An old man of 40 years old came in and wrote. Vyacheslav Kostikov: Who will come up with the elixir of youth? Origin of the word "grandmother"

Age is a relative matter...

L. Stevenson: “Barely shuffling and coughing, a decrepit 50-year-old man entered the room” ....

Having stumbled upon this phrase, I began to dig into the literature of the 19th century and even earlier...

But first I discovered from the children’s defender Astakhov (in our days) “a woman of 25 is already covered with deep wrinkles”

Juliet's mother was 28.

16-year-old Pushkin wrote: “An old man of about 30 years old entered the room.”

Marya Gavrilovna from Pushkin’s “The Snowstorm” was no longer young: “She was in her 20th year.”

Tynyanov: “Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was older than all those gathered. He was 34 years old, the age of extinction.”

The old woman pawnbroker from Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment" was 42
of the year.

Anna Karenina was 28 years old at the time of her death, her husband was old
Anna Karenina is 48 years old (at the beginning of the events described in the novel, everyone is 2 years old
less). Vronsky was 28 years old (“beginning to go bald” is how Tolstoy described him).

Old man Cardinal Richelieu at the time of the siege described in The Three Musketeers
The fortress of La Rochelle was 42 years old.

Tolstoy talks about “Princess Marivanna, an old woman of 36 years old.”

In Lermontov’s story “Princess Ligovskaya”: “Her main drawback was her pallor, like all St. Petersburg beauties, and old age; the girl had already turned 25. To the delight of our local gentlemen.”

In the 19th century, the marriageable age for women was 15-17 years old.

Chekhov: "At the wedding younger sister Manyusi, 18 years old, her older sister Varya had a hysterical episode. Because this eldest was already 23, and her time was running out, or maybe it had already passed..."

Gogol: “The door was opened to us by an old woman of about forty.”

In those days, in Russian literature one could very often read how a woman of 30-35 years old put on a cap, like an old woman, and took her 15-year-old daughter-bride to the ball.

It is no coincidence that Tatyana Larina, at the age of 18, was already considered almost old maid, and therefore the aunts, nannies, and gossips complained: “It’s time, it’s time for her to get married, because Olenka is younger than her.”

Guy Breton, who describes French history in love examples, not only women were considered elderly at 25 years old, but also men at 30. They gave birth then at 13-14 years old, sometimes at 12. Therefore, the 15-year-old mother’s lovers changed like gloves and she looked down on 20-25- old woman Since then, times have changed in a hysterically chaste direction (a striking difference in the age at which they lose their virginity).
For example, in other literature of those years you can find the expressions: “a very old man with a stick, 40 years old, entered the room, he was supported by the arms of young men of 18 years old” or “she lived for so long that the courtiers no longer knew how long.” This maid of honor is years old. In fact, this decrepit woman died at the age of 50 from old age, and not from illness.”

Or: “The king announced to his queen that he was exiling her to a monastery until death due to old age. He found himself a young wife of 13 years old, whom he wants to make his queen. Shedding tears, the wife threw herself at the feet of her master, but the old king (he was 30 years) was adamant, he announced to her about his pregnancy new lover"

Suskind "Perfumer":
"... Grenouille's mother, who was still a young woman (she was just
turned twenty-five), and still quite pretty, and also
retained almost all the teeth in my mouth and some hair on my head,
and besides gout, and syphilis, and slight dizziness, nothing
I wasn’t seriously ill, and I still hoped to live a long time, maybe
five or ten years..."

In Exposure of the sensation. Age of literary heroes.

The following text has spread across the Internet (on VKontakte, on Odnoklassniki and on forums), I’ve seen it many times, and today it was remembered in a conversation.

The old pawnbroker from Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment was 42 years old.

Juliet's mother was 28 years old at the time of the events described in the play.

Marya Gavrilovna from Pushkin’s “The Snowstorm” was no longer young. She was 20 years old.

Balzac's age is 30 years.

Ivan Susanin was 32 years old at the time of the feat (he was 16 year old daughter for issue).

Anna Karenina was 28 years old at the time of her death, Vronsky was 23 years old. The old man - Anna Karenina's husband - is 48 years old.

Old man Cardinal Richelieu at the time described in " The Three Musketeers"The siege of the fortress of La Rochelle lasted 42 years.

From the notes of 16-year-old Pushkin: “An old man of about 30 years old entered the room.” It was Karamzin.

At Tynyanov’s, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was older than everyone else gathered. He was 34 years old - the age of extinction.

So there you go!!!
This is all far-fetched and not true at all!

