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Introduction Women writers, though widely read in Russia, contributed but little to the greatness of Russian literature, which has no George Sand, Jane Austen, or George Eliot [1985].1 In fact, one can hardly speak of the existence of a woman’s tradition in Russian literature. Up to and throughout the 19th century it was men who created literary models of womanhood and defined femininity. . . .There is no Russian Jane Austen, George Eliot, no Brontë sisters, no Madame de Staël [1989].2 Though Jane Austen, George Eliot, George Sand and others had established a tradition of women’s writing (primarily novels) in Western Europe, in Russia the woman writer, let alone the woman poet was still [at the cusp of the Silver Age] the rare exception [1994].3 They began to call her [Tur]—of course without sufficient grounds—the “Russian George Sand” [1953, referring to the 1850s].4 In terms of Western European fiction, the name of V. Krestovskii would be placed not beside the names of prolific, popular narratresses . . . but only alongside the names of G. Sand, Currer Bell [Charlotte Brontë] and George Eliot [1885].5 N. D. Khvoshchinskaia (Zaionchkovskaia, V. Krestovskii-pseudonym) is our George Sand and George Eliot, as several [critics] have already noted [1901].6 The ebb and flow of these quotations indicates the restless search—spanning some 150 years—for the Russian Sand, Austen, or Eliot and the attempt to legitimate (or not) Russian women’s prose in these terms. This search is part of the larger phenomenon of Russia’s comparison of self and western European other and is also inextricably related to the creation of a Russian literary tradition in the nineteenth century and beyond. Although there is always mutual influence across cultures and state borders, it is a mistake to think about Russian women writers primarily in terms of their western European counterparts: I want, rather, to examine Russian women’s 3 prose without expecting it to be that of Eliot, Austen, or Sand—that is, to look at this prose more for what it is rather than what it is not.7 Evgeniia Tur (1815–92), V. Krestovskii (1820?–89), and many other Russian female writers were prolific and influential in the nineteenth century , yet until recently their work has received almost no scholarly attention . Exploring these forgotten writings and their historical and aesthetic significance has the potential to transform traditional understandings of the field of nineteenth-century Russian literature and of the concept of “tradition ” itself.8 Analyzing these writers’ biographies, prose, and criticism also provides a way to intervene in debates about the Russian literary tradition in general, Russian women’s writing in particular, and feminist criticism on female authors and authority, which has largely been developed in and for Western contexts. WHY TUR AND KRESTOVSKII? Evgeniia Tur and V. Krestovskii were among the most important writers in Russia in the second third of the nineteenth century.9 Nikolai Knizhnik (Nikolai Golitsyn’s pseudonym) described Evgeniia Tur as “the foremost contemporary woman author” in his 1865 “Dictionary of Russian Women Writers”; an 1860 review had described her in almost the exact same words (“our foremost woman author”).10 In fact, from the time of her debut in 1849 many claimed Tur as the first talented Russian woman author since Elena Gan or as the first woman author to win a place for herself in the field of Russian letters.11 Contemporaries also praised Krestovskii’s works, but in other terms: Mme Krestovskaia12 is not only the most notable of our female authors but also the most talented author of her generation [i.e., the 1840s and 1850s] except Shchedrin. Her talent, sensitivity, continual development and contemporary freshness [tepereshnoi svezhosti] give her the right to a place in this group, together with Shchedrin and Dostoevsky.13 As these quotations suggest, while Tur was discussed primarily as a woman author, Krestovskii was not. Krestovskii and Tur were very different authors, and I initially chose to focus on them for that reason: little has been written on nineteenth-century Russian female writers (and almost nothing on their criticism), and I aim to show something of the scope of Russian women’s fiction and criticism in the nineteenth century.14 Their differences, I hope, are proof against structuring some kind of monolithic women’s writing: women, like men, covered the gamut of political opinion and aesthetic style. But while Tur’s and Krestovskii ’s writings are different, many elements of their...

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