Gitta Hammarberg

The First Russian Women’s Journals and the Construction of the Reader

For most of the eighteenth century the central cultural debate in Russia concerned the definition of the literary language. Around the turn of the century this Russian rendition of the Italian Renaissance Questione della lingua and the French Querelle des anciens et des modernes crystallised into a polemic between Karamzinists and Shishkovites. To the Shishkovite insistence on a diachronically conceived emphasis on normative Slavonic-Russian (slavenorossiiskii) language based on traditional written texts, the Karamzinists contrasted a synchronic-functional dynamic view of language as conversational Russian, guided by the usage and taste of educated society, especially its women. Reading gained prestige as a literary activity in the Karamzinist paradigm and the feminised conversational model it espoused.1 The woman reader was especially empowered. Karamzin’s ‘Poslanie k zhenshchinam’ (‘Epistle to Women’, 1796) and his foreword to Aonidy (The Aonides, 1797) lead the way. They define the woman reader, show her signal importance, her beneficial influence on male authors, and the opportunities for rewards that she provides for the Karamzinist pisatel’ dlia dam (writer for women).2 An unsigned letter to the editor (Karamzin) introducing the journal Vestnik Evropy (The Herald of Europe, 1802) addresses the spread of reading, sees reading as the main fashion in Europe, and features women prominently.3 In 1815, Konstantin Batiushkov provided the most succinct rallying cry for the Karamzinists, defining the good feminised author: Kto pishet tak, kak govoriat,/Kogo chitaiut damy! (Who writes as people speak,/Whom ladies read!).4 Foregrounding the conversational model for literature, he forcefully emphasises women’s reading. The importance of reading is also evident from the numerous accounts of how people read.5

Vasilii Trediakovsky: The Fool of the "New" Russian Literature.

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