Hey so I’ve compiled a list of surces I have used at some point or other and/or seen reccomended when it comes to the stuy of Women in Classical Antiquity. Feel free to add anything you have also found useful, though please try to keep it mainly to scholarly and balancrf sources.
Historical Studies
New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-Roman World by Georgia Tsouvala, Ronnie Ancona
Women in Antiquity: Real Women Across the Ancient World by Jean Macintosh Turfa, Stephanie Lynn Budin
Women and Monarchy in Macedonia by Elizabeth Carney
Roman Women by Eve D'Ambra
Women in Antiquity: New Assessments by Richard Hawley, et al.
A Companion to Women in the Ancient World by Sheila Dillon, Sharon L. James
Pandora’s Daughters: The Role & Status of Women in Greek & Roman Antiquity by Mauren Fant, Mary Lefkowitz
Women in the Classical World: Image and Text by Elaine Fantham, et al.
Women in Greek Myth by Mary Lefkowitz
Women in Classical Antiquity: From Birth to Death by Laura K. McClure
Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity by Sarah Pomeroy
Spartan Women by Sarah Pomeroy
Women’s History and Ancient History by Sarah Pomeroy
Women in Hellenistic Egypt: From Alexander to Cleopatra by Sarah Pomeroy
Arguments with Silence: Writing the History of Roman Women by Amy Richland
The Women of Pliny’s Letters by Jo-Ann Shelton
Sourcebooks
Clodia: A Sourcebook by Julia Dyson Hejduk
Cleopatra: A Sourcebook by Prudence J. Jones
Women’s Life in Greece and Rome: A Source Book in Translation
by Mary Lefkowitz, Maureen B. Fant
Women in Ancient Greece: A Sourcebook by Bonnie MacLachlan
Women in Ancient Rome: A Sourcebook by Bonnie MacLachlan
Women and Society in Greek and Roman Egypt: A Sourcebook by Jane Rowlandson
Biographies
Zenobia: Shooting Star of Palmyra by Nathanael J. Andrade
Agrippina: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire by Anthony A. Barrett
Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome by Anthony A. Barrett
Sabina Augusta: An Imperial Journey by T. Corey Brennan
Arsinoe of Egypt and Macedon: A Royal Life by Elizabeth Carney
Eurydice and the Birth of Macedonian Power by Elizabeth Donnelly Carney
Olympias: Mother of Alexander the Great by Elizabeth Carney
Berenice II and the Golden Age of Ptolemaic Egypt by Dee L. Clayman
Cornelia: Mother of the Gracchi by Suzanne Dixon
Hypatia of Alexandria by Maria Dzielska
Julia Augusti: The Emperor’s Daughterby Elaine Fantham
Clodia: A Sourcebook by Julia Dyson Hejduk
Faustina I and II: Imperial Women of the Golden Age by Barbara M. Levick
Julia Domna: Syrian Empress by Barbara Levick
Turia: A Roman Woman’s Civil War by Josiah Osgood
Cleopatra: A Biography by Duane W. Roller
Cleopatra’s Daughter: and Other Royal Women of the Augustan Age by Duane W. Roller
Clodia Metelli: The Tribune’s Sister by Marilyn Berglund Skinner
Terentia, Tullia and Publilia: The Women of Cicero’s Family by Susan Treggiari
✧ All the years of her life, and they were fifty-six, she had worked faithfully and untiringly for those dear to her, nor did her labours cease when failing health, sorrow, bereavement and disillusion darkened her path. The England of the fourteenth century was unsettled and excited, naturally perhaps, with such constant mighty victories and violent issues hanging ever in the balance; but through it all Philippa walked with clear head and steady feet. – Blanche Christabel Hardy, PhilippaofHainaultandHerTimes
I’m currently doing some ink drawings for my first ever art festival! It’s happening later this month. But the 4th of July is a good time to share this portrait of Capt. Edith Standen, a member of the MFAA.
I feel she must have been quite the individual as most of the Monuments Women were. I admire her sense of justice and her willingness to stand up if someone transgressed it no matter who that someone was. For example, she was one of the MFAA officers who signed the Wiesbaden manifesto on Nov 7, 1945. The manifesto was an act of protest against orders by the U.S. government to send German owned art to the United States. It was called “the only act of protest by officers against their orders in the Second World War,” and it declared,
“We wish to state that, from our own knowledge, no historical grievance will rankle so long or be the cause of so much justified bitterness as the removal for any reason of a part of the heritage of any nation even if that heritage may be interpreted as a prize of war.”
