Dear Jansy,
A form of both Aleksandr
and Aleksandra, Shura can be male or female first name. In Ilf
and Petrov's "The Golden Calf" there is Shura Balaganov, a member of the
Antelope Gnu crew (consisting of four men). In Pasternak's "Doctor
Zhivago" there is Shura Schlesinger, a female friend of the Zhivago-Gromeko
family. Shura marries and divorces even more often than
Cordula does in Ada. Schlesinger is the surname of her latest
husband.
The sex of Shura Tobak's remains
ambiguous. Presumably, Shura is a man, like his namesake and colleague
Sashka skripatch (Sashka the fiddler), the Jewish hero of Kuprin's
story "Gambrinus". In Ada, Mr Alexander Screepatch is the new President
of the United Americas, a plethoric Russian (3.4).
Interestingly, "Sashka" is a long poem by Lermontov
and "Sasha" is a long poem by Nekrasov. While Lermontov's Sashka is a young
man, Nekrasov's Sasha is a young girl. Sasha is another form of
Aleksandr/Aleksandra.
In Ilf and Petrov's "The Twelve Chairs" there
is Fima Sobak, a female friend of Ellochka
Shchukin. Fima is a form of the male name Serafim and female name Serafima.
Serafim is Russian for "seraph".
Traveling in Soviet Central Asia with Aleksandr
Ivanovich Koreyko (having missed the plane, they have to ride camels),
Ostap Bender (who just squeezed from Koreyko one million rubles) suggests
that they declare Jihad to Denmark, because the Danes have murdered
their Prince Hamlet.
True, the Kievan Prince Vladimir famously said,
rejecting Islam: "Veselie Rusi est' piti" (the mirth of Rus is
drinking). Btw., a feast of Vladimir the Fair Sun (Vladimir Krasnoe
Solnyshko, as he was dubbed by his contemporaries) is described in
Pushkin's "Ruslan and Lyudmila". In fact, Pushkin's Lyudmila is Vladimir's
daughter.
Alexey Sklyarenko