Hannibal Osip Abramovich - apple from the apple tree

About Hannibals, the ancestors of A. Pushkin, we know not too much. But everything, as evidenced by stories and documents, has a taste of scandal.

Great grandfather

The black araup during the life of Peter the Great was fortunate. But after the death of his godfather, and then of Empress Catherine I, he was immediately exiled to A. Menshikov first to Kazan under the pretext of building a fortress, then to Tobolsk, and then to the Chinese border. And then the real link began, from which he was rescued by Minich, who remembered the business engineer and achieved his translation in 1731 in Estland. But everything, cheerful and easy before the character has changed. Abram Petrovich became gloomy, sullen and suspicious. He married and, when he had a white child, fiercely hated his wife and did everything to get rid of her. Some, quite a long time, he lived unmarried with Christina von Shebergh and sought a divorce. During this time they had children: four sons and three daughters. Everything, as one, is black. Among them was Pushkin's grandfather, Osip Abramovich Hannibal. A man with a rather curious fate, as he followed in the footsteps of the priest.

Great cousins

Senior Ivan Abramovich became a hero-general, and A. Pushkin was proud of him. Grandfather, Hannibal Osip Abramovich, he did not cause any pride, just like the cousin Peter Abramovich - a heavy and gloomy man, who liked to drink. He banished his wife, and it was said that in his estate was almost a harem. But he had his father's notes, on the basis of which A. Pushkin began to write a novel about his great-grandfather.

Artilleryman Hannibal

Hannibal Osip Abramovich was born in 1744 in Reval. When he grew up, life led an easy and careless and lost the material support of a wealthy father. He accumulated a lot of debts, since he lacked the official salary of the captain of the second rank.

Marriage

He chose a young woman, not too young, for example, a 28-year-old girl, who was temporarily waiting for the groom. She was the daughter of a governor from Tambov. A wealthy father gave his daughter Maria Alekseevna Pushkina a good dowry. And, having married, Hannibal Osip Abramovich hastened his wife's money to pay off his debts. Two years later Nadenka's daughter, a white and blue-eyed girl, was born. Hannibal Osip Abramovich did not want to live with his wife, although he regularly cheated on her. And he left his wife and daughter forever secretly, without saying goodbye, leaving them without means of subsistence.

How did Maria Alexeevna live?

When her husband left, she gave herself up to her daughter's upbringing. And later, having married her to her distant relative, Sergei Lvovich Pushkin, he put all his strength into organizing the family life of a young family. But Hannibal Osip Abramovich did not allow to forget about himself. Though of this later. In Pushkin's family, life was carefree, not because they had a lot of money, but not because they loved secular pleasures more than their children and family nest. Little Alexander received all care and affection not from his parents, but from his grandmother and nurse, whom Maria Alekseevna found him. At home, parents spoke only French, and Grandma and Arina Rodionovna taught little Sasha Russian. So these two middle-aged women are obliged to us that a brilliant reformer of the Russian language appeared in Russia. He was heard by the correct Russian speech of these two women, their stories about the affairs of dark antiquity, about the orders that reigned in the old noble families. When his grandmother, he began to read early in Russian, French novels Sashenka and so fond of. He read Plutarch, Odyssey, Iliad from the age of 9.

What did the grandfather do at that time

And Osip Abramovich Hannibal decided not to live a bobyl, but to marry. And nothing that the wife is alive. He stated that she had died, had submitted false documents and was married to Ustinya Ermolaevna Tolstoy. The forgery was revealed, and both wives fairly attacked him. Litigation began. The first lawful wife accused him of bigamy. The second presented him with a claim in squandering her money for the amount of 27,000 rubles. The verdict that he was rendered and which should have been executed was heavy: seven years in a monastery for repentance. Hannibal filed a petition for the highest name, in which he explained that he was misled. Brother Ivan Abramovich was very busy for him, and the sentence was softened. Osip Abramovich was sent to sea service on the Black Sea. Seven years he served and retired.

Mikhailovskoye

After his resignation, Hannibal settled in Mikhailovsky's estate, which he received from his father. He built a manor house and in every possible way landscaped his estate. Here he laid a beautiful park, in which were curtains, alleys, flower beds. He died in 1806 and was buried in Mikhailovskoye. So thoughtlessly and vainly passed the life of such a man as Hannibal Osip Abramovich. His biography repeats to some extent the biography of his father, only his father was a more serious and responsible person and rose to high rank.

Then the estate was inherited by his lawful widow, Maria Alekseevna. She died in 1818 and, as in mockery, is buried next to her dissolute husband. And Mikhailovskoe went to her daughter Nadezhda Osipovna. And then it became a place of poetic inspiration for Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.