The journal of Marie Bashkirtseff / Translated, with an introduction by Mathilde Blind. Volume v.1 1890 [Leather Bound]

by Marie Bashkirtseff

Leather Binding on Spine and Corners with Golden Leaf Printing on round Spine (extra customization on request like complete leather, Golden Screen printing in Front, Color Leather, Colored book etc.) Reprinted in 2018 with the help of original edition published long back [1890]. This book is printed in black & white, sewing binding for longer life, printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, we processed each page manually and make them readable but in some cases some pages which are blur or missing or black spots. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. We found this book important for the readers who want to know more about our old treasure so we brought it back to the shelves. Hope you will like it and give your comments and suggestions. - English, - Volume v.1, Pages 492. EXTRA 10 DAYS APART FROM THE NORMAL SHIPPING PERIOD WILL BE REQUIRED FOR LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. COMPLETE LEATHER WILL COST YOU EXTRA US$ 25 APART FROM THE LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. {FOLIO EDITION IS ALSO AVAILABLE.} Complete The journal of Marie Bashkirtseff / Translated, with an introduction by Mathilde Blind. Volume v.1 1890 Bashkirtseff, Marie, -.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, Art, Russia, Autobiography, Diary

492 pages, Leather Bound

First published June 1, 1997

About the author

Born Maria Konstantinovna Bashkirtseva in Gavrontsi near Poltava, to a wealthy noble family, she grew up abroad, traveling with her mother across most of Europe. Educated privately, she studied painting in France at the Académie Julian, one of the few establishments that accepted female students. The Académie attracted young women from all over Europe and the United States. One fellow student was Louise Breslau, who Bashkirtseff viewed as her only rival. Bashkirtseff would go on to produce a remarkable body of work in her short lifetime, the most famous being the portrait of Paris slum children titled The Meeting and In the Studio, (shown here) a portrait of her fellow artists at work. Unfortunately, a large number of Bashkirtseff's works were destroyed by the Nazi's during World War II.

From the age of 13, Bashkirtseff began keeping a journal, and it is for this that she is most famous. Her personal account of the struggles of women artists is documented in her published journals, which are a revealing story of the bourgeoisie. Titled, I Am the Most Interesting Book of All, her popular diary is still in print today. The diary was cited by an American contemporary, Mary MacLane, whose own shockingly confessional diary drew inspiration from Bashkirtseff's. Her letters, consisting of her correspondence with the writer Guy de Maupassant, were published in 1891.

Dying of tuberculosis at the age of 25, Bashkirtseff lived just long enough to become an intellectual powerhouse in Paris in the 1880s. A feminist, in 1881, using the nom de plume "Pauline Orrel," she wrote several articles for Hubertine Auclert's feminist newspaper, La Citoyenne. One of her famous quotes is: Let us love dogs, let us love only dogs! Men and cats are unworthy creatures.
She is buried in Cimetière de Passy, Paris, France. Her monument is a full-sized artist studio that has been declared a historic monument by the government of France.

Reviews

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marie's life was a veritable tour de force. I read this as a child and reread it multiple times afterwards. Don't think I'll ever stop. At the latest reread I decided to review it.
It's a rare gem, an endless well of inspiration and motivation to do anything and everything that counts.

She was of Russian noble descent (with some Tatar bloodlines), born in Malorossia (which we know as Ukraine), lived for most of her short but fruitful life in France. Even though she died at 25 (and was ill for several years before that), she managed enough for several lifetimes.

This is a publication of her diaries, which she started at 12, showing us her astounding life. She had beautiful writing style and could possibly have become an awesome writer, had she had some time, any time to mature into it. Yes, she dreamed of love and fame and happiness. Therefore she spent her life working to make her dreams come true. I don't know where she got all that dopamine needed to work as much as she did! And the talents - don't even get me started on them! She had and employed them all! She might have had a Timeturner, after all (or some other time-travelling equipment!)

At 13 she decided that she needed to study 9 hours per day to learn everything she wanted to. So she prepared a learning program for herself and followed it up. This led to her obtaining classical education, involving fine arts, philosophy, history, literature, anatomy, physics, music.

She had full mastery of several languages (old ones: Latin and Greek, contemporary ones: Italian, English, German, Russian and French, of course). Most of these she mastered by the time she was 15.

