Portrait of an Unknown Woman (1883).
If the name of Ivan Kramskoy is known to almost everyone, then the name of his beloved daughter Sofia Juncker-Kramskoy (1866-1933) very few know. She is the real Stranger. The thing is that few people know that the artist had a daughter, and besides, a very talented artist. The obvious reason for oblivion was her imprisonment and exile on a stage to Siberia. Her brothers renounced her, afraid to admit kinship with an "unreliable" sister, and the story of her arrest was carefully concealed. long years.
Self-portrait. (1874).
Even in the big encyclopedia in the world - Wikipedia - there is no page dedicated to Sofya Kramskaya, who left behind a significant mark on fine arts. And she was a talented painter, graphic artist, miniaturist, watercolorist, portrait painter, wrote genre paintings, still lifes, was engaged in illustration.
Only on the page of her father - the great Russian artist - in the section "Family" - a short line, where the name of Sophia is mentioned among the list of Kramskoy's children: "Sofya - daughter, artist, repressed". However, neither the date of her birth nor the date of death is indicated. The tragic fate of the daughter of the great artist Ivan Kramskoy became known only recently, when documents from the archive of the FSB of the Russian Federation were made public.
Kramskaya Sofya Nikolaevna with Sonya and Saltykova Feodora Romanovna - the mother of the artist's wife. (1866).
But be that as it may, her image is immortalized by a loving father on many paintings. Including, according to one version, it was Sonia who posed for her father when creating his most famous painting "Unknown" (1883).
Portrait of Sonya Kramskoy. Early 1870s.
Sophia is the only daughter among the three sons in the Kramskoy family, born according to some sources in 1866, and others in 1867. From childhood she was ugly duckling, but having matured - unusually prettier. And for the artist father, she has always been the most beautiful and beloved model. True, Sophia's sad and thoughtful bottomless eyes look from almost every portrait. She seems to foresee the coming misfortunes in her life.
Sonya Kramskaya.
Growing up in the creative atmosphere of the Kramskikh house, where talented and educated people, the girl was imbued with a love for painting early. And Kramskoy in every possible way developed the extraordinary abilities of his daughter, became her first mentor and teacher.
Sonya Kramskaya with her mother Sofia Nikolaevna.
Sofya Kramskaya and the daughter of the Moscow merchant P.M. Tretyakova - Vera and Alexandra were the same age, since childhood they were connected by strong friendship. From the memoirs of Vera Tretyakova: “Sonya was ugly, but with a smart, energetic face, lively, cheerful and unusually talented in painting ... At the age of 16–17, Sonya became prettier, her hair grew back. Her figure became long and thin. She danced beautifully. Her gaiety, wit and charm attracted many admirers to her."
Portrait of Sonya Kramskoy after illness.
Ilya Repin, a student of Kramskoy, then still quite Unknown artist, was admired graceful figure Sophia. And 30-year-old Albert Benois had serious views on a 15-year-old girl. But Sonya thought he was too old.
But Sergei Botkin, a young doctor, one of the medical dynasty of the Botkins, immediately captured the heart of the young Kramskaya. It was going to be a wedding. Sophia's father painted magnificent portraits of the bride and groom in 1882.
Sergei Botkin. (1882).
Suddenly, the happiness of the young Kramskoy collapsed like a house of cards. Sergei Botkin broke off his engagement to Sonya and married her friend Sasha Tretyakova. Sophia, who survived a double betrayal, managed to save her face and remain a friend to her rival. But only God knew what it cost her.
Portrait of the artist's daughter. (1882).
Only painting saved her from melancholy, despondency. And all this time, her father was with her, who worried with all his heart, supported and consoled his only daughter. “There was a rare friendship between Sonya and her father, turning into mutual adoration”- from the memoirs of Vera Tretyakova.
Girl with a cat (1882).
Before his death, the artist, saddened by the fate of Sophia, and at the same time proud of her professional talent as an artist, said:
“Girl, but how strong, as if already a master. I think sometimes, and it will become scary ... personal life threatens to turn into a tragedy. He seemed to feel in advance the unfortunate fate of his only daughter.
Self-portrait. Painter, painting portrait his daughter, Sophia. (1884).
Sophia for a long time could not recover from the betrayal of her beloved, and did not let into her heart new love. Only years later, having become a famous 35-year-old artist, Sofya Ivanovna's thawed heart could fall in love. She became the wife of the St. Petersburg lawyer Georgy Junker, with whom she lived for 15 years.
Paintings by Sofia Kramskoy and last years life.
Portrait of Father I.N. Kramskoy. (1887).
At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Kramskaya was quite famous. She had many orders from noble and wealthy people, including a series of portraits of members of the imperial family. Her works were exhibited at many exhibitions, at the Academy of Arts.
Portrait of a girl. (1886).
The beginning of the twentieth century brought with it many new troubles - the first World War, revolution, civil war. And it was impossible to save most of the artist's paintings. Much has been destroyed, much is missing. And some of the works that Sophia donated to the Ostrogozhsky Museum in 1942 burned down in a fire. But several works have survived to this day, thanks to museum staff.
Portrait of a girl in a kokoshnik.
