От любви к разочарованию: выражение чувств как средство коммуникации между графом Н.П. Шереметевым и А.Ф. Малиновским (1800-е годы): From Love to Disappointment: The Expression of Feelings as a Means of Communication between Count Nikolai Sheremetev and Aleksei Malinovskii in the First Decade of the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

The article explores the role of the emotions transmitted in the correspondence between Aleksei Fedorovich Malinovskii (1762–1840) and Count Nikolai Petrovich Sheremetev (1751–1809) in the 1800s. They exchanged correspondence intensively for years on business matters concerning Sheremetev’s Moscow household but in fact their reciprocal involvement in each other’s personal affairs ran much deeper. This connection implied that their relationships, not sealed with any agreement, rested on the feeling of trust between them. An embezzlement scandal surrounding the construction of Sheremetev’s Almshouse in Moscow shook their relationship, and their correspondence from that moment onwards reveals a lack of trust. This situation caused them to reconsider their relationship. The original “love” and “affection” were replaced with melancholy and neutral “inclination” to transmit emotional reactions and states that were believed to be suitable for epistolary exchange.