Maly Ivanovsky Lane, 2s33, Moscow, Russia, 109028
There are no reliable historical records about the origin of the famous Moscow elder nun who lived as a recluse for a quarter of a century in the Ivanovsky Monastery. There are no documents, no direct and precise testimonies; only tradition remains, though quite credible. Indirect evidence points to her noble and highest origin, while vivid, direct, and accurate testimonies indicate her life in seclusion. According to the monastery clerk and Moscow merchant Shepelev, Elder Dosiphea was of medium height, slender, but retained on her face “features of former beauty; her manners and demeanor revealed the nobility of her origin and education.” The elder only visited the gate church of the Kazan Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos. The service was conducted by her spiritual father along with the clerk. She “rarely went out to church, and then only accompanied by an appointed elder. At that time, the church doors were locked from the inside so that no one could enter… Curiosity and rumors sometimes attracted people to her curtained windows, but the regular attendant, who took the place of a guard, drove away the curious,” reports Snegirev. A special sum was allocated for her maintenance from the treasury; she could have always had a good table if she wished. The absence of the recluse’s name in the lists of monastics of that time proves that special instructions were made regarding her maintenance.
The remarkable fate of Princess Tarakanova is told by historical tradition. It connects her by kinship to the royal family and recounts a secret but lawful morganatic marriage of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna with Count Alexei Grigorievich Razumovsky (1709–1771). The wedding took place in the Moscow Church of the Resurrection of the Word in Barashi (Pokrovka St., 26/1) in June 1744. Other sources mention the Moscow suburb village of Perovo, where the marriage was concluded on November 24, 1742. The researcher of her lineage, Countess Razumovskaya, writes that a thanksgiving prayer service was held in the Moscow church on Pokrovka after the wedding. Be that as it may, the marriage was performed secretly but in the presence of witnesses, and Count Razumovsky was given documents certifying his marriage.
After the marriage, the Empress and the Count moved to Saint Petersburg; Razumovsky settled in apartments adjoining the Queen’s chambers. In the capital, the Sovereign built a special palace for him in 1748, now known as the Anichkov Palace. Razumovsky came from simple Cossacks; elevated to the rank of count from court singers, he retained simplicity and popular religiosity. In 1756, the Empress granted her husband the rank of General Field Marshal, although the Count had no relation to military affairs. Expressing his gratitude to the Empress, Alexei Grigorievich, nevertheless, aware of his modest origin, sought not to interfere in politics or court faction struggles. “I know no other family which, being in such exceptional favor at court,” wrote Empress Catherine II in her memoirs about the Razumovsky brothers, “was so loved by all as these two brothers.”
Upon ascending the throne, Catherine II sent Chancellor Vorontsov to Razumovsky with a decree granting him the title of Highness as the lawful spouse of the late Sovereign. Razumovsky took the marriage documents from a secret chest, read them to the chancellor, and immediately threw them into the burning fireplace, adding: “I was nothing more than a faithful servant of Her Majesty the late Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, who showered me with favors beyond my merits… Now you see that I have no documents.”
The daughter of Count Razumovsky and the Empress was born at the end of 1745 or the beginning of 1746. The girl was named Augusta after the holy martyr whose memory is celebrated on November 24. Augusta, raised in high society, spent her youth abroad and did not intend to enter monastic life. Why she received the surname Tarakanova is assumed to be from the distorted surname Daragan. It is known that Alexei Razumovsky’s sister was married to a colonel of the Little Russian army named Daragan; Augusta lived in childhood with her aunt Daragan in Little Russia and in Petersburg and thus, together with her children, was called Tarakanova. Be that as it may, the surname Tarakanova became established in tradition and history for Augusta.
Princess Augusta was educated abroad. Whether sent there by her mother or after her death on December 25, 1761, by her father Count Razumovsky is unknown; but it is certain that she lived there until the 1780s. Vasilchikov reports that Razumovsky indeed educated his nephews Daragans abroad in Switzerland. There, in Europe, in peace and comfort, Augusta would have ended her life, but Polish intrigue destroyed her happiness. Abroad, it became known who this princess was. The Poles decided around 1773 to cause trouble for Empress Catherine in the person of Elizabeth’s daughter, a claimant to the Russian throne. Augusta herself did not want this, but a substitute was found — an impostor known in history as the “Princess of Vladimir.” Much effort and money were spent to create confusion in Russia and cause as many troubles as possible for Catherine; but the scheme failed. The “Princess of Vladimir” was arrested in Italy, on the Livorno roadstead, by Count Alexei Grigorievich Orlov-Chesmensky, brought to Petersburg, imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and died there on December 4, 1775, of consumption. The case was kept in strict secrecy: neither in Russia nor abroad did anyone know what happened to her. And since two years after her imprisonment, in 1777, there was a severe flood in Petersburg, rumors spread that she drowned in the casemate from which she was forgotten or not allowed to be taken out.