She was a musician, had beautiful voice (before the illness) and played piano, organ, violin, guitar, zither, mandolin and harp. By 15 it was clear Marie had wonderful voice and perfect ear. It seemed opera might be her calling in life. But by 16 she started losing this all (voice and hearing and strength) due to tuberculosis onset. It was a death verdict, actually, then. So... she, no she did not stop at that point. Instead she went on to put more emphasis on her painting. She died an accomplished painter (141 paintings survived her).

Some people (including Leo Tolstoy) have had the audacity to criticise her journals for their vibrantly idealistic nature. Some even don't like that Marie wrote about herself in there and that she seemingly didn't pull the punches, honestly saying things as she thought of them. I think they are missing a lot of points (envy and limited ability to understand things out of their personal experiences might have to do with it as well):
- The journals are about their author, that's only natural. Her ideas are really sensible on a lot of accounts. And one can't really be dull, being such a genius.
- These journals are written by a teen girl who becomes a young adult and then dies very young. She had no time to mature and become the dull adult we would be content with.
- I'd like to see the critics to rival at least a third of Marie's accomplishments, at her age, and only then to go on critisizing her. Many people during their whole lives achieve a lot less than she did during her 25 years of life.

Marie was a bright star. It's a pity she left this early. God bless her soul.
PS. I have no idea WHY on earth this edition was supplied with the 'I am the most interesting book of all' title. There was no such wording in the French original text and the Russian translation editions (that I saw! and I saw 4 different editions, apart from this one!). This is a DIARY not a book with vain inscriptions and should be published as such. The editors should not have added such insipid title to documentary material. Appalling!

Some of her works (most have been lost in World Wars):





















Autoportraits:




Her last, unfinished work, 'Spring'. She did not live to see it, passing away in October 1884.


I won't be quoting much. To create an adequate quotescape I would need to copy-paste every word to here.
Q:
Aujourd'hui,j'ai eu une grande discussion avec mon professeur de dessin, M. Binsa je lui ai dit que je voulais étudier sérieusement, commencer par le commencement que ce que je faisais ne m'apprenait rien, que c'est du temps perdu, que je veux dès lundi commencer le dessin.(c)
Q:
J'adore la peinture, la sculpture, l'art enfin partout où il se trouve. (c)
Q:
L'hirondelle s'arrange son nid, le lion sa fosse, comment l'homme, si supérieur aux animaux, ne veut-il rien faire? (c)
Q:
J'ai choisi la musique que je dois emporter, quelques Jivres l'Encyclopédie, un volume de Platon, Dante, Arioste, Shakespeare, puis une quantité de romans anglais de Bulwer, de Collins et de Dickens. (c)
Q:
Je ne connais parfaitement aucune langue. La mienne ne m'est familière que dans les rapports domestiques. J'ai quitté la Russie à l'âge de dix ans, je parle bien l'italien et l'anglais. Je pense et j'écris en français et encore je crois que je fais des fautes d'orthographe. Et souvent les mots me manquent et je trouve avec un dépit à nul autre pareil ma pensée exprimée par un écrivain célèbre, avec facilité et grâce.(c)
Q:
Plus je lis, plus j'ai envie de lire, et plus j'apprends, plus j'ai de choses à savoir. Je ne dis pas cela pour imiter certain sage de l'antiquité. Je sens ce que je dis.(c)
Q:
Mais je ne veux pas me marier, je veux encore être libre et surtout étudier: j'ai trouvé ma voie.(c)
Q:
Je suis mécontente de moi ce soir'et je ne sais pourquoi en particulier. (c)
Q:
Je suis décidée à rester à Paris, où j'étudierai et d'où pendant l'été j'irai m'amuser aux eaux. Toutes les fantaisies sont épuisées; la Russie m'a fait défaut, et je suis bel et bien corrigée. Etje sens que le moment est enfin~a venu de m'arrêter. Avec mes dispositions, en deux années je rattraperai le temps perdu. (c)
Q:
Je ne veux pas qu'on croie qu'une fois fini d'étudier; je ne ferai que danser et m'habiller non. Mais ayant fini les études de l'enfant, je m'occuperai sérieusement de peinture, de musique, de chant. J'ai du talent pour tout cela et beaucoup. Commecela soulage d'écrire! je suis plus calme. (c)
Q:
J'ai commencé à arranger mes heures d'études, je finirai demain Neuf heures d'étudespar jour. O mon Dieu, donnez-moi de l'énergie, du courage pour étudier j'en ai, mais j'en veux encore. (c)
Q:
Paul ne veut, rien faire; il n'étudie pas, il n'est pas assez sérieux, il ne comprend pas qu'il doit étudier, cela me chagrine. Mon Dieu, inspire-lui la sagesse, fais-lui comprendre qu'il doit étudier, inspire-lui un peu d'ambition, un peu, juste assez pour être quelque chose. Mon Dieu entendsma prière, dirige-le, garde-le contre tous ces mécréantsqui le déroutent (c)
Q:
Je travaille le latin depuis février de cette année, nous sommes en juillet. En cinq mois, j'ai fait, au dire de Brunet, ce qu'on fait au lycée en trois ans. C'est prodigieux! Jamais je ne me pardonnerai d'avoir perdu cette année, ce sera un chagrin immense,je ne l'oublierai jamais! (c)
Q:
J'étais devant l'homme et un instant après nous étions tous au salon. Il parlait italien, et j'ai parlé cette langue avec une facilité dont je suis étonnée.(c)
Q:
Je lis Horace et Tibulle. Ce dernier ne parle que d'amour et ça me va. Et puis j'ai le texte français en face du latin; cela m'exerce (c)
Q:
Puis j'ai lu Horace, La Bruyère et un troisième encore.
Je crains pour mes yeux. En peignant,j'ai dû m'arrèter plusieurs fois, n'y voyant plus. Je les use trop, car je passe tout mon temps à peindre, lire et écrire.
Ce soir, j'ai repassé mes résumés de classiques, cela m'a occupée. Et puis j'ai découvert un ouvrage très intéressant, sur Confucius, traduction latine et française. Il n'y a rien comme un esprit occupé; le travail combat tout, surtout un travail de tête.
Je ne comprends pas les femmes qui passent leurs loisirs à tricoter ou à broder, les mains occupées et la tête oisive. Il doit venir un tas de pensées inutiles, dangereuses, et lorsqu'on a quelque chose à coeur particulièrement, la pensée s'appesantit sur cette chose et cela produit des effets déplorables. (c)
Q:
Enfin je travaille avec des artistes, de vrais artistes qui ont exposé au Salon et dont on paye les tableaux et les portraits, qui donnent même des leçons. (c)