She didn’t stop at just signing the manifesto though, she also distributed it to various offices after the art had gone. After a long three years the paintings were sent back.
And I think that this is a good reminder to Americans about what makes America great. It’s not our money, nor our weapons, it’s the amount of discourse we can have with the government and the government listens, even if it takes three years. Without a government that listens we have nothing.
Happy 4th of July to all the fellow Americans out there! Be safe and be sane,
Donna Tobias - the first woman to graduate from the US Navy’s Deep Sea Diving School in 1975.
Brave women of the Red Cross hitting the beach at Normandy.
Dottie Kamenshek was called the best player in women’s baseball and was once recruited to play for a men’s professional team.
Kate Warne - Private Detective. Born in New York City, almost nothing is known of her prior to 1856 when, as a young widow, she answered an employment advertisement placed by Alan Pinkerton. She was one of four new agents the Pinkerton Detective Agency hired that year and proved to be a natural, taking to undercover work easily. She had taken part in embezzlement and railroad security cases when in 1861 the Pinkertons developed the first lead about an anti-Lincoln conspiracy.
Catherine Leroy, female photographer in Vietnam.
The three women pictured in this incredible photograph from 1885 – Anandibai Joshi of India, Keiko Okami of Japan, and Sabat Islambouli of Syria – each became the first licensed female doctors in their respective countries. The three were students at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania; one of the only places in the world at the time where women could study medicine.
Female Samurai Warrior - Onno-Bugeisha - Female warrior belonging to the Japanese upper class. Many women engaged in battle, commonly alongside samurai men. They were members of the bushi (samurai) class in feudal Japan and were trained in the use of weapons to protect their household, family, and honour in times of war.
One of the most feared of all London street gangs from the late 1880’s was a group of female toughs known as the Clockwork Oranges. They woulde later inspire Anthony burgess’ most notorious novel. Their main Rivals were the All-female “the Forty Elephants” gang.
Maureen Dunlop de Popp, Pioneering female pilot who flew Spitfires during Second World War. She joined the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) in 1942 and became one of a small group of female pilots who were trained to fly 38 types of aircraft.
In 1967, Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to run the Boston marathon. After realizing that a woman was running, race organizer Jock Semple went after Switzer shouting, “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers.” However, Switzer’s boyfriend and other male runners provided a protective shield during the entire marathon. The photographs taken of the incident made world headlines, and Kathrine later won the NYC marathon with a time of 3:07:29.
Women have always participated in fighting; whether that is in war or in breaking down barriers that have been set in front of us by society.
Take inspiration from our foremothers and continue breaking down barriers, wherever you are.
-FemaleWarrior, She/They
nothing to do with my blog but how could I not reblog this???
Hey, quick point - your image for Onna Bugeisha is actually a kabuki actress. I know, because I’ve used the image for presentations on the subject. In her stead may I introduce Niijima Yae, aka Yamamoto Yaeko.
Born in 1845.
In 1868, fought at the Battle of Aizu. Her father was the gunnery instructor, and she was trained on a Spencer carbine, which she used to defend the castle.
1871, divorced her husband and went to Kyoto to find her brother, who had been taken as a POW.
1871-1898, remarried a western-educated man, co-founded two schools (including a girls’ school), became a certified Tea Master and flower arranging instructor.
1890, following the death of her husband, became a Red Cross nurse. Served in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-5) leading a team of 40 nurses, and the Russo-Japanese War (1904). Decorated for her service in both.
I’m proud of people adding their own knowledge to this.
“but adding women to [insert title] isn’t accurate!” women existed back then too, baby. history was just written by men, for men
“Consider the Vikings. Popular feminist retellings like the History Channel’s fictional saga “Vikings” emphasize the role of women as warriors and chieftains. But they barely hint at how crucial women’s work was to the ships that carried these warriors to distant shores.
One of the central characters in “Vikings” is an ingenious shipbuilder. But his ships apparently get their sails off the rack. The fabric is just there, like the textiles we take for granted in our 21st-century lives. The women who prepared the wool, spun it into thread, wove the fabric and sewed the sails have vanished.
In reality, from start to finish, it took longer to make a Viking sail than to build a Viking ship. So precious was a sail that one of the Icelandic sagas records how a hero wept when his was stolen. Simply spinning wool into enough thread to weave a single sail required more than a year’s work, the equivalent of about 385 eight-hour days.
King Canute, who ruled a North Sea empire in the 11th century, had a fleet comprising about a million square meters of sailcloth. For the spinning alone, those sails represented the equivalent of 10,000 work years.”
“…Picturing historical women as producers requires a change of attitude. Even today, after decades of feminist influence, we too often assume that making important things is a male domain. Women stereotypically decorate and consume. They engage with people. They don’t manufacture essential goods.
Yet from the Renaissance until the 19th century, European art represented the idea of “industry” not with smokestacks but with spinning women. Everyone understood that their never-ending labor was essential. It took at least 20 spinners to keep a single loom supplied.
“The spinners never stand still for want of work; they always have it if they please; but weavers are sometimes idle for want of yarn,” the agronomist and travel writer Arthur Young, who toured northern England in 1768, wrote.
Shortly thereafter, the spinning machines of the Industrial Revolution liberated women from their spindles and distaffs, beginning the centuries-long process that raised even the world’s poorest people to living standards our ancestors could not have imagined.
But that “great enrichment” had an unfortunate side effect. Textile abundance erased our memories of women’s historic contributions to one of humanity’s most important endeavors. It turned industry into entertainment.
“In the West,” Dr. Harlow wrote, “the production of textiles has moved from being a fundamental, indeed essential, part of the industrial economy to a predominantly female craft activity.””
- Virginia Postrel, “Women and Men Are Like the Threads of a Woven Fabric.” in The New York Times
Claim to fame: An advocate for women’s education, Christine is the first European woman known to have made her living as a writer.
Born the eldest child of the personal physician to King Charles V of France, Christine was well educated and benefited from access to the King’s vast library.
Christine was married at 15 and widowed just 10 years later. After her husband’s death, she turned to writing to support herself and her family, serving as a court writer for several dukes as well as Charles VI of France.
Her 1405 book, ‘La Cité des Dames’ (‘Book of the City of Ladies’), catalogued female accomplishment and helped establish her popularity. This book is considered by many as the inaugural text in the field now known as women’s studies.
Christine completed forty-one works during her career. Her work contradicted negative female stereotypes and countered unjust slander of women within other literary texts. She argued that women have the same aptitudes as men and thus the right to the same education. Christine’s influence in the otherwise male-dominated field of rhetorical discourse lead Simone de Beauvoir to acknowledge her as the first woman to “take up her pen in defence of her sex”.
Jeanne Laisné (nicknamed Jeanne Hachette - ‘Jean the Hatchet’).
Born 1456 - died ?
Claim to fame: a French military heroine who prevented the capture of Beauvais.
In June of 1472 Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, laid siege to the French town of Beauvais. Over the course of the three week siege, a peasant woman named Jeanne Laisne joined a contingent of women and children responsible for loading the town’s cannons, delivering munitions and dumping boiling liquid over the walls onto the attackers.
By 27 June, many of the French defenders had lost hope and begun to flee as an assault from the Burgundians seemed set to defeat the town. An officer was about to plant the Burgundian flag on the wall and claim Beauvais when Jeanne grabbed a hatchet and flung herself upon him, hurling him off the wall and tearing down the flag. Her bravery revived the courage of the garrison and the French soldiers returned to their posts, keeping the Burgundians at bay until reinforcements arrived and the town was saved.
By way of recognition, King Louis XI heaped favours on Jeanne and ordered for the ‘Procession of the Assault’ to take place in Beauvais every year with women marching at the head of the parade. This tradition still continues.
In 1851, a bronze statue sculpted by Gabriel-Vital Dubray (pictured above) was unveiled in Beauvais by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte.
Mary Smith demands accuracy (and pure air) in this week’s Transcribe Tuesday.
Each week, on #TranscribeTuesday, we share work created by digital volunteers in the Transcription Center. That’s not a mystery, but who was Mary Smith? We’re not entirely sure! Transcribe this project, shared by smithsonianlibraries and perhaps we’ll learn more about whether she was a wealthy or well-connected British woman. Mary Smith’s Commonplace Book Concerning Science and Mathematics is a two volume hand-written manuscript, which dates from around 1769-1780, and summarizes science, math, medicine, religion and more.