The impostor who claimed to be the daughter of Empress Elizabeth disappeared, but the real Princess Tarakanova was alive and free. The thought that there existed a daughter of the Empress, whose name and birth could serve as a pretext for Polish intrigues or other enemies of Russia, troubled Catherine, and the Pugachev Rebellion, the recently deceased impostor, court intrigues, and conspiracies increased this fear. After all, in the 18th century Russia had no law of succession — it was the age of palace coups. The German-born Princess Catherine II ascended the Russian throne as a result of such a coup and did not feel secure.
According to one legend, Augusta Tarakanova was brought to Russia around 1780 (or 1778?) by Grigory Orlov. She was placed in the Shlisselburg Fortress, which gave rise to rumors that the false Tarakanova had not died but was still held in the Peter and Paul Fortress — this was also reported by the Saxon envoy. After Grigory Orlov’s death, she was possibly transferred, at the request of his brother Alexei, to Moscow, to the Ivanovsky Monastery, where she was given the monastic name Dosiphea and kept in strict secrecy in a specially built cell consisting of three rooms with windows facing the inner courtyard. She was not allowed to communicate with anyone except the abbess, the spiritual father, and the clerk, who died in extreme old age and with whom the historian Snegirev managed to speak. It is said that the Moscow merchant Shepelev, who traded tea on Varvarka, also saw her.
Grigory Orlov allegedly carried out a secret mission from Catherine II as if in exchange for her official recognition of his marriage to E. Zinovieva. Recall that in 1777 the Senate declared this marriage invalid and decided to send both to a monastery. The Empress possibly discussed the situation with Grigory and Alexei Orlov, as a result of which the task to kidnap Augusta from the Adriatic shores was given to Grigory, since Alexei had good reasons to receive deserved punishment in Italy for the recent memory of the treacherous capture of the former “Princess Tarakanova.” Moreover, Augusta was neither aggressive nor did she claim any titles, so kidnapping her was not difficult. Grigory’s short “honeymoon trip” in 1778 and Alexei’s departure “to Spa” in 1780 followed… Be that as it may, the nun Dosiphea was brought to Russia and in 1785 transferred to Moscow from the Shlisselburg Fortress.
This monastery was assigned by Empress Elizabeth in 1761 for the care of widows and orphans of noble and distinguished people; now it became the place of confinement for her daughter. Dosiphea became a nun not by her own will, voluntarily entering the monastery, but by the command of Catherine II herself. Even in the monastery, the real name of the newly made recluse was unknown. The graceful, fragile girl was locked in her own cell. She did not participate in common services or meals. The monotony of life, loneliness, boredom, the thought of eternal confinement, memories of her famous parents, her youth, and her recent free life abroad — all this made her life tormenting and difficult, but there was something in her heart that made her constantly fear something during her entire confinement. At every rustle, every knock on the door, witnesses say, she would turn pale and tremble all over. She had some papers which, after long hesitation, to avoid trouble, she had to burn. The only thing reminding her of her former greatness and happiness was a watercolor portrait of her late mother, Empress Elizabeth, which she kept until the end of her life. The well-known ascetic of piety, Archimandrite Moses, abbot of the Optina Hermitage, recounted that in his youth he often visited the cell of nun Dosiphea and saw there the watercolor portrait of Empress Elizabeth.
Dosiphea, according to descriptions, “was already elderly, of medium height, slender in body and graceful in figure; despite her age and long confinement, she still retained some features of former beauty in her face; her manners and demeanor revealed the nobility of her origin and education. The old clerk saw some noble ladies admitted by the abbess for a short time to the recluse, who communicated with them in a foreign language. A special sum was allocated for her maintenance from the treasury.” She had a good table, sometimes received large sums from someone, which she distributed to the poor and to the church, which she rarely attended, and then no one was allowed in; the curious were driven away from her always curtained windows. She also engaged in needlework and reading books; in her last years she “lived in silence.”
Alexei Orlov had very complicated memories associated with the name Tarakanova until the last days of his life. Among the papers found in the British Museum was a note whose author claimed to have heard from Admiral Greig that Alexei Orlov always felt burdened by the arrest and death of the princess, realizing his guilt. Possibly, he perceived Tarakanova (Dosiphea) as some ominous shadow of the false Tarakanova he had destroyed. It can also be assumed that Alexei learned during the hunt for her the whereabouts of Augusta, but nothing is known about this. One legend connected with this name says that Alexei Orlov, living in Moscow, strictly ordered his coachman to avoid the Ivanovsky Monastery by a verst, and when a new coachman unknowingly drove him nearby, Alexei allegedly ordered him to be whipped. It can be said with certainty that this nonsense was clearly invented by someone. Most likely, the detour was simply because the Ivanovsky Monastery stands on a rather steep hill.
After Catherine II’s death, the regime of her confinement was relaxed, and under Alexander I no one cared about her at all, and she lived in the monastery “in complete oblivion.” During the reign of Paul I, some secular and spiritual persons were admitted to her; with one woman — Gagarina, a pious pupil of the Ivanovsky Monastery — she repeatedly conversed. According to tradition, Dosiphea told her something about her kidnapping in Italy, about being brought by ship to Russia… The mysterious nun was also visited by Metropolitan Platon, “curious about court intrigues.”
