A SHORT AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF COUNTESS SOPHIE ANDREEVNA TOLSTOI
I
I was born on August 22, 1844, in the country, at the village of Pokrovskoye, in the manor of Glyebov-Stryeshnev, and up to the time of my marriage I spent every summer there. In the winter our family lived in Moscow, in the Kremlin, at the house near the Troitskii Gate which belonged to the Crown, for my father was court physician (1) and also principal physician to the Senate and Ordnance Office (2).
My father was a Lutheran, but my mother belonged to the Orthodox Church. The investigations of my sister, T. A. Kuzminskii, and of my brother, A. A. Bers (3), show, with regard to my father's origin, that it was his grandfather who emigrated from Germany to Russia. During the reign of the Empress Elisabeth Petrovna regiments were raised in Russia for which new instructors were required. At the request of the
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