New hero: the mysterious Mary Smith. (She’s rightly compared to Thomasina Coverly in this blog post.)
ADELAIDE AMES was a twentieth-century lady astronomer full of the awesome.
She completed her undergraduate education at Vassar College before graduating from Radcliffe College (the first woman at Radcliffe to receive an M.A. in Astronomy!) in 1924. While at Harvard, she and Harlow Shapley worked together to complete the Shapley-Ames catalog, which listed galaxies brighter than the 13th magnitude and whose data challenged the assumption of the universe’s isotropy.
At the age of 32, Ames drowned in a boating accident. Her friend and fellow astronomer Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin remembered her as “young, lovely, and intensely vital” and “the closest friend [she] ever made at the Observatory.”[1]
While women have been fighting alongside men for all of history, they usually don’t get the same recognition as their counterparts. Here are some cases where women didget accepted into chivalric orders, though they typically got a separate title. Some of the women were combatants, and some were not (but non-combatant men have been accepted in chivalric orders for just as long!)
Order of the Hatchet (12th century Spain) Orde de l'Atxa|Orden del Hacha was an entirely-female order created after women defended the Catalonian town of Tortosa from invaders. With most adult men off to war, the women fought with hatchets and other tools. Women of this order were given social and financial privileges, including tax exemptions.
Order of Saint-John (12th century Malta) A military religious order, the Order of Saint-John had female soeurs hospitalières and male frères prêtres who had essentially the same role in the order.
Teutonic Order (12th century Jerusalem) The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem accepted women primarily as consororesandhospitallers, in charge of supportive and medical services. However, these women did follow men to war to perform battlefield medicine.
Knights Templar (12th-14th century Jerusalem) The members of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon admitted women for a number of roles. We know that when the final got around to writing down their rules, it included continuing the already standard practice of admitting women. Most Knights Templar were noncombatant, especially financiers.
Order of the Garter (14th-15th century England) Dedicated to the patron saint of England, Saint George, the Most Noble Order of the Garter admitted women regularly, often due to blue blood. However, women without high birth were admitted as well.
Order of the Ermine (14th and 15th century France) The L'Ordre de l'Hermine was directly inspired by the Order of the Garter and dedicated to upholding one’s personal honor. It openly admitted men and women of any social rank, including the only known instance in Medieval history of a woman serving as Officer of Arms. This woman, Katherine Potier, was titled “Espy Herault”.
Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary (13th-16th century Italy) A unique order that took up arms to pacify cities in the fractured Italian states. It was centered in Bologna and would admit women as fighters called militissa(literally ‘female knight’).
“Miyagino the filial”, (1847/1848 ?), Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861)
Print from the series “Stories of dutifulness and loyalty in revenge”.
Depicts one of the two sisters who avenged their father during the 17th century. Their story inspired the kabuki play “Go Taiheiki shiraishi banashi” for instance.
Here the older sister, Miyagino, is represented carrying both a naginata and a sake cup.
Print from the series “Thirty-six Good and Evil Beauties”
The princess Kiyoshi Hikariin draws her sword in order to avenge herself. The folding screen behind her is decorated with the mon (crest) of the powerful Tokugawa family, who ruled the shogunate during the Edo period.
“Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted.” - Sylvia Plath
Poor Maria Josepha of Bavaria died on this day (28 May) in 1767. Her husband was apathetic to her existence and her mother-in-law was the Empress Maria Theresa, not known for her patience with conceiving heirs!
My “Almost Queens” blog series takes a look at some of the girls and women who nearly became Queen (generally consort), had fate not intervened.
Margaret of Burgundy was almost a Queen of France. But the discovery of her affair with a knight from her father-in-law’s court saw her imprisoned in Chateau Gaillard, and possibly murdered on the orders of her cuckolded husband.
Maria Josepha of Saxony was 16 when she married the French Dauphin on this day in 1747.
Her husband was in mourning for the death of his first wife, who had died less than 12 months before. He did eventually fall in love with Maria Josepha, but his own early death meant that she never got to be Queen of France.