Let's sort it out in order.
- The old money-lender from Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” was 42 years old.
Original source:
"The old woman stood before him silently and looked at him questioningly. She was a tiny, dry old woman, about sixty years old, with sharp and angry eyes, with a small pointed nose and bare hair. Her blond, slightly gray hair was greased with oil. Around her thin and long neck, similar to a chicken leg, there was some kind of flannel rag wrapped around her, and on her shoulders, despite the heat, a frayed and yellowed fur coat was hanging. The old woman was constantly coughing and groaning."

- Juliet’s mother was 28 years old at the time of the events described in the play.
In fact, even less, but then early marriages were accepted.
Original source:
Mom says to Juliet:
Well, think about it. Among the Verona nobility
Early marriage is held in high esteem. Me too, by the way
I gave birth to you quite early -
I was younger than you are now.

And a little earlier it says that Juliet is not yet 14 years old:
She's a child. Light is new to her
And not yet fourteen years old.

- Marya Gavrilovna from Pushkin’s “The Snowstorm” was no longer young. She was 20 years old.
Who gave this definition: “middle-aged”? In the entire story neither the word “young” nor “mature” appears.
The primary source only says the following about age:
“At the end of 1811, in an era memorable to us, the kind Gavrila Gavrilovich R** lived on his Nenaradov estate. He was famous throughout the entire district for his hospitality and cordiality; neighbors constantly went to him to eat, drink, and play Boston for five kopecks with his wife , and some in order to look at their daughter, Marya Gavrilovna, slender, pale and seventeen year old girl."

- Balzac's age is 30 years.
This is what the all-knowing Wikipedia tells us:
Balzac's age is an expression that became commonly used after the appearance of the novel "A Thirty-Year-Old Woman" French writer Honore de Balzac. The heroine of this novel, Viscountess d'Aiglemont, was distinguished by her independence, independence of judgment and freedom in expressing her feelings. In the first years after the novel's publication, this expression was used ironically in relation to women who were like or aspired to be like the heroine of Balzac's novel. Later this meaning of the term was forgotten.
Balzac age - a woman aged 30 to 40 years (jokingly ironic, allegorically). Modern understanding a term derived from the novel by Honoré de Balzac.

- Ivan Susanin was 32 years old at the time of the feat (he had a 16-year-old daughter of marriageable age).
Again from Wikipedia:
Almost nothing is known exactly about the life of Ivan Susanin. ...Since his wife is not mentioned in any way in documents or legends, and his daughter Antonida was married and had children, we can assume that he was a widower in adulthood.

- Anna Karenina was 28 years old at the time of her death, Vronsky was 23 years old. The old man - Anna Karenina's husband - is 48 years old.
I couldn’t find it, it’s a long novel, and I was going to re-read it.
Actually, there is no mention of Anna’s age, it only says that she was 20 years younger than her husband.
Nobody knows, huh???

- The old man Cardinal Richelieu was 42 years old at the time of the siege of the La Rochelle fortress described in The Three Musketeers.
The word “old man” is never used in the novel, and the term “old man” is not used in relation to Richelieu.
Original source: “Standing by the fireplace was a man of average height, proud, arrogant, with a broad forehead and piercing gaze. His thin face was further lengthened by a pointed beard, over which a mustache curled. This man was hardly more than thirty-six to thirty-seven years old, but in There was already a hint of gray in his hair and beard. Although he did not have a sword, he still looked like a military man, and the light dust on his boots indicated that he had ridden a horse that day.
This man was Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu, not the way we usually portray him, that is, not a bent old man suffering from a serious illness, relaxed, with a fading voice, immersed in a deep armchair, as if in an untimely grave, living only by the power of his mind and supporting the fight against Europe with the mere tension of thought, but as he really was in those years: a dexterous and amiable gentleman, already weak in body, but supported by the indomitable strength of spirit..."
And yes, he really was 42. But they don’t call him an old man.

- From the notes of 16-year-old Pushkin: “An old man of about 30 years old entered the room.” It was Karamzin.
I couldn't find the text of the notes. But Karamzin was born in 1766, and Pushkin in 1799. That is, when Karamzin was 30 years old, Pushkin was not yet, as they say now, in the project. At the time when Pushkin was 16, Karamzin was (we think) about 49.
Perhaps, at the age of 16, Pushkin remembers how Karamzin came to them. Karamzin was 34 at the time of the visit, according to Tynyanov, and Pushkin was 1 year old. It's unlikely he remembered.

- At Tynyanov’s, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was older than everyone else gathered. He was 34 years old - the age of extinction.
Well, yes, the quote is accurate. But... incomplete.