PS Photo of Marie:

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marie Bashkirtseff lived her short life between Russia and France in the last half of the nineteenth century. She died in 1884, at the age of 25, of tuberculosis. She was born to a Russian noble family who, by Marie's time, was involved in scandalous litigation and suffered money trouble as a result. Well, "money trouble" for a noble European family, that is. They still lived in beautiful villas, traveled around Europe, and could afford a host of tutors for Marie, a well-educated young woman. Marie began keeping a journal at the age of 13 and did so until her death.

Her journal has been published in a variety of ways. Initially, the only portions available had been selected by Marie's mother, whose selection (and omission) certainly presented a somewhat edited version of her daughter's life and personality. The original journal was discovered in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France sometime later and the extent to which Marie's family had edited her journal became clear. Now, happily, her complete and unedited journal is available in a number of languages. I recently finished Volume I, which ends in May 1876 with the 17-year-old Marie living in Nice.

At the risk of stating the perfectly obvious, there is something unsettlingly intimate about reading the journal of a real human being, who kept the journal daily as a record of their lived experience, who changed from day to day, the record of which change the journal itself comprises. Every day, in every interaction, people take pains to present themselves the way they wish to be perceived. Of course a journal is perhaps only a heightened attempt at this self-presentation. However, over years of journaling (and, I think, especially over the tumultuous years of one's adolescence), a very nuanced picture emerges of our author, a picture not completely within the control of Marie herself. For my part, I find Marie superficial, greedy, materialistic, selfish, arrogant and vain. However, I also find her ambitious, driven, talented, intelligent, self-reflective and astute. The Marie that seems to breathe from the pages of her journal feels so alive, she cannot be reduced to only one set of personality traits. She is a real person and not merely a character.

The reality of her narrative takes on special poignancy at certain moments when Marie seems to see into her own future, a future we already know. In more than one spot, she observes her own declining health or foretells an early death. Additionally, Marie would reread her older entries and provide more current commentary. At 17 she wrote of her voice instructor's praise, saying she would be singing professionally by 20. Margin notes from an older Marie tell us that, at 20, she could hardly speak and, at 22, she was deaf.

