man through her ability to tell him stories, that is, her power as an artist.
In “Ogon’“ (Fire, 94–97) a male, rather than a female, succumbs to the
temptation of an evil serpent—here in the guise of a fire—thus de-
stroying an Edenic idyll. In Dvoinaia zhizn’Pavlova modified and com-
bined several genres—the Bildungsroman,the physiological sketch,
and the svetskaia povest’(society tale)—to tell her story. In “Za chainym
stolom” she questions the very conventions used to narrate women’s
stories.^34
Pavlova and Polozhenie zhenshchiny
While gender cannot be considered a major theme in Pavlova’s oeuvre,
over a twenty-year period she published five works that directly address
polozhenie zhenshchiny,the position in society of ordinary and extraordi-
nary women: “Jeanne d’Arc” ( 1839 ), “Tri dushi” (Three souls, 1845 ),
Dvoinaia zhizn’( 1847 ), Kadril’( 1859 ), and “Za chainym stolom” (“At the
Tea Table,” 1859 ). A chronological examination of these works shows
the evolution of Pavlova’s ideas concerning women’s position in society
and literature. Since I have written elsewhere about “Tri dushi,” Dvoinaia
zhizn’,and “Za chainym stolom,” here I focus principally on “Jeanne
d’Arc” and Kadril’.^35
Pavlova wrote her poem “Jeanne d’Arc” in French in connection withher translation ( 1839 ) into French of Schiller’s very popular play Die
Jungfrau von Orleans( 1801 ). Zhukovsky had translated Schiller’s play
into Russian in 1821 , the same year that Zinaida Volkonskaia used an
Italian adaptation as the libretto for her opera Giovanna d’Arco,in which
she performed the lead.^36 Pavlova in her “Jeanne d’Arc”—as well as in
such works as Kadril’,“Doch’ zhida,” and “Za chainym stolom”—
polemicized with men poets’ images of woman-as-object by portraying
women as subjects of their own experience.
To understand the significance of Pavlova’s depiction of Joan of Arc,it is useful to look at those that preceded it. From the end of the eigh-
teenth century several European authors had written literary works
about Joan, who embodied Romantic values of national liberation and
an unmediated, personal, visionary relationship with the sublime.^37 In
addition, Joan of Arc’s conflict with an authoritarian church over her re-
ligious experiences could be understood as the struggle of the individ-
ual against oppressive social institutions. Furthermore, she represented
a woman warrior at a time when gender roles were beginning to be ques-
tioned.^38
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