Reinventing Romantic Poetry : Russian Women Poets of the Mid-nineteenth Century

zhenshchiny” (How women should write, 1840 ). Rostopchina’s poem,

which encourages women to be “shy singers” who “with shame hide and

conceal the dear story of their love and sweet tears,” was reprinted in

no less than six Soviet collections of the 1970 s and 1980 s.

Also frequently cited and reprinted was Rostopchina’s poem

“Iskushenie” (Temptation, 1839 ), especially its final lines, which at first

glance appear to define the feminine as mindless, superficial, and proud

of it:

$,   

      

    

 ,

%  

   

 

       ;

    

,.. 

   

 ...

  ""!..      

   !..

h

(But I, I am a woman in the full meaning of the word,

To all feminine inclinations I am fully obedient;

I am only a woman,... prepared to be proud of this,...

I love a party! Give me parties!”)

I will return to “Iskushenie” later in this chapter.

Other such often-cited poems are “Kogda-by on znal” (If only he

knew, 1830 ), “Nadevaia albanskii kostium” (Putting on an Albanian cos-

tume, 1838 ), “Russkim zhenshchinam” (To Russian women, 1856 ), and

“Chernovaia kniga Pushkina” (Pushkin’s notebook, 1838 ). We very sel-

dom find reprinted in these collections, however, Rostopchina’s most

intense works about art and social injustice: “Moia Igrushka” (My toy,

1847 ), which Khodasevich compared to Sologub’s poetry, “Poslednii

tsvetok” (The last flower, 1835 ), “Baiu-baiu” (Rockabye, 1836 ), and “Ne-

godovanie” (Indignation, 1840 ). Nor did Soviet scholars provide any

critical context to help readers appreciate Rostopchina’s poetry as art.

Western critics, influenced by Barbara Heldt’s work on Karolina

Pavlova, have reexamined the writings of Pavlova and other women po-

ets in a feminist context but have not done the same for Rostopchina.^34

They may have been dissuaded by Rostopchina’s often-republished

“feminine” poems, which appeared to constitute most of her work. Per-

haps, too, the endless stream of criticism that has sexualized and trivi-

alized Rostopchina’s life and work has had a numbing effect, discour-

aging even feminist critics from taking Rostopchina seriously as a poet.

An examination of repeated themes in Rostopchina criticism may help

clear the way for Rostopchina’s recovery as a more complicated and

“modern” poet than previously suspected.

98 Evdokiia Rostopchina