Karolina Pavlova
Encyclopedia
Karolina Pavlova (1807–1893) was a 19th century Russia
n poet
and novelist who stood out from other writers on account of her unique appreciation of exceptional rhymes and imagery.
. Her father was a German professor of physics and chemistry at the School of Medicine and Surgery in Moscow. Pavlova was homeschooled. Her Polish
tutor, Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz
(and consequently her first love), was "stunned by her literary talents." She was married in 1837 to Nikolai Filippovich Pavlov, who admitted he married her for her money. Pavlova had a son, Ippolit. For years they ran a brilliant literary salon in Moscow, that was visited by both Westernizers and Slavophiles. Pavlova’s husband gambled her inheritance away and began living with her younger cousin in another household he had set up. In 1853 Karolina’s and Nikolai’s marriage ended. She went to Saint Petersburg
, where her father had just died in a cholera
outbreak. From there she went to Dorpat (now Tartu
, Estonia
) to live with her mother and son. There she met Boris Utin, the "profoundest love of her life.” In January 1854, Pavlova's son went back to live with his father in Moscow and go to the university there.
Pavlova settled in Dresden, Germany in 1858. Aleksey Tolstoy
visited Karolina, who was not only a poet but also a translator among Russian, French and German, in Dresden
, and she translated his poetry and plays into German. He in turn secured a pension for her from the Russian government and corresponded warmly and solicitously with her until his death in 1875. Pavlova died in Dresden in 1893.
Although Pavlova’s poetry was ill accepted by her contemporaries, it was rediscovered in the 1900s by symbolists. Valery Bryusov
combined Pavlova’s work into two volumes which he published in 1915. Karolina Pavlova was called the "master of Russian verse" by Andrei Bely
, who placed her in the same category as Zhukovsky
, Baratynsky, and Fet
.
The Sphinx, written in 1831, was Karolina’s first poem in Russian.
Some of her other works include: A Conversation at Trianon (1848), A Conversation at the Kremlin(1854), and the elegy Life Calls Us (1846).
(1799–1837), Mikhail Lermontov
(1814–1841), Nikolai Gogol
(1809–1852), Ivan Turgenev
(1818–1883), Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881), and Lev Tolstoi (1828–1910) were prominent Russian writers, who with their great literary achievements, helped make the nineteenth century the “Golden Age of the Russian novel”. But nowhere in their midst does one see a woman author. Where are the great woman authors of Russia to rival George Eliot or Jane Austen? The answer can be found in Pavlova.
Although she was an exceptional poet who helped Russian poetry transcend national borders with her translations, Karolina Pavlovna was a woman-poet living in a man’s world. “Being a woman was perceived as grotesque in a female” Even when they admired her poetry her literary friends composed condescending memoirs, articles or private letters condemning Pavlova. Her poetry was heavily criticized in The Contemporary, and she was forced to leave her native country because of the overwhelming, negative criticism of her poetry.
In a letter written in response to the criticism, Pavlova explains that “a woman-poet always remains more woman than poet and authorial egotism in her is weaker than female egotism...” Perhaps here is the answer to why Karolina Pavlova is not as esteemed and well-known as her male contemporaries, and why one of Russia’s extraordinary female poets died forgotten.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and novelist who stood out from other writers on account of her unique appreciation of exceptional rhymes and imagery.
Biography
Karolina Karlovna Pavlova (nee Jänisch) was born in YaroslavlYaroslavl
Yaroslavl is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historical part of the city, a World Heritage Site, is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl Rivers. It is one of the Golden Ring cities, a group of historic cities...
. Her father was a German professor of physics and chemistry at the School of Medicine and Surgery in Moscow. Pavlova was homeschooled. Her Polish
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
tutor, Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
(and consequently her first love), was "stunned by her literary talents." She was married in 1837 to Nikolai Filippovich Pavlov, who admitted he married her for her money. Pavlova had a son, Ippolit. For years they ran a brilliant literary salon in Moscow, that was visited by both Westernizers and Slavophiles. Pavlova’s husband gambled her inheritance away and began living with her younger cousin in another household he had set up. In 1853 Karolina’s and Nikolai’s marriage ended. She went to Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, where her father had just died in a cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
outbreak. From there she went to Dorpat (now Tartu
Tartu
Tartu is the second largest city of Estonia. In contrast to Estonia's political and financial capital Tallinn, Tartu is often considered the intellectual and cultural hub, especially since it is home to Estonia's oldest and most renowned university. Situated 186 km southeast of Tallinn, the...
, Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
) to live with her mother and son. There she met Boris Utin, the "profoundest love of her life.” In January 1854, Pavlova's son went back to live with his father in Moscow and go to the university there.
