Citizen Countess now available in paperback!
Citizen Countess: Sofia Panina and the Fate of Revolutionary Russia
“Feminist aristocrat, social-minded philanthropist, female cabinet minister, ‘class enemy,’ rootless émigré, US citizen! Sofia Panina’s story, embodying revolutionary Russia’s liberal dreams, abounds in contradictions. Its twists and turns and her own dramatic fate are vividly brought to life in Lindenmeyr’s brilliant feat of scholarly detective work. A compelling and illuminating read!”
- Laura Engelstein, Henry S. McNeil Professor Emerita of Russian History, Yale University
“Citizen Countess is the first English-language study of Panina’s life, but it is also much more than a biography: it explores the worlds of pre-revolutionary Petrograd, revolutionary politics, the dislocation of the civil war, and the life of the Russian emigration in both Europe and America. Adele Lindenmeyr contextualizes Panina’s experiences with reference to scholarship in many different fields, giving wider insights into, for example, divorce and homosexuality in pre-revolutionary society, higher education for women in the 1890s, and émigré life in New York and California in the 1930s and 1940s.”
– American Historical Review
“Wonderful job. Great research and solid writing. A real pleasure.”
- Richard G. Robbins, Professor Emeritus of History, University of New Mexico, author of Overtaken by the Night: One Russian's Journey through Peace, War Revolution, and Terror