Samorodnitskaya Ekaterina Ilyinichna – Candidate in Philology, Associate Professor, Chair of Department of History of Russian Classical Literature, Faculty of History and Philology, Russian State University for the Humanities; ORCID 0000–0003–1334–6150
The article considers the evolution of the image of a provincial heroine (savage) in two novels by A.Y. Panaeva – Apiary (Paseka) and Steppe Girl (Stepnaya Baryshnya). Placing the writer’s prose at the intersection of ‘Georges-Zandism’, partly – of the genre of ‘urbane’ story, and early realist trend (‘natural school’), the article shows how the plot of ‘upbringing a savage girl’ is formed at the junction of these trends and what are the consequences of the interference by the external environment in her fate. Using the traditions and genre models relevant for that time and at the same time polemising with them, Panaeva builds a new type of heroine who is able to defend her point of view and be happy.
A.Ya. Panaeva; N. Stanitsky; nineteenth-century Russian literature; women’s prose; Paseka; Steppe Girl