Princess Sofya Stepanovna Shcherbatova (, née Apraksina; 1798 in Moscow,

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

– 3 February 1885 in Moscow) was a prominent Russian philanthropist, the Dame Chevalier of the

Order of Saint Catherine The Imperial Order of Saint Catherine () was an award of Imperial Russia. Instituted on 24 November 1714 by Peter the Great on the occasion of his marriage to Catherine I of Russia. For the majority of the time of Imperial Russia, it was the onl ...

(1822). Princess Shcherbatova (since 1817, when she married Prince Alexey Shcherbatov) was the founder of The Grand Dames Helping the Poor charity (Damskoye Popetchitelstvo o Bednykh, 1844) which she remained the chairman of till 1876, the Nikolskaya Community (which proved particularly effective during the cholera epidemic in 1848 in Moscow and later during the

Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...

), many orphanages and shelters for homeless and elderly people. An heir to the famous Apraksin family, she was greatly interested in literature and arts, kept a fashionable Moscow salon and was a friend of

Alexander Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin () was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era.Basker, Michael. Pushkin and Romanticism. In Ferber, Michael, ed., ''A Companion to European Romanticism''. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. He is consid ...

Pyotr Vyazemsky Prince Pyotr Andreyevich Vyazemsky (, ; 23 July 1792 – 22 November 1878) was a Russian poet and a leading personality of the Golden Age of Russian poetry. Biography His parents were a Russian prince of Rurikid stock, Prince Andrey Vyazemsk ...

and

Mikhail Lermontov Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov ( , ; rus, Михаи́л Ю́рьевич Ле́рмонтов, , mʲɪxɐˈil ˈjʉrʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈlʲerməntəf, links=yes; – ) was a Russian Romanticism, Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called ...

, among others.Polovtsov, A.A. Russian Biographical Dictionary in 25 volumes. Moscow, 1896–1918. Vol. 31, p. 89

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shcherbatova, Sofya 1798 births 1885 deaths Nobility from Moscow State Ladies from the Russian Empire Recipients of the Order of Saint Catherine