Letters of N.S. Sokhanskaya (Kokhanovskaya) as an Attempt of “Spiritual Autobiography”

Abstract

Continuing the study of the life and work of Kokhanovskaya (N. S. Sokhanskaya), in this article the author introduces into scientific circulation large fragments of her unpublished letters to A. V. Pletneva (P. A. Pletnev’s widow) and M. O. Mozgova (Kokhanovskaya’s niece) and comes to the assertion that these epistolary materials can be considered not only as confessional prose, but as examples of Christian ascetic and teaching literature. A similar approach to Kokhanovskaya’s letters was outlined back in the 19th century by the famous bibliographer S. Ponomarev, who vainly tried to interest K. P. Pobedonostsev in this subject. The quoted texts, which constitute a kind of continuation of Sokhanskaya’s famous autobiography, refute in the best possible way the opinion voiced in one of the modern articles about Kokhanovskaya, the author of which called the writer’s life “a joyless vegetation”.