These days, grandmothers usually refer to older women over 70 years of age, and it is a not-very-respectful-sounding synonym for “old woman.” But in the old days in Rus', age criteria were somewhat different.

Girls, young women, women

IN XIX century girls got married early, at 15-17 years old. At the age of 20, they were already considered “overage.” At 35, women already had adult children, and sometimes they became grandmothers. By the way, this is also reflected in Russian classics. For example, in Gogol we read: “An old woman of about forty opened the door for us.” Leo Tolstoy mentions in one of his works about “Princess Marivanna, an old woman of 36 years old.”

There is nothing surprising here. Life expectancy in those days was much shorter than now, and not everyone lived to be at least forty years old. By the way, according to one version, the word “forty” means “term.” Approximately this amount was initially allotted to the person. And then it depended on the state of health and various circumstances.

In Rus', a woman’s status has always been clearly linked to her age. So, young unmarried girls were called wenches or damsels. Young married women They were called young people. After the birth of a child, a woman became a woman. Of course, this only applied to lower-class women, peasant women or serfs.

Origin of the word "grandmother"

The word “woman” itself has been known since pagan times. It is present in many Slavic, as well as Turkic languages, and has always had many meanings. For example, pagan stone idols were called “women”.

There is a version that the term “baba” comes from Sanskrit. The syllable “ba” means “to live”, “to exist”, “to be”, “always”, “now”. From Old Church Slavonic “baba” is translated as “gate of life.”

However, according to another, much more popular hypothesis, the origin of the Russian word “baba” is the same as that of the words “mother”, “nanny”, “daddy”: small children simply tend to double syllables, and “ba” turned into “babu” "

Perhaps this is what the kids called the older women in the family, unlike their mothers. “Mom” breastfed them, but “woman” did not.

From the word “baba” the word “grandmother” was born. Krylov’s etymological dictionary says: “This common Slavic word is formed from the noun baba (meaning “mother of father or mother”) with the help of a diminutive suffix, but over time it began to be perceived as an independent word denoting kinship.” " Old woman, old woman,” this is how the author of another interprets the meaning of the word etymological dictionary- Shansky.

Who were called “grandmothers” in Rus'?

So, initially, apparently, this was the name of the grandmothers, that is, the word denoted the degree of relationship. But later they began to call other older women this way. Moreover, it is unlikely that they began to be called grandmothers from a specific age. Rather, it was the woman’s status that mattered. Let's say, if she already had adult children, grandchildren, if her childbearing period had ended, then she had every “right” to be called “grandmother”.

There is also a theory that “grandmother” could be called a wise woman, knowledgeable woman. Traditionally in Rus', healers, sorcerers, and midwives were called “babas” and “grandmothers.” Some even managed to combine all these “responsibilities”.

As ethnographer Listova reports in her work “Russian rituals, customs and beliefs associated with the midwife (second half of the 19th - 20s of the 20th century)”, in accordance with traditions, the role of midwife could only be performed by women who had given birth, but had already experienced menopause, were not sexually active, preferably widowed. It was believed that in this case there would be no problems with “midwifed” children.