Sophia had to adapt to a new life in post-revolutionary Russia. In 1918, while working as a restorer in the Glavnauka workshop, she, a deeply religious person, had to organize an anti-religious museum Winter Palace. And work on illustrations at the Atheist publishing house. Being a pious person, she did not hide her faith. And also, having a kind and sympathetic heart, Kramskaya helped her friends from former nobility left behind a new life.
Portrait of actress M.G. Savina.
As a result of such activities, Sofya Junker-Kramskaya was arrested on December 25, 1930, and accused under Article 58-II of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of counter-revolutionary propaganda and for introducing unreliable citizens into social institutions.
As a "foreign element" she was sentenced to three years of exile in Siberia. The court decision and sentence provoked a stroke. Slightly treated in the prison hospital, paralyzed Sophia was nevertheless sent to Siberia by stage.
Portrait of Grand Duke Konstantin Romanov as Hamlet.
At the end of 1931, he wrote letters to M.I. Kalinin and Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova, who provided significant assistance to political prisoners. Sofya asked for a commutation of the sentence. And at the beginning of the next year, Kramskaya was indeed pardoned and she was allowed to return to Leningrad. And all this was thanks to the efforts of Ekaterina Peshkova. And a year later, in 1933, Sofia Ivanovna was gone. She died under strange circumstances. Official version said that death followed from sepsis.
The artist was rehabilitated for lack of corpus delicti only in 1989.
Old song.
Portrait of M.I. Itsina.
Sofya Kramskaya was the only girl in the family. She was born in 1866, studied at an ordinary gymnasium, but thanks to the creative atmosphere that prevailed in home, early felt an interest in painting.
Father tried to develop artistic skills daughter and became her first teacher. In her childhood, Sonya was considered ugly among her acquaintances, but she became prettier in her youth.
However, for her father, she was always the most beloved model. Even when the girl’s hair was cut off due to illness and an uneven hedgehog grew on her head (Sonya tried to cover it with a lace scarf), and then on her father’s canvases, the teenage daughter appeared as a real beauty with bottomless eyes.
Being the same age as the daughters of P.M. Tretyakov of Vera (in the marriage of Ziloti) and Sashenka (in the marriage of Botkina), Sonya was very friendly with them. Vera Siloti later recalled:
“Sonya was ugly, but with a smart, energetic face, lively, cheerful and unusually talented in painting ...
At the age of 16-17, Sonya ... got prettier, her hair grew back. Her figure became long and thin. She danced beautifully. Her gaiety, wit and entrain (attractiveness, charm) attracted many fans to her.
Sonya was really very graceful - Repin, a student of Kramskoy, admired her figure, Albert Benois seriously courted her, but at 30 he seemed too "old" to sixteen-year-old Sonya.
She had another fiancé - Sergei Sergeevich Botkin, a young doctor, a representative of a well-known medical dynasty. Relatives solemnly celebrated the engagement of the young, Kramskoy, to celebrate, painted magnificent paired portraits of the bride and groom ...
I. Kramskoy. Portrait of S.S. Botkin.
(Sergey Sergeevich Botkin would later become a professor of medicine and a life doctor, but he would not live to see the revolution, having died suddenly in 1910, at the age of 50 from a stroke. And his brother Evgeny Botkin, also a life doctor, would be shot in 1918 along with the royal family).
S.S. Botkin and Sasha Tretyakova.
Sergei Botkin, unexpectedly for everyone, fell in love with his bride's friend Alexandra Tretyakov. The engagement was terminated, and soon Sasha Tretyakova married her friend's ex-fiance.
Her face expresses only longing and spiritual emptiness.
Sophia was saved by painting. The sixteen-year-old girl went headlong into work and began to demonstrate truly professional success.
“There was a rare friendship between Sonya and her father, turning into mutual adoration,” Siloti wrote. In 1884, Kramskoy, in order to distract Sonya from mental anguish, went on a trip abroad with her daughter (at the same time to heal his heart - he was already very sick).
Traveling in France, Sophia became addicted to pictorial sketches. A year after the trip, Kramskoy wrote: "My daughter, the famous ... anemone, begins to give me serious hope that there is already some painting talent."
Kramskoy understood that he was dying, but his daughter had not yet risen to her feet and had not found herself. Shortly before his death, Ivan Nikolaevich, worried about the fate of Sophia, said: “Girl, but how strong, as if she were already a master. I think sometimes, and it will become scary ... personal life threatens to turn into a tragedy.
Self-portrait (Kramskoy paints a portrait of his daughter Sophia)
Sophia really could not recover from the blow for a long time, did not fall in love with anyone and did not get married. Only in adulthood, in 1901. when her father was no longer alive, she married a St. Petersburg lawyer of Finnish origin Georgy Junker.
Kramskoy, despite his simple origin, was accepted at court and even became his own person there, more than once performing portraits of members of the imperial family ( Alexander III was a great democrat and preferred communication with ordinary people, especially talented ones, communication with the Romanov clan), gave painting lessons to the daughters of the emperor. His children also became their own at court.
Sofya Kramskaya also performed a number of works, capturing the emperor, empress, their children, especially the crown prince, and other relatives. But almost nothing has survived.
Something was destroyed or disappeared during the years of the revolution, something from own works It was transferred by her to the Ostrogozhsky Museum, the homeland of her father, along with his paintings, and when a fire broke out in the museum in 1942, it perished along with most of its collections.
Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich as Hamlet in an amateur production, watercolor portrait of Sophia Kramskoy
Sophia was a recognized portrait painter, she was simply showered with orders. Alas, the fate of many works that were in private hands, in houses and estates that were destroyed during the revolution, also remained unknown.
Sofia Ivanovna graduated from a private women's gymnasium. For two years she studied painting with her father, after his death she was engaged in drawing under the guidance of A.D. Litovchenko, took lessons watercolor painting at A.P. Sokolova, used the advice of A.I. Kuindzhi. In the early 1890s she attended a private painting school in Paris, where she was tutored by old friend I.N. Kramskoy sculptor M.M. Antokolsky.
S. Kramskaya Portrait of father I. N. Kramskoy.
The picturesque portrait of I.N.Kramskoy, executed in the year of his death, became one of her earliest works and brought fame to the artist. V.V. Stasov included this portrait, or rather an etching made from it by V.V. Mate, in your great article about Kramskoy. That's the way it is with light hand Stasova: the name of Junker-Kramskoy often appears in connection with the name of her father.
S. Junker-Kramskaya. Girl in a kokoshnik.
Since 1888, the artist has participated in many exhibitions both in Russia and abroad. She tried her hand at different types and genres of art: in a portrait (often painted from photographs), in domestic genre(she preferred melodramatic plots), in a still life.
From the 1910s, Junker-Kramskaya became interested in miniature. She acted as an illustrator, participated in the anniversary edition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of A.S. Pushkin. Since the late 1880s, Junker-Kramskoy's work has become known. One of her finest paintings belongs to this period."Sleeping"(State Tretyakov Gallery, late 1880s - early 1890s).
S. Kramskaya Sleeping.
From Junker-Kramskaya. Portrait of the Actress Savina.
The history of the creation of this portrait was clarified thanks to a letter from I.E. Repin, who acted as an intermediary in its acquisition. The actress did not like the first version of the portrait. Another version, adopted by the actress, with a black fan, remained hanging in her mansion, which, according to the will, became the property of the M.G. Savina.
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Junker-Kramskaya, together with her brothers, took care of Ostrogozhskaya for many years. art gallery. She entered into negotiations with the Academy of Arts, with private individuals, busied herself with financing the construction of a museum building, and with the formation of a collection. The closest friends of the artist responded to the request of relatives to replenish the museum.
Repin, Kuindzhi, Bem, Koshelev, Menk, Yaroshenko, Korzukhin and others sent their works. Bryullov - V.P. Bryullov.
Ostrogozhsky Art Museum them. Kramskoy.
Construction was completed in 1910. Until the mid-1920s, Junker-Kramskaya was in correspondence with the director of the museum, G.N. Yakovlev. During the years of Soviet power, she continued to donate her works. In 1942, a fire broke out in the museum, most of the collection perished ...
In 1901, Sofia Ivanovna married Georgy Fedorovich Junker. He was a lawyer who worked as a barrister in the St. Petersburg Council for more than 30 years. According to the artist, all his life he was busy with a large study on the history of the Decembrists, which was never published.
After her marriage, Sofya Junker-Kramskaya helped her husband a lot, who collected materials about the Decembrists and prepared a research book about this period of history. The book was never published...
Fashionista
Sofya Ivanovna's husband died in 1916. And soon other troubles began - a revolution, a civil war, the death of her mother in 1919 ... But Sofya Ivanovna, who was already well over fifty, tried to adapt to a new life.
Portrait of a girl
Since 1918, she worked in the art and restoration workshops of Glavnauka. She, a deeply religious person, had to become the organizer of the anti-religious museum of the Winter Palace and illustrate the "History of Religion" in the publishing house "Ateist". To her, the daughter of Kramskoy, the illustrious master of religious painting, the author of the murals on the dome of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the great Christian canvases!
A conversation between two ladies. S. Kramskaya, 1910.
When studying the biography of Junker-Kramskoy, so far unknown facts her life. A watercolor was published in the catalog of the museum collection of the Memorial Society. portrait of M.I. Itsyna with the characteristic signature of the artist.
Portrait of M.I.Itsyna.
According to the owner of the portrait, it was executed in the 1930s and 40s in Krasnoyarsk by the artist Juncker, who was serving a link there. Nothing left even a grain of doubt about the authorship of the portrait. However, until now it was known that Junker-Kramskaya died in 1933. There was no mention of her stay in Krasnoyarsk anywhere.
The Department of Manuscripts of the State Tretyakov Gallery stores the correspondence of employees Tretyakov Gallery with the sons of I.N. Kramskoy, who in the 1930s helped in preparing for the 100th anniversary of the artist's anniversary exhibition.
Kramskoy's children were considered "prosperous", not affected by repression. And no one ever thought about the tragedy that befell the Kramskoy family, which had been carefully hidden for so many years.
“My sister died 4 years ago, she pricked her finger while cleaning herring, and fell ill with a common infection, from which she died,” Anatoly Ivanovich Kramskoy, Sofia’s beloved brother, wrote in the late 30s. And the eldest of the brothers, Nikolai Ivanovich Kramskoy, added: "... the last three years before her death were very difficult for her, and death from fish poisoning is terrible."
