Domestic and Social Abuse in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Russia: The Case of Karolina Pavlova

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This article is a case study of abuse by the poet Nikolai Pavlov against his wife the fellow poet Karolina Pavlova: Pavlov embezzled money from his wife’s estate, then, when she exposed him, he sought to destroy her literary reputation in Russia. Meanwhile, to defend herself from her husband’s malfeasance, Pavlova sought assistance from the government. In this scandal, educated society largely sided with Pavlov, regarding him as a victim of his supposedly spiteful, petty and vindictive spouse. Pavlov’s actions eventually drove his wife to leave Russia, leaving her to confront a life of exile and poverty. This article illustrates the difficulties that an educated nineteenth-century Russian women might endure when she violated gendered boundaries in the private and the public sphere.</jats:p>