Reinventing Romantic Poetry: Russian Women Poets of the Mid-Nineteenth Century

5. Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaia

5 Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaia While Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaia (1824–89) has been recognized for the novels and stories she wrote under the pseudonym V. Krestovsky, the wonderful poetry that she wrote under her own name has been forgotten .1 There are many reasons for the disappearance of these works from literary history. First, in the course of her life Khvoshchinskaia herself seemed to lose interest in her poetry: she neither published nor apparently wrote any poems after 1859, nor did she collect her more than eighty published poems, although she published a six-volume edition of her prose works. Second, much of her poetry still remains unpublished in notebooks, which are now in archives. Third, the poems that were published during her lifetime appeared in distorted form and, moreover, did so not in “thick” (tolstye) literary journals, but chiefly in newspapers. Such works are less likely to become part of the literary canon since, like newspapers themselves, they tend to be considered ephemeral. In addition, recovery of such works is not easy, as newspapers are less likely than journals to be preserved. Other more basic factors, however, contributed to the disappearance of Khvoschinskaia’s poetry from Russian literary history. These factors, I suggest, had nothing to do with the quality of Khvoshchinskaia ’s poetry—which is well worth recovering—but rather with the gender issues discussed in previous chapters.As we shall see, despite her ability to ignore or overcome the constraints of gender norms in her career , they ultimately affected her reception and reputation as a poet. Khvoshchinskaia was born in Riazan’ in 1824.2 Her father, Dmitrii Kesarevich Khvoshchinsky, was a civil servant, first working in the department of horse breeding, then as a surveyor. Her half-Russian, halfPolish mother, Iuliia Vikent’eva, born Drobysheva-Rubets, was well 112 educated and fluent in French, which she taught her children. Khvoshchinskaia had three younger sisters and a brother. One sister died in childhood; the other two, like Khvoshchinskaia, became writers: Sof’ia, under the pseudonym Iv. Vesen’ev, and Praskov’ia, under the pseudonym of S. Zimarov. Khvoshchinskaia did not have a typical childhood because her family was déclassé. Her sister Praskov’ia recounts that in 1831 their father, falsely accused of embezzling money from the government, lost his position , and to settle the judgment against him was forced to sell all his property. For fourteen years the family lived in poverty—with occasional help from wealthy relatives3 —until 1845, when Dmitrii Kesarevich finally proved his innocence and was reinstated. These events made Khvoshchinskaia aware of social, political, and economic realities from an early age.4 Another factor that made Khvoshchinskaia’s childhood atypical for a girl was the encouragement she received from her father to develop her intellectual and artistic powers. Although as a result of her family’s financial difficulties, Khvoshchinskaia at about age seven had to leave the pension where she was studying, this did not end her education. She spent more than a year with a Moscow uncle studying Italian, music, and drawing. In addition, she studied Latin with her brother and enjoyed unlimited use of her father’s library. Most significantly, in working as her father’s secretary—from age nine until his death, according to one biography —Khvoshchinskaia acquired an education in aspects of provincial life, politics, economics, government, and the civil service, unavailable to most women of the time. Within her family Khvoshchinskaia appears to have enjoyed prerogatives usually reserved for men. Her sister Praskov’ia writes, “N. D. always had the right to express herself [pravo golosa] in our house; she had heated arguments with Father, and she boldly maintained her opinions and views, something we could not allow ourselves.”5 In addition, Dmitrii Kesarevich encouraged Khvoshchinskaia to write poetry. On the inside front cover of a notebook of Khvoshchinskaia ’s poems dating from her twelfth year (1836), now in RGALI, we find his verse inscription: Чрая кига втл ид Чро головки дщри о; Талат аобт риа uж в . иши,  ли , чрил  жал, В ряд вдоов вт и я кор. Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaia 113 h (A black book of bright ideas From the dark little head of my daughter; With her original talent already acknowledged, Write, don’t be lazy, don’t spare the ink, Thrust yourself quickly into the ranks of the inspired.)6 After Khvoshchinskaia earned her first money as a writer—for the povest’ (tale) Anna Mikhailovna (1850)—Praskov’ia Khvoshchinskaia recounts that their father gave Khvoshchinskaia a desk, their mother gave her an inkwell, and they both always provided a...