“...Your Only Choice Now is to Type or to Be a Seller at the Muir and Mirrielees“: on the Creative History of A.N. Tolstoy’s Short Story Without Wings (From the Past)

Abstract

“Female issue” probed on the example of A.N. Tolstoy’s diaries for 1911–1914 and his fiction in the article. The biographical, socio-cultural and textological methods were used to describe the writer’s texts. The analysis of periodical and the study of social and cultural life of the early 20th century led to the conclusion that the “female issue” and fates of real women had a great influence on the issues of the short story Masha. The text of the story was published in the Zavety journal in 1914, later Tolstoy prepared it for publication in volume 5 of his Works (1914). The main direction of his corrections was connected with the main character who left her husband and strolled the evening city. The author reduced some details which characterized her as a frivolous lady from tragicomedy or farce, and replaced real names and images with more common things. Tolstoy rewrote the story in 1927. He changed the title (Without Wings (From the Past)) and corrected all characters. As a result the genre of tragicomedy was transformed into tragedy of a lonely young woman “without wings.”

Keywords

• constructs of femininity
• ‘woman’s’ world
• gender stereotypes
• modernism
• creative history of text
• textual criticism.