{"id":625,"date":"2026-05-13T01:28:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T01:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alfoart.com\/derionzini-en\/?page_id=625"},"modified":"2026-05-15T13:19:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T13:19:01","slug":"chapter-ii","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/alfoart.com\/derionzini-en\/chapter-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter II"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Family Terrarium and a Ten-Year-Old Letter<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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It would seem how much further could this almost soap-opera-like story go? However, new events connected with this family surpassed all previous ones.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a hasty marriage and the birth of joint children with Ludwig, Praskovya completely lost interest in her daughters from her first marriage. According to the testimonies of the eldest, Ekaterina, her mother showed her neither affection nor basic care. In the end, the girl was sent completely out of sight – to live with her late father’s relatives, her grandmother, and her domineering aunt Tatyana Zakharyina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The younger sister, Maria, having stayed in Praskovya’s new family, even tried to run away from home a few years later due to the unbearable environment, but was caught on the road.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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However, when Ekaterina turned ten, Praskovya suddenly remembered her maternal duty. The reason was prosaic: she realized that Aunt Zakharyina had gained too much influence over the girl and, as a result, might try to become the official guardian of her inheritance share. Ekaterina was urgently returned to her stepfather’s house. For a girl who was used to considering her aunt the closest person to her, returning to a cold mother and a rowdy hussar became a severe ordeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two irreconcilable warring clans formed around the inheritance of the minor Lyalins. On one side, Aunt Zakharyina and the sympathetic local marshal of nobility, Bogdanov. On the other hand, Praskovya, Ludwig, and their relatives. An endless legal war began: Praskovya could barely fend off lawsuits, either losing guardianship of her daughters and their estates, then regaining it, then trying to transfer control to people loyal to her.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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An Inheritance and 75 Thousand Rubles<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A few years after the mysterious death of Pyotr Lyalin, his mother (the girls’ grandmother) also passed away. This event provoked a new, even more furious round of conflict, which grew into a full-scale case “On the Improper \u0435reatment of the daughters by the lieutenant’s wife Strahlborn… and on the poor management of the estate” (RGIA F. 1286 Op. 7 1839 D. 222).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The fact is that Ekaterina and Maria were direct heirs not only to their father but also to their grandmother, who owned significant lands and more than three hundred souls across several uyezds. The childless Zakharyina, realizing that the property was slipping into the hands of the Strahlborn, struck a preemptive blow. Immediately after her mother’s funeral, she presented for collection three promissory notes for a colossal sum of 75 thousand rubles, allegedly issued to her by the deceased. The aunt demanded that the part of the estate that was supposed to go to the girls be put up for auction to cover this sudden “debt”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proceedings over these documents took such a turn that Praskovya was forced to personally go to St. Petersburg, taking her complaint of forgery all the way to Adjutant General Count Benckendorff. And it was exactly during her absence, in July 1839, that a new scandal erupted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Escape in Just a Dress<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Fifteen-year-old Ekaterina secretly left her stepfather’s house. In just a dress and light shoes, she made it to a neighboring landowner, and from there she moved to her beloved Aunt Zakharyina. It was in her house that the runaway gave a statement to the Suzdal marshal of nobility, colorfully describing life in the von Strahlborn family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Ekaterina, her mother did not love her, reproached her for her resemblance to her aunt, and subjected her to physical punishments. But the main reason for her escape was her stepfather. The girl complained of Ludwig’s “indecent lifestyle,” his obstinate character, and outright cruelty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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As soon as Praskovya left for the capital to save the inheritance, her stepfather’s reprehensible behavior crossed all boundaries. Ekaterina confessed that, overcome by “unbearable circumstances, mental anguish, and loss of health,” she was forced to flee. First, another aunt (her mother’s blood sister) tried to hide her, urging the niece with threats not to complain to anyone. But Ekaterina escaped from her too, begging the district police officer to save her from her mother’s cruelty and the disgrace that her stepfather was causing in the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A covert investigation conducted by the Gendarmerie Corps also corroborated the stepdaughter’s testimony. It turned out that the retired hussar treated the girl quite indecently: he kept her under the strictest supervision, did not let her out of her room, did not allow her at the common table, and had a conflict with his stepdaughter” because she dared to quarrel with a peasant woman who was his mistress despite having a lawful wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n He inflicted punishments on the household serfs, because of which a servant girl belonging to them ran away from him. Moreover \u2014 the indecent curses he utters, which not only should not reach the ears of noble maidens, but even the lower class <\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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Besides this, monstrous financial machinations surfaced:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In just one year, the Strahlborn spouses spent 21 thousand rubles from the orphans’ income on personal needs.