num_pages: 392
description: Lucy Atkinson's "Recollections of Tartar Steppes and Their Inhabitants" (1863) was one of the first works to concentrate on the people of the Eurasian Steppe rather than the flora and fauna. It is also one of the earliest - and finest - genuine travel books written in English by a woman.The book is arranged as a series of letters to a friend and shows the author to have been an indefatigable traveler who was held in respect by local people, both for her equestrian skills and as a markswoman with pistol and rifle. Her reference to the birth of her son Alatau, in the absence of a medical attendant, offers a further indication of her unusually independent capabilities. Also included are descriptions of meetings with exiled survivors of the 1825 Decembrist uprising then scattered through Siberia, including M. I. Muravyev-Apostol, I. D. Yakushkin, P. I. Falkenberg, the Volkonsky and Trubetskoy families, the Borisov brothers, and the Bestuzhevs.
language: English
title: Recollections of Tartar Steppes and Their Inhabitants
titlecomplete: Recollections of Tartar Steppes and Their Inhabitants
genres: History
ratings_count: 2
publisher: Routledge