Countess Varvara Nikolayevna Golovina née Princess Golitsyna was an artist and memoirist from Russian nobility and a close confidant of Empress Elizabeth.
Background
Her mother, Praskovia Ivanovna, was a sister of Ivan Shuvalov (1727-1798). Varvara grew up on the Petrovsky estate in the Moscow province. Her mother was mild, kind, although indecisive character, who loved art and valued education.
After the death of her father, she moved with her mother to the house of her uncle, Ivan Shuvalov, on the corner of Nevsky Prospekt and Malaya Sadovaya.
Career
She was the youngest child of Lieutenant-General Nikolai Fyodorovich Golitsyn (1728-1780) and Princess Praskovia Ivanovna Shuvalova (1734-1802). She had two brothers: Fyodor (1751-1827) and Ivan (1759-1777). Varvara"s father was from the House of Golitsyn.
Varvara was fond of painting and music
She participated in concerts of Tsarskoe Selo and the Winter Palace, where she sang songs of his own composition. In 1783, she was appointed a maid of honor at the court of Catherine the Great.
Marriage Polish-Canadian author Eva Stachniak published an historical novel, The Winter Palace (2012), as a fictional portrayal of Varvara"s life at the Russian court. Vavara is written as sympathetic to the young princess and, under instruction from the Empress, poses herself to Catherine as her friend inside the machinations of her mother-in-law"s closed world.
Ultimately her loyalties are tested when Elizabeth wants information that Vavara doesn"t want to give as she finds herself more of a friend to Catherine than Elizabeth.