The displayed poetry collection is open on a page with a poem that Prince Pyotr Vyazemsky wrote in 1828 and dedicated to his Penza muse Pelageya Vsevolozhskaya, née Klushina.

Pyotr Vyazemsky came from a wealthy and noble family. His father Prince Andrey Vyazemsky brought together a group of outstanding personalities, including writers, poets, patrons of the arts, and diplomats. They often gathered at Vyazemsky’s house in Moscow or the family seat in Ostafyevo near Moscow.

In 1815, Pyotr Vyazemsky met Alexander Pushkin, a young student at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, and became his faithful friend and close associate for the next two decades.

Due to his close ties with the participants of the Decembrist Revolt, Pyotr Vyazemsky was closely watched by the censors and the police and was forced to move far away from the Russian capital. The poet stayed with his relatives in Serdobsk, Penza Governorate. He cherished his memories of Penza which he called “the Tsar City of Paris on the map of my heart.”

He half-jokingly advised his diplomat friend Alexander Bulgakov,

There are two known autographs of the poem “A Pretty Woman with Her Hair Uncovered”. One was addressed to Pelageya Vsevolozhskaya herself, and the other was sent to Alexander Pushkin in July 1828. The author indicated that the poem had been written “just the other day.” Pushkin received the poem not only as Vyazemsky’s friend but also as a source of inspiration. In his poem, Pyotr Vyazemsky compares the woman to “Pushkin’s cheerful verse.”

Alexander Pushkin replied by expressing gratitude to his friend. In the draft version of the letter, he expressed his feelings directly, “Thank you for the poem and for comparing a woman’s beauty to my verse.” However, he later came up with a more sophisticated and ironic reply, “I thank you with my mind and heart, that is, with my taste and vanity for the portrait of Pelageya Nikolayevna”.

The poem was first published in 1828 in St. Petersburg in “Northern Flowers for 1829” and was later included in the second volume of Pyotr Vyazemsky’s collected works of 1828–1852.