Year: 1914
Author: John Clarence Lee
Genre: History of Russia, Memoirs
Publisher: John Lane Company / John Lane, The Bodley Head / Bell & Cockbum
English language
Format: PDF, DjVu
Number of pages: 268 pages.
The author rode the following route: Shanghai - Harbin - transfer in Harbin - Irkutsk (2 days) - stop in Tomsk for a few days - Moscow.
Notes were published in 1914; most likely they were written a year or two earlier, that is, they describe the peak of pre-war Russia: The Japanese war is over, the Stolypin reforms are carried out, Tsarist Russia, in many ways, reached its peak.
The society itself is clearly very class-oriented: parallel pyramids from the state and the bureaucracy, the business class and the expats, the intelligentsia, and, in fact, the peasants and the "lumpen proletarians" who have joined them, are clearly built.
The author compares Russian peasants to the blacks of the United States in the literal sense of the word. From her point of view, they poorly monitor hygiene, look bad and have bad faces, often behave aggressively, many of them can not find themselves in life, and even more characteristic - they practically segregate.
The book clearly describes the division of classes: people of different classes can go in the car and not talk to each other. Parallel to this, she claims. on the one hand, the state feeds the poor and sick peasants, giving them bread rations, and hires doctors for them, on the other hand, education even in primary school is paid, and class registration is quite dense.
Let us look at the intelligentsia.
It should be noted that the author spoke very warmly of all the people from the intellectual circles with whom she crossed during the journey. It is often annoyed by the military, who began to attract attention by twisting the mustache or pestering the ladies in the streets, merchants (not only Russians) who were beginning to paint, telling how they dragged Chinese silks and laces through customs without paying duties, but it has never been irritated by intellectuals.
She notes with what passion they approached the acquisition of new knowledge. She describes how the "president" of Tomsk University talked to her about the new greenhouse, about the fact that the house for professors is so close to the building that it's time to go into the office - it's to cross the road, that nobody paid attention to her at the lecture , since everyone was too absorbed in the learning process, and in general about the atmosphere itself. The library, the museum and the university, she is very impressed - despite the fact that the standard for comparison at that time was not at all low.
Professor clearly is not on the crooked position, to which she came to the present time. "Intellectuals" of that time in no way are perceived as "botanists" or "hamsters" - it is a respected and well-off part of society, including school teachers.
Such an interesting society.
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