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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>A student in my Woolf class wrote a journal entry yesterday about Sasha, in <i>Orlando</i>, and I as I cannot recall ever seeing such information/speculation elsewhere, I told her about this remarkable list and offered to post her ideas to see what people might have to say!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='margin:0in;text-indent:.5in'>Tatiana Duvanova (my student) wrote that the name “Princess Marousha Stanilovska Dagmar Natasha Iliana Romanovitch is, to say the least, elaborate. Perhaps, I am overthinking this a little, but to me, this name reads as an allusion to a big part of Russian monarchical history, and its eventual downfall in 1917. My first question is what she is the princess of, exactly. In 1608, and around that time, there was no Russian Tzar, but instead a time of civil unrest. The Rurick Dynasty had ended when the last son of Ivan the Terrible died childless in 1598. After that, there were about thirty years (until 1613) of turmoil before the Romanov dynasty was installed. The Romanovs were related to Ruricks, but they had a different last name before Michael Romanov became a Tzar in 1613. I think Romanovitch is one of the versions of Romanov, which makes me think that her family might have had a claim to the Russian throne, so that could explain why she left so suddenly. Dagmar is also the name of the princess Dagmar of Denmark, Maria Feodorovna after marriage, who was a mother of Nikolai II, the last emperor of Russia. Another possibly interesting point – his wife’s name in marriage was changed to Alexandra, which is a longer version of Sasha. Like I mentioned earlier, there was no reason for Orlando to call the Russian Princess Sasha – it is not part of her name, and she probably would have mentioned it to him. […] Orlando seems frivolous, and maybe even treats women as property (on par with the times, I suppose). He calls her Sasha because “it was the name of a white Russian fox he had had as a boy” (33). She reminds him of something he used to own, a pet animal, and he even calls her that to her face. However, the moment when something goes wrong in their relationship occurs, in my opinion, after Orlando “would fall into one of his moods of melancholy” (33). When he says twice “all ends in death”, she is silent: “Sasha stared at him, perhaps sneered at him, for he must have seemed a child to her, and said nothing” (34). It is unclear what prompted him to suddenly get too melancholy; however reasonable his emotion was, I think that it must have appeared ridiculous to Sasha, even if my assumptions about her are incorrect. Her country, which she clearly loves, has been enwrapped by turmoil for as long as she probably could remember. It is unclear how old she is, but the oldest she could be is twenty or twenty-five. Even if she is thirty, which is unlikely, she would not have seen a peaceful time in Moscow. I think that this is the moment that her perspective of Orlando changes, and she decided to leave. They clearly do not understand each other, since they do not even speak the same language but rather “meet” in French. Also, while Sasha is silent, he just keeps talking. Even though he thinks about asking her about her family and her own house, he decides against it. It also appeared strange to me, considering he is already in love with her and they talked about everything under the sun; yet he neglected to ask her the most basic information.”<span lang=RU style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></body></html>