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

educated and fluent in French, which she taught her children.

Khvoshchinskaia had three younger sisters and a brother. One sister

died in childhood; the other two, like Khvoshchinskaia, became writers:

Sof’ia, under the pseudonym Iv. Vesen’ev, and Praskov’ia, under the

pseudonym of S. Zimarov.

Khvoshchinskaia did not have a typical childhood because her fam-

ily was déclassé. Her sister Praskov’ia recounts that in 1831 their father,

falsely accused of embezzling money from the government, lost his po-

sition, and to settle the judgment against him was forced to sell all his

property. For fourteen years the family lived in poverty—with occa-

sional help from wealthy relatives^3 —until 1845 , when Dmitrii Kesare-

vich finally proved his innocence and was reinstated. These events

made Khvoshchinskaia aware of social, political, and economic realities

from an early age.^4

Another factor that made Khvoshchinskaia’s childhood atypical for

a girl was the encouragement she received from her father to develop

her intellectual and artistic powers. Although as a result of her family’s

financial difficulties, Khvoshchinskaia at about age seven had to leave

the pension where she was studying, this did not end her education. She

spent more than a year with a Moscow uncle studying Italian, music, and

drawing. In addition, she studied Latin with her brother and enjoyed

unlimited use of her father’s library. Most significantly, in working as

her father’s secretary—from age nine until his death, according to

one biography —Khvoshchinskaia acquired an education in aspects of

provincial life, politics, economics, government, and the civil service, un-

available to most women of the time. Within her family Khvoshchin-

skaia appears to have enjoyed prerogatives usually reserved for men.

Her sister Praskov’ia writes, “N. D. always had the right to express her-

self [pravo golosa] in our house; she had heated arguments with Father,

and she boldly maintained her opinions and views, something we could

not allow ourselves.”^5

In addition, Dmitrii Kesarevich encouraged Khvoshchinskaia to

write poetry. On the inside front cover of a notebook of Khvoshchin-

skaia’s poems dating from her twelfth year ( 1836 ), now in RGALI, we find

his verse inscription:

    



 


  

  ;



 

  u .

,  



, 

  

,

   



 

.

Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaia 113