volynsky’s “confidants” also had historical prototypes, and the bizarre “nicknames” given to them by Lazhechnikov were derived from their actual names: de la Suda became Zuda in the novel, Eropkin became Perokin, Khrushchev became Shchurkhov, Musin-Pushkin became Sumin-Kupshin.
In reality, there was also an “ice house” - a central, cross-cutting image of the novel, a core image for both its plot and its poetic system. In the winter of 1740, a funny holiday was organized at court: the empress decided to marry her jester, a descendant of an ancient noble family, Prince M. A. Golitsyn, to a Kalmyk woman, Buzheninova. It must be assumed that both the clownish position and this, the last royal “favor,” fell to Rurikovich’s lot due to his relationship with the “supreme rulers” hated by the queen. Between the Admiralty and the Winter Palace a miracle was built that amazed contemporaries - a palace made of ice. St. Petersburg academician G.V. Kraft left an accurate description of this architectural curiosity, its sculptural decoration and interior decoration. Lazhechnikov knew and used Kraft's book. To give the celebration a special scope and splendor, a couple of representatives of all the peoples living in Russia were sent to the capital. The ethnographic diversity of costumes, national songs and dances were not only supposed to decorate and diversify the fun: they were intended to demonstrate to the empress and her foreign guests the enormity of the powerful empire and the prosperity of all its diverse inhabitants. The organization of the holiday was entrusted to the Cabinet Minister Volynsky.
Lazhechnikov was able to vividly sense the possibilities that the concentration of action around such an extraordinary event, rich in colors, opened up for the historical novelist. The ice house becomes a powerful symbol in the novel, casting a shadow on all the vicissitudes of both political and romantic intrigue. Coldness and trampled humanity are hidden behind its sparkling façade. And another thing: no matter how beautiful and cruel the ice house is, this building is ephemeral, its days are numbered. No matter how magnificent the empress's amusements, paid for with the sweat and blood of the suffering people, are, it is no coincidence that during the opening ceremony of the palace the empress sees funeral torches. The amusing palace of Anna Ioannovna is a symbol of her reign, as well as of any despotic power. Miraculously, the frozen Little Russian Gordenko was revived to life and stood like a statue in the peace of the ice house with his complaint, but the cry of the exhausted people was again intercepted by Biron’s minions, and again did not reach the ears of the Russian autocrat. The impulse of the truth-seeking Volynsky crumbled into icy fragments, the battlefield remained with the temporary worker - a symbolic harbinger of the outcome of their struggle. The low buffoon Kulkovsky and the dirty traitor Podachkina - characters deprived by Lazhechnikov of even a shadow of the reader's participation - are doomed to spend their “wedding” night in the ice palace, and even these vile half-humans momentarily gained our compassion with their suffering. The ruins of the ice house shelter the last outbreak of passion of Biron, who has already become a victim, carrying within himself the death of Marioritsa and Volynsky, tormented by the intricacies of his tragic fate. Upon exiting the fatal ruins, Marioritsa will face a deathbed, and Volynsky will face a scaffold. Lazhechnikov skillfully combines the history of the construction and destruction of the ice house with the main political conflict of the novel - the struggle between the Russian and German parties. The plea of an exhausted country, conveyed to St. Petersburg by the Little Russian Gordenko, the death of a truth-seeker who raised his hand against a temporary worker, overflows Volynsky’s patience and encourages him to take active action. And the same execution of Gordenka turns out to be an omen of the tragic fate - the fall and execution - of Volynsky himself.
The Ice House is contrast personified. The house, by its very name intended to be a repository of the hearth and human warmth, meets with cold and kills all living things that come into contact with it. And this is the main, but not the only symbol in the poetics of the novel. A romantic artist, Lazhechnikov reveals the contradictions of the era in an extensive system of symbolic contrasts: life - death, love - hatred, captivating beauty - repulsive ugliness, lordly amusements - folk tears, a brilliant princess - a beggar gypsy, a palace - an unclean kennel, the fiery passions of the south - northern cold
Anna Ioannovna’s incurable illness, her fear of death, turns into an unquenchable thirst for entertainment and pleasure, gives the wasteful court festivities a shade of convulsive fun involuntarily, leaves a stamp of doom on the fun, the life of the empress, on the whole picture of her inglorious reign. And wherever the empress amuses herself, a man and his dignity suffer.
The more these joys without true gaiety remind us of decline and destruction, the more the youthful ardor of Volynsky, romantically sublime, unrestrained in love and in the cause of patriotic service to Russia, contrasts with them.
It is the system of symbols that permeate The Ice House, connecting in its own way historical descriptions with romantic action, that contributes to the creation of a painful atmosphere of timelessness in the novel. This atmosphere thickens and covers the most dissimilar moments of the narrative thanks to the intensity of the lyrical coloring that enters the novel along with the personality of the author. An active, progressive-minded person, a contemporary of the Decembrists (although he did not share their revolutionary aspirations), an inspired romantic and educator, he pronounces his judgment on the “unreasonable” and inhumane era. Not a single element of the story, even the most modest, escapes the author’s activity: Lazhechnikov is either branded with contempt, condemned and condemned, or sympathized with, admired and instills delight in the reader. This lyrical expansion fills “The Ice House,” leaving no room for a calm, epic picture of things and events.
Is it possible, after reading the novel, to be imbued with enthusiastic sympathy for Volynsky, hatred and contempt for his opponents?

