Is black an appropriate colour for literary widows? Some literary biographers have tended to think so, those who have maligned or satirized women like Florence Hardy and Sonya Tolstoy, making them look ridiculous for their willingness to attached, Nora Barnacle-like, to underside of an author's career; and then, when that career is over, to submit herself to theunrewarded task of preserving that career in public imagination.' However, there are also literary widows who have been painted in much brighter hues. In case of Soviet Russia in particular, where people could, as Nadezhda noted, be killed for poetry-a sign of unparalleled respect because they are still capable of living by (23),2 inclination, as Beth Holmgren and Sarah Pratt have argued, was for women to function, and revered, as guardians of domestic and literary spheres, as in Stalinist house.3 This article will focus on two such angels who came to cultural prominence as their husbands' biographers. Writing on opposite sides of former Iron Curtain, they both present similar interpretive challenge. Not merely a widow to culture,' Nadezhda has been hailed as the most heroic literary widow in modern history5 for saving her husband's poetry from almost certain destruction by acting as living library through dark years of Stalinism and then writing it out when it was possible, if safe, to do so. efforts, literary and otherwise, of Hungarian-born Romola Nijinsky to engage in sorry fate of her schizophrenic husband, Vaslav, meteoric star of Ballets Russes in first decades of this century, may have been comparably heroic, but in international belle-monde of ballet, they have been decidedly less well-received. In comparing both means by which these two women wrote their husbands and themselves into cultural history and way these efforts have subsequently been received, this article will explore primarily cultural and philosophical dimensions of these autobiographical writings. With appearance of her memoirs in 1970s, Nadezhda established herself as force to reckoned with in discussions of Stalinist period in Russian history and of Russian poetry, and in questions of horrors of twentieth century life, especially as they have affected lives of women. Her sharp wit and acidic, irreverent style initially raised ire of many in Soviet literary establishment used to hagiographic biographical approach. Unseemly comments in especially second volume of her memoirs about such Russian literary icons as her close friend, regal and respected Anna Akhmatova, created furor; anti-memoirs, such as those of Lidiia Chukovskaia and Emma Gerstein, were published in an unsuccessful attempt to throw her unconscionably brash assertions into disrepute. However, with time and glasnost rancor subsided. Not only have her memoirs received praise for what they convey about her husband,b and plight of women in Stalinist Russia, only has romance of their relationship become part of literary legends Nadezhda has also received attention and praise as writer in her own right.9 In increasing number of works and collections devoted to Russian women writers, and to Russian autobiographical writing, it is rare for her memoirs to go without mention. I Beth Holmgren, who has written, to my knowledge, only book-length study of Nadezhda Mandel'shtam,11 alludes in her article The Creation of Nadezhda Mandel'shtam to fact that Nadezhda in these memoirs is construct, literary creation. However, instead of focusing on dynamics of literary creation which motor Nadezhda's project, she analyses memoirs for important patterns and strategies that recur in development of other Russian women writers in order not to fall into old (and still effective) traps set to contain and dismiss women's writing. …
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Jan 1, 2003
Sibelan Forrester + 2
Open Access