WOMEN WRITERS OF THE XIX TH CENTURY: VOICES RISING THROUGH THE SILENCE

Abstract

The article is devoted to the role of women writers of the 19th century in the development of Russian literature based on the work of N.N.Golitsyn "Bibliographic Dictionary of Russian Women Writers" (1889).  Golitsyn's book became the first systematic evidence of women's active participation in the literary process, preserving more than four hundred names, many of which could have been lost. The focus is on the phenomenon of the pseudonym as a form of self—expression and protection in a patriarchal society. Examples of the creative work of Maria Vilinskaya (Marko Vovchok), Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya (V. Krestovsky) and Elena Gan (Zeneida District). The article highlights the humanistic and social significance of the women's literary word, which reflected the inner world, social contradictions and spiritual quest of the era. Golitsyn's work is considered as an important cultural document that laid the foundations for the subsequent study of female authorship in Russian literature.