54. See Barag et al. 1979, item no. 1696.
55. Afanasiev 1973, 334–35. For the original Russian, see Afanas’ev 1984–85 (1873), vol. 3, 130–31. I have corrected some infelicities in the Guterman translation.
56. Thanks to Yuri Druzhnikov for pointing this out.
57. Baranskaia 1989, 283.
58. Likhachev 1987, vol. 2, 427.
59. Kruglov 1988–89, vol. 3, 400–403.
60. Tolstoi 1960–65, vol. 10, 48–54. Professor Gary Jahn of the University of Minnesota has pointed out to me that the Tolstoi variant is based on a tale collected by Kirsha Danilov in the late eighteenth century.
61. Thanks to Catherine Chvany for the latter suggestion.
NOTES TO CHAPTER 7
1. As quoted from a 1982 issue of Krest’ianka by Bridger 1987, 140.
2. See Rozanov’s Semeinyi vopros, 1903, vol. 1, 311–12.
3. Dal’ 1984, vol. 1,291.
4. Stites 1990 (1978), 7.
5. E.g., Semenova-Tian-Shanskaia 1914, 19–20.
6. Ibid., 29.
7. Ibid., 6.
8. Worobec 1991, 213.
9. See Cherniavsky 1961 on the ruler myth in tsarist Russia.
10. See, among others: Antonov-Ovseyenko 1983, 229, 269, 306; Rancour-Laferriere 1988a, 112; Belkin 1991a, 4.
11. Bolshakoff 1977, 176–77 is quoting the mystic Alexander Putilov, also known as Anthony (italics added).
12. Friedrich 1972, 285.
13. Kuznetsova 1980, 98.
14. Hansson and Lidén 1983, 153.
15. See, for example: Chodorow 1978; Rancour-Laferriere 1985, 260–67.
16. Smith 1973; Rancour-Laferriere 1985, 123–24. Cf. Maksimenko (1988), who discusses the “matrifocalization” of the urban Russian family during the late Soviet period. Bronfenbrenner speaks of the “mother-centered family” and even “matriarchal patterns” in the Soviet Union (1972, 71ff.).
17. The Soviet anthropological/sociological tradition, influenced by Johann Bachofen’s Das Mutterrecht (1861) and Friedrich Engels’s The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), has tended to support a “matriarchal” theory of human origins (see: Plotkin and Howe 1985; Kharchev 1979, 10ff.; Kosven 1948; Matorin 1931; Meletinskij 1975, 253; Reshetov 1970 is a daring exception). The book by Kosven, titled The Matriarchate, alternates between erudition and Stalinist crudity. Even the ex-Soviet feminist Tatyana Mamonova speaks of “matriarchal Rus’” and the “matriarchal roots in Russian folklore” (1989, 3–8).
Professional anthropologists in the West and various other scholars have rightly rejected the notion of “matriarchy.” No evidence has been found for a society characterized by matrifocal family relations, matrilineal inheritance, and pervasive female dominance of adult males. See Rancour-Laferriere 1985, 118–24, for a review of the literature. As feminist Sherry Ortner says, “the search for a genuinely egalitarian, let alone matriarchal, culture has proved fruitless” (1974, 70).
18. Sakharov 1989 (1885), 50–51.
19. Dicks 1952, 143.
20. Berdiaev 1971, 10. Early Berdiaev is more revealing on this topic. See Berdiaev 1990 (1918), 8–36.
21. Nekrasov 1967, vol. 3, 244, as translated by Gorodetzky 1973, 78.
22. Many of the maternal phenomena that I have enumerated in this section are discussed by Joanna Hubbs in her interesting recent book Mother Russia (1988). The enormous literature on motherhood and mother imagery in Russian culture also includes, among others, the following valuable sources: Maksimov 1909, vol. 18, 259ff,; Rybakov 1981, 379–92, 438–70; 1987, 244–47, 437–38; Dicks 1952; Vakar 1961, 67ff.; Barker 1986; Kogan 1982, 97–114; Strotmann 1959; Billington 1968, 19–20; Dunham 1960; Kalustova 1985; Fedotov 1975, vol. 1, 11–20, 296–98, 348–51, 358–62; vol. 2, 135–39; Isaiia 1989; Matorin 1931; Uspenskii 1988; Dal’ 1955 (1880–82), vol. 2, 307–8; Ivanits 1989, 15–16, 20–21; Levin 1991; Ransel 1988; 1991; Becker 1990, 110ff.; Siniavskii 1991, 181–92. The figure on “Heroine Mother” awards comes from an anonymous article in Argumenty i fakty (3–9 March 1990, p. 1).
