Nikolai Leskov - Private Life

Private Life

On April 6, 1853, Leskov married Olga Vasilievna Smirnova (1831–1909), the daughter of an affluent Kiev trader. Their son Dmitry was born on December 23, 1854, but died in 1855. On March 8, 1856, their daughter Vera Leskova was born; she married Dmitry Noga in 1879 and died in 1918. Leskov's marriage was an unhappy one; his wife suffered from severe psychological problems and in 1878 had to be taken to the St. Nicholas Mental Hospital in Saint Petersburg. She died in 1909.

In 1865 Ekaterina Bubnova (née Savitskaya) whom he met for the first time in July 1864, became Leskov's common-law wife. Bubnova had four children from her first marriage; one of them, Vera, officially became Leskov's stepdaughter; he took great care in helping her get a good education and embark upon a career in music. In 1866 Ekaterina Bubnova gave birth to their son Andrey Leskov (d.1953).

In August 1878 Leskov parted company with Bubnova and, with Andrey, moved into the Semyonov house at the corner of Kolomenskaya St. and Kuznechny Lane, in Saint Petersburg. Bubnova suffer greatly at having her son taken away from her, as her letters, which were published many years later, attested. In November 1883 Varya Dolina (daughter of E. A. Cook) joined Leskov and his son, first as a pupil and protege, soon becoming an adopted daughter.

Leskov had a difficult character even in his younger years. He was described as despotic and vindictive man, quick-tempered and prone to moralism. He spent the last years of his life alone, his daughter Vera from his first marriage living far away and never visiting Petersburg; his son Andrey residing in the capital but avoiding his father, whom he had suffered under a lot as a child and teenager.

Andrey Leskov made a career in the military. From 1919 to 1931 he served as a staff officer on the Soviet Army's North-Western frontier and retired with the rank of Lieutenant-General. By this time he had become an authority on his father's legacy, praised by Maxim Gorky among many others and regularly consulted by specialists. Andrey Leskov's The Life of Nikolai Leskov, a comprehensive book of memoirs (which had its own dramatic story: destroyed in the 1942 Siege of Leningrad by a bomb, it was reconstructed from scratch by the 80-plus year old author after the War, and finished in 1948). It was first published by Goslitizdat in Moscow (1954); in 1981 it was re-issued in two volumes by Prioksky publishers in Tula.