“I feel like I’m entering the Fatherland,” Charlotte told the mourners as her carriage crossed the Russian border. The Cossack convoy that met her burst out “Hurrah!”, the princess told them in Russian: “Thank you, guys.” Then she turned to the Cossack colonel: “Please order them to shout again, I like it…” She sought to speak Russian with those courtiers who did not know foreign languages. However, despite the fact that her teacher was the poet Vasily Zhukovsky, Charlotte did not learn Russian until the end of her life.
«She never left the children brought up in her institutions afterwards, but helped them all her life, went into all the details that concerned them, and was a true mother to everyone. None of those who served her died in the palace except in her presence. She comforted everyone to the end and always closed the eyes of the dying. Doctors once told her that her retired lady-in-waiting, who lived on Vasilievsky Island, was suffering greatly from breast cancer, that it would be possible to save her, but she did not agree to the operation otherwise than if the Empress herself would be present during her production. “Well,” she said, “if only her recovery depends on it, then I will fulfill her wish.” She went to her and held her head during the whole operation. She went into the smallest details about her establishments and not only supervised the upbringing of the children, but also did not forget to send them treats and give them all sorts of pleasures. One boy was forced to stay in bed for a long time due to illness; she brought him drawings, pencils and various things. With every courier she was informed about the state of his health — she was in Moscow at the time. When appointing honorary guardians, the choice was the strictest: she corresponded with each of them herself weekly, inquired about the pupils and pupils, about their behavior and health, and always gave wise humane advice … Everything was invented by a tender heart for the benefit, joy and peace of all who depend on her. It was not a dry, lifeless patronage, but maternal care. But her arrival at the institute was a real holiday. Maman, mam an, Mutterchen — could be heard from everywhere. Sometimes, at a big dinner, she would order dessert to be taken off and sent to some institute in turn. And she asked guardiansin her testament to remember that the first basis of all actions should be a boon!Babies abandoned by their mothers enjoyed her special attention. One day my father, who always accompanied her when she visited institutions, expressed surprise that she so tenderly kissed the little members of these unfortunate people, examined the laundry on the nurses and so on. “Ah!” she replied, “all these abandoned children are now mine and must find in me the care they are deprived of."»
(с) Maria Sergeevna Mukhanova, lady-in-waiting of Empress Elizabeth Alexeievna.
A princess-consort of Ryazan by marriage to Prince Feodor Yurevich of Ryazan. She was venerated as a local saint in the Russian Orthodox church. She committed suicide rather than to surrender to captivity of Batu Khan during the Mongol invasion of Russia.
«In the year 6745 (1237), the blessed Prince Feodor Yurievich of Ryazan was killed by the godless Tsar Batu on the Voronezh River. And the blessed Princess Eupraxia, when she heard about the murder of her master, the blessed Prince Fyodor Yuryevich, immediately threw herself with her son, Prince Ivan Fedorovich, from the top of her palace and died…»
«In the year 6745 (1237), the blessed Prince Feodor Yurievich of Ryazan was killed by the godless Khan Batu on the Voronezh River. And hearing this, the blessed Princess Eupraxia, the princess of her murdered master, threw herself from the top of the church together with her son Prince Ivan Feodorovich and died…»
«… And Prince Feodor Yurievich with gifts met Batu Khan on the Voronezh River and begged him not to destroy the Ryazan land. Batu Khan was addicted to flattery and merciless, so he accepted his gifts and promised not to destroy the Ryazan land. He began to entertain the Ryazan guests with various amusements and asked them for their daughters and sisters to make them his concubines. And one of the Ryazan nobles, leading by the devil, told Batu Khan that the Ryazan prince has a wife of the royal family with a beautiful body and a white face. The godless Batu Khan, being crafty and merciless in his unbelief. Leading by his lust, he said to Prince Feodor Yuryevich: «Let me, Prince, see the beauty of your wife (to have a night with her)». The venerable Prince Feodor laughed and replied to him: «It’s not good for us, christians, to give our wives to you for fornication. Only by killing us you can have them». Batu Khan became enraged and upset. He ordered to kill the blessed Prince Feodor Yuryevich and give his body to animals and birds to be torn to pieces. This way he killed a lot of other Feodor’s people too.
