Aleksey Mikhailovich Zhemchuzhnikov abandoned his brilliant career as a civil servant and devoted himself entirely to poetry, but his literary destiny was not an easy one. He began to write poems in his childhood but they first appeared in print towards the end of his life. Prutkov’s parodies brought more fame to Kozma than to Zhemchuzhnikov. The poet’s works, while appearing in print, were rare. It was for various reasons: living abroad, where he did not feel inspired to write; illness and death of his wife — there were long pauses in work. The inscription on the back of the cabinet card reads “Photographer of His Highness Prince Chernogorsky’s Court E. Mrozovskaya. St.-Petersburg, Nevsky, near the Police Bridge, number 20”.

Elena Lukinichna Mrozovskaya, or Hélène de Mrozovski (née Knyazhevich), was one of the first Russian professional photographers of Montenegrin origin. Mrozovskaya’s brother, Vladimir Pavlovich Mrozovsky, was a mechanical engineer and artist, and her uncle Joseph Ivanovich Mrozovsky was Military Governor General of Moscow from 1915 to 1917.

Mrozovskaya studied photography at the Russian Technical Society, completing the course in 1892. She then continued her studies with the French photographer and caricaturist Nadar in Paris. Returning to Saint Petersburg she opened a studio there in 1894. She died in 1941 in Repino (a district of Saint Petersburg).

Elena Mrozovskaya photographed many famous people: Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Matilda Kshesinskaya, Vera Komissarzhevskaya and other famous artists, writers and actors of the time. Mrozovskaya won a bronze medal at the Stockholm General Art and Industry Exhibition and a silver medal at the World Exhibition in Paris, and participated in an international exhibition in Liège. One of her photographs, a hand-painted image of Princess Olga Orlova wearing a kokoshnik at a ball in the Winter Palace in 1903, is in the Hermitage collection. Elena Mrozovskaya’s shaded photograph “Portrait of a Girl in Malorussian Costume” is in the collection of the Moscow House of Photography. Many of Mrozovskaya’s photographs are in the collection of the Saint Petersburg Conservatoire and several more are in the collection of the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art.

Name: Photo of the poet A.M. Zhemchuzhnikov
Author: Elena Mrozovskaya
Date of creation: 1900
State catalog number: 6687687
Place of creation: Saint Petersburg, the Russian Empire
Technique: photography
Dimensions: 20,8×9,8 cm

Aleksey Mikhailovich Zhemchuzhnikov (10.02.1821–25.03.1908), the poet and co-author of the character of Kozma Prutkov, spent the last years of his life in the village of Ilyinovka, Kirsanov District, Tambov Governorate, on the estate of Mikhail Andreevich Boratynsky — the husband of his eldest daughter Olga.

Name: A.M. Zhemchuzhnikov with his daughter’s family
Author: Mikhail Andreevich Boratynsky
Date of creation: the early 20th century
Place of creation: Kirsanov District, the Russian Empire
Technique: photography
Dimensions: 11,5×7,8 cm

The Kirsanov Local History Museum houses books from the estates of major landlords of Kirsanov District: Yevgeny Abramovich Boratynsky, Mikhail Andreevich Boratynsky, Nikolay Lvovich Markov, Nikolay Ivanovich Krivtsov. One of the books is Rhoda Broughton’s novel “Second Thoughts”. The book belonged to Olga Alexeevna Boratynskaya (née Zhemchuzhnikova), and has her autograph on the cover. On the front page of this novel is a dedicatory inscription in French, “To Mr. Albert de Rorets from Nastia. 6.1.84”.

Alfred August von Rorets was the first husband of Olga Alekseevna Zhemchuzhnikova, who later, widowed, married Mikhail Andreevich Boratynsky, grandnephew of the poet Yevgeny Abramovich Boratynsky. The mysterious Nastia, who gave the book to Alfred (or, in French parlance, Albert) in January 1884, three months before his marriage to O. A. Zhemchuzhnikova, remains unknown. It can only be assumed that it was the sister of his future wife, Anastasia Alexeyevna Zhemchuzhnikova.

Rhoda Broughton was a well-known British novelist, a contemporary of the Zhemchuzhnikov sisters and Alfred von Rorets. The daughter of a priest, the Reverend Delves Broughton of Broughton Hall in Staffordshire, Rhoda wrote some 25 popular novels. By 1880 her literary fame had reached its zenith. The novel “Second Thoughts” was published in 1880 — thus the book, which was presented to Alfred von Rorets, was the latest novel of the popular contemporary writer in 1884. Rhoda Broughton was something of a trailblazer among women novelists, as she introduced a plucky, unconventional heroine into the very prim 60s of the Victorian era. Broughton truly shocked many readers. In her books she legitimized the kissing of characters, her characters knew quite physical feelings of love and anguish. There is a story, probably fictional, according to which Miss Broughton was forbidden by her father to read her own book. It supposedly concerned her first novel, written in secret and printed anonymously. The priestly father was therefore unaware that the author was his daughter.

Rhoda Broughton’s book was published by Tauchnitz Publishers in Leipzig. This publisher was founded by the German printer Christian Bernhard Tauchnitz in 1837. For one hundred years in a row, since 1841, books in the series “Tauchnitz Edition. Collection of British authors” were published there. A total of 5,390 books were published in this series, which was later expanded to include works by American authors.

Name: Novel “Second Thoughts”
Author: Rhoda Broughton
Date of creation: 1880
Place of creation: Leipzig, Germany
Technique: typographic printing
Dimensions: 16,5×12 cm