“Don’t We Know Our Own Minds?”: A Rediscovered Russian Woman Writer of the 19th Century / Yelena Furman

IN HER INFORMATIVE introduction to Sofia Khvoshchinskaya’s City Folk and Country Folk, Hilde Hoogenboom writes, “In the 1860s […] Russia had its own trio of writing sisters. Like the Brontës, the Khvoshchinskaya sisters wrote under male pseudonyms, endured hardships, and lived in the provinces.” The analogy is fitting, but, as Hoogenboom notes, only to a point: “The Brontë sisters became well known not long after their deaths, [but t]he story of the Khvoshchinskaya sisters remains to be told.” While the sisters’ eventual obscurity is a “familiar situation for women writers,” they themselves contributed to this erasure from literature by publishing under pseudonyms and generally attempting to stay out of the spotlight. Writing was not considered a suitable profession for women, particularly not for those from the upper classes. ... [mehr] https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/dont-we-know-our-own-minds-a-rediscovered-russian-woman-writer-of-the-19th-century/#!