S. Kramskaya. Old song.
Assumptions about the arrest and exile of the artist in the 1930s were confirmed after the State Tretyakov Gallery, in response to a request, received copies of Junker-Kramskaya's personal file from the archive of the FSB of the Russian Federation. Sofya Junker-Kramskaya was arrested on December 25, 1930, accused under article 58-II of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for counter-revolutionary propaganda. She was charged with the creation of "a counter-revolutionary group from the former nobility, which set itself the goal of bringing its people to various Soviet institutions to serve in order to collect information about moods ..."
In October 1931, the case was sent for extrajudicial proceedings to a troika at the OGPU PP with a petition to apply the highest measure of social protection to the accused Junker-Kramskaya - execution. On April 11, a decision was issued by the visiting session of the Collegium of the OGPU, ordering the exile of the artist Junker-Kramskaya to the East Siberian Territory for a period of three years.
S.N. Kramskaya for a newspaper.
On April 27, Sofia Ivanovna was supposed to go with a stage to Irkutsk, but on April 28 she ended up in the hospital at the prison isolation ward with a diagnosis of "severe form of paralysis." In May 1931, Junker-Kramskaya nevertheless reached Irkutsk, three weeks later she was transferred to Kansk, and a month later to Krasnoyarsk.
On October 15, 1931, Junker-Kramskaya from the Krasnoyarsk hospital wrote a letter to Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova, who had helped many political prisoners. Sophia Ivanovna describes the severe course of the disease, two surgeries during her exile. She emphasizes that, despite her state of health, she has always worked: in Irkutsk as an illustrator of textbooks and collective farm magazines, in Kansk as a photographer and retoucher for a local newspaper.
In Krasnoyarsk, she suffered a second blow, the left side of her body was taken away. Her request was to mitigate the fate: if it is impossible to return home, then at least leave her in Krasnoyarsk until her health improves, and then - be sure to provide work, insisted the sick artist, stricken with paralysis.
March 25, 1932 Sofia Ivanovna returned to Leningrad. On July 31, 1932 Juncker-Kramskaya wrote thank you letter E.P. Peshkova, saying that he was going to work further, as far as his strength would allow. In 1933 the artist died. September 28, 1989 Sofya Junker-Kramskaya was rehabilitated.
For several decades Soviet history the name of the artist Sofia Ivanovna Junker-Kramskoy was undeservedly forgotten. In the last decade of the twentieth century, the resurrection of Juncker-Kramskaya's creativity began from non-existence. It attracts connoisseurs and art lovers more and more, the artist's works occupy a worthy place in museum and exhibition expositions.
Sources.
Portrait of an Unknown Woman (1883).
If the name of Ivan Kramskoy is known to almost everyone, then the name of his beloved daughter Sofia Juncker-Kramskoy (1866-1933) very few know. She is the real Stranger. The thing is that few people know that the artist had a daughter, and besides, a very talented artist. The obvious reason for oblivion was her imprisonment and exile on a stage to Siberia. Her brothers renounced her, being afraid to admit kinship with an “unreliable” sister, and the story of her arrest was carefully hidden for many years.
Self-portrait. (1874).
Even in the largest encyclopedia in the world - Wikipedia - there is no page dedicated to Sofya Kramskaya, who left behind a significant mark in the visual arts. And she was a talented painter, graphic artist, miniaturist, watercolorist, portrait painter, painted genre paintings, still lifes, illustrated.
Only on the page of her father - the great Russian artist - in the section "Family" - a short line, where the name of Sophia is mentioned among the list of Kramskoy's children:"Sofya - daughter, artist, repressed". However, neither the date of her birth nor the date of death is indicated. The tragic fate of the daughter of the great artist Ivan Kramskoy became known only recently, when documents from the archive of the FSB of the Russian Federation were made public.
Kramskaya Sofya Nikolaevna with Sonya and Saltykova Feodora Romanovna - the mother of the artist's wife. (1866).
But be that as it may, her image is immortalized by a loving father on many paintings. Including, according to one version, it was Sonia who posed for her father when creating his most famous painting "Unknown" (1883).
Portrait of Sonya Kramskoy. Early 1870s.
Sophia is the only daughter among the three sons in the Kramskoy family, born according to some sources in 1866, and others in 1867. From childhood, she was an ugly duckling, but as she grew up, she became unusually prettier. And for the artist father, she has always been the most beautiful and beloved model. True, Sophia's sad and thoughtful bottomless eyes look from almost every portrait. She seems to foresee the coming misfortunes in her life.
Sonya Kramskaya.
Growing up in the creative atmosphere of the Kramskoy house, where talented and educated people were regular guests, the girl was imbued with a love of painting early on. And Kramskoy in every possible way developed the extraordinary abilities of his daughter, became her first mentor and teacher.
Sonya Kramskaya with her mother Sofia Nikolaevna.
Sofya Kramskaya and the daughter of the Moscow merchant P.M. Tretyakova - Vera and Alexandra were the same age, since childhood they were connected by strong friendship. From the memoirs of Vera Tretyakova:“Sonya was ugly, but with a smart, energetic face, lively, cheerful and unusually talented in painting ... At the age of 16–17, Sonya became prettier, her hair grew back. Her figure became long and thin. She danced beautifully. Her gaiety, wit and charm attracted many admirers to her."
Portrait of Sonya Kramskoy after illness.