4

In the interpretation of the image of Volynsky, the romantic method of Lazhechnikov the novelist was especially pronounced.
Unlike Pushkin and Gogol (but like the Decembrist narrators). Lazhechnikov chooses for his historical novels such moments of the past when ardent, exalted loners act, and the people in whose name they sacrifice themselves play a suffering role in events. Accordingly, Lazhechnikov’s favorite hero is a fictional or historical person, but in any case, endowed with a complex inner world and an exceptional, tragic fate.
This is the latest newcomer - Vladimir, the illegitimate son of Princess Sophia and Prince Vasily Golitsyn. Since childhood, he is doomed to the role of Peter's antagonist. Having eaten the attempt on the life of the young Tsar, Vladimir flees to a foreign land. Over time, he realizes the historical significance of Peter's reforms and considers the goal of life to atone for his guilt before Russia and take revenge on those who instilled in him hatred of the new order. Rejected by his native country, he secretly serves it, contributing, like providence, to the victories of the Russian troops in Livonia, he earns Peter's forgiveness and hides in a monastery, where he dies in obscurity. Such are the heroes of “Basurman” - representatives of the Western Renaissance, architect Aristotle Fioraventi and doctor Anton Ehrenstein, attracted to distant Muscovy by the vain hope of finding application for their humanistic aspirations.
Volynsky in “The Ice House” also belongs to the same type of romantic chosen heroes.
The historical Volynsky was a complex and contradictory figure. Having begun his activities under Peter I, he soon attracted the attention of the reformer with his intelligence and energy. But it was not for nothing that he had a chance to taste the royal club. Both the first steps and Volynsky’s entire later career reveal a chain of ups and downs. A type of nobleman of the transitional era, he combined in himself a true “chick of Petrov’s nest,” a patriot who dreamed of the good of Russia, with indomitable pride and ambition, with cruelty and unscrupulousness in means. More than once he was threatened with trial for outright bribery, arbitrariness, and torture of people under his control. Before becoming a cabinet minister and coming up with projects for state reforms, Volynsky for a long time ascended the levels of the service hierarchy, relying either on family ties, then on Minikh, who was at odds with the temporary worker, or on Biron, an opponent of his recent patron. As Biron’s protege (the temporary worker hoped to find in him a submissive instrument to belittle Osterman’s role, but was deceived in his expectations), Volynsky was introduced to the Cabinet of Ministers. Long before the new cabinet minister decided to speak out against Osterman and affect the interests of Biron, he had made irreconcilable enemies among the Russians, and among his opponents were such influential nobles as P.I. Yaguzhinsky, A.B. Kurakin, N. F. Golovin.
Lazhechnikov, without a doubt, knew of sources who had different assessments of Volynsky’s personality, his merits and demerits as a statesman. But from written evidence and from oral tradition, the author of “The Ice House” chose only what corresponded to his social and aesthetic ideal. At the same time, the interpretation of the image of Volynsky, which was contained in Ryleev’s “Thoughts,” acquired special significance for Lazhechnikov.
Ryleev dedicated two thoughts to Volynsky. One of them - “The Vision of Anna Ioannovna” - was not passed by the censors and was published for the first time in Herzen’s “Polar Star” in 1859. It is difficult to judge whether this thought was known to Lazhechnikov in the mid-1830s. Anna Ioannovna, tormented by remorse, appears in her with the head of the executed Volynsky and calls the queen to account for the death of the “sufferer of the glorious fatherland.” Another thought - “Volynsky” - was quoted in “The Ice House” and largely determined the image of the main character of the novel. Volynsky appears in the depiction of the Decembrist poet as a “faithful son of the fatherland”, and his struggle with the “foreign alien”, the culprit of “national disasters” Biron, as a “fiery impulse of a beautiful and free Soul”. Lazhechnikov has the expression “true son of the fatherland.”
In Lazhechnikov’s novel, the image of Volynsky takes on additional colors that were not present in Ryleev’s poem. This is no longer exclusively a statesman, confined to the sphere of patriotic feat. Volynsky is a man, and nothing human is alien to him. “In his soul, good and bad passions, violent and noble, reigned alternately; everything in him was unstable, except honor and love for the fatherland” (Part I, Chapter I), says Lazhechnikov about his hero. And further, the novelist attributes to the smartest politician Osterman an insightful assessment of the historical situation, expressing it in words that could not have been accidental in the mouth of a contemporary of the Decembrists and the tragic collapse of their hopes: “He saw the resurgent struggle of the people against the despotism of the temporary worker, but knew that its representatives were several ardent, selfless heads, and not a people animated by the knowledge of their human dignity” (Part II, Chapter VII). Lazhechnikov conveys to his hero the traits that prepare his downfall, but Volynsky’s portrayal is invariably dominated by the heroic-romantic tonality that goes back to Ryleev’s Duma.
