Stories of initiation into adulthood

[Furman, Yelena]

Dear Alla,
You might take a look at Ulitskaia's "Vtorogo marta togo zhe goda" (translated in English as "March 1953") from her short-story cycle Devochki (which is in itself suggestive and may have other stories that could be useful).  "2 marta" sets up a nice parallel between the young female protagonist's initiation into the new realm of womanhood and the USSR's "initiation" into a new, post-Stalinist era.  And as a lot of Ulitskaia's texts, this one features Jewish themes (and the theme of Soviet anti-Semitism), which provides a different angle from a lot of the texts mentioned below.
Hoping that this will prove useful, 
Yelena Furman
________________________________

From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list on behalf of Alla Lamp
Sent: Tue 1/15/2008 10:07 AM
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: [SEELANGS] Stories of initiation into adulthood



Dear Seelangers,

I am doing research dealing with Russian stories of initiation into
adulthood. I interpret initiation as experiences which lead to a dramatic
change in a child's (teenager's) worldview. This change is perceived as
sudden either by the hero himself or by people around him. So far, I 've
looked only at stories describing female experiences:
1)      Karolina Pavlova "The Double Life";
2)          Dostoevsky "Netochka Nezvanova";
3)      Leo Tolstoy "Family Happiness";
4)      Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaia "The Boarding-School Girl";
5)      Vsevolod Krestovsky "The Little Demon";
6)      Fyodor Dostoevsky "The Karamazov Brothers" - Liza Khokhlakova's
plot-line;
7)      Boris Pasternak "The Childhood of Luvers";
8)      Nina Berberova "Ladies from St. Petersburg";
9)      Marina Tsvetaeva "The Devil"
10)     Vera Panova "Valia"
I would greatly appreciate if you could suggest any other Russian literary
texts that are worth looking at in regard to female or male initiation into
adulthood.

Alla Lamp,
graduate student
al3p at virginia.edu

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