quests, were read and are read without any special compulsion,
because there is something in it, ils avaient quelque chose là,un-
doubtedly there is talent in them. (N. V. Berg, “Grafinia Ros-
topchina v Moskve” [ 1893 ], 693 )Her talent, beauty, affability, and hospitality drew and won
everyone over to her side [podkupali v eia pol’zu vsekh]. (Dmitrii
Pogodin, “Grafinia E. N. Rostopchina i ee vechera” [ 1893 ], 401 )She was young, attractive in appearance and mind, belonged to
high society, her circle included many relatives and intimate
relations, and she succeeded while still young in making the
acquaintance through the Pashkovs with several of our literary
luminaries who gave sympathetic attention to the works that
were born of her poetic gifts. (Sergei Sushkov, “Biograficheskii
ocherk” [ 1890 ], 1 : vii)Her immediate success as a writer was due in part to her viva-
cious personality, because it was at social functions that she met
many of the literary lights of the day, Pushkin and Lermontov
among them. (Louis Pedrotti, “Scandal of Countess Ros-
topchina’s Polish-Russian Allegory” [ 1986 ], 197 )Still other critics have suggested that Rostopchina’s work was widely
published only because she accepted little or no money for it.^42
Rostopchina as Poetessa
But she never even thought of renouncing the feminine quality
of her poetry, to try to become a Poet, and not a Poetess.
(Afanas’ev, “’Da, zhenskaia dusha,’” 9 )Critics have also trivialized Rostopchina’s work by invoking the poetessa
archetype to describe it. In chapter 1 we discussed the contrast between
the terms poèt,which, as one scholar has remarked, in Russia “is hon-
orific as much as descriptive,” and “poetessa,” which connotes both ex-
cess and lack.^43 Except for a brief period in the 1830 s and 1840 s, critics
have invariably referred to Rostopchina as a poetessarather than a poèt,
and virtually all of them have characterized, and trivialized, her work
as excessive and lacking.^44 So, for example, Ivan Aksakov in a review of
Rostopchina’s first poetry collection, referred to her as poètbut engaged
in what could be described as “botanical” or “taxonomical” criticism.
His review, rather than addressing the content of individual poems, tal-
lies them by year and place of composition, supplying number counts
for each.^45 That is, he treats the poems as if they were an endless and ex-
cessive proliferation of insects or plants to be dealt with generically.
102 Evdokiia Rostopchina