Synopses & Reviews
Women Writers in Russian Literature presents a critical overview of Russian women writers from earliest times to the present, including emigre authors. Each of the 14 essays is by a scholar in a particular field; together, they cover all of Russian literature--from old Russia through the 18th and 19th centuries and up to the present--and include all genres: prose, poetry, drama, and autobiography. This collection examines images of women, and reintroduces Russian women writers whose recognition is long overdue. It also focuses on issues of reception and canon formation, and the relationship between gender and genre.
Review
Faced with a tremendous undertaking both with respect to gender studies in Russia...and evaluating Russian literature as a whole, Clyman and Greene achieve an unprecedented success in conception and execution of their task....Each essay represents a new synthesis without involving the too-frequent bias of a contemporary cultural or feminist ideology. Feminists have the raw material to aid them in their understanding of Russian women writers, but the general reader with a different background will profit equally. For all readers intersted in the fabric of women's literature and women in a literary society, this book represents the highest achievement to date in Russian studies. All levels.Choice
Synopsis
"...For all readers interested in the fabric of women's literature and women in a literary society, this book represents the highest achievement to date in Russian studies." Choice
About the Author
TOBY W. CLYMAN is Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the State University of New York at Albany.DIANA GREENE is an independent scholar who has written articles on feminist criticism of Russian literature, the Strugatsky brothers, Anastasiia Chebotarevskaia, and Karolina Pavlova. She is the author of Insidious Intent: Interpretations of Fedor Sologub's "The Petty Demon" (1986), and is currently working on a book on Karolina Pavlova.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Women in Old Russian Literature by Margaret Ziolkowski
Women as Performers of Oral Russian Literature: A Reexamination of Epic and Lament by Natalie Kononenko
The "Feminization" of Russian Literature: Women, Language and Literature in Eighteenth-Century Russia by Judith Vowles
Love, Work and the Woman Question in Mid Nineteenth-Century Women's Writing by Jane Costlow
Women's Prose Fiction in the Age of Realism by Mary F. Zirin
Nineteenth-Century Women Poets: Critical Perception vs. Self-Definition by Diana Greene
Women Physicians' Autobiography in the Nineteenth Century by Toby W. Clyman
For the Good of the Cause: Women's Autobiography in the Twentieth Century by Beth Holmgren
Achievement and Obscurity: Women's Prose in the Silver Age by Charlotte Rosenthal
Women Poets of the Silver Age by Jane A. Taubman
Waiting in the Wings: Women Playwrights in the Twentieth Century by Melissa T. Smith
Paradigm Lost? Contemporary Women's Fiction by Helena Goscilo
Women's Poetry in the Soviet Union by Carol Ueland
Russian Women Writers in Emigre Literature by Marina Ledkovsky
Index