Zinaida Nikolaevna Nekrasova (; born Fyokla Anisimovna Viktorova; 1846 – 25 January 1915) was the colleague and wife of the Russian poet, publicist, and public figure Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov. Almost nothing is known about her childhood and youth. There are various versions about her birth date, origins, and the circumstances of her meeting with the poet. The young woman met him in 1870, and they immediately became close. Nekrasov did much to provide her with a proper education, introducing her to his circle of close friends and relatives. Zinaida Nikolaevna carried out some of the poet's assignments related to the editing and publication of his works.
The poet dedicated the poem Grandfather to Zinaida Nekrasova, as well as at least three poems in the book Last Songs, the publication rights of which were transferred to his wife by the author. She participated in the publication and distribution of inexpensive editions of her husband's poems.
Zinaida Nekrasova's destiny has been addressed in articles and monographs by many literary scholars, archivists, and cultural researchers. Among them are doctors of philological sciences Mikhail Makeev and Nikolay Skatov, candidate of philology Irina Abramovskaya, candidate of cultural studies Vyacheslav Lyotin, and others.
Origins and youth The Parish register, issued by the Saratov Spiritual Consistory to the Voskresenskoye Cemetery Church in the city of Saratov for recording births, marriages, and deaths for the year 1915 states that Zinaida Nekrasova's died at the age of 68. According to Zinaida's biographer Loman, this register allows to establish that she was born in 1846 (and not the beginning of the following year, since the name day of Fyokla, after whom she was named at baptism, falls in the second half of that year). Before the publication of Loman's article, Zinaida's birth year was either not mentioned or listed as 1851. However, the dating of Fyokla Viktorova's birth as 1851 appears in later publications as well. An example is the 2021 book I am full of spirit and alive…N.A. Nekrasov in the Novgorod Region. On the 200th Anniversary of the Poet's Birth by candidate of philological sciences Irina Abramovskaya and Irina Smirnova. There is another version expressed by the senior researcher of the Chudovo branch of the Novgorod Museum-Reserve Tatyana Grigoryeva, who says that Zinaida's correct birth date was on the second half of 1850; Grigoryeva referred to a surviving letter from Zinaida Safonova, who knew Z. Nekrasova well. The letter states the poet's widow's age at death as not 68 but 65 years.
Contemporaries held differing opinions regarding Fyokla Viktorova's origins: Nikolay Nekrasov himself, in his will, referred to her as the daughter of a "deceased private" of the imperial army; The poet's contemporary Ekaterina Zhukovskaya perceived Fyokla Viktorova as the daughter of a military historia; The Karabikha distiller P. E. Koshkin claimed that the poet and his future wife met in Saint Petersburg, but Fyokla Viktorova hailed from Vyshny Volochyok and was the daughter of an ober-officer; The poet's friend, statesman, and amateur hunter Vasily Lazarevsky claimed in a diary, which had not yet been published by 1978 when Loman referenced it, that before meeting the poet, Viktorova was the kept woman of a certain merchant Lytkin. The monogrammist M.S., author of an article in a reference publication dedicated to the poet's inner circle, wrote regarding this version: "Lazarevsky's diary entry, which records received information without personal judgments, appears to be the most free from bias in presenting the facts".
Olga Loman collected new testimonies in the 1960s–1970s from people who knew Zinaida in Saratov, where she settled after the poet's death, but they did not clarify the already known information: E. F. Eremeeva claimed: "While hunting, Nekrasov visited the house of her father, Anisim Viktorov. It was in her father's house that she met the poet". A. G. Ozolina reported: "She came from a poor family. Her mother was a laundress. Nekrasov met her on the street, they got acquainted, and later he proposed and married her". The monogrammist M. S. argued that this version "may have been dictated by the need to clean the woman's image from what traditionally caused condemnation". T. I. Orlova recounted: "Z. N. was the daughter of a laundress. Nekrasov met her in Chudovo, when she was returning from the river with a basket of laundry on her head". The poet's niece, Vera Fyodorovna Nekrasova, told Olga Loman: "We knew nothing about Z. N., neither father nor mother told us anything. I only remember that mother said that Zin. Nik. was selling something on the street (I don't remember what; it seems, flowers), and that's where N. A. met her". A. I. Meshchaninova, granddaughter of Fyokla Viktorova's sister, told the researcher that the girl's parents came from Kolpino burghers.
