Preserving the fabric of the national family: Traditional clothing in The Captain’s Daughter

Dress plays a key role within Pushkin’s historical novel, The Captain’s Daughter, and a number of studies have focussed on the significance of Peter Grinev’s gift of a hare-skin coat to the rebel Pugachev. This article departs from these previous studies by examining dress as a context-specific cultural sign, which forms a visual language understood by characters in the novel. Characters use cultural codes associated with traditional dress, including the tulup (a hare-skin coat), the dushegreika (a sleeveless, padded jacket) and the sarafan (a sleeveless pinafore dress), to gain assistance from unlikely sources. Such clothing identifies the wearer with traditional Russian values in opposition to the official code of conduct signified by uniforms and formal, westernized attire. The article aims to demonstrate the way in which ethnic dress reminds characters of their deeper kinship, which signals them to care for orphans, servants, the sick and others in need, even when those people belong to the enemy camp.