Treasures: Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library

THE RARE BOOK AND
MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY
OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Treasures

63 Mikhail Lermontov 1814-1841
Vereshchagina albums

Manuscript, 3 volumes, various places, ca. 1808-1840

During the nineteenth century it was the custom to keep autograph albums in which friends and guests would write verses and aphorisms or make drawings. Alexandra Vereshchagina von Hügel (1810-1873), a friend and relative of Mikhail Lermontov, the most Byronic figure among Russia's romantic poets, preserved three such albums. The first belonged to her mother, Elizaveta Annenkova-Vereshchagina, the second to her, and the third to Lermontov's early sweetheart, Varvara Lopuhkina-Bakhmeteva. Lermontov, who had at one time considered a career as a painter, was also a talented caricaturist; his entries in the second and third albums are almost all from the early 1830s, when he was a student in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The albums also include several of his poems, among which is "Angel," his well-known religious poem.

Various funds

Collections and Treasures

63	Mikhail Lermontov 1814-1841
Vereshchagina albums
Manuscript, 3 volumes, various places, ca. 1808-1840
During the nineteenth century it was the custom to keep autograph albums in which friends and guests would write verses and aphorisms or make drawings. Alexandra Vereshchagina von Hügel (1810-1873), a friend and relative of Mikhail Lermontov, the most Byronic figure among Russia's romantic poets, preserved three such albums. The first belonged to her mother, Elizaveta Annenkova-Vereshchagina, the second to her, and the third to Lermontov's early sweetheart, Varvara Lopuhkina-Bakhmeteva. Lermontov, who had at one time considered a career as a painter, was also a talented caricaturist; his entries in the second and third albums are almost all from the early 1830s, when he was a student in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The albums also include several of his poems, among which is "Angel," his well-known religious poem.
Various funds