Maria Zhukova
1804–1855 · Russian writer of the Romantic and post-Romantic era
Maria Zhukova, born around 1805 in Arzamas and dead in 1855, was a Russian writer of the Romantic and post-Romantic era. She matters because she wrote to earn her living at a time when few women did, and because she chose prose over the poetry favoured by the Romantics.
After an early marriage to a local judge ended in separation, leaving her to raise her only son, she settled in St Petersburg around 1830 and began publishing in 1837 with the backing of Princess Golitsyna. Her first collections, Evenings on the Karpovka (1838-1839) and Stories (1840), were well received, as were Sketches of Southern France and Nice (1844). Some of her tales are historical, while others unfold abroad with non-Russian characters.
Her health was a constant concern, and in her final years she spent winters in southern Russia and the Mediterranean; the cause of her death is unknown. A talented illustrator as well as a writer, she also drew on that skill to support herself. Her work, more pragmatic than that of earlier women writers, takes a critical look at family and domestic life, honour and love. Her reputation has grown because she is now seen as a professional, productive writer rather than only a Romantic one.