The fact of Marie's journaling, and the way she would revisit previous entries, speaks a little to her self-absorption, but also quite a bit to her bravery in self-reflection. By setting down her story as she lived it, and then by revisiting this story periodically, Marie forced herself into face-to-face contact with earlier incarnations of herself. For every road we travel, we must neglect at least one other. Marie's willingness to revisit herself at certain crossroads, or at moments that would become failures, indicates an intrepid personality who does not let regret of unrealized paths mask their instructiveness to forward living.

All in all, I have been completed charmed by Marie. I started to view her as a friend, someone whose actions and thoughts, by intervals, amuse me or annoy me (or both). I sometimes identify with her and sometimes am alienated by her. I root for her success and, sometimes, for her comeuppance. Marie Bashkirtseff was, in any case, a woman to be reckoned with and I cannot wait to start Volume II.

[Kateri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was fascinating. I only have the early part of the journal, when Marie is 12 and 13. I was alternately delighted with her insight and language, and possessed of an overwhelming urge to kick her down a flight of stairs. Her language is deceptively mature and sophisticated, but she is most certainly 12 years old - in thrall to absurd passions, socially precocious and immature, entirely self-absorbed. And uncomfortably reminiscent, in tone if not erudition, of my own journals at the same age. I don't dare read them for fear of kicking myself down the stairs.

Here she is convinced she will be a singer, but according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Ba...) she became an accomplished painter and sculptor. I don't have the rest of the journals, but I'll track them down to find out how she grows up. Also, apparently, a collection of letters, including a correspondence with Guy de Maupassant.

Overarching themes:

I want to be adored, and I think no one worthy of my adoration.
I love Nice; I hate Nice.

Quotes:

"It is soothing to write or communicate one's ideas to somebody."

"Everything I wrote previously now seems nonsense."

"I went in only a minute to ask Mamma something, in my character of a little girl."

"These transports overwhelm me at the mere sight of his name, for I am not sure of my happiness, and I ardently desire it. But when we have what we desire and love, we are calm."

"I don't want to wait any longer. I shall die if I stay in this furnace."

"How happy we are when we know what we want! But an idea has come to me - I believe I am ugly. It is frightful!"

"No doubt I shall be depressed tomorrow, for this evening I am certainly on stilts." (I LOVE THIS.)

"My head is heavy and my eyes are closing, yet at the same time I want to wrote more, the pen glides easily over the paper and, though I might have nothing to say, I go on for the pleasure of filling the white pages and hearing the pleasant scratching of the pen."

"I am not successful with serious poetry."

"What credit is it to conquer dunces?"

"Oh! There is nothing like the rolling of a carriage to give ideas." (Magical.)

"I feel sad, unnerved, I should like to smile and to weep. No, really, love is full of interest."

"Everything can be pardoned except scorn."

"What amuses me is to see a serious woman play pranks with me."

"I am not ill-natured at heart, I am only a little crazy."

"I believe I am uttering insolent things to God."

"Come, what was I going to write? That I am calm and agitated, sorrowful and joyous, jealous and indifferent."

"I am no longer drowsy. I am in a hurry to be everywhere. I want to live at full speed again."

"What is perfectly simple when written is no longer so when read aloud."

"I have used every expression, and am dying because I cannot make myself understood."

[Luke · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a pity that people are still a little stupid and don't yet look at women as they ought to. Their attitude will prevent me from doing some brilliant deed or occupying a notable place in the government, or even becoming the president of a republic—France, for instance. But no, that's too easy. In France each worthless talker counts for something and can be the president. But I want to become something in reward for my services, not for a fine speech. (age 15)

From the age of fifteen, as recorded by the earliest portion of diary made available by this edition Marie Bashkirtseff had the strength of will, intensity of emotion, and the heights of ambition rarely equaled by someone of her youth, combined with being a highly interesting embodiment of Russia's obsession with France during this period. Unfortunately, she is also the type of person Burney, Austen, and others have satirized to such great effect during the period of drawing rooms: the one who traverses the globe in some of the ritziest places imaginable and occupies balcony seating to productions of some of the finest works of art and can write about nothing other than looking at and being looked at by others. So, as can be seen, such a combination can result in some mighty fine quotations, with an added element of remarkability stemming from the age of the author. However, that's barely a decent paragraph's worth of sentences out of four and a half hundred pages, and I sure was glad when it all ended. Learned a bit, to be sure, and I will be looking out for the second/subsequent volume(s), but not because I expect to find more of the same.

