Lu Chen, Nure Jannat
nurejannat00@gmail.com
Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Noakhali Science and Technology University, Noakhali, Bangladesh
The structure of female characters in Russian literature of the XIX–XXI century
Abstract: The role of gender in the fiction text has important theoretical and historical literary implications. At the
same time, the determination of the status of the female image in the system of the whole at each stage of the development
of literature requires a special status. In this regard, the comparative aspect of the structure of female characters in different
historical periods is of particular relevance. The aim of this article is to investigate the typology and the evolution of the
structure of female characters in Russian literature over the past two centuries, starting with the verse novel Eugene Onegin
and ending with the recently published novel The Petrovs in and Around Flu. The authors of the article believe that the
realization of the structure of female characters is the result of the cognitive modelling of certain processes in the creative
consciousness of the author, covering mainly the aspects of the semantics of the text and its plot embodiment. As a result of the
study, it becomes clear that the image of the “new woman” as a semantic unit of the text turns out to be an artistic construct
at each stage of literary development. It is important to note that within each period, as well as in the comparison of different
periods, there are qualitative changes associated not only with changes in reality itself but also with the transformation of the
internal laws of literature. It is noteworthy that against the background of such changes, one can find stable, recurring features
of the structure of female characters, including both typological commonalities and intertextual interchanges.
Keywords: Russian literature, gender, structure of female characters, semantic unit of text, intertextuality.
Paper submitted: Marсh 22, 2023.
For citation: Lu Chen, Nure Jannat (2023) The structure of female characters in Russian literature of the XIX–XXI
century. Russian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 7–20. DOI: 10.57015/issn1998-5320.2023.17.4.1