A characteristic collision of Decembrist poetry and prose is the contradiction between the duty of a patriotic citizen, which requires complete self-denial from the hero, even to the point of renouncing personal happiness, and the natural inclinations of the soul and heart. This collision is also present in The Ice House. Not only Volynsky, but Empress Anna, and Marioritsa, and Perokin, sooner or later must choose between loyalty to duty (as each of these so dissimilar characters understands it) and their human, earthly attachments. However, this motif appears to be the most plot-effective and ramified in the story about Volynsky, contrapuntally connecting both plot lines of “The Ice House” - love and political. The “lawless” passion for the Moldavian princess not only distracts the hero’s spiritual strength from the work of civil service and disarms him in the face of a cold, calculating enemy. This passion makes Volynsky a victim of internal discord. His soul is tragically troubled by the consciousness of guilt before his beautiful, loving wife. The thought that he is destroying the seductive and devoted Marioritsa is also painful for him. And at the same time, the struggle of the feelings of a citizen, a loving husband and father and a passionate lover gives the image of Volynsky a special attractiveness, and his fatal fate a vital dimension.
Volynsky has something of a romantic poet-creator. Even if his human nature is imperfect, even if in everyday life he is subject to irrepressible passions that involve the hero in fatal errors: all this “until Apollo demands the poet to the sacred sacrifice.” As soon as Volynsky hears the call of his homeland, he turns into a hero-fighter who, having shaken off all earthly attachments from his shoulders, does not weigh or calculate either his own strengths or the capabilities of Biron and his supporters, and with his characteristic directness and ardor goes into the fight for the good of the people to the end, the unconquered ascends the scaffold to become in posterity an imperishable example of civil service. And his passion for Marioritsa! Volynsky’s lawless love is also an act of struggle, a struggle for the freedom of human feeling, striving through all obstacles and becoming a victim of the cold mechanical calculation of those for whom passion itself is just a means of political intrigue.
In his love for Marioritsa, the breadth of Volynsky’s Russian nature, its prowess and scope are revealed; the poetic string that unites Volynsky the lover with Volynsky the patriot sounds in it. Lazhechnikov introduces his beloved hero to the Russian national element, and it is not without reason that in one of the most poetic and hallowed by the Russian literary tradition episodes of the novel - in the Yuletide fortune-telling scene - Volynsky appears as a daring Russian youth, a coachman with a lyrical and riotous song on his lips. “This is purely Russian nature, this is a Russian gentleman, a Russian nobleman of old times!” - Belinsky admired.
An ardent romantic both in love and in politics, Volynsky is the direct antipode of the sober and soulless pragmatist Biron. According to the same laws of romantic poetics of contrasts, already familiar to us, in “The Ice House” the frail, “fat, gloomy” Anna Ioannovna and “a real Russian maiden, blood and milk, and the look and greetings of the queen... the daughter of Peter the Great, Elizabeth” confront each other. (Part IV, Chapter V), the mediocre "scribbler", the pedant Tredyakovsky and the inspired singer of the capture of Khotin Lomonosov. Neither Elizaveta Petrovna nor Lomonosov act in the novel, they only emerge in the thoughts of the author and his characters as a kind of “starting point” - a sign indicating the existence of healthy national forces that are destined to dispel the darkness of the “unreasonable” era that oppresses and kills all living things and human.
To the greatest extent, Lazhechnikov’s historicism revealed its limits in the image of Tredyakovsky. Tredyakovsky played an outstanding role in the history of Russian culture and Russian versification. However, for a long time his name served as a synonym for poetic mediocrity, a target for undeserved ridicule. And although Radishchev, in “Monument to the Dactylo-Chorean Knight,” made an attempt to revise Tredyakovsky’s traditional reputation, an objective historical assessment of his activities in the 1830s remained a matter of the future.
Romantic poetics demanded the combination of high poetic elements in the novel with the elements of grotesque and caricature. The image of Tredyakovsky (as well as Kulkovsky) is a tribute to this programmatic requirement of the romantics. Uncritically relying on biased anecdotes about Tredyakovsky, conveyed to him by oral tradition, Lazhechnikov endowed his hero with the traditional comic traits of a pedant and hanger-on, equally repulsive spiritually and physically. It is not surprising that all critics of “The Ice House” - from Senkovsky to Pushkin - agreed in their rejection of this image.