In the mid-19th century, grateful to her spiritual mother Elder Dosiphea, Archimandrite Moses shortly before his death wrote on March 21, 1859, to Maria Alexandrovna Mazurina, the builder of the Ivanovsky convent: “Learning that by the Providence of God the renewal of the former Ivanovsky Monastery is entrusted to your special care, I rejoice and thank God. In this charitable work, my spiritual joy is closest because the spiritually wise elder of blessed memory Dosiphea, who lived in the former Ivanovsky Monastery, guided me to choose the path of monastic life; she introduced me to the elders Alexander and Philaret in the Novospassky Monastery, where she is buried.”
In her last years (according to rumors) Dosiphea took a vow of silence and soon went mad. She died in the Ivanovsky Monastery. Dmitrov Bishop Augustin conducted her funeral; high-ranking persons attended, including the commander-in-chief of Moscow, Count Gudovich. The burial took place in the Novospassky Monastery, by the wall in a specially built chapel; a rough stone with the inscription was placed on the grave: “Under this stone lies the body of the late in the Lord nun Dosiphea of the Ivanovsky Monastery, who labored for Christ Jesus in monasticism for 25 years and died on February 4, 1810. She lived 64 years. God, place her in Your eternal abodes.”
Dosiphea died on February 4, 1810, aged 64. Her burial was conducted with special solemnity. Due to the illness of the elderly Metropolitan Platon, her funeral was performed by the Moscow vicar, Bishop Augustin, with honorary clergy. Senators, members of the Guardianship Council, and nobles of Catherine’s era living out their days in Moscow attended her funeral in ribbons and uniforms. The then commander-in-chief of Moscow, Count Ivan Vasilyevich Gudovich, married to Countess Praskovya Kirillovna Razumovskaya, a cousin of the deceased, was present in full dress. The highest secular circles then all knew who the deceased was. Crowds filled the monastery and all the streets through which the procession passed. Her body was buried in the Novospassky Monastery, near the eastern fence, on the left side of the bell tower. The funeral testified to the popular veneration of the elder both in life and after death. In 1908, a chapel was built on her grave; it was recently restored. In 1909, a historical and archaeological essay on the Novospassky Monastery by Dmitriev was published, which included a biography of the buried “Princess Tarakanova, in monasticism nun Dosiphea,” and for the first time showed an image of the chapel with an eternal lamp built in 1908 on the elder’s grave.
Before the 1917 revolution, the whereabouts of two identical portraits of Dosiphea were known: one, damaged, was given by Dosiphea herself to Golovina (née Gagarina) and was kept at Golovina’s estate — the village of Novospassky-Dedenevo. The other, with a confirming inscription on the back, was kept in the Novospassky Monastery. It was on the basis of this inscription that the conclusion was made that Dosiphea was the daughter of Elizabeth Petrovna. However, no official data or reliable memoir materials were found. The current location of Dosiphea’s portraits is also unknown. A reproduction is given in “Russian Portraits…,” alongside a profile portrait of the false Princess Tarakanova.
The chapel of nun Dosiphea in the Novospassky Monastery has survived and in May 1998 awaited the start of restoration. It stands to the right of the main entrance, about sixty meters from the monastery wall. The stone masonry is generally intact, though cracked in places; the facing is chipped, and the metal framing of the openings is cracked from rust. Two icons under glass hang on the wall under the dome, and to the right of them is a copy of the portrait of nun Dosiphea by Serdyukov. Below them are stone dishes for offerings, where rare visitors to the restored monastery place metal coins, as paper money would be blown away by the wind. There is no longer a tombstone or any “identifying” inscriptions.
It is amazing that the chapel remained intact at all, as the monastery grounds after 1917 housed at various times a dormitory, a concentration camp for political and criminal prisoners, a sobering-up station, and a furniture factory. The monastery cemetery was destroyed; only a few monuments miraculously survived along the walls.
The unique portrait of Elder Dosiphea was kept in the 19th – early 20th century in the sacristy of the Novospassky Monastery. On its back was the inscription: “Princess Augusta Tarakanova, in monasticism Dosiphea, tonsured in the Moscow Ivanovsky Monastery, where after many years of her righteous life she died and was buried in the Novospassky Monastery.” At the end of 1997, the remains of nun Dosiphea were transferred to the restored Church of St. Roman the Melodist — the burial place of the Romanov House in the Moscow Novospassky Male Monastery — and reburied on the left side of the altar.
The inscription on nun Dosiphea’s tomb reads: “Under this stone lies the body of the late in the Lord nun Dosiphea of the Ivanovsky Monastery, who labored for Christ Jesus in monasticism for 25 years and died on February 4, 1810 (Princess Augusta Tarakanova).” Was the modest, quiet nun Dosiphea the very Princess Tarakanova? The answer to this question will remain personal for each. One thing is certain: nun Dosiphea was mysteriously connected with the Romanov family; otherwise, she would not have rested in their family burial place.
Sources:
Lev Petrovich Polushkin, The Empress’s Orlovs
