ИСТИНА

This paper considers Avdotya Panaeva’s fiction as a source for reconstructing the subjectivity of the writer. Examined from this point of view, her prose allows us to understand what attitude she, the only female contributor of Sovremennik, had toward the ethical behavior and everyday practices of the male editorial staff of the magazine. While Panaeva was regarded by them simply as Nikolay Nekrasov's wife, she was a truly independent writer and ideologue. Panaeva not only tried to integrate her work into the magazine’s current literary agenda, but also – in novels like Women’s Lot, Domestic Hell, etc. – managed to portray the reverse side of the emancipation project of the radical democrats. We also discuss in detail specific features of Panaeva’s prose (prototypism, its emancipation program) and her literary reputation. Due to historical circumstances, Panaeva’s progressive project remained unrecognized by her contemporaries. We show that the end of Panaeva’s literary career in the mid-1860s was caused not by a break with Nekrasov, but by circumstances of a purely literary nature: she was subjected to crushing criticism from a rival female writer, as well as from Pisarev, a leading ideologist of the radical democratic trend, in which she considered herself a participant. Panaeva’s later return to authorship with the drafting of her Memoirs demonstrates the stable nature of the main features of Panaeva’s writing. This paper argues that Panaeva’s inability to create accurate memoirs is just the other side of her inability to create “pure” fiction, i.e. fiction that is not autobiographical or aimed at getting even with members of her intimate circle.