speaker asks for the strength to accept God’s severe (strogii) heaven. Lermontov
in “Molitva” ( 1839 ) describes the relief a prayer can give in a difficult moment.
See also Lermontov, “Molitva” ( 1829 ), “Molitva” ( 1837 ); Iazykov, “Molitva”
( 1825 ), “Molitva” ( 1835 ). On poems to family members, see Wolfson, “Roman-
ticism and Gender,” 385–96. Poems about children: Lermontov, “Rebenka mil-
ogo rozhden’e” ( 1839 ), “Rebenku” ( 1840 ); Fet, “Rebenku” ( 1886 ). A child features
in Pushkin’s “Brozhu li ia vdol’ ulits shumnykh” ( 1829 ). However, in the work
of canonical poets such poems do not constitute a major theme, while they do
in many of the noncanonical men and women poets.
7. Conventional female muses are absent in Miller, Fedotov, Mil’keev, and
Khomiakov. Some of the canonical men, like the women, describe a “genii”
rather than a muse. Guber addresses his “groznyi genii” (threatening genius) in
“Pechal’ vdokhnoveniia” ( 1837 ), although he also describes a more conven-
tional, but idealized, Beatrice-like figure with maternal overtones in “Sud’ba
poeta” ( 1833 ). Mil’keev describes a male, diabolical muse in “Artist-muzykant”
( 1843 ), a poem in which Mark Azadovskii finds autobiographical features
(Neizvestnyi poet-sibiriak: E. Mil’keev, 17 ). Some of the canonical men poets also
wrote poems to their genii:Del’vig, “Razgovor s geniem” (1814–17), Lermontov,
“K geniiu” ( 1829 ), Iazykov, “Genii” ( 1825 ). However, they wrote many more to
conventional female muses, as discussed in chapter 2.
8. Christine Battersby notes that there is a difference between men writing
“like” a woman (i.e., incorporating traditionally “feminine” traits, such as in-
tuition and sensitivity), and women writing “as” a woman. “It is womenwho have
been excluded from culture,” she adds, “not the feminine” (Gender and Genius,
137–38, italics in original).
9. Cited in Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics,163–64.
10 .Cited, for example, in Liashchenko, “A. V. Kol’tsov (biograficheskii
ocherk),” xix, and V. P. Anikin, “Slovo o Kol’tsove,” in Sochineniia,by Aleksei
Kol’tsov, 5.
11. Evgenii Mil’keev, “Pis’mo V. A. Zhukovskomu,” Stikhotvorenie(Moskva:
Gubernskaia tip., 1843 ), xiii.
12 .For information on Kol’tsov’s relationship with Belinskii and his recep-
tion among radical critics, see L. Plotkin, “A. V. Kol’tsov,” in Stikhotvoreniia,by
A. V. Kol’tsov,17–21.
Postrevolutionary editions sanitized Kol’tsov’s life. For example, before the
revolution it had been noted that Kol’tsov pressured the aristocratic writers who
befriended him to use their influence to help him win lawsuits connected with
his cattle business. After the revolution such behavior was attributed only to
Kol’tsov’s father. Compare Liashchenko, “A. V. Kol’tsov [biograficheskii
ocherk],” xxv, with Anikin, “Slovo o Kol’tsove,” 8. Before the revolution there had
been discussions about Belinskii’s possible damaging influence on Kol’tsov’s
art. After the revolution such discussion ceased (see Plotkin, “A. V. Kol’tsov,”
21–22). In spite of the enthusiasm expressed by Belinskii and Soviet scholars,
however, Kol’tsov is not considered canonical, largely because of his lack of an
upper-class education. As mentioned previously, he had less than one and a half
years of formal schooling.
Notes to Pages 170 –173 279