audiobook Crossing the Waters: Arabic-Speaking Immigrants to the United States Before 1940 by Eric J. Hooglund in History

Description

Providing a unique glimpse into the domestic life of Russia's nobility in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; Days of a Russian Noblewoman combines a rare memoir and a diary; now translated into English for the first time. Anna Labzina was relatively well educated by the standards of her day; and she traveled widely through the Russian empire. Yet; unlike most writers of her time; she writes primarily as a dutiful; if inwardly rebellious; daughter and wife; reflecting on the onerous roles assigned to women in a male-centered society.Labzina was married young to Alexander Karamyshev; who; while well regarded in political and scholarly circles of his day; proved to be brutish and abusive at home. A "Russian Voltairian;" he professed atheism and free love. His unbridled behavior caused Labzina much grief; which she vividly recalls in her memoir. Because she moved among aristocratic circles; her reminiscences bring readers face to face with celebrated figures of politics and literature; including the Empress Catherine the Great and the "Radiant Prince" Grigorii Potemkin. As a pious and charitable woman; Labzina also speaks for others who rarely had a voice in literature: serfs; prisoners; and political exiles.Labzina wrote both her memoir and her diary during her second marriage; to Alexander Labzin; a leader in Russian Freemasonry and in the movement for religious revival. At the same time; she became actively involved in the spiritual life of his lodge; the Dying Sphinx. Her account of her spiritual development and her social sphere offer unparalleled insights into male and female sensibilities of the time.