Sofias in the Russian Family Novel: Reframing the Genre as Liberal Wisdom Literature

• In Event: Socratic Women III: Socrates and Hypatia

Abstract

My paper argues that the family novel is the generic heir to a long literary lineage that stretches back to Socratic "wisdom literature" and the Renaissance literary genre of "mirror for princes." While these earlier forms used the idea of "lover of wisdom" or "love for the truth" (philos + sophia) to comment on the desirability of different kinds of political regimes, the family novel became a genre that meditated on the desirability of liberalism in the modern era. By analyzing the roles of several Sofia characters in the family novels of Sergei Aksakov, Fedor Dostoevsky, and Ivan Turgenev, I argue that the treatment of Sofia characters in these Russian family novels of the emancipation era comment on liberalism either as useful only for noble self-governance, as illusion and social hypocrisy, or as desperately necessary for any true move toward a freer Russia, respectively.

Author

• Christy Monet, Brown U