emerges even more clearly from another frequently recounted episode:
the scandal that erupted when “Talisman” appeared, and Rostopchina’s
relatives discovered that she, an unmarried woman, was the author of
a published poem.^4 Rostopchina’s brother Sergei writes, “Everyone
found that for a well-born young unmarried woman (blagorodnaia
baryshnia) to occupy herself with composition was indecent and to print
her works was absolutely shameful!” (S. Sushkov, “Biograficheskii
ocherk,” 1 : vi). Although Rostopchina had been “seduced” into litera-
ture without her knowledge, her family treated her as a fallen woman—
as if the published poem, the evidence of her fall, signified an illegiti-
mate child. The poet’s grandmother demanded that she swear on an
icon that she would never again write poetry. Instead, Rostopchina
agreed not to publish any more poetry until after she was married, when
presumably poetry writing, like sex, was considered permissible for
women. It is hard to imagine such a scene greeting a man poet on his lit-
erary debut. Although we invariably find this episode recounted with
amusement, as an indication of the quaintness of old-fashioned Russian
high society, no one has speculated on the effect it may have had on Ros-
topchina’s feelings about herself as a woman poet.
A third, often-recounted story suggests that, just as Viazemsky canbe credited for Rostopchina’s literary debut, so another powerful male
literary figure, Nikolai Gogol, can be credited for her most politically
courageous act as a writer. This was the publication of “Nasil’nyi brak”
(The forced marriage, 1845 ), in which Rostopchina used the allegory of
a forced marriage to protest Russia’s forced annexation and oppression
of Poland.^5 It was Gogol, we are told, who encouraged Rostopchina to
submit the poem to Faddei Bulgarin and Nikolai Grech’s conservative
literary daily, Severnaia pchela(The northern bee), assuring her that no
one would understand the allegory. Rostopchina did so, and the poem
passed the censorship, appearing in the December 17 , 1846 , issue
of the paper.^6 Within a few weeks, however, people became aware of
the poem’s allegorical meaning. According to Rostopchina’s daughter,
Lidiia, the police destroyed all the copies of the offending issue they
could find, using subscription lists to retrieve those held by subscribers.
Nicholas I threatened to close down the newspaper, and one of its two
editors, Nikolai Ivanovich Grech (1787–1867), was asked by the Third
Section (Nicholas I’s secret police) to explain in writing how he could
have accepted such a poem for publication. The other editor, Faddei
Venediktovich Bulgarin (1789–1859), without being asked, also wrote an
explanation, no doubt feeling vulnerable because he was Polish.
Evdokiia Rostopchina 89