Sophia on the Street: Boulevard Literature Denies the Divine

Abstract

The concept of the Eternal Feminine and the Dionysian principles of hedonism, sexual freedom and pleasure for its own sake were held up as major tenets of Decadence and Symbolism in Russia’s fin de siècle. In concert, these two notions ostensibly offered adherents the opportunity to create a celestial utopia on earth. It is clear, however, in boulevard literature, often positioned as the bawdy and commercial alternative to literature of the vanguard, that these concepts were not accessible to women. In the works of Yevdokiya Nagrodskaya and Anastasiya Verbitskaya in particular, these avant-garde foundations are shrewdly unravelled by a direct feminist response, marking a rapid growth in women’s participation not only in the market, but in the creation of new modes of public discourse.