Ilya Repin, a student of Kramskoy, then still a completely unknown artist, was delighted with the graceful figure of Sophia. And 30-year-old Albert Benois had serious views on a 15-year-old girl. But Sonya thought he was too old.
But Sergei Botkin, a young doctor, one of the medical dynasty of the Botkins, immediately captured the heart of the young Kramskaya. It was going to be a wedding. Sophia's father painted magnificent portraits of the bride and groom in 1882.
Sergei Botkin. (1882).
Suddenly, the happiness of the young Kramskoy collapsed like a house of cards. Sergei Botkin broke off his engagement to Sonya and married her friend Sasha Tretyakova. Sophia, who survived a double betrayal, managed to save her face and remain a friend to her rival. But only God knew what it cost her.
Portrait of the artist's daughter. (1882).
Only painting saved her from melancholy, despondency. And all this time, her father was with her, who worried with all his heart, supported and consoled his only daughter.“There was a rare friendship between Sonya and her father, turning into mutual adoration”- from the memoirs of Vera Tretyakova.
Girl with a cat (1882).
Before his death, the artist, saddened by the fate of Sophia, and at the same time proud of her professional talent as an artist, said:
“Girl, but how strong, as if already a master. I think sometimes, and it will become scary ... personal life threatens to turn into a tragedy.He seemed to feel in advance the unfortunate fate of his only daughter.
Self-portrait. An artist painting a portrait of his daughter, Sophia. (1884).
Sophia for a long time could not recover from the betrayal of her beloved, and did not let new love into her heart. Only years later, having become a famous 35-year-old artist, Sofya Ivanovna's thawed heart could fall in love. She became the wife of the St. Petersburg lawyer Georgy Junker, with whom she lived for 15 years.
Painting of Sofya Kramskoy and the last years of her life.
Portrait of Father I.N. Kramskoy. (1887).
At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Kramskaya was quite famous. She had many orders from noble and wealthy people, including a series of portraits of members of the imperial family. Her works were exhibited at many exhibitions, at the Academy of Arts.
Portrait of a girl. (1886).
The beginning of the twentieth century brought with it many new troubles - the First World War, revolution, civil war. And it was impossible to save most of the artist's paintings. Much has been destroyed, much is missing. And some of the works that Sophia donated to the Ostrogozhsky Museum in 1942 burned down in a fire. But several works have survived to this day, thanks to museum staff.
Portrait of a girl in a kokoshnik.
Sophia had to adapt to a new life in post-revolutionary Russia. In 1918, while working as a restorer in the Glavnauka workshop, she, a deeply religious person, had to organize the anti-religious museum of the Winter Palace. And work on illustrations at the Atheist publishing house. Being a pious person, she did not hide her faith. And yet, having a kind and sympathetic heart, Kramskaya helped her friends from the former nobility, who were left behind a new life, as best she could.
Portrait of actress M.G. Savina.
As a result of such activities, Sofya Junker-Kramskaya was arrested on December 25, 1930, and accused under Article 58-II of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of counter-revolutionary propaganda and for introducing unreliable citizens into social institutions.
As a "foreign element" she was sentenced to three years of exile in Siberia. The court decision and sentence provoked a stroke. Slightly treated in the prison hospital, paralyzed Sophia was nevertheless sent to Siberia by stage.
Portrait of Grand Duke Konstantin Romanov as Hamlet.
At the end of 1931, he wrote letters to M.I. Kalinin and Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova, who provided significant assistance to political prisoners. Sofya asked for a commutation of the sentence. And at the beginning of the next year, Kramskaya was indeed pardoned and she was allowed to return to Leningrad. And all this was thanks to the efforts of Ekaterina Peshkova. And a year later, in 1933, Sofia Ivanovna was gone. She died under strange circumstances. The official version was that death was due to sepsis.
The artist was rehabilitated for lack of corpus delicti only in 1989.
Old song.
Portrait of M.I. Itsina.
Portrait of an Unknown. (1883).
If the name of Ivan Kramskoy is known to almost everyone, then the name of his beloved daughter Sofia Juncker-Kramskoy (1866-1933) very few know. She is the real Stranger. The thing is that few people know that the artist had a daughter, and besides, a very talented artist. The obvious reason for oblivion was her imprisonment and exile on a stage to Siberia. Her brothers renounced her, being afraid to admit kinship with an “unreliable” sister, and the story of her arrest was carefully hidden for many years.
Self-portrait. (1874).
Even in the largest encyclopedia in the world - Wikipedia - there is no page dedicated to Sofya Kramskaya, who left behind a significant mark in the visual arts. And she was a talented painter, graphic artist, miniaturist, watercolorist, portrait painter, painted genre paintings, still lifes, illustrated.
Only on the page of her father - the great Russian artist - in the section "Family" - a short line, where the name of Sophia is mentioned among the list of Kramskoy's children: "Sofya - daughter, artist, repressed". However, neither the date of her birth nor the date of death is indicated. The tragic fate of the daughter of the great artist Ivan Kramskoy became known only recently, when documents from the archive of the FSB of the Russian Federation were made public.
Kramskaya Sofya Nikolaevna with Sonya and Saltykova Feodora Romanovna - the mother of the artist's wife. (1866)
But be that as it may, her image is immortalized by a loving father on many paintings. Including, according to one version, it was Sonya who posed for her father when creating his most famous painting, “The Unknown” (1883).
