“I remember a wonderful moment” A.S. Pushkin. “I remember a wonderful moment”: the history of the creation of the poem I remember a wonderful moment year of writing

If you ask which romance is one of the most famous, the almost unanimous answer will be: “I remember wonderful moment» Mikhail Glinka for poetry Alexandra Pushkina.

The history of this romance began in 1819, when, at one of the evenings in the house of Alexei Nikolaevich Olenin, president of the Academy of Arts and director Public library, Pushkin (and he was not even twenty years old at that time) saw Olenin’s nineteen-year-old niece Anna Kern.

We played charades. Anna Kern got the role of Cleopatra. In her hands she held a basket of flowers. Pushkin, together with her brother Alexander Poltoratsky, approached Anna, quickly looked at the young beauty, at the flowers and, pointing at Poltoratsky, asked with a grin in French: “And the role of the asp is, of course, intended for this gentleman?” Pushkin had heard a lot about Anna’s tender relationship with her brother.

“I found it impudent,” Anna Petrovna recalled many years later, “I didn’t answer anything and left...”
Why “bold”? Let us remember that according to legend, the Egyptian queen Cleopatra died, bitten in the chest by a poisonous snake - an asp. Such a joke, as we see, was considered impudent during the youth of Pushkin and Anna Kern.

Anna Petrovna Kern. Drawing by A.S. Pushkin

But let's return to Olenin's house. At dinner, Pushkin relentlessly watched Anna and did not spare praise for her beauty. Then a playful conversation began between the poet and Poltoratsky. Anna remembered it for the rest of her life: “... a conversation about who is a sinner and who is not, who will be in hell and who will go to heaven. Pushkin told his brother: “In any case, there will be a lot of pretty people in hell, where you can play charades. Ask Madame Kern: would she like to go to hell?” I answered very seriously and somewhat dryly that I didn’t want to go to hell... When I was leaving and my brother got into the carriage with me, Pushkin stood on the porch and followed me with his eyes...”

I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me.
Like a fleeting vision.
Like a genius of pure beauty.

In the languor of hopeless sadness,
In the worries of noisy bustle.
A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time
And I dreamed of cute features.

Perhaps the impression that the young beauty made on the poet turned out to be so unusual also because Pushkin had heard about the unhappy marriage of “Madame Kern”?
Growing up in the wealth of luxury in the house of her maternal grandfather, the Oryol governor, and then senator Ivan Petrovich Wulf, loved and caressed by her family, Anna from childhood was in awe of only one person, only one could not disobey - her father Pyotr Markovich Poltoratsky. He was the main culprit in her marriage.
While living with her parents in Lubny, Anna attracted the attention of division general Ermolay Fedorovich Kern. She was seventeen years old. The general was fifty-two. An old campaigner, he revered military games above all else - reviews, parades, maneuvers, he adored the sport, and preferred a military career and ranks to everything. And she... Since childhood, she had never even played with dolls, read a lot and imagined herself as a romantic heroine of what she read. Her mind developed, her beauty blossomed, her powers of observation sharpened, her judgments were distinguished by independence, and not at all girlish originality. It is difficult to imagine a greater contrast: a general who considered books “stupid” and an enthusiastic young girl who read her entire world of books. What kind of love could there be on her part?

Anna Petrovna Kern

Many people wooed her. Parents preferred Ermolai Fedorovich Kern to everyone. How did Anna herself react to this?
“The general’s kindnesses made me sick, I could hardly force myself to speak to him and be polite, and my parents kept singing his praises... I knew that my fate was decided by my parents, and I did not see any possibility of changing their decision...”
Anna asked the general’s envoy: “Will I love him when I become his wife?” She said: “Yes!”
“They settled him in our house and forced me to be with him more often. But I could not overcome my disgust for him and did not know how to hide it. He often expressed disappointment about this and once wrote on the paper lying in front of him:

Two turtle doves will show
My cold ashes to you...

I read it and said: “Old song!”
“I will show that she will not be old,” he cried and wanted to continue something; but I ran away...
I married Kern on January 8, 1817 in the cathedral. Everyone admired, many envied..."
In 1818, the Kerns had a daughter, Katya, Ekaterina Ermolaevna. She will appear in our story again.
And in 1819, the first meeting of Pushkin and Anna Kern took place at the Olenins.

Years passed. The storm is a rebellious gust
Dispelled old dreams
And I forgot your gentle voice,
Your heavenly features.

In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment
My days passed quietly
Without a deity, without inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love.

And she, has she forgotten Pushkin? No, over the years she became an enthusiastic fan of his poems. This was reported to Pushkin by his friend Arkady Rodzianko, whose estate was next door to the estate of Anna Petrovna’s relatives in Lubny. In this letter the poet also found notes written by Anna Petrovna. He responded with a mocking poem “To Rodzianka.” It’s as if he really forgot both the “tender voice” and the “heavenly features”...

