Maria Szymanowska was a pianist and composer, one of the first female pianists in the history of European culture. She settled in St. Petersburg in 1827, where she was a court pianist and ran the city's famous salon, which was frequented by representatives of the cosmopolitan elite of the Russian capital. Among them were the most prominent figures of music and literature: including Pushkin, Glinka, Karamzin, Mickiewicz, Pyotr Vyazemsky, Ivan Krylov, painters Oleshkevich, Orlovsky, and Vankovich. She died in St. Petersburg during a cholera epidemic, so she was buried in a special cemetery, later named Mitrofanievskoe Cemetery. The grave has been preserved to our days. In 2010, her monument (cenotaph) was unveiled in St. Petersburg's Necropolis of the Masters of Art next to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra on Nevsky Prospect.
