unworldly, inspired woman, who has experienced great suffering in the world.
See also “Prochtia stikhotvoreniia molodoi zhenshchiny” (On reading the po-
etry of a young woman, 1863 ), about Zhadovskaia’s poetry. Other poems ad-
dressed to women include Teplova’s “K sestre (Kogda nastupit chas zhelannyi)”
(To my sister [When the wished for hour arrives], 1860 ), “K sestre (Mila mne
predannost’ tvoia)” (To my sister [Your devotion it sweet to me], 1860 ), and “V
pamiat’ M. A. L[isitsyn]-oi” (In memory of M. A. Lisitsyna, 1860 ); Garelina’s
“Druz’ia moi! ne smeites’ nado mnoi” (My friends! Do not laugh at me, 1870 ),
“Ne govorite mne druz’ia” (Do not tell me, friends, 1870 ), and “I ia, druz’ia moi,
ne znala” (And I didn’t know, my friends, 1870 ); Gotovtseva’s “K druz’iam” (To
my friends, Bartenev Archive, f. 46 , n. 426 , poem no. 27 , RGALI); Lisitsyna’s
“Golubok: K S. S. T-oi” (The little dove: To S. S. T., 1829 ), “K nezabvennoi” (To
an unforgettable woman, 1829 ), and “K S. S. T-oi” (To S. S. T, 1829 ); and
Shakhova’s “Progulka u vzmor’ia” (A walk by the seashore, 1839 ).
32 .Khvoshchinskaia’s “‘Vy ulybaetes’?... Razdum’e ne meshaet’” (You are
smiling?... My pensiveness doesn’t prevent) (Otechestvennye zapiski 83 , no. 8
[ 1852 ]: 315–16[discussed in chapter 5 ]) similarly closes with a man compla-
cently dismissing a woman’s suffering. Other examples include Lisitsyna, “Za-
vetnaia gora” (The secret mountain, 1829 ); Zhadovskaia, “Poseshchenie” (The
visit, 1858 ); and Rostopchina, “Nasil’nyi brak” (The forced marriage, 1856 ).
Other examples of the silenced male Other include Zhadovskaia, “Ty vsiudu
predo mnoi: poveet li vesna” (You are everywhere before me: Whether spring
begins to be felt, 1858 ), and Lisitsyna, “Romans (Vse proshlo, chto serdtsu
l’stilo)” (Romance [Everything has passed away that deluded the heart], 1829 ).
33 .The tradition of gendering nature as female is apparently cross-cultural.
See Sherry Ortner’s classic essay, “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?” in
Women, Culture and Society,ed. Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lam-
phere (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1974 ), 43–66. Also see Mau-
reen Devine, Woman and Nature: Literary Reconceptualizations(Metuchen, N.J.:
Scarecrow Press, 1972 ).
34 .See Alan Richardson, “Romanticism and the Colonization of the Femi-
nine,” 13–25. Anne Mellor describes attempts by British romantic poets “to re-
assign the all-creating powers of a nature gendered as feminine to a masculine
poetic imagination” in Romanticism and Gender, 20. Margaret Homans writes,
“The masculine self dominates and internalizes otherness... frequently iden-
tified as feminine, whether she is nature, the representation of a human woman
or some phantom of desire” (Women Writers and Poetic Identity, 12 ). See also Feld-
man and Kelley, eds., Romantic Women Writers,and Susan M. Levin, Dorothy
Wordsworth and Romanticism, 34 , 36.
35 .On rusalki,see chapter 1 , note 25.
36 .Aleksandr Pushkin, “Tsygany,” Sobranie sochinenii v desiati tomakh
(Moskva: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1975 ), 3 : 152. This is not to ignore the
questions Pushkin raises about the benefits of freedomversus society but rather
to emphasize Pushkin’s use of traditionally gendered categories of culture and
nature. He did not, after all, write the poemaabout an alienated and possibly crim-
inal Saint Petersburg woman who runs away to the gypsies and murders her
fickle lover because she wants freedom only for herself.
240 Notes to Pages 49–50