Portrait of Sonya Kramskoy. Early 1870s.
Sophia is the only daughter among the three sons in the Kramskoy family, born according to some sources in 1866, and others in 1867. From childhood, she was an ugly duckling, but as she grew up, she became unusually prettier. And for the artist father, she has always been the most beautiful and beloved model. True, Sophia's sad and thoughtful bottomless eyes look from almost every portrait. She seems to foresee the coming misfortunes in her life.
Sonya Kramskaya.
Growing up in the creative atmosphere of the Kramskoy house, where talented and educated people were regular guests, the girl was imbued with a love of painting early on. And Kramskoy in every possible way developed the extraordinary abilities of his daughter, became her first mentor and teacher.
Sonya Kramskaya with her mother Sofia Nikolaevna.
Sofya Kramskaya and the daughter of the Moscow merchant P.M. Tretyakova - Vera and Alexandra were the same age, from childhood they were connected by strong friendship. From the memoirs of Vera Tretyakova: “Sonya was ugly, but with a smart, energetic face, lively, cheerful and unusually talented in painting ... At the age of 16–17, Sonya became prettier, her hair grew back. Her figure became long and thin. She danced beautifully. Her gaiety, wit and charm attracted many admirers to her."
Portrait of Sonya Kramskoy after illness.
Ilya Repin, a student of Kramskoy, then still a completely unknown artist, was delighted with the graceful figure of Sophia. And 30-year-old Albert Benois had serious views on a 15-year-old girl. But Sonya thought he was too old.
But Sergei Botkin, a young doctor, one of the medical dynasty of the Botkins, immediately captured the heart of the young Kramskaya. It was going to be a wedding. Sophia's father painted magnificent portraits of the bride and groom in 1882.
Suddenly, the happiness of the young Kramskoy collapsed like a house of cards. Sergei Botkin broke off his engagement to Sonya and married her friend Sasha Tretyakova. Sophia, who survived a double betrayal, managed to save her face and remain a friend to her rival. But only God knew what it cost her.
Portrait of the artist's daughter. (1882)
Only painting saved her from melancholy, despondency. And all this time, her father was with her, who worried with all his heart, supported and consoled his only daughter. “There was a rare friendship between Sonya and her father, turning into mutual adoration”- from the memoirs of Vera Tretyakova.
Girl with a cat (1882).
Before his death, the artist, saddened by the fate of Sophia, and at the same time proud of her professional talent as an artist, said:
“Girl, but how strong, as if already a master. I think sometimes, and it will become scary ... personal life threatens to turn into a tragedy. He seemed to feel in advance the unfortunate fate of his only daughter.
Self-portrait. An artist painting a portrait of his daughter, Sophia. (1884)
Sophia for a long time could not recover from the betrayal of her beloved, and did not let new love into her heart. Only years later, having become a famous 35-year-old artist, Sofya Ivanovna's thawed heart could fall in love. She became the wife of the St. Petersburg lawyer Georgy Junker, with whom she lived for 15 years.
Painting of Sofya Kramskoy and the last years of her life.
Portrait of Father I.N. Kramskoy. (1887)
At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Kramskaya was quite famous. She had many orders from noble and wealthy people, including a series of portraits of members of the imperial family. Her works were exhibited at many exhibitions, at the Academy of Arts.
Portrait of a girl. (1886)
The beginning of the twentieth century brought with it many new troubles - the First World War, revolution, civil war. And it was impossible to save most of the artist's paintings. Much has been destroyed, much is missing. And some of the works that Sophia donated to the Ostrogozhsky Museum in 1942 burned down in a fire. But several works have survived to this day, thanks to museum staff.
Portrait of a girl in a kokoshnik.
Sophia had to adapt to a new life in post-revolutionary Russia. In 1918, while working as a restorer in the Glavnauka workshop, she, a deeply religious person, had to organize the anti-religious museum of the Winter Palace. And work on illustrations at the Atheist publishing house. Being a pious person, she did not hide her faith. And yet, having a kind and sympathetic heart, Kramskaya helped her friends from the former nobility as best she could, who were left out of the new life.
Portrait of actress M.G. Savina.
As a result of such activities, Sofya Junker-Kramskaya was arrested on December 25, 1930, and accused under Article 58-II of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of counter-revolutionary propaganda and for introducing unreliable citizens into social institutions.
As a "foreign element" she was sentenced to three years of exile in Siberia. The court decision and sentence provoked a stroke. Slightly treated in the prison hospital, paralyzed Sophia was nevertheless sent to Siberia by stage.
Portrait of Grand Duke Konstantin Romanov as Hamlet.
At the end of 1931, he wrote letters to M.I. Kalinin and Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova, who provided significant assistance to political prisoners. Sophia asked for a commutation of the sentence. And at the beginning of the next year, Kramskaya was really pardoned and she was allowed to return to Leningrad. And all this was thanks to the efforts of Ekaterina Peshkova. And a year later, in 1933, Sofia Ivanovna was gone. She died under strange circumstances. The official version was that death was due to sepsis.
The artist was rehabilitated for lack of corpus delicti only in 1989.
Old song.
Portrait of M.I. Itsina.