That the scientists who have discovered the rotation of the earth and the planets, their positions, and the truth about the sun have no religious beliefs surprises me. It seems to me that because they know more about the mysteries of the world, they should have the greatest faith.

Some say the play is immoral. Well, I think the contrary. At each intermission Mama was trying to point out the horrible things about it and gave me some moral talk in a roundabout way. That's the way parents destroy the confidence of their children.

The big problem with the advertisement presence for this work is much of what drew me to it is not here. True, the book description doesn't commit to anything completely outside the boundary of the chronological coverage, but when such occurs, the author profile is what I turn to, and the descriptions of the struggles of women artists; feminist articles; and reckoning with a chronic, and ultimately deadly, illness drew me as a moth to a flame. That, and the extremely high average rating made me think that I was in for a severely underread treat. Alas, I instead discovered that I can't stand people who literally cannot keep to a consistent opinion if it killed them, and I'm talking about alternatively loathing and loving three different cities/people/pastimes/etc within the space of a page of a single diary entry or paragraph, not evolving critical thought. There are tons of characters, tons of drama, tons of rich people problems involving lawsuits and family-ruining white men and the inability to be presented in society, and while the ridiculous numbers of nicknames were in some way mitigated by the index at the end, I didn't feel like bothering with it most of the time. My favorite instances were whenever she commented on women, literature, and certain venues of the world, as those were usually more relevant to my knowledge base and/or interesting in their own right. Between those few and far between instances were long stretches of not being invited to parties, buying dresses, and rhapsodizing about the latest boy/man toy in the most heterosexually nonsensical manner possible. A lot of readers of this obviously like that sort of thing, but I'm not one of them, and I'm not even sure whether more consistent footnotes/endnotes of some kind would have helped. The end result is something to which the epithets, derived from the site's book description, of "genius" and "self-absorbed" can both be applied in turn, and you can guess which camp I'm in most of the time.

Unfortunately, I am not rich enough to buy a husband. I'll buy one only when I've lost the hope of being bought myself. A husband is a luxury animal.

I am only seventeen and I have not yet studied. At twenty, if no accident has happened, I'll have a voice such as few have often heard. [Later, in the margin the diarist has added, "At twenty I am almost without a voice," and after this, "At twenty-two I am deaf."]

It's a real shame that I don't know what's going on with the rest of this particular rendition of Bashkirtseff's diaries. I see a second volume partaken in by one of the translators of this work, but the most fleshed out edition of it is on Kindle, and I'm not desperate enough in my reading to deal with any Amazon or ebook nonsense. The sheer wealth of Bashkirtseff's later years that such a read would afford me means I'd definitely pick it up in my usual spelunking fashion, my enthusiasm for an unknown authorial focus and writing style traded in for the knowledge that I can cope with it for hundreds of pages for the sake of the unique tidbits that I can extract along the way. Perhaps those comparisons to Woolf and Nin, so poor a fit with this first volume that I wondered whether the referencers had even read the two, would even be merited by that more mature content. I got to be honest, though, this was more tedious than anything else, and with my string of mostly two stars behind me, I'm rather sick of dealing with longer than average older works in translation in my reading. When it comes to the remainder of my challenge reads, I have plenty of substantial, old, and translated works, but the combination of all three is a rare one, so I'm hoping I can found my reads on more stable ground than I have been for some weeks now: even those who glory in delving in the unappreciated and underread need breaks.

I took a book of J. J. Rousseau's La Nouvelle Héloise, but after a few pages I was disgusted. As for Émile [Rousseau's book on education], I read it in honor of the Surprising One and found a few good ideas, but many useless dissertations.

I am not tormented by my conscience, but only by the fear of gossip. Besides, what is the use of being irreproachable, since people make up stories anyway? Amen. (age 18)

[Анна Рубцова]

She is not "russian girl", nor "russian painter" at all. She was born in ukrainian cossack family from Chuguiv town and first 12 years lived at Poltava city. She had ukrainian origin 100%. It's dirty culture expropriation.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrifying brilliant - this young woman's talent and energy made me feel dull and insipid, yet I do not want her life.

[El · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marie Bashkirtseff, a Russian girl transplanted to France at an early age, begins her diary when she is 14. The first volume (I am unsure if a second volume actually exists) begins in Nice and largely deals with her infatuation with the Duke of Hamilton who, as the classic story goes, has probably no idea she exists. Interspersed throughout her ongoing crushes over the years we learn about her family's scandalous history and gain a wonderful insight into the society in which she lived (no doubt by today's standards considered to be a little rich girl in a little rich world).

