Poor Lizaveta
The name “Lizaveta” can be spotted throughout a number of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novels. In Notes from Underground (1864), Lizaveta is the prostitute the Underground Man coincidentally meets after his dinner party. In Crime and Punishment (1866), Lizaveta is the murdered pawnbroker’s sister. In The Brothers Karamazov (1879), a whole chapter is dedicated to the "stinking" Lizaveta. The Lizaveta character-type is not only found in Dostoevksy’s novels, but also in the works of other Russian writers, such as Alexander Pushkin’s short story “The Queen of Spades.”
The origin of the Lizaveta character stems from Nikolai Karamzin’s short story titled “Poor Liza” published in 1792 (бедная Лиза; phonetic pronunciation: Bednaya Liza). This short story is also referred to as the “seduction tale” (Knapp 38), and tells of a poor peasant girl named Lizaveta who is seduced and falls in love with a rich nobleman. However, Liza is then abandoned when the nobleman decides to marry another woman. This eventually leads to Liza’s unfortunate and drastic end. Lizaveta became popular character-type among Russian writers who had imitated but also revised the the Liza character for their own works (Segal 78). A “Lizaveta” character is often portrayed as a woman of lower class who is easily seduced or encounters a tragic fate, which is evident with the Lizavetas found within Dostoevsky’s works.
The Lizaveta motif is not only present in literature but has also extended beyond to some of the real-life places in Moscow mentioned in within the short story. One such location is the Simonov Monastery, or specifically the pond situated beside the Monastery, which became a "tourist attraction" around 1792. Couples were seen carving their initials onto the barks of the surrounding trees (Segal 77). However, there were also some reports of suicides around the area (Segal 77). More recently, a painting by Orest Kiprensky in 1827 of the poor Lizaveta was pictured on a Russian stamp in 2007 (pictured to the right) showing the popularity of the short story even in contemporary times.
Works Cited
Knapp, Liza. "Dostoevsky and the Novel of Adultery: ‘The Adolescent.’” Dostoevsky Studies: The Journal of the International Dostoevsky Society, vol. 17, no. 1, 2013, pp. 37-71.
Segel, Harold B. The Literature of Eighteenth-century Russia: An Anthology of Russian Literary Materials of the Age of Classicism and the Enlightenment from the Reign of Peter the Great, 1689-1725, to the Reign of Alexander I, 1801-1825. Dutton Publishing, 1967.
Further Reading
Chulkov, Mikhail. Three Russian Tales of the Eighteenth Century: The Comely Cook, Vanka Kain, and Poor Liza." Northern Illinois University Press, 2012.
Karamzin, Nikolai. “Poor Liza.” Translated by Carl R. Proffer. Indiana University Press, 1969.