However, Rostopchina at the end of her life had notices put into two French
newspapers in which, while denying that she had written several epigrams
against Russian officials attributed to her, she depicted herself as a revolution-
ary poet. “Completely independent in heart and soul, she can openly express
her ideas, even at the risk of displeasing extremely suspicious people. But the
pen that inscribed and made famous ‘Nasil’nyi brak’ ( 1845 ) and ‘Jan. 29 , 1837 ’
(unpublished verses on the death of the poet Pushkin) that pen would never
lower itself to lampoons and epigrams” (Kiselev-Sergenin, “Po staromu sledu,”
148 , cited in Russian translation). And, as we shall see, Rostopchina could not
be considered conservative in the views about women she expressed as late as
1854.
32 .Khodasevich in “Grafinia E. P. Rostopchina” uses the word banal’nost’
(banality) to describe Rostopchina seven times. Bykov: “Her generation at-
tributed too great a significance to her poetic activity” (“Russkie zhenshchiny-
pisatel’nitsy,” 241 ).
33 .As mentioned in the introduction, in the 1960 s Rostopchina was consid-
ered a forgotten poet. Starting in the 1970 s Rostopchina’s work appeared in an-
thologies such as Poety 1840–50-kh godov ( 1972 ),Russkie poetessy XIX veka( 1979 ),
Ts aritsy muz ( 1989 ), Moskovskaia muza( 1998 ), and in separate volumes such as
Stikhotvoreniia, proza, pis’ma( 1986 ), Talisman( 1989 ), and Schastlivaia zhenshchina
( 1991 ).
Mikhail Fainshtein uncomfortably echoes N. A. Dobroliubov in stating that
the characters in Rostopchina’s novel U pristani“somehow lack moral qualities”
(Pisatelnitsy pushkinskoi pory, 100 ). In general, though, Soviet criticism ignored
the details of Rostopchina’s sexual life, as it did those of all public and histori-
cal figures.
Rostopchina as a patriot: Romanov, editor’s introduction, 12 ; Afanas’ev, “‘Da,
zhenskaia dusha,’” 15. The first of a selection of her unknown poems, which ap-
peared in Molodaia gvardiiain 1989 (“Zvuki chistoi dushi,” 3 : 185–87), was her
patriotic ode “Na pamiatnik Susanilu.”
Rostopchina as protestor against society: Romanov, editor’s introduction, 11 ,
16 , 19 ; Afanas’ev, “‘Da, zhenskaia dusha,’” 11.
34 .K. Pavlova, Double Life.For recent Pavlova criticism, see chapter 6.
35 .Aksakov, Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov v ego pis’makh (Moskva: M. G. Volchani-
nov, 1888 ), 1 : 307.
36 .Nikolai Chernyshevskii, “Novye knigi,” Sovremennik 56 , section 4 ( 1856 ):
11.
37 .Romanov, editor’s introduction, 5–27. “It is possible to follow Ros-
topchina’s whole life in her verse as in a diary” (Khodasevich, “Grafinia E. P. Ros-
topchina,” 39 ). “Whatever Rostopchina wrote about, she first and foremost
wrote about herself” (Romanov, editor’s introduction, 22 ). Sergei Ernst in a 1916
article (“Karolina Pavlova i gr. Evdokiia Rastopchina,” 22 ) wrote that “all the vol-
umes of Countess Rostopchina’s poetry function as if they were her diary—a
repository of everything its owner felt and experienced, great and small, good
and bad,” a characterization Pedrotti approvingly paraphrased in 1986 (“Scan-
dal of Countess Rostopcˇina’s Polish-Russian Allegory,” 211 ). Nekrasova
(“Grafinia E. P. Rostopchina,” 44–45) uses Rostopchina’s novel, Schastlivaia zhen-
258 Notes to Pages 97–100