3 September — in the Zion Cathedral in Tiflis (today the city of Tbilisi), the marriage of Alexander Griboyedov and 15-year-old Nina Chavchavadze took place, the daughter of Griboyedov’s friend, the poet, major general, and prince Alexander Chavchavadze. The priest recorded in the church register: “The Plenipotentiary Minister to Persia of His Imperial Majesty, State Councillor and Cavalier Alexander Sergeyevich Griboyedov, entered into lawful marriage with the maiden Nina, daughter of Major General Prince Alexander Chavchavadze…”. Griboyedov had known Nina Chavchavadze, his friend’s daughter, since childhood and taught her to play the piano.
And then, suddenly, he saw her already as a young woman—with beautiful eyes and a gentle face. Griboyedov himself later wrote: “That day I dined at my old friend Akhverdova’s; across the table sat Nina Chavchavadzeva... I kept looking at her, fell into thought, my heart began to pound; I do not know whether it was anxiety of another kind, connected with my service, now extraordinarily important, or something else that gave me an unusual resolve; when leaving the table, I took her by the hand and said to her in French: ‘Come with me, I need to tell you something.’”
She obeyed me, as always; she probably thought I would seat her at the piano... We... went up to a room; my cheeks were aflame, my breath caught; I do not remember what I began to mutter to her, and more and more vividly; she cried, she laughed; I kissed her; then—to her mother, to her grandmother, to her second mother Praskovya Nikolayevna Akhverdova—we were blessed...”.
At the moment of the wedding ceremony, Griboyedov was ill with fever; it shook him so violently that he dropped the wedding ring, saying that “it is a bad omen”.
24 December — A.S. Griboyedov wrote to his wife Nina Chavchavadze: “Now I truly feel what it means to love... Bear a little longer, my Angel, and let us pray to God that afterwards we may never again be parted...”
A few months later he was brutally killed in Tehran. His wife outlived him by almost 30 years, remaining an inconsolable widow.
During the Russo-Iranian War of 1826–28, Russian troops took possession of the Erivan and Nakhichevan khanates and, having occupied Tabriz, forced the shah on 10 February to conclude the Treaty of Turkmenchay. Eastern Armenia was annexed to Russia. Merchant vessels were granted freedom of navigation on the Caspian Sea. The shah paid a war indemnity.
In April, Russia declared war on Turkey. Russian troops would take Kars in Transcaucasia (in June) and Erzurum, rout Turkish forces in Bulgaria (the capture of Varna in September), and approach Constantinople. The war would end with the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829.
Only friends admired his music at evening gatherings—“Schubertiads”. And their creator Franz Schubert, a modest music teacher, languished in poverty bordering on destitution. He died on 19 November at the age of 31.
In December, Pushkin met the young Natalya Goncharova for the first time at the ball of the dance master Yogel in Moscow (at the Kologrivovs’ house on Tverskoy Boulevard). That year he completed “Poltava” and began the novel “The Moor of Peter the Great”.
L.N. Tolstoy, the future writer, was born into the family of Count N.I. Tolstoy. His mother would die when he was two years old; his father—when he was nine.
Maria Feodorovna died—the empress, widow of Emperor Paul.
1 April — in St. Petersburg, the first column of St. Isaac’s Cathedral was ceremonially installed, and a commemorative medal was laid in its foundation.
28 May — Pushkin read “Boris Godunov” at the home of Count Ivan Stepanovich Laval, the father of Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya, in the presence of Adam Mickiewicz and Alexander Sergeyevich Griboyedov.