5

In the era of classicism and Enlightenment, historical figures performed on the stage of tragic theater, but the highest achievements of the 18th century novel are associated with the depiction of the sphere of private life. The historical novel of the early 19th century was the first to combine a story about famous historical figures with a story about the fates of their unknown contemporaries, and included a narration about the facts of historical life within the framework of a fictional plot.
The combination of history and fiction in the historical novel made this genre lawless in the eyes of its opponents. On the contrary, Belinsky, in the controversy surrounding the Russian historical novel of the 1830s, defended fiction as a necessary condition for the artistic recreation of the past. But in different types of historical narration of that time, history and fiction are intertwined differently. And the poetic load that falls to the share of fictional characters in the general movement of the plot is determined by the aesthetic attitudes of the novelist.
For W. Scott it was essential to show that history in its movement, along with figures known to historians, involves many ordinary, unknown people in the cycle of events. Major historical conflicts and changes invade the private life of a private person. And on the contrary, V. Scott conveys the specific, unique features of ancient times to the reader precisely through their refraction in the destinies, morals, life, and psychology of his fictional heroes. It was the fictional hero of W. Scott who was given the opportunity to experience the clash of contending historical forces from his own experience, to see the true face of each of them, to understand their power and their weakness. Pushkin follows the same path of knowledge and reproduction of the past in The Captain's Daughter.
Unlike W. Scott, A. de Vigny in “Saint-Mars” - a novel whose plot, arrangement and type of characters are repeatedly echoed in the development of action and grouping of characters in “The Ice House” - puts the non-fictional at the center of his narrative , but a historical figure. He transforms the true scale and motives of Saint-Mars’ speech against Richelieu in accordance with his historical “idea,” while modernizing the moral and psychological image of the hero. Another French romantic, V. Hugo, in “Notre Dame Cathedral” (1831) brings the genre of the historical novel closer to the romantic poem and drama. He raises his fictional heroes high above the prose of everyday life, giving them symbolic scale and deep poetic expressiveness. The complex drama of love and jealousy leads Hugo's readers to comprehend the general contradictions of existence, perceived through the prism of the romantic philosophy of history.
Lazhechnikov’s “Ice House” is typologically closer to the French romantics than to W. Scott. Like the author of Saint-Mars, Lazhechnikov makes the focus of the story a fictional “average” person, atypical for W. Scott, and a historical person, rethinking the moral and psychological image of Volynsky in the spirit of his civic, patriotic and educational ideals. At the same time, what is decisive for the poetics of “The Ice House” is that the historical characters of the novel and its fictional persons - the gypsy Mariula and Princess Lelemiko, mother and daughter, similar to the old swindler and Esmeralda of “Notre Dame Cathedral” - belong, if I may say so so to speak, to two different worlds: the first - to the world of historical reality, as its author understands, the second - newcomers from the land of romantic poetry. Lazhechnikov does not set out, like V. Scott or Pushkin, to capture in the appearance of his romantic heroines specific features of the psychology of people of a certain era. The source of the power of these aesthetically far from equivalent images is the same: both Mariula and Marioritsa appear in the novel as bearers of a poetic idea. Mariula is the embodiment of boundless maternal love, Marioritsa is the personified idea of a loving woman who believes in selfless service to the chosen one of her heart the purpose of existence, and in death for his good - her life purpose. Belinsky, who judged the romantic Lazhechnikov according to the laws he had recognized above himself, found that Marioritsa was “definitely the best person in the entire novel... the most beautiful, most fragrant flower in the poetic wreath of your gifted novelist.”
The images of Princess Lelemiko, Mariula and her gypsy companion Vasily, the old doctor and her granddaughter lead the novel away from political intrigue and form a special, “supra-historical” plot line. But they also give “The Ice House” additional entertainment, bringing it closer to a novel of secrets, to an old adventure novel. Lazhechnikov extracts a special effect from the traditional motif of two rivals - those who love the hero and the women he loves. The beauty of the north and the guria of the south, unwavering marital devotion and free passion, which finds justification in its depth and selflessness, incline Volynsky’s ardent and fickle soul first in one direction or the other. The educational collision of the struggle between passion and duty spreads, capturing both spheres of action of the novel - both political and love. The death of Volynsky is presented in “The Ice House” as an expiatory sacrifice in a double struggle: for the freedom of the fatherland and for personal moral purification.