Anna Petrovna Kern and Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin

Meanwhile, her break with General Kern became inevitable. In June 1825, Anna Petrovna drove to Trigorskoye to visit her aunt Praskovya Aleksandrovna Osipova. Pushkin lived nearby in Mikhailovskoye.
She waited for him hourly. Then she recalled: “We were sitting at dinner... When suddenly Pushkin came in... The aunt, next to whom I was sitting, introduced him to me, he bowed very low, but did not say a word: timidity was visible in his movements. I also couldn’t find anything to say to him, and it didn’t take long for us to get acquainted and start talking. And it was difficult to suddenly become close to him; he was very uneven in his manner: sometimes noisily cheerful, sometimes sad, sometimes timid, sometimes impudent, sometimes endlessly amiable, sometimes painfully boring—and it was impossible to guess in what mood he would be in a minute... When did he decide to be amiable, then nothing could compare with the brilliance, sharpness and fascination of his speech... One day... he appeared in Trigorskoye with his large black book, in the margins of which legs and heads were drawn, and said that he had brought it for me . Soon we sat around him and he read his Gypsies to us. For the first time we heard this wonderful poem, and I will never forget the delight that gripped my soul... I was in rapture both from the flowing verses of this wonderful poem, and from his reading, in which there was so much musicality... he had the voice is melodious, melodic and, as he said about Ovid in his Gypsies, “and a voice like the sound of waters.” A few days after this reading, my aunt suggested we all take a walk to Mikhailovskoye after dinner...”

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin

“Arriving in Mikhailovskoye. we did not enter the house, but went straight into the old, neglected garden, “the haven of brooding dryads,” with long alleys of old trees, the branches of which, intertwined, wound along the paths, which made me stumble and my companion tremble... On another the day I had to leave for Riga with my sister Anna Nikolaevna Wulf. He came in the morning and for the funeral he brought me a copy of the 2nd chapter of Onegin, in uncut sheets, between the copies I found a four-fold sheet of paper with verses: I remember a wonderful moment...”

Pushkin scholars clarified: most likely, Pushkin gave Kern the first chapter of Onegin - the second chapter had not yet been published. But otherwise, Anna Kern’s memories are considered truthful and sincere. The poems were actually published in the almanac “Northern Flowers” in 1827.
Yes, Pushkin fell in love with Anna Kern passionately, jealously and gratefully. Until the end of the year, he will send her letters, fondly remembering previous meetings, hoping for new ones, he will call her to Trigorskoye, to Mikhailovskoye and wait, wait...

The soul has awakened:
And then you appeared again,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.

And the heart beats in ecstasy,
And for him they rose again
And deity and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.

After breaking up with her husband, Anna Petrovna returned from Riga to St. Petersburg, even lived at one time with Pushkin’s parents. She became very friendly with his sister Olga. Alexander Sergeevich's younger brother Levushka fell in love with her and also wrote poetry to her. The poet's father liked her, and he gave her perfume. But the great poet himself had already lost interest in her.

Anna Kern met Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka in 1826.
But when and how did Glinka “find Pushkin’s verse”?
Of course, he could have read “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” in Northern Flowers. But did Pushkin suggest that the composer write a romance based on poems dedicated to Anna Kern?

Pushkin’s nephew L. Pavlishchev in “Memoirs of A. S. Pushkin” claimed that Glinka first performed “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” at the beginning of 1830 in the house of his parents in the presence of the poet and Anna Kern and that his father (the husband of Pushkin’s sister) accompanied on guitar. “Uncle, having listened to the romance, rushed to hug both of their performers” (that is, Glinka and Pavlishchev. - L.M.). Anna Petrovna “was embarrassed and shed tears of joy.” And in a footnote to this page of memoirs, L. Pavlishchev adds: “This Glinka romance actually appeared in print in 1839, which means 9 years later, and appeared in a different form. And what’s most remarkable is that Glinka wrote it then not for Anna Petrovna, but for her daughter, Ekaterina Ermolaevna Kern, whom he wanted to marry.”

Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka

In the winter of 1828/29, all of them: Pushkin, Glinka, Anna Kern - often met with the Olenins, with Delvig, with the pianist Maria Shimanovskaya...
Fate would have it that the composer, whose marriage was unsuccessful (Glinka’s wife, in addition to all her other shortcomings, also had a hatred of music), would love his daughter with the same strong love as the poet loved his mother, Anna Kern.

