Russia through Women's Eyes: Autobiographies from Tsarist Russia

Nineteenth-century Russia has been known to the West mainly through the writings of men. Russian women, however, were far from silent and have left testimony about their families, their education, their careers and their country. This collection presents the lives of eleven Russian women as told in their own words. These autobiographies span the century and cover a wide range of classes and professions. Among the authors are women of the gentry, the merchant class, the lower bureaucracy, and the serf class. They include writers, a journalist, an actress in the provincial theater, and two physicians - 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.