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

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

Abstract: Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya (“V. Krestovsky—pseudonym,” 1821-89) was one of Russia’s most popular and respected writers in the nineteenth century, yet she is only now beginning to receive the critical attention she deserves. As Anna Berman asks in an NYU Jordan Center blog last year, “Amid calls to ‘decenter’ Russian literature, one call we do not hear often enough is to finally correct our view of what ‘the center’ actually was. This does not mean ignoring the ‘peripheries,’ but instead restoring to our narrative of Russian literature a group of figures who were at the center but have largely dropped from view: Russia’s great nineteenth-century women writers.” There were over 400 professional women writers in the nineteenth century. As we seek to liberate Russia’s nineteenth-century literary canon, this stream focuses on the comparative, theoretical, and political contexts for women writers who wrote about a wide variety of topics. These two panels explore the works of Elena Gan, Caroline Marbouty and Marguerite Gardiner (Countess of Blessington); the works of Karolina Pavlova, Elena Gan and Marya Zhukova; and Evgeniia Tur to provide new contexts for the works of Khvoshchinskaia, on the second panel. Khvoshchinskaia was admired by Chekhov, and the stream concludes with Teffi, a “female Chekhov.”

Sub Unit

• Literature: 19th Century

Chair

• Mary Elisabeth Elliott, UC Davis

Papers

• Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya and the Radical Camp - Helen R Stuhr-Rommereim, U of St. Andrews (UK)

• Abandoned Idealism in Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya’s 'Veriagin' - Colleen Lucey, U of Arizona

• The Tsar of Beasts: The Animal Other in Teffi’s Stories - Zora Kadyrbekova, McGill U (Canada)

Discussant

• Philine Bickhardt, U of Zurich (Switzerland)

Session Manager

• Nana Gulic, U of Toronto (Canada)