first time but also in her introduction placed Pavlova’s life in a feminist
literary context. Since then Pavlova has become a focus of feminist crit-
icism and the subject of articles, translations, dissertations, a conference,
and a book based on the proceedings. Perhaps as a result of Western in-
terest, starting in the 1980 s Russian criticism also witnessed a Pavlova
revival.^32 Such a belated recovery has yet to come to other equally de-
serving poets of Pavlova’s generation such as Khvoshchinskaia, Mor-
dovtseva, and Fuks.
Pavlova and Literary Conventions
How did Pavlova respond to the literary issues facing the women poets
of her generation? As regards self-representation, Pavlova never referred
to herself as a poetessa.In “Sonet” (Sonnet, 1839 , 76 ), she refers to herself
as poètonly obliquely and in the third person: “Bespechnyi zhe poet
vsegda dushoi ditia” (The carefree poet is always a child in soul). Three
years later she more directly states in a poem to Evgenii Baratynsky:
e
,
[.. .]
[...............]
.h
(You called me a poet,
And I...
Then believed in myself.
(“E. A. Baratynskomu”
[To E. A. Baratynsky],
1842 , 112 )By 1860 she describes herself with self-confident humor as the “crazy
poet”:
u u e
u
u
u
!h
(Don’t let the crazy poet forget
The tormenting lessons of the past!)
(“Drezden,” 1860 , 218 )Perhaps because no images existed for women to represent themselves
as poets (see chapter 2 ), Pavlova often wrote indirectly about her poetry
making. Yet her best-known lines concern her feelings about her poetry:
146 Karolina Pavlova