But one of the grandees of Prince Feodor Yuryevich, named Aponitsa, found the body of his prince and buried him. After that, he visited the blessed Princess Eupraxia and told her how the wicked Batu Khan had killed the blessed Prince Fyodor Yuryevich. The blessed Princess Eupraxia, who was standing at the church and holding her dear child Ivan Feodorovich Postnik, heard these deadly words and bitterly threw herself from the top of the church with her son, and died…»
The Tale of the Destruction of Ryazan. Main edition «B», second kind.
«… She heard these words, standing in the church of St. Nicholas, and her heart was confused. It was filled with strong fear and sadness, and then she threw herself from the top of the church together with her son Ivan, and died…»
The Tale of the Destruction of Ryazan. Common edition.
«… After 12 years of transferring the miraculous icon to Ryazan, the godless Batu Khan came to the Russian land in the year 6745 (1237). And he killed Prince Feodor Yuryevich of Ryazan. His Princess Eupraxia, along with her son Ivan, climbed to the top of the church, where the icon of St. Nicholas was kept, and threw herself down from it, crashing to death. That ’s why the icon of St. Nicholas was called icon of Nikola Zarazsky…»
The Tale of the Destruction of Ryazan. Church calendar edition.
«… And a certain slave of one of the courtiers of Prince Feodor Yurievich with the name Opanitsa, looked at the body of his sovereign, blessed Prince Feodor, and wept bitterly: «Oh, my dear prince, how soon did you leave this world and left your reign, your power and your princess with children by refusing to obey the godless king and disobeying his will. You have suffered for your fatherland and for all your people, like no one else.» He having wept a lot and then buried him in that place. And soon he brought the news to the blessed Princess Eupraxia, telling her how «the wicked Batu Khan killed your blessed husband, Prince Feodore Yurievich.» The blessed Princess Eupraxia, standing at the top of her church and holding her dear child Prince Ivan Feodorovich on her hand, heard these deadly words about her husband, and was filled with great sorrows and sadness. And she said to her son: «O my dear, my poor child, Prince Ivan, the punishment for our sin has come to us from God, he has sent these filthy Ishmaelites against us. They want to ruin and capture us to the end, and they killed my sovereign, my husband, your father. The godless khan also wants to take me and enslave you to convert you to the Muslim faith. And it is better for us to accept death than to be abused in the hands of the filthy». And at that hour she threw herself from the top of the church and died..»
The Tale of the Destruction of Ryazan. Streltsy edition.
« … the names of Countess Zavadovskaya, Ficquelmont, lady-in-waiting Princess Urusova and the young Naryshkina, later Princess Yusupova, were heard on everyone’s lips. All of them were written beauties, all of them were stars of the first magnitude of the St. Petersburg high society …»
«Tall, thin, with a charming waist, with a completely sculpted head, she has beautiful black eyes, a very lively face with a cheerful expression that suits her so wonderfully…»
«When I left Moscow, I hoped to be happy soon, linking my life with the life of Zeneida. But Maman, against whose will I would never dare to go, asked me to postpone the wedding. My chagrin was so great because of this delay that I almost fell ill.»
«No less noticeable is the excessively prolonged and all-consuming flirtation of the charming Princess Yusupova with Gervais, an officer of the Chevalier Guard Regiment. She is of universal interest, because she is young in spirit, as well as in years, cheerful, naive, innocent. With amazing simplicity, she surrendered herself to the power of her feelings. It’s as if she doesn’t see the trap set in front of her and behaves at balls as if they are the only two in the whole world with Gervais…»
«My great-grandmother was a written beauty, lived merrily, had more than one adventure…
Even though she was an old woman, she remained a beauty and maintained a regal manner and posture. She was sitting rouged, perfumed, in a red wig and a bunch of pearl beads…»
«Princess Louise…she combined inexpressible charm and grace with restraint and tact, quite rare at the age of fourteen. In all her actions, the result of her mother’s worries, both respected and beloved, was visible. Her mind, soft and delicate, grasped with extreme rapidity everything that could decorate it, like a bee that knows how to get honey from the most poisonous plants. Her conversation reflected the freshness of her youth, and to this she added a great correctness of concepts.»