Ekaterina Ermolaevna Kern

Once, Mikhail Glinka, visiting his relatives who lived at the Smolny Institute, saw Katenka Kern for the first time. By that time, her parents had finally separated, although the general still wrote complaints about his wife to the emperor, so that Nicholas I would force Anna Petrovna “by the force of the law to live together with her husband.”
Katenka Kern had a hard time experiencing family discord, although most often she lived far from both her mother and father: first she studied at the Smolny Institute, and then she remained a classy lady there.
On March 28, 1839, Mikhail Ivanovich saw her. “She was not good,” Glinka wrote, “even something painful was expressed on her pale face... my gaze involuntarily stopped at her: her clear expressive eyes, an unusually slender figure... and a special kind of charm and dignity spilled throughout her person, I was attracted more and more.”
She knew music perfectly and revealed a subtle, deep nature. “Soon my feelings were completely shared by dear E.K.,” Glinka recalled, “and meetings with her became more enjoyable...”
Composer Katenka Kern inspires not only the romance, but also the wonderful Waltz-Fantasy.
Now she lives with her mother on Dvoryanskaya Street, on the Petersburg side in St. Petersburg, she lives not richly and modestly. Having refused the general's pension, Anna Petrovna will soon marry out of ardent love a petty official who is twenty years younger than her, the collegiate assessor Markov-Vinogradsky. She will proudly bear his surname, find a quiet haven and happiness in life with him, and begin to bake wonderful pies that Glinka cannot boast about enough. And he will often repeat someone’s words: “Everyone must work out their own happiness. This applies especially to the marital state.” And earlier, when Anna Petrovna was younger, her favorite aphorism were different words: “The course of our life is only a boring and dull period if you do not breathe in it the sweet air of love.”

Ekaterina Kern and Mikhail Glinka “breathed the sweet air of love,” but they failed to “develop happiness.”
Ekaterina Kern became seriously ill. Consumption was suspected. Glinka dreamed of leaving with her to warmer lands to treat her. These plans, for various reasons, were not destined to come true.
Glinka accompanied Anna Petrovna and Katenka to Lubny, and he himself went to his native estate Novospasskoye. They were separated forever.
Ekaterina Ermolaevna continued to love him until her death (she died in 1904, long outliving Glinka).
There is little left to say. But for this, let’s return from the “second muse” of the romance “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” to “his first muse” - Anna Kern. From her memories it is clear how long Pushkin still excited her heart, how jealously and vigilantly she watched him, especially after his marriage, and how happy she was if he showed her the same signs of attention.

Anna Petrovna Kern's grave

But then Pushkin got married, and Anna Petrovna is trying to find signs of cooling towards his wife in his behavior. And Natalya Nikolaevna is not inclined to forgive passions for social pleasures, which she herself did not shy away from. Pushkin did not forget Anna Petrovna and last years life in his notes still called her “ beautiful lady».
Then old age came to her. When she was sixty-four years old, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev saw her. He told Pauline Viardot: “If I were Pushkin, I wouldn’t write poetry to her...” A hasty remark! Someone could say something similar about Turgenev and Pauline Viardot. After all, Anna Kern’s old age is the end of her mortal life. And Pushkin’s poems to her are a message to all who love in eternity.

Anna's husband died in January 1879, and she survived him by only four months.
There is a legend that the coffin with the body of Anna Kern met with the monument to Pushkin when it was brought to Moscow, with the same monument that adorns our capital to this day.
But it was different. A block of granite pedestal for the figure of Pushkin was stuck near the house where the elderly Anna Petrovna lived. Trying to move the block, the workers began to loudly encourage each other. Anna Petrovna was alarmed by the screams. They explained to her what had happened. She smiled: “Finally! Well, thank God! It’s high time...” And until her death she kept asking: how is the monument to Alexander Sergeevich being built? She did not live to see the opening of the monument.
Pushkin and Glinka erected a “monument not made by hands” to both her and her daughter, a monument for all times in honor of the “wonderful moment of love.”
In the music of the romance there is the tenderness and passion of the blossoming of love, the bitterness of separation and loneliness, the delight of new hope. In one romance, in a few lines, is the whole love story, which is repeated from century to century. But no one will ever be able to express it the way Pushkin and Glinka did.

Materials: Quote. By: L.S. Markhasev. Serenade for all times. L.: “Soviet Composer”, 1988
Photo: Yandex

“I remember a wonderful moment...”
Sergey Rusanov sings. At the piano - Konstantin Ganshin

Pushkin was a passionate, enthusiastic person. He was attracted not only by revolutionary romance, but also by female beauty. Reading the poem “I remember a wonderful moment” by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin means experiencing the excitement of beautiful romantic love with him.

Regarding the history of the creation of the poem, written in 1825, the opinions of researchers of the work of the great Russian poet were divided. Official version says that the “genius of pure beauty” was A.P. Kern. But some literary scholars believe that the work was dedicated to the wife of Emperor Alexander I, Elizaveta Alekseevna, and is of a chamber nature.

Pushkin met Anna Petrovna Kern in 1819. He instantly fell in love with her and for many years kept the image that struck him in his heart. Six years later, while serving his sentence in Mikhailovskoye, Alexander Sergeevich met with Kern again. She was already divorced and led a fairly free lifestyle for the 19th century. But for Pushkin, Anna Petrovna continued to remain a kind of ideal, a model of piety. Unfortunately, for Kern, Alexander Sergeevich was only a fashionable poet. After a fleeting romance, she did not behave properly and, according to Pushkin scholars, forced the poet to dedicate the poem to himself.

The text of Pushkin’s poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” is conventionally divided into 3 parts. In the title stanza, the author enthusiastically talks about his first meeting with an amazing woman. Delighted, in love at first sight, the author is perplexed, is this a girl, or a “fleeting vision” that is about to disappear? The main theme of the work is romantic love. Strong, deep, it absorbs Pushkin completely.