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tragic fate daughters of Ivan Kramskoy
To the question “Do you know the artist Kramskoy?” most of us will answer in the affirmative. His paintings exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum and other collections are more than well-known and replicated many times. Who has not seen the famous "Unknown", which constantly appears where you do not expect it at all? But if the name of Kramskoy himself is known to everyone, then very few have heard of his beloved daughter Sofya. Surprisingly, this artist, who was truly famous in her time, was not made by anyone. famous person! Here is a real stranger - Sofya Junker-Kramskaya, daughter of Ivan Kramskoy.
To the question “Do you know the artist Kramskoy?” most of us will answer in the affirmative. His paintings exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum and other collections are more than well-known and replicated many times. Who has not seen the famous "Unknown", which constantly appears where you do not expect it at all? But if the name of Kramskoy himself is known to everyone, then very few have heard of his beloved daughter Sofya. Surprisingly, this artist, who was truly famous in her time, was made an unknown person! Here is a real stranger - Sofya Junker-Kramskaya, daughter of Ivan Kramskoy.
The degree of oblivion of this woman is such that for a long time it was not even reliably known in which year she was born - in 1866 or 1867. She studied at an ordinary gymnasium, but thanks to the creative atmosphere that prevailed in her home, she felt an early interest in painting. The father tried to develop his daughter's artistic skills and became her first teacher. In her childhood, Sonya was considered ugly among her acquaintances, but she became prettier in her youth. However, for her father, she was always the most beloved model. Even when the girl’s hair was cut off due to illness and an uneven hedgehog grew on her head (Sonya tried to cover it with a lace scarf), even then, on her father’s canvases, the teenage daughter appeared as a real beauty with bottomless eyes.
Being the same age as the daughters of P.M. Tretyakov of Vera (in the marriage of Ziloti) and Sasha (in the marriage of Botkina), Sonya was very friendly with them. Vera Siloti later recalled:
“Sonya was ugly, but with a smart, energetic face, lively, cheerful and unusually talented in painting ... At 16-17 years old, Sonya ... got prettier, her hair grew back. Her figure became long and thin. She danced beautifully. Her gaiety, wit and entrain (attractiveness, charm) attracted many fans to her.
I. N. Kramskoy. The artist's wife Sofya Nikolaevna and daughter Sonya
Sonya was really very graceful - Repin, a student of Kramskoy, admired her figure, Albert Benois seriously looked after her. But another became her fiancé - Sergey Sergeevich Botkin, a young doctor, a representative of a well-known medical dynasty. Relatives solemnly celebrated the engagement of the young, Kramskoy, to celebrate, painted magnificent paired portraits of the bride and groom ...
But Sergei, unexpectedly for everyone, fell in love with the bride's friend Alexandra Tretyakov. The engagement was terminated, and soon Sasha Tretyakova married her friend's ex-fiance. Sonya Kramskaya found the strength to maintain friendly relations with her. But what happened for a long time plunged her into melancholy. In the portrait painted by the father after the breakup of his daughter's engagement, Sonya looks completely different...
Sophia was saved by painting. The sixteen-year-old girl went headlong into work and began to demonstrate truly professional success.
“There was a rare friendship between Sonya and her father, which turned into mutual adoration,” Siloti wrote. In 1884, Kramskoy, in order to distract Sonya from mental anguish, went on a trip abroad with her daughter (at the same time to heal his heart - he was already very sick). Traveling around France, Sophia became addicted to pictorial sketches on the open air. A year after the trip, Kramskoy wrote: "My daughter, the famous ... anemone, begins to give me serious hope that there is already some painting talent." Kramskoy understood that he was dying, but his daughter had not yet risen to her feet and had not found herself. Shortly before his death, Ivan Nikolaevich, worried about the fate of Sophia, said:
“Girl, but how strong, as if already a master. I think sometimes, and it will become scary ... personal life threatens to turn into a tragedy.
These words of Kramskoy turned out to be prophetic.
Sofia Kramskaya
Sophia really could not recover from the blow for a long time, did not fall in love with anyone and did not get married. Only in adulthood, in 1901, when her father was no longer alive, she married a St. Petersburg lawyer of Finnish origin Georgy Junker.
Kramskoy, despite his simple origin (he was the son of a clerk from the town of Ostrogozhsk), was accepted at court and even became his own person there, more than once performing portraits of members of the imperial family, gave painting lessons to the daughters of the emperor. His children also became their own at court.
Sophia also performed a number of works, capturing the emperor, empress, their children, especially the crown prince, and other relatives. But almost nothing has survived. Something was destroyed or disappeared during the years of the revolution; .
Sophia was a recognized portrait painter, she was simply showered with orders. Alas, the fate of many works that were in private hands, in houses and estates that were destroyed during the revolution, also remained unknown.
Sofia Kramskaya repeatedly and with great success took part in various art exhibitions the highest level - in the Academy of Arts, in the Society of Watercolor Painters, in the art department of the All-Russian Fair in Nizhny Novgorod and others. She was also known as a book illustrator, designing, for example, editions for the anniversary of Pushkin. Her genre paintings were also remarkable.
Sofya Ivanovna's husband died in 1916. And soon other troubles began - a revolution, Civil War, the death of her mother in 1919 ... Sofya Ivanovna, who was already well over fifty, tried to adapt to a new life.
