tioned by their society’s images of the woman writer.^13 Olsen also men-
tions “one-book silences” ( 9 ), a term that describes Lisitsyna,
Shakhovskaia, Garelina, and Mordovtseva.^14 (Here, as elsewhere, I am
referring to books of poetry, not of prose.) Lisitsyna and Shakhovskaia
each published a book early and then fell silent. Garelina and Mor-
dovtseva, on the other hand, are examples of what Olsen calls “fore-
ground silence beforethe achievement” ( 10 , italics hers), having pub-
lished their one book at the age of forty-three and fifty, respectively. In
the context of such interrupted careers the accomplishments of Fuks,
Pavlova, Rostopchina, and Shakhova, who each published several books
of poetry, are all the more impressive.
Canons
Historically, these women poets have been excluded from the canon of
Russian literature—that collection of authors and works generally con-
sidered central to the understanding of literature, as reflected in teach-
ing and scholarship.^15 In the nineteenth century, men canon builders
and gatekeepers—critics, book reviewers, editors, book and journal
publishers—dismissed women’s poetry because of prejudices against
women writers (see chapter 1 ), but also because these men defined po-
etry in terms of male voice, viewpoint, values, experiences, and tastes,
as well as male themes and use of genres.^16 Twentieth-century Russian
literary scholars similarly underrepresented or omitted women from
anthologies and studies of Russian Romantic poetry.^17
Another factor that may have contributed to the exclusion of allwomen and some contemporary men poets from the canon is their lack
of “literary social capital.”^18 For the majority of Russian women of this
generation expected to attract a husband and then run a household—
that is, women of all classes except the peasantry—social capital pri-
marily consisted of the size of their dowries, their fathers’ social stand-
ing, and their physical attractiveness to men. In the male realm of
literature, however, I would suggest that, along with wealth and social
standing, social capital also included education, mentors, location—
whether one lived in the provinces or the capitals—and personal
connections with literary gatekeepers and opinion makers: in John Guil-
lory’s terms, “access to the means of literary production and consump-
tion” (Cultural Capital, 17 ). I further suggest that such access often
played a large part in a writer’s literary reception and subsequent repu-
tation. In the last chapter we shall see the importance of literary social
Introduction 7