Frederika Afanasyevna von Freygang

Freygang, Frederika Afanasyevna von née Kudryavskaya, 1790—1863

by Benjamin Colbert

Frederika Afanasyevna von Freygang, née Kudryavskaya (Russ.: Фредерика Афанасьевна Фрейганг) was born in Vienna, the daughter of Afanasy Kudryavsky (Афанасий Кудрявский; 1745-94) and Katarina Kryunes (Катарина Крюнес; 1754-97). In 1808 she married Wilhelm von Freygang (1783-1849), Russian diplomat and linguist. The following year, she gave birth to their first son, Andreas (1809-80), and in 1811 to a daughter, Katarina (1811-12). The same year Wilhelm was posted to the Caucasus, and in Letters, Frederika describes the trials of travelling with a young family. She did not accompany her husband, however, between April and July 1812 when he was posted to Persia to negotiate peace between that country and Imperial Russia, the subject of his own contribution to their joint travel narrative (his efforts helped prepare the way to the Treaty of Gulistan, 24 October 1813, ending the first Russo-Persian War). After recording her joy at their reunion in August, Frederika's letters reveal her agonies at the illness and death in September 1812 of her infant daughter at Georgiyevsk, Stavropol Krai, and her sadness at returning to a Moscow in ruins after Napoleon's siege of the city. There the narrative ends. Frederika, Wilhelm, and their son appear to have remained in Moscow until 1815, when, pregnant with her second son, Karl Vasilievich (b. 1815), Frederika and her family returned to St Petersburg. Frederika died at St Petersburg in 1863 and was buried in the Vyborg Roman Catholic Cemetery.

Sources

Jonka, Irina. ‘Фрейганг Карл Васильевич — Контр-адмирал Российского Императорского Флота, Командующий Бакинской морской станцией’ ‘Freygang Karl Vasilievich - Rear Admiral of the Russian Imperial Navy, Commander of the Baku Naval Station’. Our Baku: History of Baku and the People of Baku. 16 Oct. 2010. Web. 2 Mar. 2015.

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