Princess Sofya Stepanovna Shcherbatova (russian: link=no, Софья Степановна Щербатова, née Apraksina; 1798 in Moscow,

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

– 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 (russian: Императорский Орден Святой Екатерины) was an award of Imperial Russia. Instituted on 24 November 1714 by Peter the Great on the occasion of his marriage to Catherine ...

(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 from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...

), 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 (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...

Pyotr Vyazemsky Prince Pyotr Andreyevich Vyazemsky ( rus, Пëтр Андре́евич Вя́земский, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐnˈdrʲejɪvʲɪt͡ɕ ˈvʲæzʲɪmskʲɪj; 23 July 1792 – 22 November 1878) was a Russian Imperial poet, a leading personality of ...

and

Mikhail Lermontov Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (; russian: Михаи́л Ю́рьевич Ле́рмонтов, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ˈjurʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈlʲɛrməntəf; – ) was a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucas ...

, 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