The Torch. Unpublished Response to N.D. Khvoshchinskaya’s Death

Abstract

A prominent place in Russian literature of the 1850s–1880s was occupied by the actively published and republished works of N.D. Khvoshchinskaya (published under the pseudonym V. Krestovsky, later V. Krestovsky-pseudonym), who enjoyed the sympathy of critics and were highly valued by such contemporaries as Mikhail Saltykov, Ivan Goncharov, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, etc. Without specifically dealing with the “women’s issue,” she, according to readers, played one of the leading roles in the development of the “women’s theme” in the fiction of her time. Archival materials testify to the unfulfilled plan of the writers who revered Khvoshchinskaya, in particular the idea of publishing a collective collection dedicated to her memory. The composition of this collection was to include the text of the allegorical essay “The Torch,” stored in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI), which is published in the Appendix to the article. The female character of the essay (“the famous writer”) demonstrates the invigorating “triumph of the spirit over the form,” instilling in those around her creative energy, faith in herself and in life. The essay is signed with the pseudonym “P. Letnev,” which contemporaries associated with the name of Praskovya Alexandrovna Lachinova, a writer who experienced a certain influence of Khvoshchinskaya’s creativity and personality.