ABSTRACT
For the woman who undertook to write serious literature in nineteenth-and twentieth-century Russia, “anxiety of authorship” (Gilbert and Gubar 1979, 49) precipitated an urgent need to secure a place within the established literary tradition. This awkward situation generated what might be termed an “anxiety for influence” — the aspiration to be identified with an accepted member of the literary establishment. Imbuing the text with signs of the influence of a recognized writer could serve to demonstrate accomplishment and to secure thereby an artistic legitimacy. Because — if it was to be effective — this sought-after influence had to be that of a recognized male precursor, the aspiring woman writer was prey to ambivalence towards the literary tradition she wished to enter on the one hand, and towards her own identity as a woman on the other. The categories of gender established by that very tradition into which she sought admission, barred her participation in it.