The main idea of the creators of “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears” was expressed by main character film Katerina. And I want to remind you of Pushkin and his “Eugene Onegin”.
And by the way: Larina is a simple, but very sweet old lady; (Chapter three, article four).
Has anyone ever wondered why Larina, although simple and sweet, is still an old lady?
But this has always confused me.
(Chapter two. general acquaintance) About the future “old lady”: ... at that time her husband was still fiancé, but out of captivity, she sighed differently.
…. (who) was an important dandy, a player and a guard sergeant.
Like him, she was always dressed in fashion and to suit:
But, without asking her advice, the girl was led to the crown.
And, in order to dispel her grief, the sensible husband soon left for his village.....
I assume that if Pushkin does not report any activities of his spouse (except for a well-fed village life) after marriage, it means military rank he already had (it takes a fairly long period of time to achieve) and therefore I conclude that he could have been about forty (maybe or more) at that time.
Humble sinner Dmitry Larin, the Lord's servant and foreman (!)... (epitaph).
Well, the wife was clearly younger and perhaps even much younger. Therefore, rather, “without asking,” the girl was led to the crown, as if she had not done something out of invented love, having read novels and heard a lot of nonsense from her Moscow cousin; It’s not for nothing that the sergeant hangs around. I think that the girl was not even twenty (and perhaps even younger) years old.
Life in the provinces, especially in the countryside, erases many conventions, thinking is simplified (why put on display in clothes, manners and words, there is no one except us, everyone is our own and the same, so why stand out), all human life comes down to the optimal minimum of the most necessary (and in peace: plenty of food and sleep, there are no restrictions on where and why to rush, hurry) circle (set) of operations (everything happens today - like yesterday, and tomorrow like today; for some, closed, in its everyday life it’s a circle, but that’s what it is real life). Purely from her observations, she came to the following conclusion: for a woman to age very much, so much so that those around her see her as an old woman, it is necessary that either life in general be unbearably difficult, harsh, and hopeless despair/hopelessness (hope still softens wrinkles, a quiet smile) or a momentary terrible blow to the central nervous system - somehow suddenly a severe illness or terrible news/message (awareness of the hopelessness of the situation). But Pushkin describes to us the everyday life of the Larin family, which is simply enviably prosperous.
…. and finally renewed her dressing gown and cap on the cotton wool... the wife just grew fat from being well-fed and measured village life, she changed her tight corset to a warm one underwear, and a transparent peignoir for a cotton night robe. A normal decision, very correct for life, where one boasts of other successes, opportunities, and acquisitions. Moreover, ... her husband loved her heartily and was not included in her plans. He believed her in everything blithely, and he himself ate and drank in his dressing gown.
I don’t know where, but for some reason I know that Tatyana was about nineteen years old at the time she met (the reader) Onegin, and Olga was a little over sixteen. Not complicated arithmetic calculations, even approximate ones, and it turns out that Larina (their mother, by the way, about the name: Pachett - Praskovya???) was about forty (or maybe less). Why, at the time of meeting (reader) Onegin, does Pushkin think of her as an old woman? In the novel, he admits that he himself is about thirty (chapter six, description of the duel scenes) and does a thirty-year-old man, a lover of women, really see forty-year-old Larina as so ancient? I suppose that the factor of lack of gloss, brilliance, pride and arrogance was at work, and, naturally, the outfits of “provincial simplicity” were out of fashion and time. Perhaps its metropolitan counterpart, a sort of secular “Grandecobra”, would have made a completely different impression on the guest???

I’ll admit right away that this is not my search.
I read it myself and she teared up... Or did she laugh?
How will we continue to live, old ladies?

In general, I feel sorry for the people:

Age is a relative matter...

L. Stevenson: “Barely shuffling and coughing, a decrepit 50-year-old man entered the room”...

Having stumbled upon this phrase, I began to dig into the literature of the 19th century and even earlier...

But first I discovered from the children’s defender Astakhov (in our days) “a woman of 25 is already covered with deep wrinkles”

Juliet's mother was 28.

16-year-old Pushkin wrote: “An old man of about 30 years old entered the room.”

Marya Gavrilovna from Pushkin’s “The Snowstorm” was no longer young: “She was in her 20th year.”

Tynyanov: “Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was older than all those gathered. He was 34 years old, the age of extinction.”

The old woman pawnbroker from Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment" was 42
of the year.
Here, as suggested in the comments, the author of this text is false. They clarify that this lady was 60 years old.

Old man Cardinal Richelieu at the time of the siege described in The Three Musketeers
The fortress of La Rochelle was 42 years old.

Tolstoy talks about “Princess Marivanna, an old woman of 36 years old.”

In the 19th century, the marriageable age for women was 15-17 years old.

Chekhov: “At the wedding of her younger sister Manyusya, 18 years old, her eldest sister Varya had a hysteria. Because this eldest was already 23, and her time was running out, or maybe it had already passed...”

Gogol: “The door was opened to us by an old woman of about forty.”

In those days, in Russian literature one could very often read how a woman of 30-35 years old put on a cap, like an old woman, and took her 15-year-old daughter-bride to the ball.

It is no coincidence that Tatyana Larina, at the age of 18, was already considered almost an old maid, and therefore her aunts, nannies, and gossips complained: “It’s time, it’s time for her to get married, because Olenka is younger than her.”

Guy Breton, who describes French history using love examples, not only considered women elderly at 25, but also men at 30. They gave birth at the age of 13-14, sometimes at 12. Therefore, a 15-year-old mother changed lovers like gloves and she looked down on the 20-25 year old woman. Since then, times have changed in a hysterically chaste direction (a striking difference in the age at which they lose their virginity).
For example, in other literature of those years you can find the expressions: “a very old man with a stick, 40 years old, entered the room, he was supported by the arms of young men of 18 years old” or “she lived for so long that the courtiers no longer knew how long.” This maid of honor is years old. In fact, this decrepit woman died at the age of 50 from old age, and not from illness.”