The Khvoshchinskaya Sisters Write the Noble Woman

• In Event: 19th-Century Russophone Women Writers III: Tragicomedy and the Khvoshchinskaia Sisters, Sofia Smirnova, and Anastasiia Verbitskaia

Abstract

While many nineteenth-century novels and tales focus on the character type of the superfluous man, in the world of the Khvoshchinskaya sisters, the noble woman is often at the center. This paper explores a range of works by the three sisters to reveal how this shift in emphasis reveals different aspects of Russian society and of power dynamics in the provinces.

Author

• Anna A. Berman, U of Cambridge (UK)