Is Helena Blavatsky a Russian Writer?: Reevaluating the 'Mother of the Occult' and Her Russophone Legacy

• In Event: 19th-Century Russophone Women Writers IV: Literary and Other Crimes and Cons

Abstract

Remembered today primarily for her English-language esoteric writings, Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891) left a considerable corpus of literature originally written in Russian. This paper considers the place of Blavatsky in the context of 19th-century Russian literature and argues that her Russian-language writings deserve to be considered a legitimate part of Russophone literature. The focus of the paper will be her articles, travelogues published in Katkov's journals, and personal correspondence in Russian.

Author

• Marina Alexandrova, U of Texas at Austin