Barbara Radziwill Biography

And who does not know that in the old Nesvizh park and deserted chambers of the Radziwill Palace every night the mysterious black panna has been wandering for several centuries? Everyone, of course, is sure that this is the same Barbara, supposedly poisoned by Queen Bona, the insidious mother of the husband of Barbara - Grand Duke Zhigimont Augustus. But the fog, created over the centuries by many legends, has the ability to sometimes dissipate.

And the beam of the sun, which is breaking through the haze of antiquity, usually becomes some slightly crazy scientist who wanted to debunk the myth to gain fame. But in our case, the story itself set everything in place. Barbara was born in the family of Vilensky Kashnitel and the great hetman Lithuanian Yuri Radziwill. Even the exact date of the girl’s phenomenon was preserved by December 6, but it is not completely clear in which year, approximately between and years.

However, this is not important. Barbaru was married early - for Stanislav Goshtout, the son of an influential nobleman, the governors of the Vilensky Albrecht. It happened in the year. Both spouses were young. And although no information about straightforces in a young family has been preserved, however, as history reports, the husband and wife did not particularly bake about mutual fidelity.

Barbara was very early nicknamed the "great libertine of Lithuania." And there was something to dissolve the language of the spiteful people. It was not for nothing that Barbaru was compared in beauty with Elena Trojanskaya. By the way, the husband of Barbara turned out to be agile; Subsequently, he was even accused that he seemed to infect his wife with a “French disease”, which allegedly caused Barbara’s death.

The ill -wishers, however, were more interested in Barbara than Stanislav. The lists of the "clients" of the princesses were compiled, among which were not only the gentry, but also the monks! A close relative was listed in the list of lovers - cousin Nikolai Radziwill Black. Be that as it may, but the family life of Barbara did not live long. Soon her first husband, Stanislav, died.

After some time, the public attention quickly switched to new episodes from the life of our heroine. After the death at the end of the year, her husband Barbara lived with her mother in Vilna. Accommodation in the capital could not but reduce Barbara with the heir to the Lithuanian and Polish throne, the future king Zhigimont Augustus. Zhigimont was then 24 years old. Low, feeble, dark -skinned - with all his appearance, he resembled a mother that came from Italy.

His first wife, Austrian Elzhbet, did not like the prince. And during his life, the wife began to meet with Barbara. Further events are worthy of the series in Lithuania, by the way, a documentary has already been shot. In the year, Elzhbeta dies. At the funeral, Zhigimont appears with Barbara. Everything is in shock. Although there was something to be amazed before.

After all, it was not a secret to anyone that from an early age, Queen Bon pamper her son with intimate meetings with concubines. But this is another story. In the year, a secret marriage of the Grand Duke with his lover took place. After this event, the previously limp, the heir to the throne, who subordinate to his mother, became extremely active.

In the year, after the death of the father of Zhigimont, the old, August becomes the Polish king. When he was about to move from Vilna to Krakow, the Polish tycoons advocated the immediate divorce of the monarch with his wife. The intrigues stood, as you guessed, the shadow of Bona but Bona just wanted to regain my beloved son. Like a woman, she could not come to terms with the appearance of a person who became her, mother, a replacement at her beloved child.

And the politician could not help but bleed in such a situation. Polish nobles were afraid of the coronation of Barbara strengthening the power of the Radziwills in the Polish-Lithuanian state. Rumors about her reveionment played a negative role in relation to Zhigimont's wife. Another one was added to the previously existing gossip: as if Barbara is an illegitimate child of Zhigimont Old.

Nevertheless, August managed to create a group of like -minded people in Poland, and as a result in December, Barbara became the Polish queen. But this was no longer a joyful event. The queen was dying is it worth it to be surprised that Bona easily recognized Barbara with a daughter -in -law. It was possible to scoop the soul, knowing that the worst enemy would soon leave this light.

But the queen did not give up death. A contemporary wrote: "There is no one who would believe that she can live, but until now she does not stop painting her face to deceive us to her last breath." She was really a strong lady. Miles for a mature husband. Gigimont August, until the last moment, was at the bed of his wife, without leaving even when being with her became unbearable.

She died in her husband's arms with the desire to be buried in Vilna. Zhigimont rode the entire long road behind the coffin, on which his beloved was placed. Bypassing the cities and Vesya, the king got off his horse and walked. Barbara was buried in the Vilensky church of St. But what did the Lithuanian beauty die from? It is generally accepted that Bon poisoned her. But Barbara was sick for a long time, before she died, the opinion was not dying from the poison, that the reason was syphilis, which Radziwill got from her first husband.The most incredible version is death for medicines for infertility.

All these assumptions were put an end to the Polish researcher V. In the year he issued a verdict: the queen died of cancer. It is with cancer, when the human body decomposes that an unpleasant odor comes from it, as was the case with Barbara. As now and even more than earlier, this disease is often incurable so that the intrigues around the seemingly poisoned barbara are too exaggerated.

As for the shadow of the black pannah wandering in the Nesvizh castle, this is hardly our heroine. In the days of Barbara and Nesvizh, he was still a provincial estate, but we will return to the most important thing - to the beauty of the queen. The judgments of contemporaries about this, oddly enough, diverge. They are as contradictory as portraits of Barbara. Many were surprised: “Could the king really take another one?

But we do not know the true color of the eyes and hair of Barbara, not even a shade of face. They say that she had white skin, but perhaps she acquired such a color from the use of cosmetics? Barbara’s mother was not from the local places, somewhere from the modern Ukrainian-Polish border. She loved Barbara. The fashion of that time has been preserved in which she asked the mother to send white powder from Poland to the eyebrows and lips.

Barbara looked impressive. And although she had a little masculine figure - wide shoulders, a narrow pelvis - dresses allowed to hide these "little things". It seems that our heroine would be offended if she was called a feminist. But if we talk about female emancipation, here she was, of course, in the forefront. Although, if we compare the position of the weaker sex in the "civilized" Europe and the "wild" Lithuania, then in our area women always felt incomparably freer.

It is noteworthy that Barbara, upon arrival in Krakow, immediately forced the local one to know at the Krakow Cathedral Church to stand not separately - men on the one hand, women on the other, but together. Although Barbara blamed in many sins, but, apparently, many unkind words were caused by a sense of envy. After all, it was a well -read, educated secular lady who lived in accordance with the spirit of her time.

In the yard stood the era of the Renaissance. Zhigimont August, in early youth, is known as a rampant and frivolous ruler, after marriage in Barbar, in the full sense of the word, an enlightened monarch became in the full sense of the word. In the castles of Lithuanian kings, in Vilna, the richest collections of works of art were collected at that time. At the Grand Duke Court, a chapel of the best European musicians was created.