'Ia zhivu ot pochty do pochty...' Iz perepiski Nadezhdy Dmitrievny Khvoshchinskoi by Arja s> Rosenholm Hilde Hoogenboom (review)

Abstract

530 SEER, 8 i, 3, 2003 Rozanov and V. M. Protopopov, recent graduates of the Moscow SlavoGraeco -Latin Academy. They made independent translations of the same shortstory,aFrenchversionof a Germanoriginal,which theythenexchanged; and, having borrowed renderings from one another, they published their worksseparatelyin Moscow in I788 and i 789 respectively. Other distinguishedpapers on such subjectsas the treatisesof Lev Krevza and Zakhariia Kopystenskii, Meletii Smotritskii's Uchitel'noe evangelie, Polish and neo-Latin elements in Simeon Polotskii'spoetics, and the translatednovel in eighteenth-century Russian literature, complete a volume of remarkable range and quality. ImperialCollegeLondon C. L. DRAGE Rosenholm, Arjaand Hoogenboom, Hilde (eds).'Iazhivuotpochty dopochty.. .' Izperepiski Nadezhdy Dmitrievny Klhvoshchinskoi. FrauenLiteraturGeschichte, 14. Texte und Materialien zur russischenFrauenliteratur.FrankGoepfert ,Fichtenwalde, 2001. 271 Pp. Notes. EI8.50: ?17.50 (paperback). NADEZHDA KHVOSHCHINSKAIA (i 824- 1889) was perhaps the premier woman realist of the late nineteenth century, as well as a prolific, if minor, poet. All but forgotten for decades after her death (though a selection of her short stories appeared in the Soviet Union in i 984), she is gaining increasing recognition from scholarsin both her homeland and in the West. Now, from ArjaRosenholm and Hilde Hoogenboom, both ofwhom have a distinguished recordasscholarsof nineteenth-centurywomen'sprose, comes thissubstantial edition of more than i00 previouslyunpublishedlettersby Khvoshchinskaia, aswell asa smallerselectionfromhersistersSof'ia (i 828- I865) andPraskov'ia (after i830- I9I6). The letters, in particular Nadezhda's, to a variety of addresseesincluding N. F. Shcherbina, M. M. Stasiulevich,A. A. Kraevskii, and 0. A. Novikova, providea revealingglimpseinto the worldof a cultivated provincialwoman of the mid-nineteenth century(theKhvoshchinskaiasisters were luminaries of Riazan'), and also insights into the publishing process of the day. We hear Khvoshchinskaia expressing (understandable)annoyance when a poem of hers appears without her permission in Moskvitianin in September I853 (P. i), arrangingto send correctionsthat have been pointed out to her by 'kind friends' (p. 29), and heaving a sigh of relief when the censors prove less strict than she feared with her latest novel (p. 37). Alongside recording the minutiae of her own dealings with the literary world, Khvoshchinskaia set down her responses to the publications of, and discussions among, writers and litterateurs who were closer to the centre of things: these include an acerbic (if rather wrong-headed) assessment of WTlar andPeace,for which she had little time, and some entertainingly tart comments on topical discussions from October i859: having accused various female contemporaries, such as Kokhanovskaia (the pen-name of Nadezhda Sokhanskaia , I823-I884) of unwarranted egotism and self-importance, she then turns her guns oni their male counterparts: 'I muzhchiny, muzhchinv-to, Ol'ga! Esli by vy znali, kak ia znaiu, chto svoimi "Karnavalami", rasskazami iz Proshlogo i ANastoiashchego, pozhalui, iz Budushchego oni voobrazhaiut REVIEWS 531 povernut'Vselennuiu! Esliby vy slyshalieti gromadnyetolki, znali eti bol'shie i malen'kie lzhi, i samovoskhvalaiushchie, i voskhvaliaiushchie kruzhki (v Moskve),i ustupkineobkhodimosti(v Peterburge),i rebiachestvo,i rutinu i vse prochee!'(p. 87). Khvoshchinskaiahad some reasonforindignation,given that, as an observerof her own literarywork, she was modest to the point of excess: while some of her pleading of incompetence with regard to the financial side of literary life can possibly be put down to fishing for advice from her correspondents,there is unmistakablefranknessin a self-assessment of 24 August 1859to Ol'ga Novikova. ProtestingagainstNovikova'sassertion that 'all educated people' ('vse obrazovannye liudi') have found talent in her works,Khvoshchinskaiainsiststhat they are simplyrecognizing her 'common sense' ('zdrav-yi um'),while failingto note hertotal lackof capacityfor fantasy ('u menia net voobrazheniia')(p. 8i). Her comments on workin progressare comparably dismissive, so that in January I859 she notes 'Vy sprashivaete, chto ia pishu. Predlinnyiroman, i dalekone v rode "Uchitelia";dazhe i vovse protivnyi emu, toi krotostii fantaziiam, kotorye byli vozmozhny dlia menia desiat' let nazad' (p. 79). In a sense, it is a wonder that Khvoshchinskaia continued forso long as a writer,andwas so prolific:the stimulusno doubt lay in her pervasive sense of boredom with life in Riazan', alongside the intellectualopportunitiesofferedby her craft,and possibly,though her letters are genteelly discreet on this point, in the remuneration she gained from publishing. In their Introduction, Hoogenboom and Rosenholm emphasize some of these points, such as Khvoshchinskaia's squeamishness...