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Abstract:

The paper examines an unusual ego-documentary text, “Confessions of a Grandson of the Underground Man” (1917), by the future outstanding poetess Anna Aleksandrovna Barkova (1901–1976). The author of the article analyzes how the young woman writer constructs her “I” under the mask of the “grandson of the Underground Man”; raises questions about the narrative structure (why the diarist chooses such a specific semi-fictional form based on the text by F. Dostoevsky), and about the gender identity of the author; and compares the “Confessions…” with various pretexts, primarily with Dostoevsky’s “Notes from the Underground.” The article concludes that, although the first half of “Confessions...” is carefully styled as a fragment similar to Dostoevsky’s story, the further it goes, the more Barkova’s text ceases to correspond to the chosen mask, including in the gender aspect, and focuses on the theme of love, which is central to any young woman’s diary. Nietzschean and decadent motifs replace Dostoevsky’s ones. The diarist raises the question of her creative potential. Ultimately, the article shows that, although the external masculinization of the author’s subject is characteristic of Barkova’s work under different masks in her various writings, it does not stem from the writer’s gender self-identification but from her attempts to “defend” herself from the perceived “unsuccessful” image of her femininity.

Keywords: Anna Barkova, Fyodor Dostoevsky, the Underground Man, femininity, gender, self-identification, woman’s diary.