The murder of O.A. Bazhenova: an unknown page in the family history of the famous architect V.I. Bazhenov

Despite the large number of works devoted to the biography of the great Russian architect, painter and thinker Vasily Ivanovich Bazhenov (1738–1799), the personal history of his descendants has been little studied. Meanwhile, they were landowners of Arzamassky Uyezd of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, in which Emperor Paul I in 1796 granted the architect the villages of Kardavil (also Nikolskoye), Korino and Ponetayevka. Many pages of the history of the Bazhenov family, nobles of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, remain unknown to the general public. One of them is the murder of Olga Alexandrovna Bazhenova (1820–1855), nee Strunina and the wife of Major Vasily Vsevolodovich Bazhenov (1803–1846), the grandson of the famous architect. Personal history (history in biographies) is one of the most relevant areas in modern historical science, which is currently experiencing a "cultural turn", during which there is a shift from macrohistory to microhistory. Historians conducting research in line with the resurgent biographical method focus on the destiny of individual people, whose reconstructed personal histories are necessary to recreate the events of the past and understand the studied historical epoch. This study involves a wide range of sources and also uses such methods of historical research as historical-genetic, historical-comparative, historical-systemic, etc., cross-analysis (cross-checking of several sources). Biographical method and auxiliary historical disciplines (for example, genealogy) are also widely used. Thus, the article attempts to reconstruct O. A. Bazhenova's personal history in the context of the historical epoch in which the landowner lived, presenting a variety of previously unknown information from the family history of the outstanding architect, found during long and painstaking research in archives of Nizhny Novgorod, Arzamas, Saint Petersburg, Moscow and etc. In addition, the article provides reconstructions of the biographies of some of the Bazhenovs' entourage, which significantly expands the context of the study and illustrates the use of prosopography (creation of collective biographies): not only the biographies of key figures are reconstructed, but also their surroundings, revealing the extensive social ties of the Bazhenov family.

personal history, biographical method, source studies, local history, genealogy, serfdom, architect Vasily Bazhenov, Arzamassky Uyezd, Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, prosopography