Liberation of the Oppressed: The Poems of Evdokiya Petrovna Rostopchina, 1811-1858

• In Event: 19th-Century Russophone Women Writers I: The Poets Bunina, Pavlova, and Rostopchina

Abstract

Her well known and 1847 published ballad “Forced Marriage” (“Насильный брак“) as a symbol of Poland subjugated to Russian rule was censored. At first it was thought that she was mourning her own marriage, but in pretending in doing so she was playing off the male reception. Through the dedication of the poem to the Polish romantic poet Adam Mieskiewic, the previously supposedly "feminine" theme of love became a political theme of oppression. Even though the banned ballad briefly attracted attention due to the censorship and was secretly reproduced, the poet was unable to recover from the scandal, which led not also to her exclusion from high society but also to almost completely exclusion of her from the literary canon (the new releases/volumes under Gorbachev contributed to her visibility).

Author

• Philine Bickhardt, U of Zurich (Switzerland)