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Ludwig beat the village headmen half to death, and when the civil chamber tried to appoint new guardians for the minor Lyalins, the Strahlbornspouses hindered this in every way and simply removed all livestock and property from the orphans’ estate to their personal possessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to the peasants’ disobedience, Strahlborn was forced to resign her duties as guardian. Following the withdrawal of her own brother’s candidacy, Lieutenant Colonel Lyalin (a relative of the first husband)<\/em> was appointed guardian, but Strahlborn evaded handing over the position, since he was on Zakharyina’s side and had previously filed a complaint against the Strahlborns’ illegal actions in managing the estate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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St. Petersburg, Senate, announcements, 1840<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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St. Petersburg, Senate, announcements, 1841 – <\/em>Division of the estate among Lyalin’s heirs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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A Trump Card up the Sleeve<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It seemed the Strahlborns were cornered. But in January 1840, Praskovya struck back. She filed a multi-page, emotional complaint with the court, calling her sister-in-law’s actions “a hellish plot devised to ruin and murder innocent children.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was at this moment that Praskovya played her main trump card. She brought to light her first husband’s suicide note – the very one she had found ten years ago while taking the parrot’s cage. For a whole decade, she had kept this document so that now, with hundreds of serf souls at stake, she could present it to the court. She officially declared that Pyotr Lyalin had poisoned himself with rat poison solely because of Zakharyina’s machinations, and that the promissory notes for 75 thousand themselves were a dirty forgery aimed at sending the orphans begging.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Disappointment and Return<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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As for Ekaterina herself, her escape to her “loving” aunt turned into bitter disappointment. Zakharyina only needed her niece as a tool in the fight for guardianship and assets. According to Praskovya’s claims, the aunt had initially swayed a servant to her side by promising her freedom, so that she would manipulate Ekaterina into running away.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Having ended up at Zakharyina’s, the girl found neither protection nor family warmth. The relative kept her locked up for several weeks, demanding the necessary testimony for the court and using her in her manipulations before the Marshal of nobility. And when Ekaterina was no longer of use to her, the aunt simply kicked her out of the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The girl tried to run away again, got lost, was found by local peasants, delivered to the zemstvo court, and in August was ingloriously returned to the house of her mother and stepfather.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The Stepdaughter’s Finale<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After these dramatic tossings, Ekaterina Lyalina almost disappears from the judicial chronicles. Her further fate became clear partly thanks to the metric books: a year after her escape, the sixteen-year-old girl was successfully married off to a 27-year-old clerical worker, Vasily Vzmetnev. Although Ekaterina fades into the background, she will reappear in the following chapters as a participant in other, less significant lawsuits with relatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a gloomy and cold November of 1840, but the wedding took place without delay; it was necessary to arrange Ekaterina’s fate as soon as possible and prevent new conflicts. Judging by the documents, both her birth mother and stepfather, Ludwig von Strahlborn, were present at the wedding. The family demonstrated complete piety and reconciliation before the altar.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

None of those present yet knew that Ludwig Karlovich had already decided everything for himself, and in just a few months, he would depart for Moscow, leaving Praskovya all alone with debts, a problematic estate, and four joint children. But this is already a separate chapter of our story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2190 Read Chapter I<\/a><\/em><\/strong> | Read the continuation \u2192<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Family Terrarium and a Ten-Year-Old Letter It would seem how much further could this almost soap-opera-like story go? However, new events connected with this family surpassed all previous ones. After a hasty marriage and the birth… <\/p>\n

Read full entry »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":433,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/template-cinematic.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-625","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfoart.com\/derionzini-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfoart.com\/derionzini-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfoart.com\/derionzini-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfoart.com\/derionzini-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfoart.com\/derionzini-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/alfoart.com\/derionzini-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":723,"href":"https:\/\/alfoart.com\/derionzini-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/625\/revisions\/723"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfoart.com\/derionzini-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfoart.com\/derionzini-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}