Finland

Bridging research and art to explore women’s voices in poetry

          This essay explores women’s embodied experiences related to the breast presented in the literary works of two Russian modern women writers, Marina Temkina (‘Category of Bra', 1995) and Vera Pavlova (‘Milk Ways', 2018). Both authors selected the breast as a point of reflection on how the body affects the lives of women, shaping their perceptions and relationships with themselves and with the external world. However, their understanding and approaches to the topic, along with their stylistic techniques, have significant distinctions. Temkina addresses the topic from a feminist standpoint, employing humour and irony in order to reach a wider audience. Her creative strategy is in many respects defined and corresponds to the cultural and social context of Russia in the early 90s when feminist ideas first began to be voiced and discussed. In contrast, Pavlova’s character visibly succumbs to the existing patriarchal order, at the same time retreating into the symbolic world of images and metaphors that in their totality reproduce features of Écriture feminine within an autofictional strategy. In their works, both writers demonstrate in their works different ways in which women are forced to engage in self-objectification, being oppressed by predefined societal stereotypes.

          Mythology and literature have been tightly intertwined and woven into a bigger profound canvas of archetypal narratives and timeless stories. Images and plots shrouded in the layers of meanings and references have long served as invaluable tools for various authors within the creative process. In fact, Russian literature itself represents a myth which is at the very core of Russian culture and identity. And in many respects, this central role of literature has been established and enhanced through an appeal to mythological plots and elements that continuously shape values and power relations within society. But being predominantly formulated and rooted within the patriarchal tradition, the mythology contains opportunities to be reconsidered and rediscovered in women´s literary texts and through the lens of feminist analysis. This is especially important in the context of Russian highly conservative and strictly male-dominated literary tradition.
          Within this paper I intend to provide an overview on how myth and mythological motives are used and reflected in the texts of such poetesses as Nina Iskrenko, Oksana Vasyakina, Vera Pavlova and Galina Rymbu, using Ostriker´s definition of the feminist revisionist mythmaking.  These poetesses employ myth in order to craft a space for women’s voices by confronting issues of sexuality, corporeality and motherhood. Myths serve as both a means of resistance and a tool for self- expression, enabling women to redefine themselves within both the literary canon and society at large.

          Poetic language, with its capacity for protest, holds the power to reshape reality. In literature, the symbolic and the real converge, generating a resistant force against oppression and stagnation. While propaganda seeks to exploit language, it cannot fully subordinate it; rather, it expels antagonistic forms from the public sphere. Within Russia’s authoritarian regime, preserving alternative linguistic practices becomes crucial for sustaining oppositional cultural environment. A notable example is the "School of Experimental Writing," founded by Galina Rymbu with Russophone activists. By addressing themes of feminism, queerness and postcoloniality the School fosters an inclusive and democratic space of solidarity. Living in Lviv during the war, Rymbu reflects on questions of poetic language in general, as well as on her own, which she regards simultaneously as her mother tongue and a "language of the killer". This paper examines her poem Mama Writes. I am writing and the School through the lens of translocality and nomadism.