Correspondence Between V.A. Zhukovsky and A.A. Voeykova During Her Foreign Trip (1827-1829)

Research was conducted at Tomsk State University and supported by the Russian Science Foundation (RSF) Grant No.19-18-00083 “Russian Epistolary Culture of the First Half of the 19th Century: Textology, Commentary, Publication”. The article tells about the letters from V.A. Zhukovsky to A.A. Voeykova referring her foreign trip of 1827-1829 and publishes two letter autographs. These letters were published earlier, by A.A. Voeykova's daughter, who had reduced their texts approximately by third, excluding some information about the family, father, and money, which he sent to France, Switzerland and Italy to the dying wife. Zhukovsky sponsored more than half of the total trip cost, approximately two-thirds, for which he could use the “irrevocable” credit of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, the mention of whom had also been excluded by Voeykova's daughter. After her departure, A.A. Voeykova and Zhukovsky were corresponding extensively, which brightened up the life of the diseased woman. There were long intervals between letters, as it took about thirty days to deliver letter one way only. In his letters, Zhukovsky shared the news about their friends and the court life, sent his poems, discussed new books. The commentary to the published letters analyses the biographical, historical, and cultural context of their correspondence, dwelling on the difference between Zhukovsky's and Voeykova's perception of French public life and increasing awareness of the Imperial court life during the Russian-Turkish war of 1828-1829.

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