It's hard to say if Marie experienced all of which she wrote or if she was an imaginative young girl trying to become a young woman before she was allowed. Regardless she was ahead of her time in the sense of wanting her own freedom and what would later turn into an interest in feminism - she could recognize that there is no real freedom, and perhaps marriage would be the closest she would come to such a thing. However, she was self-absorbed and intelligent and expected her future husband to be worthy of her, rich, intelligent and, apparently, fat (certainly by a 19th-century definition) - as many of her contemporaries found it was easy enough to know what one wanted, but it was another thing to be allowed to get it.

At close to 500 pages I am impressed by how much Marie wrote over the first few years of her diary as the first volume ends in approximately her 16th year. In the couple years of her diary we see the early signs of the tuberculosis that ultimately kills her at 26. At that time her mother gained possession of the diary and took it apart, removing the more radical thoughts her daughter had put in her diary as well as the family's salacious details. It took translators and researchers until close to the end of the 20th centurey to be able to find all of the pieces (so far) and put them back to form what is this edition of Marie's diaries.

On a personal note there were not nearly enough photos throughout the book - we learn of her extensive studies and her interest in work; an online search of her name provides a large collection of her paintings which would have been interesting in the diary as well. Perhaps, however, as the paintings were created later in her life when she studied at the Academie Julian the art is found in the second volume (if it actually exists).

I took my time reading this, and I enjoyed it. But I can not say that her incessant whining and flightiness didn't bother me. Most times she wrote as if she were older than her stated age, so it was hard for me to remember that she really was just a typical teenager worthy of a John Hughes film.

[Klissia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Venho pensado muito neste maravilhoso diário e registro de uma época da Marie Bashkirtseff. Infantil e madura, franca e insolente, genuína e gentil,devota e acetica, sonhadora e pessimista, orgulhosa,arrogante, talentosa etc.Muitos adjetivos,muitas meninas ou mulheres. As mulheres são livres? Ontem e hoje tenho que concordar com Mary, ainda não.
Um diário realmente iluminante de uma breve vida, ela teria amado a virada do século. Arte,literatura, filosofia ,aforismo,meditações, Marie era um prodígio ela tinha sede de conhecimento, onde a educação feminina ainda era limitada. Seu diário é literatura pura, diria que a(os) escritoras de romances ou ficção histórica contemporaneos deveriam ler seu diário .

[Horner Cammons]

Marie Bashkirtseff's diary is one of the great journals of all time: a Russian girl, transplanted to France, begins a little diary at the age of fourteen. Eleven years later, upon her death, she has written thousands and thousands of pages, creating an obsessively detailed monument to her own life. ."..because I hope that I will be read...I am absolutely sincere.

[Jesica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful diary. It’s too bad more ppl don’t read this. Now I have to somehow get my hands on volume 2.

[Kim Sasso · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marie is right up their with Anais and Christina when it comes to inspiring me to keep a journal my whole life. She also really fed my love for history.

[Elen · Rating 5 out of 5]

To understand this girl correctly and not judge her too strictly one should have an image of Russian culture and first read Pushikin, Lermontov, Turgenev and other classics. But still Elizabeth Diyakonova`s (1974-1902) Diary or Russian Woman is better. She was also a talanted beautiful girl who died at 27.
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D...

[Heather]

This particular volume is made of the unedited translation of Marie Bashkirteff's journals (the original published version being highly edited by her 'proper' parents.) It's an interesting exploration into one girl's attempt to better herself against a backdrop of family squabbles. I really wish that there would be a Volume 2, but am not sure if it ever will be.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't the exact edition I'm reading -- I'm reading a copy out of my library's reference stacks, which according to the title page was printed in 1890! I posted a couple of photos on my tumblr, if you're into old books.

[Margaret Breidenbaugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an epic tale of upperclass life in Francophone-crazed Russia, with a cast of hundreds! I find the family trees to be quite helpful. Marie's obsession with detail reminds me how important it is to leave something of oneself behind, and her daring behavior brings out the rebel in me whenever I read her life account.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

when is the second volume coming out?? i'm dying here! not of tuberculosis, though. that was her.

[Monique De klonia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kon er niet door komen