Natalia Goncharova has a fascinating fate. The first beauty of Moscow married the great poet when she was only 17. She went without a dowry. And then?
“Pushkin was first and foremost a victim of his wife’s tactlessness and her inability to behave,” Vyazemsky wrote—himself, by the way, being in love with Goncharova. Zhukovsky had the opposite opinion. So Russia split: some accused Goncharova of the death of the “sun of Russian poetry,” while others adored her mind, beauty, and grace.
So why did that fateful duel happen? And was there really a conspiracy of Dantès and Baron Heecker(n), repeatedly accused of sodomy? This book by the famous writer Natalia Gorbacheva is a sensation-stealing investigation into the lives and love of Pushkin and Goncharova. With an abundance of historical material, it truly sheds light on the events of that era.