The next three stanzas tell the story of the author's exile. This is a difficult time of “languishing hopeless sadness,” parting with former ideals, and confronting the harsh truth of life. Pushkin of the 20s was a passionate fighter who sympathized with revolutionary ideals and wrote anti-government poetry. After the death of the Decembrists, his life seemed to freeze and lose its meaning.

But then Pushkin again meets his former love, which seems to him a gift of fate. Youthful feelings flare up with renewed vigor, the lyrical hero seems to awaken from hibernation, feels the desire to live and create.

The poem is taught in a literature lesson in 8th grade. It is quite easy to learn, since at this age many experience first love and the poet’s words resonate in the heart. You can read the poem online or download it on our website.

I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.

In the languor of hopeless sadness
In the worries of noisy bustle,
A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time
And I dreamed of cute features.

Years passed. The storm is a rebellious gust
Dispelled old dreams
And I forgot your gentle voice,
Your heavenly features.

In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment
My days passed quietly
Without a deity, without inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love.

The soul has awakened:
And then you appeared again,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.

And the heart beats in ecstasy,
And for him they rose again
And deity and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.

I remember a wonderful moment: You appeared in front of me. Like a fleeting vision. Like a genius of pure beauty. In the languor of hopeless sadness, In the worries of noisy bustle. A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time and I dreamed of sweet features. Years passed. The rebellious gust of storms scattered my former dreams, And I forgot your tender voice, your heavenly features. In the wilderness, in the darkness of confinement, my days dragged on quietly, without deity, without inspiration, without tears, without life, without love. The soul has awakened: And now you have appeared again, Like a fleeting vision, Like a genius of pure beauty. And the heart beats in ecstasy, And for him the deity, and inspiration, And life, and tears, and love have risen again.

If you ask which romance is one of the most famous, the almost unanimous answer will be: “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” by Mikhail Glinka to the poems of Alexander Pushkin. The history of this romance began in 1819, when at one of the evenings in the house of Alexei Nikolaevich Olenin, president of the Academy of Arts and director of the Public Library, Pushkin (he was not even twenty years old at the time) saw Olenin’s nineteen-year-old niece Anna Kern. We played charades. Anna Kern got the role of Cleopatra. In her hands she held a basket of flowers. Pushkin, together with her brother Alexander Poltoratsky, approached Anna, quickly looked at the young beauty, at the flowers and, pointing at Poltoratsky, asked with a grin in French: “And the role of the asp is, of course, intended for this gentleman?” “Pushkin had heard a lot about Anna’s tender relationship with her brother.

“I found it cheeky. Anna Petrovna recalled many years later, did not answer anything and left... “Why “daring”? Let us remember that according to legend, the Egyptian queen Cleopatra died, bitten in the chest by a poisonous snake asp. Such a joke, as we see, was considered impudent during the youth of Pushkin and Anna Kern. Anna Petrovna Kern. Drawing by A.S. Pushkin. But let's return to Olenin's house. At dinner, Pushkin relentlessly watched Anna and did not spare praise for her beauty. Then a playful conversation began between the poet and Poltoratsky. Anna remembered it for the rest of her life: “... a conversation about who is a sinner and who is not, who will be in hell and who will go to heaven. Pushkin told his brother: “In any case, there will be a lot of pretty people in hell, you can play charades there. Ask Madame Kern: would she like to go to hell? “I answered very seriously and somewhat dryly that I didn’t want to go to hell... When I was leaving and my brother got into the carriage with me, Pushkin stood on the porch and followed me with his eyes...”

Perhaps the impression that the young beauty made on the poet turned out to be so unusual also because Pushkin had heard about the unhappy marriage of “Madame Kern”? Growing up in the wealth of luxury in the house of her maternal grandfather, the Oryol governor, and then senator Ivan Petrovich Wulf, loved and caressed by her family, Anna from childhood was in awe of only one person, only one could not disobey her father, Pyotr Markovich Poltoratsky. He was the main culprit in her marriage. While living with her parents in Lubny, Anna attracted the attention of division general Ermolay Fedorovich Kern. She was seventeen years old. The general was fifty-two. An old campaigner, he revered military games, parades, maneuvers above all else, adored the frunt, and preferred a military career and ranks to everything. And she... Since childhood, she had never even played with dolls, read a lot and imagined herself as a romantic heroine of what she read. Her mind developed, her beauty blossomed, her powers of observation sharpened, her judgments were distinguished by independence, and not at all girlish originality. It is difficult to imagine a greater contrast: a general who considered books “nonsense” and an enthusiastic young girl who read her entire world of books. What kind of love could there be on her part?

