Pavlova, Tur, and 'Razdel': What's in a Name?

Abstract

This article concerns an authorship problem that raises issues of canonical aesthetics. What does it mean to say a literary work is ‘good’? And does knowing the author’s literary reputation affect our ability to appreciate the work? Nineteenth-century Russian critics divided women authors into ‘extraordinary women’, i.e. honorary men, and perpetrators of ‘women’s writing’—categories that have persisted in Russia. It seems useful to look at what ‘women’s writing’ is, and on what basis ‘Razdel’, regardless of its author, can be evaluated