Проблема представления материнства в русской литературе XIX века

This article by VU researcher Dagnė Beržaitė explores representation of mothers in classical Russian literature. The dominant view in Russian literature sholarship is that iconic potrayals of mothers by the 19^th century male Russian writers are dominates by  images of self-sacrificial maternal love. This article challenges this view arguing that such it is not based on the historical development of the concept of motherhood in Russian culture.The article examines examples from the works of Nekrasov, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, whose portrayals of mothers demonstrate that their attitude towards motherhood was based on the understanding of its functions typical of that time. The male 19^th century Russian writers in question outlined some concepts of motherhood that would later be put forward by feminist criticism in the field of motherhood studies in the 20^th and 21^st centuries.