Many people wooed her. Parents preferred Ermolai Fedorovich Kern to everyone. How did Anna herself react to this? “The general’s kindnesses made me sick, I could hardly force myself to speak to him and be polite, and my parents kept singing his praises... I knew that my fate was decided by my parents, and I did not see the possibility of changing their decision... "At the envoy's General Anna asked: “Will I love him when I become his wife?” “She said: “Yes!” "" They settled him in our house and forced me to be with him more often. But I could not overcome my disgust for him and did not know how to hide it. He often expressed disappointment about this and once wrote on the paper lying in front of him: Two turtle doves will show you my cold ashes... I read it and said: “An old song!” “I will show that she will not be old,” he cried and wanted to continue something; but I ran away... I married Kern on January 8, 1817 in the cathedral. Everyone admired, many envied..."

In 1818, the Kerns had a daughter, Katya, Ekaterina Ermolaevna. She will appear in our story again. And in 1819, the first meeting of Pushkin and Anna Kern took place at the Olenins. And she, has she forgotten Pushkin? No, over the years she became an enthusiastic fan of his poems. This was reported to Pushkin by his friend Arkady Rodzianko, whose estate was next door to the estate of Anna Petrovna’s relatives in Lubny. In this letter the poet also found notes written by Anna Petrovna. He responded with a mocking poem "To Rodzianka". It was as if she had really forgotten both the “tender voice” and the “heavenly features”... Meanwhile, her break with General Kern became inevitable. In June 1825, Anna Petrovna drove to Trigorskoye to visit her aunt Praskovya Aleksandrovna Osipova. Pushkin lived nearby in Mikhailovskoye.

She waited for him hourly. Then she recalled: “We were sitting at dinner... When suddenly Pushkin came in... The aunt, next to whom I was sitting, introduced him to me, he bowed very low, but did not say a word: timidity was visible in his movements. I also couldn’t find anything to say to him, and it didn’t take long for us to get acquainted and start talking. And it was difficult to suddenly become close to him; he was very uneven in his manner: sometimes noisily cheerful, sometimes sad, sometimes timid, sometimes impudent, sometimes endlessly amiable, sometimes painfully boring, and it was impossible to guess what mood he would be in in a minute... When did he decide to be amiable? , then nothing could compare with the brilliance, sharpness and fascination of his speech... One day... he appeared in Trigorskoye with his large black book, in the margins of which legs and heads were drawn, and said that he had brought it for me. Soon we sat around him and he read his Gypsies to us. For the first time we heard this wonderful poem, and I will never forget the delight that gripped my soul... I was in rapture both from the flowing verses of this wonderful poem, and from his reading, in which there was so much musicality... he had the voice is melodious, melodic and, as he said about Ovid in his Gypsies, “and a voice like the sound of waters.” A few days after this reading, my aunt suggested we all take a walk to Mikhailovskoye after dinner...”

In her memoirs, Anna Petrovna described this moonlit June night in Mikhailovskoye. This description, prosaic, very feminine, seems to contain the entire backstory of Pushkin’s lyrical masterpiece. Here is an excerpt from Anna Petrovna’s memoirs: “Arriving in Mikhailovskoye. we did not enter the house, but went straight into the old, neglected garden, “the haven of brooding dryads,” with long alleys of old trees, the branches of which, intertwined, wound along the paths, which made me stumble and my companion tremble... On the other the day I had to leave for Riga with my sister Anna Nikolaevna Wulf. He came in the morning and, as a farewell, he brought me a copy of the 2nd chapter of Onegin, in uncut sheets, between the copies I found a four-fold sheet of paper with his poems: I remember a wonderful moment...”

When I was about to hide the poetic gift in the box, he looked at me for a long time, then frantically snatched it away and did not want to return it; I forcibly begged them again: I don’t know what flashed through his head then. I then reported these poems to Baron Delvig, who placed them in his Northern Flowers...” Pushkinists clarified: most likely, Pushkin gave Kern the first chapter of Onegin; the second chapter had not yet been published. But otherwise, Anna Kern’s memories are considered truthful and sincere. The poems were actually published in the almanac “Northern Flowers” in 1827. Yes, Pushkin fell in love with Anna Kern passionately, jealously and gratefully. Until the end of the year, he will send her letters, fondly remembering previous meetings, hoping for new ones, he will call her to Trigorskoye, to Mikhailovskoye and wait, wait... After breaking up with her husband, Anna Petrovna returned from Riga to St. Petersburg, even lived for a time with Pushkin's parents. She became very friendly with his sister Olga. Alexander Sergeevich's younger brother Levushka fell in love with her and also wrote poetry to her. The poet's father liked her, and he gave her perfume. But the great poet himself had already lost interest in her.

Anna Kern met Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka in 1826. But when and how did Glinka “find Pushkin's verse”? Of course, he could have read “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” in Northern Flowers. But did Pushkin suggest that the composer write a romance based on poems dedicated to Anna Kern? Pushkin's nephew L. Pavlishchev in “Memoirs of A. S. Pushkin” claimed that Glinka first performed “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” at the beginning of 1830 at his parents’ house in the presence of the poet and Anna Kern and that his father (the husband of Pushkin’s sister) accompanied on guitar. “Uncle, having listened to the romance, rushed to hug both performers” (that is, Glinka and Pavlishchev). Anna Petrovna “was embarrassed and shed tears of joy.” And in a footnote to this page of memoirs, L. Pavlishchev adds: “This Glinka romance actually appeared in print in 1839, which means 9 years later, and appeared in a different form. And what’s most remarkable is that Glinka wrote it then not for Anna Petrovna, but for her daughter Ekaterina Ermolaevna Kern, whom he wanted to marry.”