And at the same time, Volynsky of the “Ice House” is not just an individual person, one way or another correlated with his real-historical prototype. In him Lazhechnikov poured all the strength of national protest against the dominance of foreigners tormenting the exhausted country, exhausted by extortions and extortions. If in love Marioritsa, with her feminine charm and boundless self-denial, is higher than Volynsky, split between feeling and duty, then in the field of citizenship Volynsky has no equal. Like a lonely oak tree, he rises above the growth of his “confidants” - friends and comrades in the struggle who shared his daring and his fate. As for Volynsky’s opponents, the baseness of goals and means, spiritual narrowness, base self-interested calculation make them the complete opposite of a generous and honest patriot. If Biron’s minions remain faithful to him out of fear and self-interest, the enemy of the temporary worker attracts him with the purity of his goal, the nobility of his soul and actions.
Entering into single combat with Biron, Volynsky poses a daring challenge not only to the clique of aliens who have arrogated to themselves the right to “rob, execute and pardon Russians.” He denounces court caresses seeking rank and profit, and speaks out against the “oppressors of their fatherland,” whoever they may be. But an even wider range of phenomena is drawn into the sphere of what the author-narrator himself unconditionally denies. Here is the power of the lordly whim, free to turn into amusement any person living at any end of the despotic state; and the immoral right to “have your own people”; and power based on a system of espionage and detection; and the entire mediocre and bloody reign of Anna Ioannovna as a whole. Moreover: not limiting himself to criticizing the “unreasonable” era, Lazhechnikov, through transparent hints, builds a bridge from it to modernity. The episode of the political struggle of the 18th century turns out to be a harbinger of the speech on Senate Square, and the posthumous acquittal and civic glory of Volynsky is a prophecy of the inevitable recognition of the cause of the noble revolutionaries. All this was resolutely opposed to the doctrine of the “official nationality”.
The “Ice House” appeared at a time when the tenth year of the reign of Nicholas I was nearing its end, and a decade had passed since the December uprising. Society was waiting for this date, hoping for “mercy for the fallen”, for easing the fate of the exiles. Lazhechnikov’s novel reflected and embodied these sentiments in his own way. The ideological atmosphere that prepared the events of December 14, the very speech of the Decembrists, their tragically inevitable defeat and execution echoed in the “Ice House” in a number of signs. Among them are a chain of maxims causing inevitable illusions, and the connection of the central image of the novel - the image of a hero-citizen - with the tradition of Decembrist literature and journalism, and an epigraph (Part IV, Chapter XIII) from Ryleev's thought, which sounded in the 1830s as a prophetic prediction of the Decembrist poet’s own fate. But perhaps the most striking proof that, by creating the “Ice House,” Lazhechnikov was creating a monument to the heroic aspirations of his generation, was the interpretation that an episode of real Russian history received on the pages of the novel. The author of “The Ice House” looks for an incident in the country’s recent past that he perceives as a historical precedent for the December uprising, as the indignation of a handful of fighters for the people’s good against despotism. Another characteristic is also characteristic. The execution of the heroes turned into their posthumous triumph. History crushed their seemingly invincible enemy, and they themselves acquired in the eyes of their descendants the aura of innocent sufferers for the truth and became examples of “the holy zeal of a citizen.” These are the origins of the feeling of historical optimism that emanates from the epilogue of The Ice House.

What a mixture of clothes and faces,

Tribes, dialects, states!

His head drooped thoughtfully.

It's time to spring it with love, longing

She rushed in front of him. Beauties

languid eyes,

And songs, and feasts, and fiery

Everything came to life together; and heart

away we go

As soon as the bells sounded silent, announcing the end of the mass, all the pilgrims, one by one, many in twos, go home, silently, with their heads bowed. They don’t dare talk on the streets: now an eavesdropper will swoop in, translate the conversation in his own way, add, subtract, and, lo and behold, the interlocutors go to the police, from there and beyond, to catch sables or to the school of a backsmith. Here, we said, people are coming home from churches, sad, boring, as if from a funeral; and in one corner of St. Petersburg they are amusing themselves wide open and making noise to the point that it is cracking in the ears. The motley crowd in the courtyard boils and shimmers. What clothes and adverbs are missing here? Of course, all the peoples living in Russia sent several of their representatives here. Chu! Yes, here is a Belarusian diligently blowing his bagpipes, a Jew warming up his cymbals with a bow, a Cossack plucking a kobza; So they dance and sing, despite the frost that takes their breath away and numbs their fingers. The terrible bear, walking on a leash around the post and digging up snow out of frustration, echoes the musicians with its roar. A real Sabbath of Satan!

