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

ininity was constructed at the time. As we shall see, that construction

has changed somewhat, indicating, as some scholars have argued, that

femininity is at least in part culturally defined and prescribed.^13 It

should not be surprising, however, that contemporary expectations af-

fected and influenced Khvoshchinskaia.

As in the case of Rostopchina, most biographers and memoirists

minutely describe and evaluate Khvoshchinskaia’s physical appearance

in terms of its attractiveness to men. Unlike Rostopchina, however,

Khvoshchinskaia is portrayed as unappealing, possessing only one or

two good features:

A girl, not in her first youth, simply dressed, short, dark-

complexioned, with crooked features but with large expressive

black eyes. (Zotov, “Nadezhda Dmitrievna Khvoshchinskaia,”

99 )

Her appearance was not effective for balls, although she had an

original appeal, especially in her big, intelligent, and kind, black,

brilliant eyes. (Tsebrikova, “Ocherk zhizni,” 4 )

Very swarthy features, beautiful black hair and expressive black

eyes. In general, her appearance was very original, sympathetic

and piquant, despite her overly big lower lip.... In the years

that she first attended balls, her appearance did not produce a

favorable impression. (Semevskii, “N. D. Khvoshchinskaia-

Zaionchkovskaia,” 10 : 55 )

As a woman, she produced a very unfavorable impression: short,

stooped, with sharp features... [H]er sister [Sof’ia] was an ugly

woman with an unfeminine, intelligent face, but more shapely

and taller, [who] looked like what she was, a middle-aged old

maid. N. D. looked more married.^14

In regard to the last citation it should be noted that at this time

Khvoshchinskaia, who was four years older than Sof’ia and would not

marry until after Sof’ia’s death, was also a “middle-aged old maid.” Her

later marriage appears to have retroactively lent her the appearance of

a married woman. I have cited these descriptions at length because

men’s evaluations of the physical attributes of successful women were

so pervasive that one can easily stop noticing them. We therefore fail to

recognize, much less question, the assumptions implicit in these usu-

ally unflattering descriptions: that a woman’s achievements are less im-

portant than her attractiveness to men; that a woman only becomes an

artist because she has failed to attract a man; that it is unnatural for

awoman to be an artist.^15 Such beliefs may account for the fact that

116 Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaia