painful moments, 1877 ), Zhadovskaia’s “Uvy i ia kak Prometei” (Alas,
I, too, like Prometheus, 1858 ), Pavlova’s “Proshlo spolna, vse to, chto
bylo” (Everything that was, has completely passed, 1855 ), and Lisit-
syna’s elegy “Akh! Zhizn’, moia zhizn!” (Ah! Life, my life! 1829 ). Al-
though we also find such poems of extreme emotional suffering among
men poets—for example, Pushkin’s “Ne dai mne Bog soiti s uma”
(Please God, don’t let me lose my mind, 1833 ), Kol’tsov, “Vopl’
stradaniia” (A cry of suffering, 1840 ), and the first part of Mil’keev’s
“Den’ rasseiannyi, den’ nestroinyi” (A scattered day, a discordant day,
1842 )—the greater number of such poems among women poets most
likely reflects their greater experience of social limitations and lack of
agency, freedom, and power.
Not only do the women’s elegies mourn different losses from men’sbut also they portray different consolations. Many elegies are addressed
to a woman friend or a circle of friends who appear to provide some
comfort in a time of sorrow and despair. The speaker in Garelina’s
“Druz’ia moi! Ne smeites’ nado mnoi” (My friends! Do not laugh at me,
1870 ) asks her friends to help her in her love sickness. Conversely, in
Fuks’s “Poslanie k drugu” (Epistle to a friend, 1834 ) the speaker offers
comfort to a woman who is suffering. Other such poems that evoke a fe-
male community include Garelina’s “Molisia obo mne” (Pray for me,
1870 ); Pavlova’s “Da, mnogo bylo nas” (Yes, we were many, 1839 ),
Zhadovskaia’s “Ty sprosila otchego ia” (You asked why I, 1858 ), and
Gotovtseva’s “K druz’iam” (To my friends, 1840 ). This theme, too, oc-
casionally appears in men’s elegies—for example, Pushkin’s “Elegiia,”
“Opiat’ ia vash, o iunye druz’ia!” (Again I am yours, O young friends,
1817 ), but much less often than the druzheskoe poslanie(friendly epistle)
or anacreontic male “cult of friendship, of good company and wine”
discussed in chapter 1.^50
A second consolation found almost exclusively in women’s elegies isreligion: imagined meetings with the spirits of loved ones, a professed
faith in God, and belief in heaven or acceptance of the will of God. In
Bakunina’s “Siialo utro obnovleniem” the speaker is grieving the death
of an infant when its spirit returns to her as an angel to tell her not to
mourn. Teplova in “Son” (A dream, 1860 ) imagines catching a glimpse
of her dead husband on Judgment Day and in “Vospominanie” (Mem-
ory, 1860 ) is comforted by the shade of her dead friend. In “V pamiat’
M. A. L-oi” the speaker asks her dead friend, who is in heaven, to for-
give her grieving. Similarly, Gotovtseva in “Osen’“ (Autumn) finds con-
solation in heaven’s eternal spring. Perhaps, as in the case of the ballad,
78 Gender and Genre