Mariamna Davydoff On The Estate Summary

mna Davydoff, On the Estate: Memoirs of a Russian Lady before the Revolution, Ed. Olga Davydoff Dax, Thames and Hudson, London, 1982.

Mariamna Davydoff’s memoir is quiet and idyllic. Her writings on Russian noble life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century depict a life that may not necessarily be glamorous or grandiose, but a life that is quiet, pleasurable, and where one can say that their life is unequivocally good. Davydoff offers an intimate firsthand account of a way of life that one might expect to find in the writings of Turgenev or other Russian novelists. She thoughtfully describes life in the countryside, the country estates, the large families enjoying days filled with leisure, the joyous Orthodox holidays, and the heat of

Although she writes of a beautiful nearly perfect existence, a closer look reveals that Davydoff’s simple and quiet depictions of her life reflect the great divide that existed between the lives of the Russian nobles and those of the masses and how rarely they concerned themselves with the issues of the Russian empire and its people. While the world changes around her, little changes for in Davydoff’s day to day life even as the revolution approaches closer. Davydoff’s memoir reads like a sweet novella in a

Davydoff wrote her memoir with the intention of teaching her granddaughter about her life in Russia before escaping to France during the October Revolution; and Davydoff’s writings and personal illustrations featured in the memoir are a reflection of her sheltered and isolated existence presenting a unique representation for pre-revolutionary Russia. Davydoff chronicles her life from childhood to adulthood in Ukraine ⸻ or as Davydoff affectionately refers to it as, “little Russia”. Davydoff was born Mariamna Adrianova to an old Russian