would indeed be unlikely to produce deep or meaningful or even in-
teresting poetry. But do these characteristics of the poetess describe Ros-
topchina’s work?
It is true that Rostopchina did not speculate on philosophic or reli-gious questions. Also, as we have seen, at the end of her life she wrote
many poems that embodied “religious piety and patriotic passions” (see
note 31 ), as did Iazykov, and Pushkin in “Klevetnikam Rossii” (To the
slanderers of Russia, 1831 ). Even then, however, Rostopchina did not
unconditionally support the status quo. She welcomed home the De-
cembrists, freed after Nicholas I’s death, defended poets against autoc-
racy (“Ot poeta k tsariam” [From a poet to the tsars, 1856 ]), and ex-
pressed rage at men’s treatment of women:
[W]omen are always better, that is, kinder, more loving, less self-
ish, more truthful than men;... but she [woman] is perverted and
corrupted by shortcomings, insults, dissuasions, ordeals—and
from whom, dare I ask, does she suffer and endure them if not
from you men?... Who leads, seduces, and abandons her? Who
takes her from the pedestal... to bend her, break her pride, and
throw her to her knees like a mute and defenseless slave? Who,
if not your vanity, your lust, your pettiness, your emptiness, in a
word, your debauchery? Messieurs, vous savez ce que vous faites.
... As a result of such convictions I hold the pen in my hand like
a weapon, the only one given to us against you.^54The other characteristics that literary scholars attribute to the poet-ess mentioned previously apply even less to Rostopchina. Far from ex-
pressing no ambition, she published six books during her lifetime, in-
cluding two editions of her collected works, a remarkable feat for a
woman of that time.^55 Rostopchina also expressed ambition by polemi-
cizing with Russia’s most famous men authors. She wrote Vozvrashche-
nie Chatskogo (Chatsky’s return, 1856 ), a sequel to Griboedov’s Gore ot
uma,as well as Dnevnik devushki(A girl’s diary, 1845 ), the only other nine-
teenth-century Russian novel in verse besides Pushkin’s Evgenii Onegin.
Nor did Rostopchina hesitate to write on public issues. We have al-ready mentioned her support of the Decembrist uprising in “Mechta” (A
dream, 1830 ) and “K stradatel’tsam-izgnannikam” (To the suffering ex-
iles, 1831 ) and her criticism of Russia’s oppression of Poland in “Nasil’nyi
brak” (The forced marriage, 1845 ). In addition, in “Negodovan’e” (In-
dignation, 1840 ) she criticized U.S. treatment of the Seminole Indians,
and in “Moim kritikam” (To my critics, 1856 ) and “Oda poezii” (Ode to
poetry, 1852 ) she polemicized with Russian literary critics.
106 Evdokiia Rostopchina