Nowadays, however, experts in Glinka’s work believe that the romance was written when Glinka met Ekaterina Kern, after the death of the great poet. And although the composer himself never admitted that he dedicated the romance to Ekaterina Kern, it was really so, and Ekaterina Ermolaevna’s family knew about it well. So, Glinka’s first acquaintance with Anna Kern dates back to 1826. In the winter of 1828/29, all of them: Pushkin, Glinka, Anna Kern often met at the Olenins, at Delvig, at the pianist Maria Szymanovskaya... Fate would have it that the composer, whose marriage was unsuccessful (Glinka’s wife, in addition to all other shortcomings, had hatred of music), fell in love with his daughter with the same strong love as the poet loved his mother Anna Kern. Once, Mikhail Glinka, visiting his relatives who lived at the Smolny Institute, saw Katenka Kern for the first time. By that time, her parents had finally separated, although the general still wrote complaints about his wife to the emperor, so that Nicholas I would force Anna Petrovna “by the force of the law to live together with her husband.”

Katenka Kern had a hard time experiencing family discord, although most often she lived far from both her mother and father: first she studied at the Smolny Institute, and then she remained a classy lady there. On March 28, 1839, Mikhail Ivanovich saw her. “She was not good,” Glinka wrote, even something painful was expressed on her pale face... my gaze involuntarily stopped at her: her clear expressive eyes, an unusually slender figure... and a special kind of charm and dignity spilled throughout her entire person, I became more and more attracted.” She knew music perfectly and revealed a subtle, deep nature. “Soon my feelings were completely shared by dear E.K.,” Glinka recalled. and dates with her became more enjoyable...” Composer Katenka Kern inspires not only the romance, but also the wonderful Waltz-Fantasy. Now she lives with her mother on Dvoryanskaya Street, on the Petersburg side in St. Petersburg, she lives not richly and modestly. Having refused the general's pension, Anna Petrovna will soon marry out of passionate love a petty official who is twenty years younger than her, the collegiate assessor Markov-Vinogradsky. She will proudly bear his surname, find a quiet haven and happiness in life with him, and begin to bake wonderful pies that Glinka cannot boast about enough. And he will often repeat someone’s words: “Everyone must work out their own happiness. This applies especially to the marital state.” And earlier, when Anna Petrovna was younger, her favorite aphorism were different words: “The course of our life is only a boring and dull period if you do not breathe in it the sweet air of love.”

Ekaterina Kern and Mikhail Glinka “breathed the sweet air of love,” but they failed to “develop happiness.” Ekaterina Kern became seriously ill. Consumption was suspected. Glinka dreamed of leaving with her to warmer lands to treat her. These plans, for various reasons, were not destined to come true. Glinka accompanied Anna Petrovna and Katenka to Lubny, and he himself went to his native estate Novospasskoye. They were separated forever. Ekaterina Ermolaevna continued to love him until her death (she died in 1904, long outliving Glinka). There is little left to say. But for this, let’s return from the “second muse” of the romance “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” to “his first muse” Anna Kern. From her memories it is clear how long Pushkin still excited her heart, how jealously and vigilantly she watched him, especially after his marriage, and how happy she was if he showed her the same signs of attention.

Here are a few touches of the year. Pushkin is still single. Anna Kern writes: “He celebrated his name day at his parents’ house, in the family circle, and was very nice. That day I dined with them and had the pleasure of listening to his pleasantries... The next day... I invited him to take a boat ride. He agreed, and I again saw him almost as kind as he had been in Trigorskoye for a year. Pushkin is still single. “Together with Alexander Sergeevich, Anna Petrovna recalled, we had an order from his mother Nadezhda Osipovna to receive and bless the newlyweds Pavlishchev and Pushkin’s sister Olga with the image and bread... Despite the concern, Pushkin was very gentle and affectionate with me this time too. .."

But then Pushkin got married, and Anna Petrovna is trying to find signs of cooling towards his wife in his behavior. And Natalya Nikolaevna is not inclined to forgive passions for social pleasures, which she herself did not shy away from. Pushkin did not forget Anna Petrovna and in the last years of his life in his notes he still called her “a beautiful lady.” Then old age came to her. When she was sixty-four years old, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev saw her. He told Pauline Viardot: “If I were Pushkin, I wouldn’t write poetry to her...” A hasty remark! Someone could say something similar about Turgenev and Pauline Viardot. After all, Anna Kern’s old age is the end of her mortal life. And Pushkin’s poems to her are a message to all who love in eternity. Anna's husband died in January 1879, and she survived him by only four months. There is a legend that the coffin with the body of Anna Kern met with the monument to Pushkin when it was brought to Moscow, with the same monument that adorns our capital to this day.