- Mordovians! Chukhons! Tatars! Kamchadals! and so on... - a great, great, or, better said, superior someone calls out from the crowd, one by one, from the crowd. This someone, whose height could be shown at Maslenitsa in a booth, is His Excellency’s guide. He settled down in the entryway, dancing involuntarily to the pinch of frost and often blowing into his fingers a song of curses against all the master's undertakings. The giant's voice is like the sound of a sea trumpet; in response to his call, the required couple appears in order with trepidation. Away with her sheepskin coats, and her nationality is shown in all its beauty. Here, not too politely, he wipes with the cloth of his sleeve another’s cheek or nose, which has turned white from the frost, and, having shaken off each one, hands it over to two walkers. These await their victims on the first step of the stairs, placing their silver maces against the stone, patterned railings. Light as Mercury, they pick up the couple and either rush up the stairs with them, so that you can barely keep up with the beautiful panache blowing on their heads and the shiny sheen of their silk stockings, or with kicks they show the way to their clumsy followers. Speaking about fast walkers, I cannot help but recall the words of my nanny, who once, when talking about golden antiquity, expressed regret that the fashion for human runners was replaced by the fashion for trotters and pacers. “These walkers were truly a miracle,” said the old woman, “they did not experience shortness of breath, because their lungs were poisoned by potions. And the clothes, the clothes, my child, were all burning like heat; on the head is a cap embroidered with gold, as if with wings; in his hand is a magic cane with a silver knob: he waves it once, twice, and the mile is gone!” But I started talking to the old woman. Let's return to the upper canopy of Volynsky. Here marshals examines the couple like a short-sighted small seal, straightens it, with two fingers lightly removes a fluff, a snowflake, in a word, everything that is superfluous in the master's chambers, and, finally, proclaims henchmen from different nations. The door is wide open, and his exclamation is repeated in the hall. My God! look again. Will there be an end? Now. Here the castellan and the wardrobemaid, having looked at the couple thoroughly and explaining to her in words and movements what she should do, leads her into the next room. A phalanx of servants, powdered, in livery caftans, in striped silk stockings, in shoes with huge buckles, gives her a place. And here is a poor couple, transported by a magic wand of a mighty whim from the wilderness of Russia, from the gods and their family, from a hut or yurt, to St. Petersburg, into a circle of one and a half hundred couples, of which one is missing, completely similar in clothing and hardly in language; transported to the new world through various kinds of ordeals, not knowing why all this is being done, tortured, distraught, she finally appears in the nobleman’s hall before his court.

It would be something for our contemporaries to marvel at in the nobleman’s hall! Deep windows, like camera obscura, decorated with intricate bas-reliefs of different colors, columns on the walls, entwined with vines, huge stoves made of colorful tiles, with Chinese paintings and columns, with vases, with porcelain shepherdesses, similar to marquises, and marquises, similar to shepherds, with Chinese dolls, patterned plasterwork on the ceiling and in the middle of it huge glass chandeliers, in which the edges are played out with extraordinary brilliance: we could admire all this. Poor savages do not know where to stand so as not to step on their own figure, reflected in the polished piece floor. It’s funny to see how our simple-minded ancestors, entering the hall of a nobleman, mistook paintings in golden frames for icons and piously made the sign of the cross in front of them.

A few steps from Volynsky, on his right side, sits at a desk a little man who could easily be hidden in a bear’s muff. His face is pulled into a fist, like that of an old monkey; It also shows the cunning of this kind of animal. He is tight-fisted in his movements, compliant or evasive in his speeches, his eyes and ears are always on guard. Not a single serviceable guardhouse manages to salute so quickly as he is ready for all the answers. This little scribble, learned, sophisticated and ugly as a hieroglyph, is the secretary of the cabinet minister, Zuda. He writes down the names and nicknames of the persons appearing at the review, comments flying to him from the heights of his chairs, and his own. What Volynskoy does not say, he adds.

In February 1740, the Russian Empress Anna Ioannovna held wedding celebrations that became a symbol of her ten-year reign.

