Article

Name: The image of “a woman with a gun” in the gender context of Russian literature of the 1920s

Authors: Ludmila P. Yakimova

Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract:

The paper examines a significant aspect of the gender problem in Russian literature during the 1920s and 1930s. Specifically, it explores the motivational situation behind the masculinization of female characters in response to the post-revolutionary push for gender equality, both ideologically and aesthetically. The wide prevalence of the image of “a woman with a gun” is considered, with attention also paid to the poetic and semantic variants, such as “atamansha” and “commissarsha.” The analysis covers the following works: “Barsuki” (“The Badgers”) by L. Leonov, “Gadyuka” (“The Viper”) by A. Tolstoy, “Sorok pervyy” (“The Forty-first”) by B. Lavrenev, and “Bab’ya pechal’ (“Women’s Sadness”) “by I. Goldberg. The choice of material determines the focus of research attention on poetic and stylistic shifts in the structure of the artistic text of Soviet literature of the years under study. The conflict between social and natural principles, manifested in the deformation of women’s nature in the conditions of the shifted time, is of particular relevance in the works of the authors in question.

Keywords: Russian literature of the 20s, gender aspect, features of text formation, the image of “a woman with a gun,” the conflict of social and natural principles, the poetics of motive tension

Bibliography:

Russian literature of the 20s, gender aspect, features of text formation, the image of “a woman with a gun,” the conflict of social and natural principles, the poetics of motive tension der v russkoy kul’ture 1890–1930-kh godov [Woman of modernity. Gender in Russian culture of the 1890s–1930s]. Moscow, New Literary Observer, 2022, pp. 363–381.

Vakhitova T. M. Infernal’nyye geroini Leonida Leonova pered bezdnoy [Leonid Leonov’s infernal heroines before the abyss]. In: Russkaya literatura 19–20 vv. Poetika motiva i aspekty literaturnogo analiza [Russian literature of the 19th–20th centuries. Poetics of motive and aspects of literary analysis]. Novosibirsk, SB RAS, 2014, pp. 98–132.