THE SLAVONIC AND EAST EUROPEAN REVIEW Volume79, Number4 October 200I The Forgotten Poetess: Tatiana L'vovna Shchepkina-Kuperni DONALD RAYFIELD 3To 6yAeT MHOFO AeT CHYCTA MOwKeT6bITb B 2 I-M, M0)eT 6bITb B 22-M BeKe TaK, B 2 I 25 FOAY [ ...] KaKOi-HH6yAb KpHTHK BepHee BceFO AKeHHHHa [ ... ] 3axo'IeT BOCKpeCHTb HeCKOAbKO 3a6bITbIX TeHeC H HaxIHeT 3aHHMaTbC3$ MOHMH YieAeBHIHMH COqHHeHIHSIMH [...] EAi3aXoMeTCR 3HaTb, 0 IbHX rAa3ax HHcaAa 51, Koro 31 AaCKaAa B 6eAbIe HO'IHI, C KeM CKIHTaAaCb Ho EBporie, CBo6oAHaYi H clIaCTAHBa3i, KaK BeTep... Ho 3HL"HKAOeAw1ieCKHe CAOBapH H C6opHHIKHI o6 3TOM 6Y,AyT MOAiaTb. TOAbKO TpeHeT H KCeHCTBeHHOCTb rIepe>KHBaHHHi HeMHOrO 3aAeHyT ee H B 3THX CTapOMOAHbIX q opMax, iOCAe MHOfOBeKOBorO 3a6BeH HY. H o0a HHHarmeT ripeAeCTHY1O cTaTbIO, 03araHB 4ee '3a6bITaq rioeTecca'[ ...]1 Tat'ianaL'vovnaShchepkina-Kupernik Donald Rayfield is Professorof Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary, Universityof London. 1 'This will happen many years later perhaps in the 2 ISt, perhaps in the 22nd century let's say in 2 125 ... .] some critic most likelya woman [... .] will decide to resurrecta numberof forgottenshadesand will begin studyingthose worksof mine that have survived... [... ] She willwantto knowwhoseeyesI wroteabout,whomI caressed duringthewhitenights,withwhomI roamedacrossEuropewhenI wasasfreeandhappy as the wind ... But encyclopaediasand collectionswill have nothing to say about that. Onlythequiverandfemininityoftheexperienceswillgettoher,evenintheseold-fashioned forms,aftermanycenturies'oblivion.And shewillwritea charmingarticle,entitlingit "A ForgottenPoetess".'RGALIfond 57I, op's' i, ed. khr. 104, list 33. typescriptlate I940S. (Hencefortharchivereferenceswill be given as hyphenatedfigures,with page numbers followinga comma. RGALI = Russian State Archivesfor Literatureand Art; OR = Manuscriptsection of Russian State Library;RNB = Manuscriptsection of Russian NationalLibrary,St Petersburg; Bakh. = Bakhrushinskii teatral'nyimuzei,Moscow.The authorthanksthe directorsof these archivesfor theirhelp, Anna Pilkingtonfor revised readingsand translations,ViktoriaMusvikforadditionalresearchin the RGALI,and the twoanonymousreadersforSEER,whoprovidedvaluableconstructive criticism.)Research wassupportedbya grantfromtheBritishAcademy. 602 THE FORGOTTEN POETESS AnumberofRussianwomenpoetsoftheearlytwentieth century,some of themSapphic,havebeenrestoredfromoblivionintoprint.Today we canreassess AdelaidaGertsyk, SofiiaParnok,Poliksena Soloviova, and even convinceourselvesof the real existenceof Cherubinade Gabriak. YetTatianaL'vovnaShchepkina-Kupernik (henceforth Kupernik ,I874-I 952)wasinherprime,ifnotindisputably greater,atleast moreadmired,notoriousandprolificthanallthese.Shealsooutlived them all. A reading of her publishedlyricalverse, collected and uncollected willrevealatleastadozenpoemswhichneitherAnnenskii, Akhmatova norTsvetaevawouldhavedisavowed,andtwo narrative poems,one autobiographical andone on thedeathof Blok,whichare important contributions to thecanon.Whatqualitiesanddefectsdoes herverserevealto accountforthe silencethatsurrounds herin even comprehensive surveys andanthologies ofRussianwomen'spoetry? The mostobviousexplanationis thatKupernik fillsanotherniche. Historians oftheRussiantheatrearefamiliar withherasthebiographer of the actressErmolovaand as the authorof memoirswhichfocus primarily ontheatrical lifein StPetersburg inthe I900s. Theatre-goers knowherasthefinestRussianverse-translator ofcomedy,unsurpassed in her versionsof EdmondRostand(notablyCyrano deBergerac) and Lope de Vega, highly esteemed as a translatorof Shakespeare's comedies.Chekhoventhusiasts areawareofherasa correspondent of Chekhov's,intermittentlypart of his intimate circle. Her poetry, however,hassunkto apparently irrecoverable depths:evenCatriona Kelly'svaluableAnthology ofRussianWomen's Writing (Oxford, 1994) omitsher.2The twovolumesof herselectedworkthathaveappeared sinceher death3havereprintedprimarilyhermemoirs,shortstories and hertwobestknowncomedytranslations. Onlythe 1954 volume includesa dozenof herpre-revolutionary lyricalpoems;none of her enormousoutputbeforei9 I7hasbeenreferred to,letalonereprinted, exceptin theseexcerpts.The archivematerialsthatareaccessiblein Moscow(RGALI,theBakhrushin theatrical museum,themanuscript department oftheRussianStateLibrary) andStPetersburg (IRLI,the manuscriptdepartmentof the RussianNationalLibrary)have lain untouched.Only in a few of the memoirsthat have floodedfrom 2 True, prose by Shchepkina-Kupernik is included in at least one recent Russian anthology and her role as a poet is cursorily acknowledged in others; but she is still categorized in dictionaries, histories and anthologies of women's writing, both in and outside Russia, as primarily a translator, theatre memoirist and biographer. The first signs of her rehabilitation as a poet are to be found in M. Gasparov, 0. Kushlina, T. N. Nikol'skaia, StoodnapoetessaSerebrianogo veka,St Petersburg, 2000. 3 Izbrannoe, M\Ioscow,1954, 8 I9 pp.; Razrozennye stranitsy', Moscow, I968, 3'' pp. DONALD RAYFIELD 603 Russianpublishinghouses over the last few yearsis she now recalledas a poet.4 This was not always so: an indication of the height to which her reputation once soared can be gleaned from anthologies at the turn of the century. In V. P. Avenarius'santhology 'chosen foryoung people', Za tridtsat'let. Obraztsy novoirusskoi poezii(ForThirtyrears.Examples of Modern RussianPoetrg, St Petersburg, I 900), there are four poems from Kupernik's first collection (Iz zhenskikh pisem,first edition, I898); in I9OI Sal'nikov'sRusskie poety zaI OOlet(Russian Poets ofthe Lastioo Years) included seven of her lyrics. Even later, she was still considered a canonical poet; herpoetry is to be found in anthologies of Russianwar poetry in I9I5...