Russia Through Women's Eyes
Subtitle: Autobiographies from Tsarist Russia (Russian Literature and Thought Series)
Contributors: Toby W. Clyman (Editor); Judith Vowles (Editor)
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: November 27, 1996
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 408
ISBN-13: 9780300067538
Subjects: Biography: general; European history: c 1750 to c 1900; Social history; 20th century; c 1800 to c 1900; National Biographies; Women - 19th Century History; Biography / Autobiography; Biography/Autobiography; Women; Biography & Autobiography / Women; 19th century; Autobiography; Biography; Russia
Description: These autobiographies span the century and cover a wide range of classes and professions. Among the authors are women of the gentry (Natalia Grot), the merchant class (Aleksandra Kobiakova), the lower bureaucracy (Praskovia Tatlina), and the serf class (Liubov Nikulina-Kositskaia).

They include writers (Elizaveta Lvova, Anastasiia Verbitskaia), a journalist (Emiliia Pimenova), an actress in the provincial theater (Liubov Nikulina-Kositskaia), and two physicians (Varvara Kashevarova-Rudneva, Ekaterina Slanskaia) - one the first woman to earn a medical degree in Russia, the other a doctor in the slums of St. Petersburg. Their memoirs show their fierce engagement in the debate over woman's nature, her duties and responsibilities, her upbringing, and her place in society.

Each autobiography is introduced and annotated by Toby Clyman and Judith Vowles, who also provide a general introduction that situates these writings within the Russian and Western autobiographical traditions.