Russian Women's Shorter Fiction: An Anthology, 1835-1860

This book examines the first major flowering of Russian women's writing in the period around 1850, introducing the reader to such significant figures as Elena Gun, Mariya Zhukova, Nadezhda Durova, and Avdotya Panaeva. The volume demonstrates the diversity of women's writing and the contribution women made to the overall development of Russian fiction in its formative period.
This anthology offers an introduction to the first major flowering of Russian women's writing between 1835 and 1860. The work produced during this period, like nearly all writing by Russian women, has been, until very recently, 'hidden from history'. None of the ten stories have been translated before and several have not been republished since their original publication in the nineteenth century.
These works bear witness to the great contribution made by women to the overall development of Russian fiction in its formative period. The selection shows the diversity of women's writing in the period, as well as the inevitably interconnected nature of theme and treatment among different authors. It will demonstrate to the reader, specialist and amateur alike, that women's writing in nineteenth-century Russia is an area that certainly repays further exploration.