«The Empress with the medical staff went around the wounded, provided first aid, tried in every possible way to ease the sufferings of the sick, despite the fact that she herself had a damaged arm above the elbow and she wore just a dress. An officer’s greatcoat was thrown over the shoulders of the tsarina, in which she walked along the crashed train…»
A. Myasnikov about Empress Maria Feodorovna on the day of the tragedy at the Borki station.
This remarkable document was found in the form of two scraps that were found on the pavement. An addressee, having no fire or knife nearby, tore up and threw away the latter. But he didn’t just scatter these pieces, he tied them in a knot and only then threw them on the pavement.
[…] [I sent (?)] to you three times. What kind of grudge you owe to me, that you haven’t come to me this Sunday (week)? I have treated you like a brother! Did I hurt you by sending … [you messages]. As I can see, you don’t like it. If you like it, you would tear yourself away from the eyes (of others) and come running (to me) […].
[…] now somewhere else. Write to me about […] leave you? (Do you want me to leave you?/I won’t leave you or something like that). And even if I’ve hurt you with my foolishness, if you will laugh at me, God will judge (you) and I will.
Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich of Russia to Maria Feodorovna, «Various facts from November 12 to November 19, 1916»
Count Gudovich told me that his niece, the little Countess Hendrikova, told him that two ladies, i.e., A.F. (Alexandra Feodorovna) and Anya (Anna Vyrubova), had notebooks where the names of people of all classes were written alphabetically, and that in these notebooks they usually looked for people fit to be ministers. Admit that this is pure madness. There is only one remedy, Sandro and Pavel do not mind, it is for the closest, for you and your children to take the initiative to conduct a medical consultation of all our celebrities from a medical point of view, and then send them to a remote sanatorium, with or without Vyrubova, to undergo serious treatment. Otherwise, be prepared for any accidents. Tell that to Sandro-because that’s my firm opinion.
Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich of Russia to Maria Feodorovna, «Various facts from December 17 to December 22, 1916»
The balding man writing to you has been thinking a lot, spending sleepless nights, running around the empty St. Petersburg embankments at dawn — and now he tells you — never look for the names of the brave souls who performed this act of civic courage, high patriotism and deliverance*. The word is silver, and silence is gold!
Madame (Alexandra Feodorovna) is madder than ever. On the night of the 19th, after the autopsy of the corpse, the order came to transport… the body of the insignificant to the emperor’s palace!!!
Two more appointments to positions took place under the influence of the murdered man …
Madame is getting more and more in charge of drowning Nicky… And time passes, gossip intensifies, the general situation inspires fears.
I’m putting the same dilemma before you again. After the hypnotist, it is necessary to try to neutralize A.F., while she is hypnotized. By all means, it is necessary to send her as far away as possible, either to a sanatorium or to a monastery. We are talking about saving the throne - not the dynasty, which is still strong, but the present sovereign. Otherwise it will be too late. … All Russia knows that the late Rasputin and A.F. are the same. If the first one is killed, the second one should disappear. The general peace of mind depends on it. …
«Oh, they (OTMA) were lovely, and terribly sweet, far more beautiful than their photographs show. I was crackers about Marie, and was determined to marry her. She was absolutely lovely. I keep her photograph in my bedroom- always have.»
«She (Maria) was strikingly similar to her father, and her gaze resembled his scary gaze. The daughter bravely endured her father’s gaze. He turned pale, his cheeks trembled, and his eyes became even fiercer, his daughter answered him with the same look. Everything turned pale and trembled around, the ladies-in-waiting and the generals did not dare to breathe from this cannibal duel with their eyes… Nicholas got up, he felt that he has met his match.»
Marina Mniszech… people blamed her of being a werewolf … . They believed that after the inglorious death of the first impostor, she turned into a magpie and flew out of the window. Therefore, according to legend, it was necessary to kill all magpies in Moscow to get rid of Marina Mniszech …
«Poles and Russians in the eyes of each other» by V. A. Khorev
Ada Lovelace Day is an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering, math, and all related STEM fields.
The celebration is named in honor of English mathematician Augusta Ada King (1815-1852), Countess of Lovelace, known colloquially as Ada Lovelace. Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, is sometimes considered the world’s first computer programmer for the algorithm she wrote for Charles Babbage’s analytical engine, one of the world’s first mechanical computers. Over the years there have been historical disagreements over the extent of Lovelace’s knowledge of the subject and the originality of the work she published in her article, “Sketch of the Analytical Engine, with Notes from the Translator,“ but Babbage himself seemed to dismiss such future claims in his memoir.
