grounds for a divorce or annulment, which, in any case, were virtually
impossible to obtain (Freeze, 743 ). In cases of life-threatening abuse the
government occasionally stepped in “on special directives from the em-
peror” and granted a woman a separate residence permit. Russian
women were thought to have an advantage over women in the West be-
cause they could own property and, in theory, legally possessed their
dowries. In fact, however, neither women’s upbringing, nor marriage
law, nor custom, nor the church gave women the resources they needed
to enforce those rights.^5
While I do not wish to imply that every Russian wife was a victim ofabuse, the experiences of several of these women poets illustrate the
lack of physical and financial protection for married women. Pavlova’s
husband, Nikolai Pavlov, who married her for her money, managed her
fortune and dissipated it in compulsive gambling and in establishing
asecond household with Pavlova’s cousin, Evgeniia Tanneberg, with
whom he had three children. Mordovtseva fled from her first husband,
Nikandr Paskhalov, because of his physical abusiveness. Her second
husband, the writer Daniil Mordovtsev, impoverished and abandoned
her. Khvoshchinskaia’s husband, Ivan Zaionchkovsky, whom she mar-
ried late in life, reportedly also was abusive.^6
At the very least, marriage and children made it more difficult forthese women to concentrate on their writing, not to mention their ca-
reers. Although Rostopchina and Pavlova were able to continue writing
after their marriages, the uncondensed, improvisatory quality in much
of Rostopchina’s work may indicate her inability to make art her first pri-
ority. Pavlova had only one child but expressed guilt on at least one oc-
casion for writing at all. Teplova, who had three children, virtually
stopped writing after her marriage. Although previously she had man-
aged to publish two books of poetry, two years after her marriage she
wrote to professor and editor M. A. Maksimovich, “Existence and
household cares have largely swallowed me up, and it often occurs to
me that I am not a poet at all” (Vatsuro, “Zhizn’ i poeziia Nadezhdy
Te p l ovoi,” 33 ). Zhadovskaia, who lived until 1883 , stopped writing po-
etry around the year of her marriage in 1862 , when she reportedly told
her niece and secretary, Nastas’ia Fedorova, “Love has disappeared
from my heart and poetry has abandoned me.” Gotovtseva, we are
told, stopped writing after her marriage because of “unfavorable
[neblagopriiatnye] family circumstances” (Russkie pisateli, 2 : 659 ). Mor-
dovtseva, who had six children by two husbands, wrote poetry from the
22 Social Conditions