Pavlova settled in Dresden, Germany in 1858. Aleksey Tolstoy
Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy
Count Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, often referred to as A. K. Tolstoy , was a Russian poet, novelist and playwright, considered to be the most important nineteenth-century Russian historical dramatist...
visited Karolina, who was not only a poet but also a translator among Russian, French and German, in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, and she translated his poetry and plays into German. He in turn secured a pension for her from the Russian government and corresponded warmly and solicitously with her until his death in 1875. Pavlova died in Dresden in 1893.
Although Pavlova’s poetry was ill accepted by her contemporaries, it was rediscovered in the 1900s by symbolists. Valery Bryusov
Valery Bryusov
Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov was a Russian poet, prose writer, dramatist, translator, critic and historian. He was one of the principal members of the Russian Symbolist movement.-Biography:...
combined Pavlova’s work into two volumes which he published in 1915. Karolina Pavlova was called the "master of Russian verse" by Andrei Bely
Andrei Bely
Andrei Bely was the pseudonym of Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev , a Russian novelist, poet, theorist, and literary critic. His novel Petersburg was regarded by Vladimir Nabokov as one of the four greatest novels of the 20th century.-Biography:...
, who placed her in the same category as Zhukovsky
Vasily Zhukovsky
Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky was the foremost Russian poet of the 1810s and a leading figure in Russian literature in the first half of the 19th century...
, Baratynsky, and Fet
Afanasy Fet
Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet , was a Russian poet regarded as one of the finest lyricists in Russian literature.-Origins:...
.
The Sphinx, written in 1831, was Karolina’s first poem in Russian.
Some of her other works include: A Conversation at Trianon (1848), A Conversation at the Kremlin(1854), and the elegy Life Calls Us (1846).
Gender Barriers
In nineteenth century Russia, the astounding literature being produced “equalled that written at any place at any time in history.” Aleksandr PushkinAleksandr Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian author of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature....
(1799–1837), Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov , a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", became the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837. Lermontov is considered the supreme poet of Russian literature alongside Pushkin and the greatest...
(1814–1841), Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist and novelist.Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism...
(1809–1852), Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His first major publication, a short story collection entitled A Sportsman's Sketches, is a milestone of Russian Realism, and his novel Fathers and Sons is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century...
(1818–1883), Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881), and Lev Tolstoi (1828–1910) were prominent Russian writers, who with their great literary achievements, helped make the nineteenth century the “Golden Age of the Russian novel”. But nowhere in their midst does one see a woman author. Where are the great woman authors of Russia to rival George Eliot or Jane Austen? The answer can be found in Pavlova.
Although she was an exceptional poet who helped Russian poetry transcend national borders with her translations, Karolina Pavlovna was a woman-poet living in a man’s world. “Being a woman was perceived as grotesque in a female” Even when they admired her poetry her literary friends composed condescending memoirs, articles or private letters condemning Pavlova. Her poetry was heavily criticized in The Contemporary, and she was forced to leave her native country because of the overwhelming, negative criticism of her poetry.
In a letter written in response to the criticism, Pavlova explains that “a woman-poet always remains more woman than poet and authorial egotism in her is weaker than female egotism...” Perhaps here is the answer to why Karolina Pavlova is not as esteemed and well-known as her male contemporaries, and why one of Russia’s extraordinary female poets died forgotten.
A Double Life
Karolina Pavlova finished her only novel, A Double Life [in Russian : Двойная жизнь] in 1848. It is a ten-chapter novel that combines mixed genre of prose and poetry to illustrate the duality of women and of members of high society. The heroine of the novel is Cecily von Lindenborn. While Cecily has an undeniable, secret yearning for poetry, women poets were “always presented to her as the most pitiable, abnormal state, as a disastrous and dangerous illness.” The poetry is symbolic of the inner world of Cecily. Just like most of the other Russian novels of her time, Pavlova’s novel is situated in the aristocratic world. Cecily, a member of this aristocratic world, has been so carefully brought up that “she could never commit the slightest peccadillo... could never forget herself for a moment, raise her voice half a tone... enjoy a conversation with a man to the point where she might talk to him ten minutes longer than was proper, or look to the right when she was supposed to look to the left..." This carefully brought up young girl is lured into a respectable yet meaningless life of a woman of high society and into marriage by the people that are most near and dear to her.Literature cited
- Heldt, Barbara. 1978. "Karolina Pavlova: The woman Poet and the Double Life." Oakland: Barbary Coast Books.
- Peace, Richard. 1992. "The nineteenth century: the natural school and its aftermath, 1840–55". The Cambridge History of Russian Literature, ed. Charles A. Moser. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Terras, Victor, ed. 1985. Handbook of Russian Literature. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Terras, Victor. 1991. A History of Russian Literature. Castleton, N.Y.: Hamilton Printing Co. p. 225-226