Miracle for the poor widow

Russian Empire after death Peter I entered a period called by historians “the era of palace coups.” The dynastic crisis, which was partly caused by the first Russian emperor himself, led to the fact that in 1730 she ascended the Russian throne Anna Ioannovna- niece of Peter the Great, daughter of his brother and co-ruler Ivan V.

Few people describe the ten-year era of Anna Ioannovna’s reign in excellent terms. Indeed, this period cannot in any way be called the heyday of the Russian state.

There were many reasons for this, among which the main one seems to be Anna Ioannovna’s complete unpreparedness for government.

Anna Ioannovna was married off at the age of 17 to Duke of Courland Friedrich Wilhelm. Family life simply did not have time to develop - the husband died less than three months after marriage.

Despite this, Peter I sent the dowager duchess to live in the domain of her late husband, in Courland. The local nobility did not favor the duchess, and Anna Ioannovna lived in very unenviable conditions that in no way corresponded to her origin.

Therefore, when, after 20 years of such a life, Anna Ioannovna found out that she was being offered nothing less than the crown of the Russian Empress, it was a real miracle for her.

Take a walk, crazy empress...

But by no miracle could the Dowager Duchess of Courland turn into a wise and far-sighted politician capable of moving the state forward.

State policy during this period was determined by those court parties that managed to get ahead of their competitors in the struggle for influence on the empress.

Among the most influential figures of that era was Anna Ioannovna’s favorite, Courland nobleman Ernst Johann Biron, thanks to which the era itself received the name “Bironovism”.

Anna Ioannovna herself, having emerged from Courland poverty, behaved like a real nouveau riche. State money flowed like a river for all kinds of entertainment events and the maintenance of the court, which during her reign grew several times.

The empress had a special passion for all kinds of dwarfs and hunchbacks who formed the staff of her court jesters. This hobby seemed quite strange to many, but, of course, no one dared to argue with Anna Ioannovna.

Was the Empress's favorite Kalmyk firecracker Avdotya Ivanovna. Anna Ioannovna liked her, it is believed, because of the extremely unpresentable appearance of the firecracker, against the background of which the empress herself, who did not shine with beauty, looked advantageous.

Somehow, at the end of 1739, Anna Ioannovna noticed that Avdotya Ivanovna Buzheninova (the empress gave the firecracker’s surname in honor of the Kalmyk woman’s favorite dish) was sad. Having asked what was the matter, she found out that Avdotya Ivanovna dreams of marriage. The Kalmychka at that time was about 30 years old, which by the standards of the 18th century was considered a very respectable age.

Anna Ioannovna was inspired by the idea of marrying off her favorite and having a grand party for the occasion.

Nicknamed "Kvasnik"

The empress quickly found a groom - another court jester was assigned to this role, Mikhail Alekseevich Kvasnik.

Unlike the Kalmyk woman Buzheninova, Kvasnik was a well-born nobleman who fell into terrible disgrace.

Mikhail Alekseevich belonged to the senior branch of the family princes Golitsyn being a grandson Vasily Golitsyn, favorite Princess Sophia. After Sophia's defeat in the struggle for power, two-year-old Mikhail Golitsyn, along with his grandfather and father, found himself in exile, from which he was able to return only after the death of Golitsyn Sr. in 1714.

After this, it seemed that Mikhail Golitsyn’s life was going well. He was sent by Peter I to study abroad, at the Sorbonne. Upon his return, he entered military service, which he completed with the rank of major.

In 1729, after the death of his first wife, Mikhail Golitsyn went abroad, leaving two children in Russia. There he marries a second time and converts to Catholicism.

Golitsyn took the change of faith very lightly, and in 1732 he returned to Russia without fear with his new family. Friends, having learned about Mikhail Golitsyn’s conversion to Catholicism, were horrified - the new Empress Anna Ioannovna considered such apostasy to be a grave crime. Mikhail Golitsyn was advised by his acquaintances to “keep a low profile,” which he did, secretly settling in the Moscow German Settlement.

But the world is not without “good people” - Mikhail Golitsyn was reported, and soon he appeared before the court of the angry Anna Ioannovna.

Prince Golitsyn had little choice - execution or dishonor. Mikhail Alekseevich chose dishonor. His Catholic wife was sent into exile, and he himself, having been baptized again into Orthodoxy, was assigned to the role of court jester.

Golitsyn became Anna Ioannovna’s sixth jester and, like the other five, had a personal basket in which he was supposed to hatch eggs. During feasts, he was ordered to pour and serve kvass to the guests, which is where his new nickname and surname came from - Kvasnik.

