About the author
Maria V. Mikhailova, DSc in Philology, Honored Professor, 1) Professor of the Department of the History of Modern Russian Literature and Modern Literary Process of Philological Faculty, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie gory 1/51, 119991 Moscow, Russia; Leading Research Fellow, 2) A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8193-6588
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Abstract
The article presents for the first time a characteristic of the images of no blewomen in the texts of the writer V.N. Tsekhovskaya who wrote under the pseudonym O. Olnem. Her story “The quiet corner” (1902) is interpreted as the writer’s predictive foresight on the inevitable change of the country estate’s “proprietors”. The emergence of new owners does not bring renewal to the homestead world, but demonstrates its forthcoming downfall. In the story “Dynasty” (1910) the death of the estate owner’s wife, which he had in many ways provoked, symbolizes the fragility of the country estate’s essence, the disappearance of its vitality, personified by a woman. Story “Bog” (mid 1910-s) directly talks about the impossibility to preserve the lapsed harmony of the country estate’s existence. Here the country estate becomes a place of exile and of final rest for a woman. And only through the haze of reminiscence does the country estate from the story “Joy (From the diary of a lady)” (1904) appear as a place, where at least temporary accord and mutual understanding are possible.