How Women Must Write

“This stimulating, valuable new book asks us to rethink the Russian tradition in light of its remarkable women poets and the stories of how they were invented. The case studies are well chosen and varied. Concepts like reader-imposed censorship and the masquerades of gender suggest new vantage points on many other poets as well. The rereading of Tsvetaeva’s gendered poetics and the analysis of Briusov’s Nelli are especially strong, as is the splendid work on the dynamics of competition and connection between women poets.” —Stephanie Sandler, coauthor of History of Russian Literature

“Hasty eloquently describes the impediments that nineteenth- and twentieth-century women poets encountered in their attempts to gain admission to the Russian poetic tradition on equal terms with men. Her case studies, revealing the strategies that women poets developed to resist the gender norms, expectations, and male fantasies of the tradition’s gatekeepers, add an important, previously overlooked aspect to the history of Russian poetry.” —Diana Greene, author of Reinventing Romantic Poetry: Russian Women Poets of the Mid-Nineteenth Century

“Olga Peters Hasty weaves a new and compelling argument about strategies used by women poets against the male bastion of Russian poetry. As she investigates the opposition mounted by Pavlova and Rostopchina, the impersonations of the fictional poets Cherubina de Gabriak and Nelli, and the resistance of Tsvetaeva and Akhmatova, Hasty gives us new perspectives on the development and subversion of literary tradition.” —Sarah Pratt, author of Russian Metaphysical Romanticism: The Poetry of Tiutchev and Boratynskii

“Olga Hasty’s thoughtful, deeply researched book traces in detail the work of three pairs of women poets and their relationships with earlier or contemporary women writers, as well as their context and reactions to manipulation by male literary gatekeepers. How Women Must Write uncovers their subversive potential: it is brilliant reading for anyone with an interest in women’s writing, Russian literature, poetry, or gender studies.” —Sibelan Forrester, editor of A Companion to Marina Cvetaeva

". . . Hasty pioneers her own theoretical paradigm, drawing on reader response theory. She is interested in the reception environment for women's poetry, ranging from reviews by male 'authorities' to the notional average reader of their work, and in how women poets strategically positioned themselves to anticipate and counter these normative responses. She also makes use of and revises Lev Loseff's notion of Aesopian poetry as designed to elude statist censor but reach sympathetic readers. She argues that women poets could not count on readers to catch their meaning, which often violated gender norms . . . Hasty takes a risk in this book in claiming that, with her own enabling rereadings, she grasps the deep meaning—the feminist significance—of this poetry more fully and truthfully than earlier readers. In my opinion, this was a risk work taking because the payoff is large—a smart, sympathetic, thoroughly elaborated account of the strategies women poets developed to counter gender prejudice." —Catherine Ciepiela, The Russian Review

"Olga Peters Hasty’s How Women Must Write: Inventing the Russian Woman Poet is a wonderful gift to all those interested in Russian poetry and women’s studies. Very well researched, it builds productively on its predecessors and adds significantly to the growing number of superb studies of Russian literature, and of women’s writing in particular, from a broadly understood feminist perspective." —Svetlana Grenier, Slavonic and East European Review 

"Hasty’s innovative book is a valuable addition to the study of major Russian women poets." —Hilde Hoogenboom, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature