Abandoned Idealism in Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya’s 'Veriagin'

• In Event: 19th-Century Women Writers in Context II: Khvoshchinskaia and Teffi in Radical, Generational, and Animal Contexts

Abstract

This presentation focuses on Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya’s telling portrayal of abandoned idealism in her short story “Veriagin” (1874). Eventually included in her collection An Album: Groups and Portraits, “Veriagin” showcases the failures of male intellectuals who come of age in the late 1860s and abandon their ideals of equality in exchange for upward mobility and material wealth. In ways similar to other tales in An Album, “Veriagin” illustrates male characters’ moral decline as they willingly betray female friends and relatives for financial gain and a better social position.

Author

• Colleen Lucey, U of Arizona