V. Krestovskīĭ (1824–1889)
Autor von The Boarding-School Girl
Über den Autor
Hinweis zur Begriffsklärung:
(eng) Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya wrote under the masculine pen-name V. Kretovsky.
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- Gebräuchlichste Namensform
- Krestovskīĭ, V.
- Rechtmäßiger Name
- Khvoshchinskaya, Nadezhda Dmitrievna
Хвощинская, Надежда Дмитриевна - Andere Namen
- Krestovsky, V.
- Geburtstag
- 1824-05-20
- Todestag
- 1889-06-08
- Geschlecht
- female
- Nationalität
- Russian Empire
- Geburtsort
- Pronskii uezd, Ryazan province, Russian Empire
- Sterbeort
- Peterhof, Russian Empire
- Wohnorte
- Ryazan, Russian Empire
St Petersburg, Russian Empire - Ausbildung
- tutors
- Berufe
- novelist
poet
translator
literary critic
short story writer - Beziehungen
- Khvoshchinskaya, Sofia (sister)
- Kurzbiographie
- V. Kretovsky was the pen name of Nadezhda Dmitryevna Khvoshchinskaya, born into a family of Russian gentry in the province of Ryazan, where her father was a civil servant. She was educated mostly at home by tutors. She was close to her younger sister Sofia, who also became a writer and her partner in some works. Nadezhda published her first poems at age 18 in 1842. Her debut novel Anna Mikhailovna (1850) appeared under her pseudonym of V. Krestovsky. With her writing, she supported herself and, after her father's death in 1856, her mother and sisters, and eventually her deceased brother's children as well. She produced many novels, including The Boarding School Girl (1861), which was highly popular, and contributed stories and literary criticism to Notes of the Fatherland, The Contemporary, and other leading periodicals. For much of her adult life, she suffered from health problems worsened by progressive scoliosis. In about 1865, she married a doctor and former political dissident named Zayonchkovsky, who was 14 years her junior; however, the marriage was unhappy. He died in 1872, likely from tuberculosis. She also was known for her translations of the works of French writers, including George Sand. She lived most of her life in Ryazan, visiting St. Petersburg once or twice a year to see her writer and artist friends such as Ivan Turgenev.
- Hinweis zur Identitätsklärung
- Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya wrote under the masculine pen-name V. Kretovsky.
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I really felt the claustrophobia in the daily life of this 15 year old girl, which was limited to embroidery, garden walks, and a superficial secondary education that was geared mostly to producing “good young women.” She may be married off by her parents without her knowing her suitor, and is expected to simply submit to both them and to her future husband. Without spoiling it, what an absolute triumph its final chapter is.
At school we find rote education and memorization of factoids provided by teachers who aren’t truly looking out for the welfare of their students. Through her characters Khvoshchinskaya also questions some of the things we hold as pillars, such as the images of various “great men” in history. The subjectivity of truth plays in to the novel’s existential themes, which also include the pointlessness of daily tasks and the absurdity of believing in the purity of concepts like courage or empathy for others.
This edition has a fantastic introduction and annotation by Karen Rosneck, who clearly did a lot of research in addition to translating this book. She informs the reader of the larger context of Russian history, as well as the behavior of those in power. Check out this quote in the intro:
“For Verititsyn, Lolenka’s textbooks claim an objective representation of reality that masks their function as instruments of indoctrination. The powerful enjoy the privilege of authorship as a means to control public opinion, obscure wrongdoing, mask personal failings, and depict social inequities as immutable truths in order to justify their own positions of power.”
A couple of quotes from the text:
On exams:
“I don’t care how I answered, good or bad: what’s mine will always be mine. I’m studying for myself, not for the teacher, not for the headmistress, not for any certification of achievement, any book, but for myself, to know.”
On marriage:
“But looking at it from a present-day point of view, what is it? Slavery, the family! …A more elevated woman is subjugated to some nice fellow; she sacrificed herself at the whim of her egotistical mother; she reconciled – that is, reunited again – two bad people so they could cause even more harm together! Somehow, amid the constraints, despite the derision, she passes something mundane on to the children…But is it really humane, is it healthy? She passes on to them the same unfortunate precepts of selflessness that are destroying her! Precepts of submission to tyranny!”… (mehr)