(b Sopronovo, Onega district, 1831; d Lisitsino, Onega district 1899). Russian voplennitsa (lamenter). She was noted for her mastery of lamentation. She improvised using formulaic structures or models in her laments, which were published in three volumes funeral, wedding and recruiting laments. Her skill in improvising extensive poetic texts of high artistic quality attracted the attention of many distinguished figures of Russian culture. M. Gorky, M. Prishvin and V. Miller wrote about her as a guardian of Russian history. Those familiar with her work included the composers Nikolay Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov and Mily Alekseyevich Balakirev, the musicologist V.V. Yastrebtsov and T.I. Filippov, the chairman of the songs committee of the ethnographic department of the Russian Geographical Society. In January 1895 Rimsky-Korsakov recorded five of her performances. During the 1890s she performed many times in St Petersburg, Moscow, Nizhniy Novgorod, Kazan' and Petrozavodsk. As well as laments, her repertory included Russian epics (bīlīny), wedding songs and soldiers' songs. The Russian Academy of Sciences awarded her a silver medal and a diploma. Her texts are used extensively in books on Russian folklore.
K.V. Chistov: Irina Andreevna Fedosova: Istoriko-kul'turniy ocherk [An Essay in Cultural History] (Petrozavodsk, 1998)
B.E. Chistovy and K.V. Chistov: Irina A. Fedosova: izbrannoye [Selected works] (Petrozavodsk, 1981)
E.V. Barsov: Prichitaniia Severnogo Kraya [Laments of the northern region] (St. Petersburg, 1997)
IZALY ZEMTSOVSKY