The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana
by Jess Nevins
The Sonya Adventures (1902-1903)
copyright © Jess Nevins 2022
The Sonya Adventures were written by Vlas Doroshevich and first appeared in a series of stories in Russian Word (original: Russkoe Slovo, 1902-1903). Doroshevich (1864-1922) was a journalist, newspaper editor, and folklorist.
The Sonya Adventures’ protagonist was modeled on a real woman: Sofia Ivanovna "Sonya" Bliuvshtein (1846-1902), one of Tsarist Russia's most notorious and colorful criminals. Originally from Odessa, Bliuvshtein was a thief, pickpocket, murderess, bootlegger, and adventuress (she was willing to use her body to get what she wanted), but she lived her life with such panache–while imprisoned on the prison island of Sakhalin, she ran a still and escaped at least once dressed as a soldier–that she intrigued Vlas Doroshevich. Doroshevich interviewed her at Sakhalin and his writings caught the imagination of the Russian public, who demanded and avidly consumed fictionalized accounts of her life. When Anton Chekhov visited Sakhalin, one of the prisoners he looked for was Bliuvshtein. Russia's first movie serial starred a character who was based on Bliuvshtein and was played by notable early actress Nina Gofman.
Like the historical Vasilii Churkin (see: The Bandit Churkin), Bliuvshtein inspired numerous fictional treatments in ballads, folktales, newspaper serials and detective novels. The portrayals of Bliuvshtein, in her fictional persona of “Sonya,” fell into one of two varieties. The first was based on Doroshevich’s newspaper serial, “Light-Fingered Sonya.” Doroshevich’s Sonya is a dime novel character. She leads a gang of thieves in successful robberies and murders across Russia and eastern Europe, breaking hearts and netting hundreds of thousands of rubles. She leaves behind her gang and ventures into western Europe, finding success in Monte Carlo and Rome but failing in London and being captured by the police. But she uses her body and a winning manner to charm the judge and escapes with no jail time. She steals her way across America, the Middle East, and back through eastern Europe, in and out of jail there but always passionate and wily.
The second version of Sonya was based on Doroshevich’s interviews with Bliuvshtein and stressed the sentimental aspects of her life as well as the outlaw hero (see: The Deadwood Dick Adventures, The James Brothers Adventures) elements. This version, usually called “Sonka,” grows up in horrendous poverty, but is ambitious, talented, and has great strength of will. She uses her body to trap a rich man in marriage—this Sonka is more of a traditional Victorian adventuress than is Doroshevich’s—but after having his child she abandons her family to lead a life of crime in Europe and Russia. When she is apprehended by the police she claims that she serves the poor and is opposed to the Tsarist government, although she is no more of a Robin Hood-style thief than was Vasilii Churkin. She has the public’s support during the trial, as the real Bliuvshtein did, and in the penal colony on Sakhalin she is popular and respected by the other inmates.
For Further Research
Jeffrey Brooks, When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and Popular Literature, 1861-1917. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985.
James von Geldern and Louise McReynolds, eds. Entertaining Tsarist Russia: Tales, Songs, Plays, Movies, Jokes, Ads, and Images from Russian Urban Life, 1779-1917. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998.