The home where hearts connect

The morally broken and crushed Kvasnik, who, according to some contemporaries, had lost his mind due to everything that happened to him, of course, could not resist marrying the “maiden Buzheninova.”

The Empress took up the matter in a big way, creating a special “Masquerade Commission”, which was to prepare the celebrations. It was ordered that no money be spared for the wedding.

It was decided to organize the celebrations in a specially built Ice House, similar to those that were erected under Peter the Great, but on a much larger scale. The plan was facilitated by the weather - the winter of 1739/40 was very severe, the temperature constantly remained below 30 degrees below zero.

The location for the house was chosen on the Neva between the Admiralty and the Winter Palace, approximately on the site of the modern Palace Bridge.

The ice was cut into large slabs, laid one on top of the other and watered with water, which immediately froze, tightly soldering the individual blocks.

The facade of the house was about 16 meters long, 5 meters wide and about 6 meters high. A gallery decorated with statues stretched around the entire roof. A porch with a carved pediment divided the building into two halves. Each had two rooms: one was a living room and a buffet, the other was a toilet and a bedroom. Six ice cannons and two mortars were placed in front of the house, which could fire real shots. Two ice dolphins were installed at the gate, throwing burning oil out of their jaws. There were pots with ice branches and leaves on the gate. Ice birds sat on the branches. On both sides of the house rose ice pyramids, inside of which hung large octagonal lanterns.

Super project of the 18th century

On the right side of the house stood a life-size ice elephant with an ice Persian on top. Two icy Persian women stood near the elephant. According to eyewitnesses, during the day the elephant released four-meter jets of water, and at night - similar jets of burning oil. Some claimed that the elephant sometimes “dispensed” alcohol.

In the Ice House itself, in one of the rooms there were two ice mirrors, a dressing table, several candlesticks, a large double bed, a stool and a fireplace with ice wood. In the second room there was an ice table, two sofas, two armchairs and a carved buffet with dishes. In the corners of this room there were two statues depicting Cupids, and on the table there was a large clock and cards. All these things were made from ice and painted with paints. Ice-cold firewood and candles were smeared with oil and burned. In addition, there was even an ice bath at the Ice House, which also functioned.

The Ice House project, apart from what it was built for, was truly unique. To bring Anna Ioannovna’s idea to life, scientists and engineers of that time had to find completely unique solutions.

The design and construction of the Ice House were directly supervised architect Pyotr Mikhailovich Eropkin, creator of the first general plan of St. Petersburg, and Academician Georg Wolfgang Kraft, a physicist and mathematician who provided all the scientific part of the project.

Wedding night on an icy bed

But even this seemed not enough to Anna Ioannovna. It was ordered to bring two representatives of all tribes and peoples living in Russia, in national clothes and with national instruments, to the celebration. By the beginning of February 1740, 300 such people had gathered in St. Petersburg.

The celebrations themselves took place in February 1740. The date most often given is February 6, although sometimes they talk about February 12 or other days.

At the head of the “wedding train” were the newlyweds, placed in an iron cage placed on an elephant. Following them rode representatives of small and large nationalities of Russia, some on camels, some on deer, some on oxen, and some on dogs...

After the wedding there was a feast and dancing in the church. Anna Ioannovna was in excellent spirits, pleased with the implementation of her own idea.

After the ball, Kvasnik and Buzheninova were taken to the Ice House and after the ceremonies they were laid on an ice bed, with a guard posted so that the newlyweds would not try to escape from their luxurious bed until the morning. And there was a reason to escape - few people would want to spend the night lying on a piece of ice in a forty-degree frost, from which no burning ice logs could save them.

In the morning, the half-dead jesters were finally released from the house, which could well have become a crypt for them.

"Enough tolerating this!"

From time immemorial, in Rus' they loved to go out on a grand scale, regardless of their means, which often surprised foreigners. However, this time the “wedding in the Ice House” amazed not only foreigners, but also the Russians themselves. The expenditure of such enormous resources and effort on such an insignificant goal outraged many. Anna Ioannovna’s undertaking was called a “disgrace,” and the mockery of Kvasnik and Buzheninova was considered humiliating even by the standards of that far from tender time.

Of course, this muted murmur worried Anna Ioannovna little, but it turned out that the “buffoon wedding” became the last noticeable event of her reign.

The ice house, thanks to the frosts, stood until the end of March 1740, and then began to gradually melt and disappeared naturally in April.

In October 1740, Anna Ioannovna died, appointing her successor Ioann Antonovich, the son of his niece Anna Leopoldovna.

Anna Leopoldovna, who became regent for her young son, was overthrown along with him as a result of another palace coup, but during her time in power she managed to do a great job - she abolished the staff of court jesters.