Background
Alexandra Osipovna Smirnova (nee Rosset) was born on March 3, 1809 Odessa, Odes'ka Oblast', Ukraine. She was the daughter of a French expat.
1835
Portrait by Pyotr Sokolov
Alexandra Osipovna Smirnova (nee Rosset) was born on March 3, 1809 Odessa, Odes'ka Oblast', Ukraine. She was the daughter of a French expat.
Alexandra Osipovna graduated from the Catherine Institute of Freilin (from October 1826).
Alexandra Smirnova was an elitist Saint Petersburg salon hostess and a friend of Alexander Pushkin, Vasily Zhukovsky, Pyotr Vyazemsky, Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Lermontov. She is best remembered for her memoirs, unusually frank, occasionally caustic, and, as it was argued decades later, not necessarily accurate.
(Russian edition)
Alexandra Rosset married Russian diplomat Nikolai Smirnov.