Georges Dantes Biography

The fate of the relative of A. Pushkin in Alsas Georges Dantes and his wife Ekaterina Goncharov in Alsace in the spiritual and cultural connection of Russia and Alsace is sometimes found in the most unexpected moments. Tourists can nevertheless enter the courtyard of the estate, examining the side outbuilding directly opposite the entrance, in which the spouses lived upon returning from Russia.

The room with the only balcony in the palace was the bedroom of the Russian wife Dantes. On a large lawn, you can see the old oak, which the baron ordered to plant under the windows of the wife on the occasion of the birth of a son. Dantes's parents lived in another part of the palace. At the city cemetery of the sulza, the necropolis of the Dantesov clan was preserved, where you can see the tombstone of the marble marble plate of Georges Dantes and, located nearby, the grave of Ekaterina Goncharova.

The tombstone of Ekaterina Goncharova was recently updated by the Russian embassy, ​​see some circumstances of the duel of Pushkin with Dantes, as well as the role that Ekaterina Goncharova played in the events preceding this fight, they still remain unclear, they are differently interpreted by historians and Pushkinists. However, it is safe to say that the duel itself not only cost Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, but also dramatically changed his life and influenced the further fate of Georges Dantes and Ekaterina Goncharova.

After returning from Russia to France, the political career of Georges Dantes was very successful: in the year he was elected a member of the General Council of the Verkhny Rhine Department, and later was the chairman of the General Council and the mayor of Sules. Georges Dantes could boast of close friendship with Emperor Napoleon III, who visited the baron several times and stayed in his house.

It is precisely such a close and devoted friendship with the French monarch, as well as the commitment of Dantes Royalist ideals, that explains the fact that the building of the city hall, which was built just at a time when the mayor of the city was a large golden eagle in the Roman style - the emblem of imperial France: Hotel de Ville, Place de La Republique, Soultz Haut Rhin.

The revolution on September 14, abolishing the second empire in France, and the capture of Germany Alsa as a result of the Franco-Prussian war of the years forced him to return to private life. The fate of Ekaterina Goncharova, after her forced departure from Russia, developed less rosy. Having familiarized the sources that are widely available, we can conclude that the fairly prosperous family life of Ekaterina Nikolaevna in Elsas was overshadowed by an almost complete break in relations with relatives in Russia: of all relatives, her brother and her wife supported her with her wife, and only twice in her letters, Ekaterina mentions that she received letters from her sisters.

In addition, behind the external family idyll of the Dantes Geckern, the difficult relations of Ekaterina Goncharova with her husband and his relatives were hidden, about which we learn from the personal correspondence of the baroness. Ekaterina Nikolaevna became the mother of three daughters and passionately wanted to give her husband the heir. In the winter of the year, she gave birth to a dead boy.

According to the memoirs of her grandson, Louis Metman, in the hope of giving birth to her son, Ekaterina Nikolaevna, according to her vow, went barefoot to the local church and for a long time, Obodovskaya I. prayed after Pushkin’s death. This church has survived to this day. She is located in the former Benedictine monastery of Tyrenbach Thierenbach. Address: Jungholtz Prayers for the birth of the heir were heard: on September 22, Baroness Gekkern gave birth to a long-awaited son, Louis Joseph.

However, having given the life of the boy, she sacrificed her sake for this: without recovering after childbirth, Ekaterina Nikolaevna died on October 15, Obodovskaya I. her body was buried in a local cemetery. From these words we can conclude that until the last day of her life, Ekaterina Goncharova remained Orthodox, although there is an assumption that she intended to change faith.

From the letters of the baroness we learn that she was sincerely believing and, apparently, was difficult to experience the inability to attend Orthodox worship. It is noteworthy that the engagement ring is also placed on the Orthodox rite - on its right hand. In the same museum, you can see the Orthodox crucifix brought by Ekaterina Goncharova from Russia, as well as a grave plate with the name of Baroness Catherine Geckern.

It has a laconic inscription: born in Moscow, died in a sulf on October 20 at the age of 32. The stove was replaced with a new one - indicating the date of birth and an updated age at the time of death: 34 years. Standing in the cemetery, at the grave of Ekaterina Gekkern, recall the words from the letter of her sister, Alexandra Goncharova, written in the year: “Our poor Katya is not in the world, we will pray for her: Sergey Volenko, when reprinting the article, a link to the author and the site is required.