Maman (Maria Stepanovna Babanina, Mme Bashkirtseff)

Who she was

Maria Stepanovna Babanina (1833--1920) was Marie Bashkirtseff's mother. Both dates come from encyclopaedic biographies of her daughter: English Wikipedia ("Marie Bashkirtseff") gives "Maria Stepanovna Babanina (1833--1920)", and the Russian encyclopaedia Znanie repeats them (article "Башкирцева, Мария Константиновна"). Kernberger (2013, Introduction) confirms 1920 as the year of her death. No source seen gives her birthplace or the exact day of her birth or death.

She was the elder sister of #Ma_tante (Marie says so in 000.0011) and a daughter of the landowner Stepan Babanine (#Grand_papa, 1807--1878 per Kernberger, Appendix I) and Julie Cornelius (#Grand_maman, who died in 1867 per Kernberger). Marie's 1884 preface presents the Babanines as "vieille noblesse de province"; the Tatar origin ("Baba-Nina sont des mots tartares") is Grand-papa's boast, not Maman's, and Marie herself shrugs at it (000.0007). The same paragraph says Maman "s'est mariée à vingt-deux ans après avoir dédaigné de très beaux partis". Her husband was #Papa (Constantin Bashkirtseff, 1833--1883). Their children were Marie (born 12 [24] November 1858 at Gavronzi, per English Wikipedia and Znanie) and #Paul (b. 1859, per Kernberger).

The marriage broke down early. The diary never dates the separation, and the biographies disagree: English Wikipedia says Marie was twelve, which cannot be right given Marie's own memory of the custody fight when she and Paul were small children (000.0013); other accounts put the break at about 1859, two years after the wedding. Marie herself speaks of "vingt ans" of separation in 1883 and 1884 (099.0110, 106.0057), which points to about 1863. Maman went back to her parents' estate with the children, and her husband and his father, General Paul Bashkirtseff, made "cent tentatives pour ravoir maman", at one point abducting the children and hiding them at Gavronzi until Maman and her brothers took them back by force (000.0013).

Maman and Marie, 1873--1881

In the preface Marie is hard on her mother's youth: a country beauty who "ne connaissait rien des sociétés organisées", flattered at the Crimean sea baths and in Petersburg but never learning "qu'il fallait tenir un certain rang" (000.0011). She also credits her with real virtue: "très sage ... une nature qui s'éparpillait en inconséquences et n'allait jamais jusqu'au... fait" (000.0021).

Maman was the figure through whom the family was organised. Around 1866--67 (Kernberger dates the scheme "towards 1866 or 1867") her brother Georges and the rest of the family arranged the marriage of her younger sister Nadine (#Ma_tante) to the rich Thaddeus Romanoff, with Maman placed "en avant, très coquette" to draw him in (000.0018); the Romanoff fortune is what financed the departure for Europe. In June 1870 the whole party -- Grand-papa, Maman, the Romanoffs, #Dina, Paul, Marie and the doctor #Walitsky -- arrived at Baden-Baden (000.0023). The family settled in Nice, and moved its main base to Paris in 1877.

The first entries of the diary show Maman in Nice society: at the Cercle Masséna on 18 January 1873 ("Maman a dansé", 001.0018), and on 30 January at a charity matinee at the hôtel Chauvain with Dina (001.0056). Maman is also the one with whom the young Marie fights: in 1883 she complains that Maman "ne veut pas le comprendre et croit toujours que ça s'arrangera tout seul" (099.0187).

1882--1884

Summer 1882: a break and a trip to Russia. The quarrel that ends the first half of 1882 is the worst of the diary. On 28 June Marie reads a letter from Maman to Paul saying that Marie is "excessivement malade" (095.0223); on 5 July she writes that Maman had gone to Cologne for twenty-four hours, that "tout est fini entre nous", and that she has told her mother she "ne serait peut-être pas bien reçue en Russie" (095.0240). Two days later she is already softening: Maman is "dans un état d'inquiétude à faire pitié" over Paul's illness, and the two speak only to avoid the appearance of not speaking (095.0249). In August Maman and Dina leave for the Poltava estates without Marie (096.0019), and Marie follows in October with Paul.

