Anna Ivanovna V el' jaševa-Volynceva , next on our list, was born in 1755. She thus belongs to an era subsequent to that of Mavra Šepeleva , so we'll flag her with an asterisk (*) as we take this opportunity to indulge in a little chronological change of pace . Anna Ivanovna ' s literary activity overlapped with that of her sister Pelegeja Ivanovna , who will be the subject of our next post . Golicyn furnishes two distinct entries for Anna (46-47) and for Pelegeja (47), without explicit ly indicat ing that they were related, although the sisters’ unusual last name and matching patronymics suggest a familia l connection that is borne out in other sources. As was the case with most of the women writers who managed to publish their work in eighteenth-century Russia , the Vel ' jašev a -Volyncev a sisters belonged to a literary family . Their father, notes Golicyn, was a " general major of the artillery and writer " by the name of Ivan A...
W hile we're on the subject of Anna Ioannovna , w e might as well pause for a moment to take note of Mavra Egor o vna Š epeleva (1 708 -17 59 ), who would seem to be the next woman writer in order of birth date, although she has largely fallen between the cracks of literary history. Š epeleva is not mentioned in Golicyn , for example ( which I ' ve indicated by adding an "n" for "new" to her number ) , but she does appear a s the chronological successor to Natal'ja Alekseevna in Lurana O'Malley's review of eighteenth-century women 's dramaturgy (1 7 ) . Š epeleva left a more evident trace in socio - political h istory: her prominent career in elite circles began in 1719 with her appointment to the retinue of Anna Petrovna, a distant relation of Anna Ioannovna and daughter of Peter the Great . Most important , however, was Š epeleva ' s intimate friendship with Anna Petrovna ' s sister, Elizaveta Petrovna , who became Russi...
Pelegeja Ivanovna Vel'jaseva-Volynceva (1 773-1810) was 18 years younger than her accomplished sister Anna and thus , though sh e, too, managed to publish her first translation at age 9 , it appeared only in the 1780s. While we have no information about their mother – or perhaps they had two different mothers? – these two sisters and their younger brother Dmitrij certainly enjoyed a domestic climate that was conducive to literary activity. As Golicyn notes, Pelageja published two translations , both of them theatrica l and featuring her name squarely on the cover. Both were issued by Nikolaj Novikov at the University of Moscow P ress , the first was even printed at his expense ( Svodnyj katalog 1:130). Novikov supported a number of women writers and translators ...
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