An old diary discovered in a trunk in a Brisbane home has opened the door on the world of the Russian country gentry in the 1850s.
George Lyons was researching his family's history when he discovered the diary "gathering dust" among old tablecloths and silverware.
He took the diary, probably written by his great-aunt Amelia Lyons (1820-1896), to Dr John McNair of the University of Queensland's German and Russian Studies Department, who described it as "absolutely fascinating".
Dr McNair edited the diary and it has been published under the name At Home With The Gentry ? a Victorian English Lady's Diary of Russian Country Life.
Dr McNair said Mr Lyons, an avid family historian, had been a great help in the project and was "very chuffed" with the result.
"He had an inkling the diary was important, but he didn't know much about Russian history and didn't realise how unusual it is to have an account of a single woman leading a fairly independent existence in Russia in the early 1850s," Dr McNair said.
"There is quite a literature of English travellers in Russia and among them are quite a few women. But most of them follow the beaten track from St Petersburg to Moscow in the ?drawing room society' of the time, only going to the rural areas for holidays."
In contrast, Amelia Lyons' writing describes more than three years of life on a gentry estate in Tambov, a province further east where few foreigners ventured.
"She was interested in absolutely everything," Dr McNair said.
"She describes the construction of a new wing of the house, how for insulation they used cattle hide. I'd never heard of that before.
"She also provides examples of things people have known about but never had much evidence of - for instance, the very high quality paintings and reproduction furniture that Russian peasant craftsmen could turn out.
"She's also very interested in the whole question of serfdom and the relationship between masters and serfs. She refrains from open condemnation but leaves you in no doubt that she disapproves of it."
Unfortunately, Ms Lyons did not give the name of the family she stayed with, instead referring to the surname with an initial.
"One of the most challenging things about it was finding out who the family might have been," Dr McNair said.
"The local Russian provincial records, where they still exist, are not complete. To make matters worse, the initial she uses could have stood for a surname beginning with T or with Ch.
"She also gives a very imprecise idea of where this estate was, saying it was 90 versts (a Russian measure of distance equivalent to about one kilometre) east of the city."
Dr McNair said Ms Lyons arrived in Russia in the middle of 1849 and left in 1854, probably because of the outbreak of the Crimean War. The diary never mentions what she is doing in Russia.
"It's fairly clear that she's a governess or a lady's companion but she's obviously very sensitive about that and presents herself as a non-paying guest of the family," Dr McNair said.
"Women from quite well-to-do families who, for whatever reason, found they needed to support themselves, more and more were turning to Russia as the last frontier of the British nanny."
Amelia Lyons was from a respectable and privileged background. Her father, the Senior Examiner in the Office of Auditing Public Accounts, died in 1848 which may indicate why she had to start supporting herself.
Dr McNair said one of the most unusual things about Ms Lyons was her interest in the Russian language.
"Most English-speaking travellers made no attempt to learn Russian and in the circle in which she was moving the everyday language would have been French," he said.
"But she shows that she picked up the Russian language very well and can reproduce Russian as it would have been used by the servants and the people on the estate."
Dr McNair said the book was important to the study of Anglo-Russian contacts and cultural exchange.
"But it's interesting for the general reader, for its human interest and the fact that it is written by a woman who must have been fairly determined and fairly indomitable to find her way out there and make herself at home."
For more information, contact Dr John McNair (telephone 07 3365 3090, facsimile 07 3365 1433).
