Taisiya Alipyevna Dobrosmyslova (17 May 1866 — 13 December 1950), by her first marriage Sitnikova, by her second Nemirovskaya, was a Nizhny Novgorod public figure and memoirist. A native of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, she lived a long life spanning several eras: the pre-revolutionary way of life of a provincial town, the Revolution of 1917, and Soviet construction. She left memoirs about the Nizhny Novgorod region, Maxim Gorky, and the descendants of A. S. Pushkin.[2]

Biography

She was born in Ardatov Uyezd) of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, into the family of a clerk of the Ardatov Uyezd Court. After graduating from the Arzamas Women's Progymnasium, she Ardatov. At 17 she married the son of a merchant, private French tutor Nikolai Mikhailovich Sitnikov. In 1889 the Arzamas (disambiguation) for her husband's new posting; eleven years later Nikolai Mikhailovich died, leaving Taisiya a widow with four children.[2]

During the Arzamas period she became acquainted with Maxim Gorky and entered the circle of the revolutionary-minded intelligentsia. In 1907 she Nizhny Novgorod, where she completed feldsher (paramedic) courses. In 1918 she married for the second time — to Nikolai Alekseyevich Nemirovsky, an engineer at a wine distillery.[2]

Public activity

After the Revolution of 1917 she became actively involved in city life. During the Civil War, when White Guard detachments imposed a river blockade of Nizhny Novgorod, she headed a district committee for combating counter-revolution and famine and initiated the sowing of potatoes on suburban fields and vacant pasture lands. She took part in the campaign to eliminate illiteracy, chaired the Council of Working Women's Wives at the wine distillery, and oversaw the condition of the city's hospitals and maternity homes. On her initiative, in the 1930s "homes for the disabled" were established for teachers in Zelyony Gorod (later converted into the "Uchitel" ("Teacher") sanatorium) and Red Baki.[2]

Memoirs

Taisiya Alipyevna began writing her memoirs in 1941 and returned to them after the war, but never managed to complete the text in full. The original manuscript is held in the collections of the Central Archive of the Nizhny Novgorod Region) (TsANO, F. R-5861, op. 1, d. 161, ll. 1–199); part of the memoirs she sent to the Institute of Russian Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Pushkin House). During her lifetime she sought publication of her recollections of Gorky and Pushkin's descendants, approaching literary scholars as well as her husband's former superior — Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, who at the time held the post of USSR Minister of Foreign Affairs — yet the texts were not published during her lifetime.[2]

In 2017 a typewritten copy of the manuscript was provided by Taisiya Alipyevna's great-great-grandson Alexander Sergeyevich Ustinov for posting on the website of the Central City Library; he transcribed the archival text himself, supplied it with commentary, and shared photographs from the family archive. The literary editing and organization of the memoirs by period of life (Ardatov — Arzamas — Nizhny Novgorod) was carried out by Tatyana Vadimovna Kucherova, a full member of the "Nizhegorodsky Kraeved" ("Nizhny Novgorod Local Historian") society. Publication took place in 2022 on the Otkrytyi Tekst).[2]

Sources

  1. opentextnn.ru (archive)
  2. opentextnn.ru — Sitnikova-Nemirovskaya T.A. At the Crossroads of Life — OTKRYTYY TEKST (archive)