The Decembrist rising holds an important place in the nineteenth century memoiristic writing. This historical event found expression in the memoirs of those partiots who took part in
the 1825 revolutionary upheaval: S. Trubecki, J. Obolenski, A. Muraviov, M. Lunin, N. Muraviov, as well as the women who accompanied them in exile: M. Volkonska, P. Annenkova, O. Ivanova, M. Bryzgalova, O. Balashkina, M. Frantsevaya. Princess Maria Volkonska was one of the first women who followed her exiled husband Sergei Volkonski. Her Memmoirs, written in the second half of the nineteenth century, include an account of her life experiences in Siberian places of exile such as Blagodatsk, Tsita and Piotrovsk. Princess Volkonska as well as other women: A. Muraviova, J. Naryshkina N. Fonvizina and A. Rozen eagerly helped the exiled. Life in exile was a very traumatic experience to the young woman: difficulties in personal contacts with her husband, lack of freedom, homelesness, cold, dirt and poverty. It is important that Princess Volkonska does not complain, but manages to retain her dignity throughout the hardships she has to endure. The subjective account of princess Volkonska’s Memoirs is a valuable record of the time spent in exile, which supplements the memoirs of the exiled Decembrists.

Kraszewski’s novel Ulana published in Russian translation became the source of inspiration for Pisiemski’s drama Gorzki los, which is regarded as the first drama in Russian literature. As the Polish writer did, the Russian writer presented the seduction of an ordinary, married peasant woman by a nobleman. However, unlike Kraszewski, Pisiemski depicted his protagonist as a brave woman who is ready to fight for her love. Such an image of Lizawieta was influenced by popularity of novels in George Sand’s Russia. Pisiemski’s novelty lies in convincing the readers that peasant women should be given equal rights in pursuit of their happiness.

In the article there are analyzed the ways of shaping images of women who are leading characters in both Tolstoy’s play and Polish dramas inspired by it. In The Power of Darkness they are presented as the source of all evil. Primitive and backward inhabitants of Russian rural area, possessed by the dark power of wild passions and the lust of wealth, crossing the moral borders with no hesitations, allegedly, in the name of their life needs. The Polish playwrights (W. Orkan, S. Wyspiański, L. Staff) make this images slightly milder by giving the immoral female characters guilty conscience and the awareness of inescapable punishment. They also enrich the creation of rural women with the analysis of their inner life and more detailed
description of their dilemmas and suffering. The differences in depicting the women’s images were mainly determined by the way of approaching reality in the interpreted dramas. The Tolstoy’s work realistically encapsulates the rural world and presents characters in socio-psychological categories. In contrast, the writers of Young Poland create their plays in the convention of so-called poetic realism.

Ukrainian modern époque, which lived and wrote Lesya Ukrainka, couldn’t fully accept her deep and amazing literary inheritance. Writing women did not have place to grow among patriarchal culture of writing men. This modern culture, which pretended to renewal of literature language, as a matter of facts, didn’t read Lesya’s poetry and dramas over truly. In the Soviet Union times critics excluded from her writing any national motif and wanted to prove, that she is mainly revolutionary poetess. In this way came into existence so‑called “Lesya’s myth”.

Some of the myths of her life and creation was overthrew by the new critical mind, which was presented by postmodernism. Lesya is much admired and understanding by postmodernism critics, like Solomiya Pavllychko, Oksana Zabuzhko, or Nila Zborovska, then by her contemporaries, which wasn’t able to receive an outgrowing their imagination Lesya’s phenomenon. They called readers attention especially to full of passion heroines of her drama, like Miriam (heroines of the entire dramatic poem Oderzhyma — The Possessed), Priscilla (heroines of the drama Rufin and Priscilla) or Mavka (heroines of the drama Lisova pisnya — Song of the Forest). It seems to during the époques no one have completely and properly read Lesya’s Ukrainka literature heritage over. That situation leave place to future uncovering of her writing.

The article presents a transformation of the Adreyev’s play main character, which is achieved thanks to a crime and money. In the paper’s author’s opinion, what is the most important
in the drama is nonetheless a motive of the crime, i.e. the female character’s striving towards self-transformation. Both the crime and money, here treated as of marginal significance, are not her raison d’être. The character wants to change herself, in which she is similar to many other female protagonists of the 20th-century theatrical plays. According to the author of the article, those characters prefer spiritual values over the material, even though in most cases it unfortunately they end up being punished for what they had never aimed at.

The image of the Mother of God is one of the most common motifs in the literary output of the author of Ravnina russkaia. This leitmotif is used by Elizaveta Kuzmina‑Karavaeva to sterss the affinities with the Orthodox Dogmatics and Russian national tradition. It is also an important constituent of the poet’s artistic and philosophical system. According to one of her prothetic concepts the Russian land is an “appanage alloted to the Birthgiver of God”, and the Russian God loving nation, guarded by the robes of the Immaculate Virgin, will bring victory to other suffering nations. The Mother of God, together with her Son, constitute the ideal image of humanity, the ideal of Sophia. Morover, imitation of God and His Mother can bring the revelation of true beauty which will safe the world.