But it was different. A block of granite pedestal for the figure of Pushkin got stuck near the house where the elderly Anna Petrovna lived. Trying to move the block, the workers began to loudly encourage each other. Anna Petrovna was alarmed by the screams. They explained to her what had happened. She smiled: “Finally!” Well, thank God! It’s high time...” And until her death she kept asking: well, is the monument to Alexander Sergeevich being built? She did not live to see the opening of the monument. Pushkin and Glinka erected a “monument not made by hands” to both her and her daughter, a monument for all times in honor of the “wonderful moment of love.” The music of the romance contains the tenderness and passion of the blossoming of love, the bitterness of separation and loneliness, the delight of new hope. In one romance, in a few lines, the whole love story is repeated from century to century. But no one will ever be able to express it the way Pushkin and Glinka did. Pushkin and Glinka erected a “monument not made by hands” to both her and her daughter, a monument for all times in honor of the “wonderful moment of love.” I remember a wonderful moment: You appeared in front of me. Like a fleeting vision. Like a genius of pure beauty. In the languor of hopeless sadness, In the worries of noisy bustle. A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time and I dreamed of sweet features. Years passed. The rebellious gust of storms scattered my former dreams, And I forgot your tender voice, your heavenly features. In the wilderness, in the darkness of confinement, my days dragged on quietly, without deity, without inspiration, without tears, without life, without love. The soul has awakened: And now you have appeared again, Like a fleeting vision, Like a genius of pure beauty. And the heart beats in ecstasy, And for him the deity, and inspiration, And life, and tears, and love have risen again.

On this day - July 19, 1825 - the day of Anna Petrovna Kern’s departure from Trigorskoye, Pushkin presented her with the poem “K*”, which is an example of high poetry, a masterpiece of Pushkin's lyricism. Everyone who values Russian poetry knows him. But in the history of literature there are few works that would raise as many questions among researchers, poets, and readers. Who was the real woman who inspired the poet? What connected them? Why did she become the addressee of this poetic message?

The history of the relationship between Pushkin and Anna Kern is very confused and contradictory. Despite the fact that their relationship gave birth to one of the poet’s most famous poems, this novel can hardly be called fateful for both.

The 20-year-old poet first met 19-year-old Anna Kern, the wife of 52-year-old General E. Kern, in 1819 in St. Petersburg, in the house of the president of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Alexei Olenin. Sitting at dinner not far from her, he tried to attract her attention. When Kern got into the carriage, Pushkin went out onto the porch and watched her for a long time.

Their second meeting took place only six long years later. In June 1825, while in Mikhailovsky exile, Pushkin often visited relatives in the village of Trigorskoye, where he met Anna Kern again. In her memoirs, she wrote: “We were sitting at dinner and laughing... suddenly Pushkin came in with a big thick stick in his hands. My aunt, next to whom I was sitting, introduced him to me. He bowed very low, but did not say a word: timidity was visible in his movements. I also couldn’t find anything to say to him, and it took us a while to get acquainted and start talking.”

Kern stayed in Trigorskoye for about a month, meeting with Pushkin almost daily. The unexpected meeting with Kern, after a 6-year break, made an indelible impression on him. In the poet’s soul “an awakening has come” - an awakening from all the difficult experiences endured “in the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment” - in many years of exile. But the poet in love clearly did not find the right tone, and, despite Anna Kern’s reciprocal interest, a decisive explanation did not happen between them.

On the morning before Anna's departure, Pushkin gave her a present - the first chapter of Eugene Onegin, which had just been published. Between the uncut pages lay a piece of paper with a poem written at night...

I remember a wonderful moment:

You appeared before me,

Like a fleeting vision

Like a genius of pure beauty.

In the languor of hopeless sadness

In the worries of noisy bustle,

And I dreamed of cute features.

Years passed. The storm is a rebellious gust

Dispelled old dreams

Your heavenly features.

In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment

My days passed quietly

Without a deity, without inspiration,

No tears, no life, no love.

The soul has awakened:

And then you appeared again,

Like a fleeting vision

Like a genius of pure beauty.

And the heart beats in ecstasy,

And for him they rose again

And deity and inspiration,

And life, and tears, and love.

From the memoirs of Anna Kern we know how she begged the poet for a sheet of paper with these verses. When the woman was about to hide it in her box, the poet suddenly frantically snatched it from her hands and did not want to give it back for a long time. Kern begged forcibly. “What flashed through his head then, I don’t know,” she wrote in her memoirs. By all appearances, it turns out that we should be grateful to Anna Petrovna for preserving this masterpiece for Russian literature.

15 years later, composer Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka wrote a romance based on these words and dedicated it to the woman with whom he was in love - Anna Kern's daughter Catherine.