Literary researcher Korney Chukovsky claimed that the girl was the daughter of a drummer, and that "it was said (and perhaps this was slander) that her melodious pseudonym was given to her in that establishment on Ofitserskaya Street, where the poet met her". In his 1920 diary, Chukovsky reproduced the version of Zinaida Nikolaevna's origins, which, according to him, he heard from the poet's half-sister Elizaveta Alexandrovna Fokht (Nekrasova)-Ryumling: "She was from a house of pleasure on Ofitserskaya Street. I remember that house; there was a locksmith's workshop there, and above the workshop hung a key —instead of a sign— and the locksmith's wife had 3 or 4 wards, whom guests visited — sometimes the girls went to the guests. Their place was called Under the Key. When men went there, they were saying: let's go under the key. Zina was from that place". Doctor of philological sciences Mikhail Makeev attributed the information about the girl's "shameful profession" to Lazarevsky's diary, which, in his opinion, Lazarevsky could have heard from the poet himself. At the same time, Makeev wrote that this was disinformation, as there were no traces (vulgarity, brazenness) of a "shameful profession" in the girl's appearance or behavior. The researcher himself suggested that she came from the burgher class, was an orphan, a servant of one of the poet's wealthy acquaintances, who presumably used her as a concubine and gave her or even "sold" her to Nekrasov. Doctors of historical sciences Natalia Lebina and Mikhail Shkarovsky wrote in the book Prostitution in Petersburg (1840s–1940s), that for a prostitute, the opportunity to lead an "honest life" came through marriage, while noting that marriages of men from "society" to prostitutes "rarely ended happily." Such events were infrequent: the Saint Petersburg Medical-Police Committee recorded only 4 marriages between 1901 and 1910. As earlier examples of such events, the authors of the monograph cited the marriages of Pyotr Schmidt and Nikolay Nekrasov: "In his later years, N. A. Nekrasov married the public woman Fyokla Onisimovna Viktorova from the house of pleasure known as Under the Key on Ofitserskaya Street". This version of Zinaida's origins is also mentioned in the book Nekrasov and His Circle. Reference Edition, specifying that it "was mentioned in certain specialized (Lebina, Shkarovsky) and literary studies as unproven and slanderous (Loman) or as based on information shared in private conversation".
The Nekrasova's biographer, Vladislav Evgenyev-Maksimov, published a notice in 1915 in the newspaper Den''': "There is no information in the literature about Zinaida Nikolaevna's life before meeting Nekrasov or the circumstances under which they met. The author of this article… would be extremely grateful for any information on this matter". His request for help in gathering information went unanswered. Zinaida Nekrasova's passport, stored at the Institute of Russian Literature, provides no information on the issue. No correspondence between the spouses exists, as they were never apart for the rest of the poet's life. Olga Loman only speculated that Fyokla Viktorova was "of simple status, orphaned early, and did not receive a systematic education. It is unlikely that she was born in Karabikha or Chudovo: judging by Nekrasov's letters, she first visited these places with him. Nor could her homeland have been places near Greshnevo, as confirmed by the absence of legends or stories about her in Greshnevo. The old residents of Greshnevo, contemporaries of the poet, did not know her".
Marriage with Nikolay Nekrasov
Fyokla Anisimovna Viktorova met Nikolay Nekrasov in the spring of 1870, when she was 23-year-old (she herself claimed in her memoirs that she was only 19 years old). Olga Loman described her as "beautiful and modest, kind and warm-hearted, a cheerful singer and a laugher". At that time, the poet was already 48 years old. The literary scholar believed that Nekrasov initially did not take his relationship with the girl seriously. He settled Fyokla Viktorova in an apartment rented specifically for her (located in the city center in Povarskoy Lane), but later offered her to move into the half of his own apartment that had been vacant since the death of Ivan Panaev and the departure of his wife in 1863. The staircase on the floor ended at a landing; the door to the right led to the poet's rooms, and to the left – to Fyokla Viktorova's rooms, while the rooms were connected internally. Zinaida Nikolaevna lived in these rooms until the poet's death. The first mentions of the girl appear in Nekrasov's letters in May 1870. For example, in a letter from early May to Vasily Lazarevsky, with whom the poet planned to go hunting, Nekrasov writes that he did not make it to Chudovo because "something came up, due to which I need to stay here a few more days". Opposite this fragment, Lazarevsky made a note in the margin: "Zina" ([Zinaida Nikolaevna], as the poet was already calling Fyokla Viktorova at that time). On May 7, 1870, Lazarevsky mentioned in his diary a trip with Nekrasov to Chudovo "for the first time together with Zina".
Fyokla Viktorova told the Saratov journalist Nikolai Arkhangelsky about the appearance of her new name and patronymic: "Nikolay Alekseevich started calling me Zina, adding his patronymic. Following him, all our acquaintances began calling me Zinaida Nikolaevna, so that in the end, I became so accustomed to it that I seem to have forgotten that my name is Fyokla Anisimovna". Some Soviet and Russian literary scholars considered the reason for the name change to be the dissonant sound of the girl's birth name and patronymic. Candidate of philological sciences Irina Abramovskaya and senior researcher at the poet's house-museum in Chudovo Irina Smirnova believed that in the name Zinaida, Nekrasov reflected meanings that corresponded both to Fyokla's character and her relationship with the poet. In translation from Greek Ζηναΐς, the name means "Belonging to Zeus", "…of the lineage of Zeus" or "divine daughter", and the patronymic, in this interpretation, points to the girl's patron — Nikolay Nekrasov himself. In translation from Arabic, the same name means "beautiful," and from Latin — "caring". According to Abramovskaya and Smirnova, these were the qualities the poet had in mind when giving the girl her new name.
Olga Loman noted that already in the first year of living together with Zinaida, the poet wrote to his relatives without separating himself from her: "we are sending," "we are leaving," "we will head to Dieppe," "come to us in Petersburg… we will be glad," "Zina and I," "We arrived in Petersburg safely… moved to the Chudovo house". At the same time, Nekrasov did not take the girl to receptions where unfamiliar people might be present. Most often, when the poet left, Zinaida stayed at home. If she accompanied Nekrasov on a trip, she waited for him in the carriage.