XI International Conference of the Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia
10th-14th July 2023
Sara Dickinson (Università di Genova, Italy), “The Self-Canonisation of Ekaterina Dashkova”
Ekaterina Dashkova’s elevated social position, close relationship with Catherine II, and public visibility (as the director of two academic institutions) make her a unique example of a woman writer. Indeed, Dashkova is often seen as a primarily historical figure, rather than a literary one, and is known primarily for her memoirs that comment on Catherine’s era. Novikov described Dashkova as a poet in his 1772 Attempt at Dictionary of Russian Writers, however, and, in fact, she wrote in many genres, producing a number of “firsts” in the history of Russian women’s writing. This paper explores the evolving characterization of Dashkova in Russian literary history, with particular attention to how Dashkova’s own direct intervention conditioned its changing shape.
