Salhias de Tournemire, Elizaveta (1815–1892)

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Salhias de Tournemire, Elizaveta (1815–1892)

Russian novelist, editor and literary critic. Name variations: Countess Elizaveta Vasilevna Salias (also seen as Sailhas) de Tournemire; Countess Salias de Turnemir; (pseudonym) Evgeniya or Evgeniia Tur. Born Elizaveta Vasilyevna Sukhovo-Kobylina in 1815 in Russia; died 1892; m. Henry Salhias de Tournmire (French aristocrat); children: several, including Count Eugene Andreevich Salhias de Tournemire, also known as Yevgeny Salias (1841–1908, author of historical novels); Olga Andreevna (who m. K. Zhukov, a governor); and a daughter who m. Field Marshal Josef Vladimirovich Gurko, the liberator of Bulgaria.

Moved abroad after coming under government surveillance for sympathy for Polish nationalists (1860s); articles helped introduce French and English writers to Russian readers; hosted salon frequented by prominent intellectuals, including Ivan Turgenev and Timofei Granovsky; used pseudonym Evgeniia Tur for all her writings; novels include Three Stages of Life (1854), The Shalonskii Family (1880), Princess Dubrovina (1886), and Sergei Bor-Ramenskii (1888); also wrote critical articles on French and English literature for the journal Russian Messenger and founded the journal Russian Discourse (1861); wrote children's books as well.

See also Finding the Middle Ground: Krestovskii, Tur, and the Power of Ambivalence in Nineteenth-Century Russian Women's Prose (2003).