23. Drummond and Perkins 1987, 26; Dreizin and Priestly 1982, 42–43; Rancour-Laferriere 1985, 226; Isačenko 1976, 362–64; Uspenskii 1988.
24. Quoted by Uspenskii 1988, 215, from a collection of lore gathered in the Smolensk area in the late nineteenth century.
25. Uspenskii’s assertion (1988, 245) that the basis of mat is the image of a dog defiling mother earth has historical validity. But the massive body of historical and comparative linguistic evidence which Uspenskii brings to bear on the phrase “Eb tvoiu mat’” is not something today’s Russian (or any Russian in the past) could possibly have been aware of. The Russian who exclaims “Eb tvoiu mat’!” is not making learned allusions, but is expressing gut feelings about maternal sexuality.
26. Uspenskii 1988, 210.
27. Siniavskii 1992, 3.
28. Coe 1984, 44–58.
29. E.g., Kanzer 1948; Besançon 1967, 182–218.
30. Merezhkovskii 1914, vol. 15, 145–66; cf. Cherniavsky 1961, 214.
31. Siniavskii 1974, 183.
32. See the poem “Na dne preispodnei” in Markov and Sparks 1967, 520.
33. Solzhenitsyn 1975, 358.
34. See Hackel 1975, 174, 212.
35. Semenova-Tian-Shanskaia 1914, 18.
36. Ibid., 19.
37. Dal’ 1984 (1862), vol. 1, 287.
38. Ibid., 291.
39. I have argued elsewhere (Rancour-Laferriere 1985) that this type of semiosis is a cross-cultural universal.
40. Abandonment of the wife is another alternative frequently resorted to by men in matrifocal cultures. For example, among the Minankabau of Sumatra, or the Black Carib of Belize, or American ghetto blacks, a man is very likely to abandon his mate (Rancour-Laferriere 1985, 123–24, 192–95). In Russia abandonment did not become widespread until the Soviet period, but a husband could always legitimately express hostility by beating the mother of his children. Indeed, a man who neither beat a woman nor abandoned her was considered a strange fellow (see 154 herein).
41. Dicks 1960, 643.
42. Cf. Dicks 1952, 143, 145.
43. An exception would be the “tsar-father,” who was sometimes said to suffer in Christlike fashion (e.g., Cherniavsky 1961, 187; Zhivov and Uspenskii 1987).
44. Nekrasov 1967, vol. 3, 240.
45. Thompson 1989, 503.
46. Pasternak 1989 (1956), 294.
47. Dicks 1960, 643.
48. As quoted by Merezhkovskii 1914, vol. 15, 159.
49. Koenigsberg 1977, 6.
50. Billington 1968, 20.
51. Dostoievsky 1949 (1877), vol. 2, 846.
52. Nekrasov 1967, vol. 2, 274.
53. As quoted by Gray 1990, 168.
54. Hansson and Lidén 1983, 16.
55. Siniavskii 1991, 185.
56. Ivanits 1989, 21.
57. Strotmann 1959, 195.
58. Ibid., 195.
59. Isaiia 1989, 122.
60. Ibid., 123.
61. Solov’ev 1966–69, vol. 9, 188.
62. Siniavskii 1991, 186.
63. Uspenskii 1988, 272.
64. See 141 herein.
65. Hubbs 1988, 112.
66. For example Matorin 1931, 5; Kovalevskii 1895, 150.
67. Dal’ 1984 (1862), vol. 1, 294, 302.
68. Ibid., 274.
69. Nekrasov 1967, vol. 2, 371; cf. Heldt 1987, 34.
70. Heldt 1987, 35.
71. Lermontov 1961–62, vol. 4, 396.
72. Tolstoi 1960–65, vol. 7, 298, 301.
73. Pasternak 1989, 47–48.
74. Akhmatova 1973, 98.
75. Gromyko 1989, 16. Warner and Kustovskii are particularly clear and informative on Russian laments: 1990, 38–49, 71–77, 81–86, 105–6.