Helen Higuera – (preliminary) bibliography – week 4

I have to admit, I think I’m a little behind on my research here. I’m not sure how much of this I will actually end up directly quoting in my paper, and I haven’t completely read through all these sources (not even close; haven’t even started some). So…work in progress. Any suggestions, comments, or criticisms would be very helpful. I also really need to find something on the Marquis de Custine and the influence of his views on Russia, but I have yet to do that.

Primary Sources

A Lady [McCoy, Rebecca]. The Englishman in Russia. New York: Arno Press, 1970.

This is my main primary source, which I’ve already discussed in class. Just as a refresher, it’s an anonymous account (though I found out who it was from a secondary source) of an Englishwoman who lived in Russia for ten years in the years leading up to and during the Crimean War. It was published in 1855, and, from what I gather from research, was pretty widely read and known.

March 1855. “Review: An Englishwoman in Russia.” The Rambler. Microfilm, Media and Microtext, Stanford University.

This is a fairly extensive review of my primary source from a contemporary Catholic journal. It has its own biases definitely, but that’s part of why I thought it was worthwhile. It’s interesting to see an outside perspective on the source that’s also a critical perspective.

Dickens, Charles. “At Home With The Russians.” Household Words. (1855: Jan 20): p 533. http://britishperiodicals.chadwyck.com/home.do.

Yes, Charles Dickens wrote a review of this travel account. He spends a lot of time reiterating her points/quoting her, though picking and choosing her information in order to construct a common thread of stereotype (if that makes sense). Basically, while McCoy tried to be more moderate and balanced in her travel account, Charles Dickens quotes her in an effort to bolster stereotypes about Russia and to support English nationalism against Russia.

Secondary Sources

Cross, Anthony. “Two English ‘Lady Travellers’ in Russia and the House of Murray.” Slavonica 17 (April 2011): 1-14.

I’m lucky in that, as you can tell from the date, this is an extremely recent article, and it appears to be the only information on the author of my primary source. He explains that she was the daughter of a Scottish merchant who had to go to Russia to work as a governess for economic reasons. He also describes how her work was published and goes into the context a little bit. There is a lot of good information in this article, but I don’t have access to all of his sources because apparently a lot of them are in an archive in Southern Australia…

Cross, Anthony. “The Crimean War and the Caricature War.” The Slavic and East European Review 84 (2006): 460-480.

This is an article by the same author in which he cites my primary source as an example of attitudes of Russians and English people toward the Crimean War. He also generally gives an excellent description of how the Crimean War was viewed and depicted in print media in England.

Cross, Anthony. Anglo-Russica: Aspects of Cultural Relations Between Great Britain and Russia in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: Selected Essays by Anthony Cross. Providence, RI: Berg, 1993.

To be honest, I’m still waiting for this to be delivered to Green from SLAC, but it seems very relevant. Also, it’s by the same author who has already been extremely helpful in my research.

Le Donne, John P. “Police Reform in Russia: A Project of 1762.” Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 32 (April – June 1991): 249 – 274.

It’s been very hard for me to find sources, so far, on the regular (i.e. non-political) police during the mid nineteenth century, but this gives a good picture of how the system originated.

Lee, W. L. Melville (William Lauriston Melville). A history of police in England. London: 1901.

This is an extensive account of the history of the police in Britain, but I felt that the chapters concerning the nineteenth century would help give me some background as to why Rebecca McCoy places so much emphasis on the Russian police and why she makes the observations she does. It was published in 1901, which, I guess, isn’t ideal, but it seems to be right on topic.

Monas, Sidney. The Third Section: Police and Society in Russia under Nicholas I. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1961.

This is a book about the police system under Nicholas I, tsar of Russia at the time of the Crimean war. He actually established “The Third Section,” which was a system of political police. The system of spies, censorship and police made a huge impression on Rebecca McCoy and plays into her characterization of Russia’s level of civilization.

O'loughlin, Katrina '“Having lived much in the world”: inhabitation, embodiment and English women travellers' representations of russia in the eighteenth century', Women's Writing 8 (2001): 419 — 440.

This article is older than the Cross article, and, as a result, still refers to the author as “a lady,” but it compares An Englishwoman in Russia to accounts from the 18^th century. O’loughlin makes an interesting argument about women and how the body functions in their travel accounts. She also argues that Rebecca McCoy viewed the Russians as a race whereas 18^th century travelers were more concerned with rank and mannerisms.

Wolff, Larry. Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment.Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1994.

Wolff gives an extensive account of the development of European attitudes toward Eastern Europe, and how “Eastern Europe” became a reified entity (kind of like Hentsch’s discussion of the Orient this week). I think it will be very useful in understanding my source.

Background/Textbooks

Polunov, Alexander. Russian in the Nineteenth Century: Autocracy, Reform, and Social Change, 1814-1914. Edited by Thomas C. Owen and Larissa G. Zakharova. Translated by Marshall S. Shatz. New York: Sharpe, 2005.

This is a pretty solid textbook about nineteenth century Russia, just for overview/background. It gives political history, which is relevant to my source.

Wirtschafter, Elise K. Russia’s Age of Serfdom 1649-1861. Blackwell Publishing: Massachusettes, 2008.

This is a textbook that focuses on serfdom, which is useful for background on when the account discusses serfdom in Russia.

Francis, Mark and Morrow, John. A history of English political thought in the nineteenth century. London : Duckworth, 1994.

This will be useful for me to understand where Rebecca McCoy is coming from in terms of her ideas of Enlightenment and civilization, which are very influenced by her perceptions of the Russian state.