Since 1918, she worked in the art and restoration workshops of Glavnauka. She, a deeply religious person, had to become the organizer of the anti-religious museum of the Winter Palace and illustrate the "History of Religion" in the publishing house "Ateist".
Sofya Ivanovna did not particularly hide her faith, as well as her Christian desire to help her neighbor. In Leningrad, many of her acquaintances from the “past life” suffered - Smolyanka, maids of honor, just people noble origin. Deprived of everything - housing, property, services and any income whatsoever, many literally starved. The artist's daughter helped them get a job, albeit with the most modest salary, to get translations, lessons, reprinting on a typewriter in order to somehow survive.
All this has been attributed elderly woman to blame - and that "she was very religious", and that she helped friends.
The fact that Kramskoy's daughter was arrested and sent into exile also remained unknown for a long time. Already today, at the request of the State Tretyakov Gallery, copies of her personal file from the FSB archive were received. By the way, it was from this case that the date of her birth finally became known - August 21, 1867.
Sofya Junker-Kramskaya was arrested on December 25, 1930, accused under Article 58-II of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of counter-revolutionary propaganda. She was charged with the creation of nothing less than "a counter-revolutionary group from the former nobility, which set itself the goal of bringing its people to various Soviet institutions to serve in order to collect information about moods ...".
Everyone involved in the case spoke about the religiosity of the artist, which complicated her situation. As a "foreign element", she was sentenced to 3 years of exile in Siberia, but due to a nervous shock, she had a stroke. With severe paralysis, she was sent to the prison hospital. She was somehow treated, and after four months they were nevertheless sent to Irkutsk.
Fashionista
The semi-paralyzed woman reached Irkutsk, but three weeks later she was transferred to Kansk, a month later, with a worsened condition, to Krasnoyarsk.
On October 15, 1931, Junker-Kramskaya from the Krasnoyarsk hospital wrote a letter to Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova, who assisted political prisoners. Sofya Ivanovna spoke about her serious illness, about two operations she underwent during her exile. She tried to prove that she was useful, that she always worked, despite her state of health: in Irkutsk - as an illustrator of textbooks and collective farm magazines, in Kansk - as a photographer and retoucher in a local newspaper. In Krasnoyarsk, she suffered a second blow, the left side of her body was taken away. Her request was to mitigate the fate: if it is impossible to return home to Leningrad, then at least let her be left in Krasnoyarsk until her health improves and they will definitely provide a job, because right hand works, not paralyzed. “I paint both portraits and posters, slogans, posters, signboards, illustrations, I know photographic retouching, coloring photos, languages, I can work, I love ... Elena Dmitrievna Stasova, with whose father I was like that, can confirm my working life my late husband is friendly. She and Comrade Lunacharsky can also give you information about the Kramskoy Museum ... "
At the end of the letter, desperate lines:
“I could make mistakes in my judgments, I could evaluate something wrong, I could judge the state of things crookedly, but I didn’t commit any crime - and knowingly loving my country so passionately, after the death of my husband (he was a Finnish citizen) - changed her papers to Russian ones, having already signed a waiver of any claims to property. It was even funny to do otherwise.<...>Help me! I wrote a request for pardon to M.I. Kalinin. I ask for your assistance. I will justify mercy if it is granted to me, I can assure you of this. I honestly worked for 40 years. The last one is hard, maybe very short term- to feel - so punished ... I gathered the last strength to write you all this ... "
Portrait of a woman by an artist in Krasnoyarsk
On February 28, 1932, a petition was filed to reconsider the Junker-Kramskaya case due to an incurable illness, and also due to the fact that the exile "does not pose ... a social danger."
March 25, 1932 Sofia Ivanovna returned to Leningrad. On July 31, 1932, Juncker-Kramskaya wrote a letter of thanks to E.P. Peshkova, saying that he was going to work further, as far as his strength would allow. In 1933, the artist died under strange circumstances. She allegedly pricked her finger while peeling a herring and, according to her brother, "died of fish poison (??)". She was rehabilitated for lack of corpus delicti only in 1989.
AT State Archive RF preserved her letter:
"Dear Ekaterina Pavlovna,
You will allow me to send you these few lines. I've been released! If you only knew what a feeling of deep gratitude my thoughts and soul are full of. I don’t know, sorry, I don’t really know if I’m supposed to write about my feeling of gratitude at all, but I follow my inner need to do this ... You don’t complain that I’m doing this if it’s not supposed to, I don’t know but it was impossible not to follow the soul of this need! I am here again, in Leningrad, where my long working life has passed - and now I will again, perhaps, be able to start working at least a little, as far as my strength will allow me, which will be restored in me with the consciousness of the possibility of working again! I don't even know who to tell about how I feel and how grateful I am. But, thinking that all this was done through the High Institution, of which you are the Representative, I am writing to you. Well, even you, no one will need this, even if it is not accepted, even if it is not supposed - I still repeat: I am infinitely grateful that they believed my sincere repentance, and my decency of an old public worker, and my ardent desire to make amends my work, whatever omissions and unconscious delusions. And although, of course, I am very ill and weak, but as much as my regained strength will allow me, I can use the remaining time until the inevitable end to rehabilitate my working name, both by itself and as Kramskoy's daughter.
Once again, please forgive me if I am doing anything out of bounds.
With deep respect,
Artist S.I. Junker-Kramskaya.
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