russian classical literature
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11th of February, 2024 | 11.02.2024 | unavailable on medium
Anna Akhmatova, Kuzma Petrov.
what always have bothered me, as a native russian speaker who studied russian literature at school (still do!), is the lack of women in russian classical literature. if you are unfamiliar with some of the less-known russian authors, let me tell you - the first famous russian poet you meet hails from the year of 1889. for you information, Pushkin was born almost a century before Anna Akhmatova. and while, i hope, truly hope, there were other women writers between the birth of Pushkin and Akhmatova, they didn't get the fame or the glory as did their brothers.
it truly bothers me, to my core, that i can name more western female authors than i can authors in my native language. and this isn't a hate dunk on the English, i really enjoy all the works and contributions that you made! but i am baffled by either my ignorance or the true lack of women in russian classical literature (at least until the Soviet Union which brought quite a few famous women writers). why is it that Europe, while still struggled (and struggled hard), could give birth to the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, and many female poets that come way before them and whom i unfortunately do not know. and yet when you come and look at the russian literature, which i truly adore and love, you only get the crumbs of femininity on the stage of literature.
i am not russian. surprisingly. but my native language is russian (because of russian colonialism). trouble is, russian classical literature is blooming with women authors compared to my country's. if you asked me: hey, karina, can you name a famous, classical, woman writer and/or poet and/or pretty much any popular woman in your culture and country? i would answer: eh... hm... no, none that come in mind. and i am sure there is a deeper, more academic analysis to go into. like how, for example, a lot of the traditions of my country are very, quite heavily, really uncomfortably and no so subtely sexist. and how women are still treated very poorly, even if the country's government is taking some good steps in the right direction.
my classmate once said, that he didn't believe the East could ever become progressive due to our traditions. and, as much as i hate this take and still believe that our countries can take a step into the future, i still have to, at least a little bit, but agree with him. our 'honoured' traditions are, very much, anti-progressive. our attitudes towards them can be labelled the same. of course i believe in the preservation of our culture! considering how much it was influenced and erased by the russian empire and then the soviet union. but i believe that old-fashioned traditions that serve no purposes other than to demean, belittle, and harass minorities and women should die in a ditch. we can still be ourselves and have our traditions, and culture, and holidays, all the while throwing away the useless, homophobic, sexist, and xenophobic feet of clay.
'Portrait of Anna Akhmatova' by Kuzma Petrov was used as the header photograph here. The portrait is in Public Domain. The photograph was found on the Wikimedia Commons.
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