Synopsis
Russian Noblewomen’s Travel and Travel Narratives in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century
In light of the paucity of research on Russian noble travel and travel writing, and particularly on female experience and texts, this paper had two main aims. Firstly, it will explore the travel experience of elite Russian women. Secondly, it will examine the influence of gender on the production of their travel narratives. It reflects work done during the early stages of my research project on gender, genre and identity in Russian noblewomen’s francophone travel narratives, and draws on evidence from both French- and Russian-language texts authored in the period between 1767 and 1825.
The travel narratives under discussion were written by women who were either Russian by birth or who were subjects of the Russian empire. They are first-person narratives, proposed and received as non-fiction, which represented the author’s encounter with foreign or unfamiliar surroundings. As such, I approach them as a thematically delimited branch of life-writing. The principal source texts are (epistolary) diaries, reminiscences and memoirs either dedicated to travel or that feature travel as an important event.
Although the actual numbers are difficult to establish, it is clear that Russian noblewomen in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Russia engaged in numerous kinds of travel, both to foreign countries, principally in Western Europe, and within the Russian empire, including to its peripheries. They undertook most of the varieties of travel that were available to men, albeit often in a more limited measure. They made pilgrimages, travelled for leisure, for curative reasons, for their husband’s professional obligations, into exile and with monarchs on official journeys. Certain forms of travel, such as exploratory or scientific journeys, were closed to them.
Travelling parties were often numerous, consisting of friends and family and usually included servants. The texts reveal that while women could and did travel on their own initiative, they generally did so in mixed gender parties while performing traditional feminine roles, such as wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, or other companions. The principal differences between the male and female travel experience in this period appear to lie not so much in the types of travel undertaken but in the activities in which they engaged during their travels and their preoccupations while away from home. Contemporary sources reveal that there were specifically feminine aspects to their travel experience, namely social and domestic concerns, maternal duties, social relations and interactions, bodily and emotional health, pregnancy, fear, and transferral of household management skills and responsibilities to their situation on the road.
Social and domestic concerns are a dominant theme in the majority of the texts. The women engaged in leisured and curative tours often carried on their everyday ‘feminine’ activities as if they were at home. These activities included hosting and attending social gatherings, writing letters and waiting for replies, reading, educating themselves, painting and drawing, attending church and shopping. The likeliest explanation for this continuation is that such women found themselves (with a handful of exceptions) subject to the same social etiquette as at home. They rarely stepped outside the bounds of their prescribed traditional spheres of activity. However, there were occasions when they found it necessary to adapt themselves to their new surroundings and fit in with local expectations and customs whether they were concerned with modes of dress, attitudes or living conditions.
Travel as an activity that took place outside the family home could be considered as breaking away from the domestic sphere, something that was considered unacceptable for women at this time. Female travel writers were keen to make it clear that, while they were away from home, their travels did not equate to a dereliction of social and domestic duties. An emphasis on the conscientious fulfilment of such duties and on the display of typically feminine emotions and concerns served to downplay the travel element in their texts. This emphasis suggests that the content of such accounts had little relevance beyond the feminine or family circle, which makes both the act of travelling and the written record of it seem more acceptable in the eyes of contemporary society.
Gender also exerted a powerful influence on the production of Russian noblewomen’s travel narratives through the constraints placed on women’s textual production in Russia at the time. Contemporary cultural influences encouraged women to write in a manner that conformed to certain patterns, just as they influenced what were considered appropriate forms of female behaviour and sociable activity. As a result, these travel narratives are naturally a product of the cultural context in which they were produced. In late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Russia, the attention that focused on the self potentially infringed religious and social prescriptions for female modesty. The women more often than not limited themselves to genres suggestive of the private, familial sphere with minor and intimate concerns such as the diary and letter. The value of these texts, written not for publication but for the self, lay in the fact that they enabled women to take up the pen while, at the same time, allowing them to remain in the domestic sphere assigned to them by men.
While the majority of women did not intend their texts to be published, a thriving manuscript culture meant that texts were circulated, both locally and by post, to be read aloud within the author’s entourage and social circle. Some of the texts were subsequetly hand-copied and circulated more widely. A number of these travel texts have explicit addressees, usually from amongst the author’s friends and family members. Writing for others was an acceptable cover for self-expression, as well as a format that enabled women with no literary pretensions to start writing. The addressee is an influential force in life-writing as the author defines their selection of detail and the means of construction of self in relation to that person (or persons).
The majority of travel narratives composed during the period of interest are in French, the European lingua franca, whose use had become a question of bon ton and behaving comme il faut and therefore of social status. What is more, in the context of epistolary diaries, social code in the form of epistolary etiquette required correspondence to be carried out in French. The travel writers’ French is generally of a conversational nature – informal and spontaneous. Aside from the presence of addressees, this choice of tone can be attributed to the fact that women were not expected to write in a sophisticated or literary style. It follows, therefore, that another standard feature of the travel narratives, as of women’s writing in general, is modest self-presentation with disclaimers about the interest and literary merit of the texts.
While women’s texts place great emphasis on the fulfilment of domestic and social duties, while frequently including feminine occupations and concerns, it is clear that the authors perceived and responded to some of the conventional demands of the travel writing genre, albeit within the confines of contemporary cultural constraints placed upon women’s textual production. The female authors took the informational tasks required of travel accounts very seriously. They followed codified routes, provided detailed information about tourist sites and recommended accommodation. They displayed an awareness of foreign traditions and a broad knowledge of current aesthetic trends in gardening, architecture, interior decoration, painting and literature. Yet, while they fulfilled the informational requirement of the travel genre, with few exceptions, there was a greater focus on the self in their texts.
The literariness of these texts raises a thorny question. While a number of the travel writers were clearly aware of contemporary literary conventions, they did not generally attempt to shape their narratives as literary texts. More often, they incorporated isolated literary devices, mostly of the sentimental kind. As a result, such travel narratives are overwhelmingly characterized by the expression of personal impressions and an emphasis on social relationships.
My analysis has revealed that contemporary Russian social expectations and constraints on women were transferred to their travels and are therefore evident in their travel narratives. The travel writers emphasized their feminine status and asserted the feminine subject in their texts by expressing a high regard for their ‘essential’ feminine characteristics and their prescribed roles in the domestic sphere as homemakers, mothers and companions to men. The majority of female travel writers conformed to prescriptions of femininity in their texts and adapted themselves to their new surroundings during travel and at their new destinations. This femininity was achieved without stepping outside the accepted bounds of female behaviour prescribed by contemporary Russian society. Others challenged these established norms and demonstrated that such travel allowed alternatives for women. Keeping a record of their travels was as much a part of the travel experience for women as it was for men. However, women drew on a range of strategies that exploited conventions for feminine behaviour, which in turn enabled them to negotiate the restrictions on women’s writing.
Finally, writing about socially restricted subjects from a socially sanctioned position, as female travel writers did, was not as limiting as might at first be supposed. Such authors were still able to cover a wealth of subjects within their chosen genre and their texts provide an insight into the world of elite Russian women in this period.
- Emilie Murphy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham (UK)
avxem1@nottingham.ac.uk
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