For Pushkin, Anna Kern was truly a “fleeting vision.” In the wilderness, on her aunt’s Pskov estate, the beautiful Kern captivated not only Pushkin, but also her neighboring landowners. In one of his many letters, the poet wrote to her: “Frivolity is always cruel... Farewell, divine, I’m furious and falling at your feet.” Two years later, Anna Kern no longer aroused any feelings in Pushkin. The “genius of pure beauty” disappeared, and the “harlot of Babylon” appeared - that’s what Pushkin called her in a letter to a friend.

We will not analyze why Pushkin’s love for Kern turned out to be just a “wonderful moment,” which he prophetically announced in poetry. Whether Anna Petrovna herself was to blame for this, whether the poet or some external circumstances were to blame - the question remains open in special research.

Mikhail Glinka's romance "I Remember a Wonderful Moment" based on the poems of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin is one of the most famous romances. The history of this romance began in 1819, when at one of the evenings in the house of Alexei Olenin, president of the Academy of Arts, Pushkin saw his nineteen-year-old niece Anna Kern. At dinner, Pushkin relentlessly watched Anna and did not spare praise for her. He was captivated by her beauty.

And soon he will write:
"I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty."

Perhaps the impression that the young beauty made on the poet turned out to be so unusual also because Pushkin had heard a lot about Kern’s unhappy marriage. The main culprit in this marriage was her father. She was seventeen years old when she attracted the attention of division general Ermolai Kern. The general was more than thirty years older than her.

Anna Petrovna Kern

Anna was a romantic girl who grew up reading French novels. She was not only beautiful, but was distinguished by her independence and originality of judgment. Of course, there was no way she could have liked the general. Many people had already wooed her, but her parents preferred the brave general. Anna was convinced that she would fall in love when she became the general’s wife, and she agreed due to her youth. A year later, her daughter Katya was born.

As the years passed, Anna Kern blossomed in all her feminine glory. She was an enthusiastic fan of Pushkin's poems. Anna never fell in love with her husband, the general, and over time, the break in her relationship with Kern became inevitable. It so happened that in the summer of 1825 Anna Kern came to visit Aunt Praskovya Osipova in Trigorskoye. At this very time, Pushkin was serving exile in the village of Mikhailovskoye, which was located next door. She was waiting for Pushkin's arrival from day to day and he arrived...

Anna Kern subsequently described this event as follows: “We were sitting at dinner when suddenly Pushkin came in. Aunt introduced him to me, he bowed low, but
didn’t say a word, timidity was visible in his movements. He was very uneven in his manner: sometimes noisily cheerful, sometimes sad, sometimes timid, sometimes daring - and it was impossible to guess in what mood he would be in a minute. When he decided to be amiable, then nothing could compare with the brilliance, sharpness and excitement of his speech.

One day he came to Trigorskoye with a large book. Everyone sat down around him and he began to read the poem "Gypsies." For the first time we heard this poem, and I will never forget the delight that gripped my soul. I was in rapture both about the flowing verses of this wonderful poem, and from his reading, in which there was so much musicality - he had a melodious, melodic voice. ..A few days later, my aunt suggested everyone take a walk to Mikhailovskoye after dinner.

Having arrived in Mikhailovskoye, we did not enter the house, but went straight into an old, neglected garden, with long alleys of trees, where I constantly stumbled, and my companion shuddered... The next day I had to go to Riga. He came in the morning and At parting, he brought me a copy of Onegin’s chapter. Between the pages I found a sheet of paper folded into four with the verses: “I remember a wonderful moment.” When I was going to hide this poetic gift in the box, he looked at me for a long time, then he frantically snatched it and did not want to return it, I forcibly begged for them again, what flashed through his head then, I don’t know...”

In its modern version, Glinka’s romance appeared nine years later in 1839 and was dedicated to Anna Kern’s daughter, Catherine. In the music of the romance there is the tenderness and passion of the blossoming of love, the bitterness of separation and loneliness, the delight of new hope. In one romance, in a few lines, the whole love story. Fate would have it that the composer, whose marriage was unsuccessful, would love his daughter with the same strong love as the poet loved his mother, Anna Kern.

At the beginning of 1839, he first saw Anna Petrovna’s daughter Ekaterina at the Smolny Institute, where she was studying at that time. Glinka recalled: “My gaze involuntarily focused on her: her clear, expressive eyes, unusually slender figure and a special kind of charm and dignity, spilled throughout her entire person, attracted me more and more.”

Catherine knew music perfectly, revealed a subtle, deep nature, and soon his feelings were shared by her. Anna Kern by that time had married a minor official who was twenty years younger than her and was quite happy. Her favorite saying was: “The course of our life is only a boring and dull period if you do not breathe in it the sweet air of love.”

Glinka dreamed of going abroad with Catherine, but his plans were not destined to come true. Catherine fell ill. Doctors suspected consumption, advised them to live in the village, and Anna Kern and her daughter went to her parents’ estate Lubny, and Glinka to her family estate Novospasskoye. So they separated forever...

But two great men, Pushkin and Glinka, erected a “monument not made by hands” to two beautiful women: Anna Kern and her daughter, Ekaterina Kern, a monument for all times in honor of the “wonderful moment of love” - a message to all who love in eternity.