1997 0-7734-8527-9 This is the first extensive study of Bunina's poems and detailed exploration of her life, using archives and numerous periodicals. It describes the cultural expectations which Bunina challenged, her poetic unconventional lyric persona, her strategic choices of poetic language and genre, the reception of her work, and her unprecedented success in living by the pen. It illuminates the pre-history of feminism and the feminine literary tradition in Russian through the reflections on gender and writing of the most radical and gifted of the early women writers.