This article is the attempt at reading Liydia Ginzburg’s artistic works from the angle of feminist and gender studies. On the surface, Ginzburg’s prose is far from such perspective. The writer avoids female forms, instead of words “woman, woman of letters” she uses “human” (Russian: человек), what is reflected as much as in titles: Записки блокадного человека, Человек за письменным столом. However, closer look into those works proves that Liydia Ginzburg had her own opinion not only on such matters as the meaning of woman in traditional society, imposing on both genders the roles molded by social and cultural norms, homosexuality, but also she manifested it. Her inquisitive analysis and fights against stereotypes and for “otherness” sound extremely modern, despite the fact that some of her works were written in 1920s.

The presented paper is devoted to Ksenia Starosielska — one of the most prominent translators of Polish literature into Russian language. She has translated many literary works of such outstanding Polish writers as Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, Marek Hłasko, Wiesław Myśliwski, Tadeusz Nowak, Kornel Filipowicz, Tadeusz Konwicki, Jerzy Pilch and many others. For her work she has been, among others, awarder Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, Polish Pen‑club Award, ZAIKS Award. Aside from that, Ksenia Starosielska is the editor of magazine „Иностранная литература” (“Foreign Literature”). She is also the supervisor of seminar for young translator under the auspices of Polish Cultural Center in Moskow.

The article in question is an attempt to read Russian fantasy genre by female authors Jelena Chajecka and Maria Siemionowa from the perspective of gender studies. What the author of the article discovers in the worldviews and subjectivities of the analysed novel’s main characters, is the features of matriarchal (in the novel by Siemionowa Волкодав) and patriarchal (in the series of novels by Chajecka entitled Мракобес) structures. In the male character’s reactions to the surrounding world, its events, and a woman, his subjectivity, being a reflection of the above-mentioned social relations, is effectuated. The author also shows the picture of woman dynamically changing under masculine the male character’s interpretation: form a goddess to a prostitute, from reverence to fear of her of her naturalness and corporeality.

The writing of Nina Sadur includes interesting portraits of women, who want to love and being loved, because only thanks to love they can fell true happiness. Love — the biggest worth  and sense of their life, even if it’s (un)happy, causes pain and suffering. In the article there are considered pieces, which show exactly that women. The problem of mutual relations between women and men, where women always are the victims of love for men, is here also touched upon. This situation is a base for meditations on the topic of feminisation of the author’s writing, in which there is undeniably notable a womanly element. It is also an attempt to consider the writer’s attitude towards men, cause she presents her heros mostly in dark colours.

In the present article there is discussed the issue of belonging the writings of a contemporary Russian authoress Tatyana Tolstaya to women’s prose, as well as whether it is legitimate to analyze them by using interpretive categories from the field of gender studies, such as: femininity, corporeality, gender identity of characters, or gender transvestitism. It appears that behaviour of some of the Tolstaya’s characters, and also the way they perceive reality makes their gender identity complex and amplifies their internal conflict concerning sexuality. The author of the article, keeping in mind Tolstaya’s declarations and constantly protesting against identifying the authoress’ work with the women’s prose (which existence is, by the way, questioned by Tolstaya herself), analyzing chosen short stories (Петерс, Милая Шура, Круг), points to their doubtless kinship with women’s literature. The above-mentioned thesis is supported by numerous works of scholars and critics of writings by the authoress of The Slynx/Kys.

The article is an attempt to read the theatrical play by Lyudmila Petrushevskaya entitled Мужская зона (The Male Camp) through the postmodern, feminist and gender studies prisms. The author of the article points out that Petrushevskaya, although never consciously adhering to the Russian feminist movement, masterfully constructed her play’s text, in which the traditional image of woman was replaced by the category of femininity.

In the article on the base of works by Jurij Andruchovycz, Eugenia Kononenko, Oksana Zabuzhko and Jurij Izdryk it analyzes some representative stereotypes associated with the transition of women in the older age category. Postmodern writers revise patriarchal attitudes, which discriminate women in middle and older age. To this end, they use a wide palette of artistic means of the irony and the grotesque.

The article presents plays of the three female playwrights, Gulgara Achmietzianowa, Julia Maksimowa and Jelena Simionowa, the works of whom are a part of new drama trend of the Russian “provincials”. The main theme of their plays is city with its dwellers, but first of all they focus on human everyday problems looked at with a neo-naturalist consciousness. Focusing my attention on the behaviour of the plays’ heroines, I analyzed their character by juxtaposing it with the reality and worldview of men. This type of confrontation shows the heroines’ untypical Russian mentality and underlines the differences between understanding of the women’s issues by the authoresses of the Russian theatrical plays and the representatives of the feminist literature.

The article focuses on the transformations of body and soul in the context of sexual revolution. Relations between the spiritual and the material are analised, as embodied in Nina Hif, a major character in The White Angel with Black Wings by a young Belarusian poetess and playwright Diana Bałyko. The discussed meritorical content exposes the current problems of contemporary societies, with particular focus on the consequences of impoverished awareness in the sexual lives of women.