Gavronzi, October--November 1882. Maman met Marie at Poltava station with Papa and Dina (096.0389). The household stayed at Gavronzi for a month; Marie notes the evenings recall "le règne de maman", with all the candles lit and seven big drawing rooms (096.0437), and that Maman and she spend each evening trying to reconcile Paul and his wife (097.0016). The group travelled back to Paris on 9 November and reached it on the 15th (097.0064).

Paris, winter 1882--83. Maman is Marie's chaperone in the world Marie wants to enter: the duchesse de Fitz-James, the Gavinis, the Canroberts. She sits with Marie at Tony Robert-Fleury's studio, where on 6 December 1882 she greets the portrait with silence and then calls it "idéal" (097.0206). On 27 January 1883 Marie, ill and frightened, thinks of "trois femmes" who pray for her morning and evening -- Maman, Ma tante and Dina (098.0178). The same winter Marie writes of the three women: "elles m'aiment et ne m'écoutent pas" (098.0291).

Papa's illness and death, 1883. Constantin Bashkirtseff had spent the winter of 1882--83 in Paris, ill, and left on 11 March 1883 (098.0477). In spring Maman goes to him in Russia. On 12 April, after two telegrams from Poltava, Marie expects her to leave that night and sees her mother's despair: "il faut croire qu'elle l'aime vraiment malgré tous les défauts ... Se marier sans amour ou avec peu, rester séparés vingt ans, se revoir et s'aimer" (099.0110). The departure on 13 May is "appelée par une dépêche de Paul" (099.0439); she arrives in the night of 17--18 May, in time to see him alive (099.0502--0503). When the telegram announcing his death reaches the house on 11 June, the servants say Maman must come back at once without waiting for the funeral (100.0131). She was away until 18 September 1883, one month of it spent in St Petersburg, where with the help of Mme Doubelt she was introduced to the Metropolitan and the Archimandrite Ignatius and sounded out a lady-in-waiting's post for Marie at the court of the Grand Duchess Catherine (101.0381--0390). Marie, who had written daily "sacrifiez trente mille francs", complains that her mother stayed there "presque sans argent" (101.0391).

Salon, honour and quarrel, 1883--1884. Maman was in Russia when the jury of the Salon of 1883 gave Marie her mention honorable (see #Portrait_de_Dina). Marie's exasperation with her mother grows in the last year: she complains that Maman "va me prêter des idées sentimentales dont je n'ai pas pour deux sous" (105.0338), complains that Maman exaggerates Marie's successes to guests until "les gens qui croyaient avoir dit des choses aimables se trouvent n'avoir presque rien dit" (105.0261), that she dresses "comme une rôdeuse ivre" (105.0165), and that "ma famille me gêne toujours" (105.0122). Her mother's good will is at the same time never in doubt: during Bastien-Lepage's last illness Maman cuts his hair, first as a joke at Marie's house and later at his own request (105.0049--0051, 105.0479), and visits him in the Rue Legendre on days when Marie stays at home (105.0609).

17 September 1884. One of the last pages of the diary returns to the question of Papa: "Maman, elle, s'en fiche, séparée depuis vingt ans, remise depuis trois ans ... Mais moi la fille ?" (106.0057). The "remise depuis trois ans" fits the winter of 1880--81, when Maman and Dina were at Gavronzi as Paul brought his bride home and Constantin "a comparé maman à une poule qui cherchait à couvrir ses petits de ses ailes" (091.0191). Marie's last entry is dated 20 October 1884; she died on 31 October.

After 1884

Maria Bashkirtseff lived thirty-six years more. According to Kernberger (2013, Introduction) she arranged the expurgated edition of 1887 prepared by André Theuriet and gave the manuscript notebooks to the Bibliothèque nationale; she was also the source of the surviving picture material -- for instance, the Dorotheum sale record of Marie's Die Lesende says she glued the slashed canvas back together and in 1910 lent it to the Vienna Secession exhibition Die Kunst der Frau (Dorotheum, lot 7201837). In 1892 she gave Marie's pastel portrait of Dina to the French state (Musée d'Orsay record, as cited on #Dina). The date of her death in 1920 is the date given by Kernberger; the place is not given in any source consulted here.

Related entries

Sources