Re: Russian last names

[Tamah Graber <tgraber@UMD5.UMD.EDU>]

To my knowledge, (I majored in Russian twenty some odd years ago, for
what it's worth) a Russian woman had her first, and probably several
other first names, followed by her father's patronymic, followed by her
husband's family name.  Of course, women were pretty much chattel in the
1800s.  The good stuff is how to determine how many characters are in
WAR AND PEACE.  When I first tried to read it, I assumed there were
about 200 at least.  When I studied Russian, I found out that each
character had a diminutive of any of his or her first names,  or were
called by their first name and their patronymic, or were called by all
their names or by their titles if they had one.  Conclusion:  Russian
names are awfully hard.

 On Tue, 8 Nov 1994, Mark Williams wrote:

> A teacher on my staff  (AP English) need to know if a woman in Russia
> commonly takes her husband's family name when she marries, particularly
> in the 1800's.   Her class is studying Russian literature of the period
> and relating it to woman's role in society.
> Mark Williams
>