Zinaida Gippius and Female Authorship in Nineteenth-Century Russia

(This post is by Hannah Benson, former intern in the European Reading Room.)

Zinaida Gippius was one of the many women writers in nineteenth-century Russia who ignored the societal restrictions placed upon her. Although born into privilege as the daughter of a well-respected lawyer, she had an undeniable talent and a fearless personality all her own. Along with her husband, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, a fellow writer and literary critic, Gippius initiated a series of meetings that aimed to bring together representatives of the Russian Orthodox church and the intelligentsia. She led these discussions and participated in them with the utmost passion—hence her nickname the “white she-devil” from more conservative members of the clergy.

Gippius first published her poems in the late 1880s and was quickly commended for her unique style. As a leading voice in the Symbolist movement in Russia, she emphasized mysticism and ostranenie (presenting common things in an unfamiliar or strange way) to help her readers see the world in a new light. Gippius also wrote plays, diaries, and novels in a career that extended well into the twentieth century. The Library of Congress holds the collected works of Gippius in Russian, titled Sobranie Sochinenii and comprising eight volumes.

Gippius’ novel Novye Liudi, written in 1890, represents her philosophy about people and religion. She creates a link between this philosophy and Russian culture in insightful ways. The novel tells the story of a young man who is struggling to forge his own path separate from his strict and controlling mother. His mother wishes her son to be in high society, whereas he longs to be in the village, closer to nature.

Just as with other artists involved in the Symbolist movement, Gippius seeks to express pure emotion by means of highly symbolic language. Novye Liudi focuses on humanity’s connections to nature and the triumph of feeling over reason. The novel creates a connection between land and freedom and how our ties to our country reveal who we are.

The Library of Congress holds the original version of this book in Russian, along with the other short stories, novels, and poems that make up its Sobranie Sochinenii. They can all be requested in the Library’s reading rooms.

Just before the turn of the twentieth century, Zinaida and her husband started their own literary salon known as “Sundays,” which fostered cultural dialogue and ushered in new religious and philosophical ideas. This allowed her to fulfill a unique public role for a woman: actively participating in, and sometimes leading, political and cultural debates.

Through her work and these debates, Gippius pondered the true meaning of freedom and equality and how it related to Christianity. She felt it was her duty to promote the divine potential in both men and women.

She and her husband also contributed to many political journals and newspapers of the time. Although Gippius initially promoted revolution as a complement to her advocacy for freedom and community love, following the Revolution of 1917, she quickly realized how Bolshevism was moving against the values she had so long supported. Between Paris and St. Petersburg presents Gippius’ diaries in translation and offers details of her leadership of literary salons while living in exile in Poland and France. Her efforts in these salons continued to promote Russian cultural dialogue outside of the Soviet Union.

The Library of Congress has extensive resources on many Russian women writers who were able to overcome social constraints and make breakthroughs in Russian literature during the nineteenth century. For another example, check out Tak Bylo, Put’ Moei Zhizni, an autobiography of Valentina Dmitrieva (1859-1947), a self-educated writer whose work sparked conversations about serfdom and highlighted the struggle for serfs following emancipation in 1861.

For further reading:

Gippius, Zinaida Nikolaevna, and Temira Pachmuss. Between Paris and St. Petersburg: Selected Diaries of Zinaida Hippius. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975.

Gippius, Z. N. (Zinaida Nikolaevna), Novye Liudi. St. Petersburg, Russia: тип. М. Меркушева, 1896.

Tomei, Christine D. Russian Women Writers. London: Garland Publishing, 1999.

Zlobin, Vladimir. A Difficult Soul. Edited and Translated into English by Simon Karlinksy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. The Russian original is found here.