Citizen Countess: Sofia Panina and the Fate of Revolutionary Russia
Published by: University of Wisconsin Press
Release Date: November 12, 2019
ISBN13: 978-0299325305
Available for Purchase: Amazon, Barnes & Noble​
​
Countess Sofia Vladimirova Panina once counted among the best-known members of her generation. Few works by Western historians have mentioned her name, and her extraordinary life has never been written—until now.
Countess Sofia Panina lived a remarkable life. Born into an aristocratic family in imperial Russia, she found her true calling in improving the lives of urban workers. Her passion for social service and reputation as the "Red Countess" led her to political prominence after the fall of the Romanovs. She became the first woman to hold a cabinet position and the first political prisoner tried by the Bolsheviks. The upheavals of the 1917 Revolution forced her to flee her beloved country, but instead of living a quiet life in exile she devoted the rest of her long life to humanitarian efforts on behalf of fellow refugees.
​
Based on Adele Lindenmeyr's detailed research in dozens of archival collections, Citizen Countess establishes Sofia Panina as an astute eyewitness to and passionate participant in the historical events that shaped her life. Her experiences shed light on the evolution of the European nobility, women's emancipation and political influence of the time, and the fate of Russian liberalism.
Reviews
“In Citizen Countess, Adele Lindenmeyr centres this fascinating character in the history of late imperial and revolutionary Russia, as well as within broader histories of philanthropy and women’s political activism. In this exceptionally well-researched monograph, Lindenmeyr draws on correspondence, personal papers, newspapers, and police and institutional records from archives and libraries in Russia, France, Great Britain and the United States, as well as a wealth of published and unpublished autobiographical manuscripts, to provide a rigorous, sensitive and highly engaging study of her subject. Overall, Citizen Countess provides a fresh and vital perspective on late imperial and revolutionary Russia told through the eyes of a witness and participant. This important book will be enjoyed by students, scholars and anybody with an interest in the history of this turbulent period.”
​
The Russian Review
"Adele Lindenmeyr has produced an excellent biography of Sofia Panina. Her dedication to uncovering sources about Panina, whose name tends to be mentioned only in passing in histories of the Revolution, led to a discovery of caches of personal materials belonging to the countess which until this point were unknown…. Lindenmeyr’s biography has brought Panina’s sun out from the clouds of historical obscurity, but has also shone its on light on numerous other impressive figures who inhabited Panina’s world and deserve further historical study in their own right."
​
"Dr. Adele Lindenmeyr Brings This Amazing Story to Life"
​
"As an advocate for the working class, the world’s first female cabinet minister and an unapologetic feminist in revolutionary Russia, Countess Sofia Panina was a trailblazing figure in a time of dramatic social upheaval. Now, 100 years after her adopted home of the United States gave women the right to vote, the fascinating life story of "Russia's Jane Addams" has been told in full detail for the first time.
​
Citizen Countess follows Panina’s journey from her upbringing in an aristocratic Russian family to her philanthropy and political office to eventual imprisonment as a “class enemy” and forced emigration abroad. The book weaves through the many contradictions of her life, painting a nuanced portrait of a woman who was at once an aristocrat and a progressive; the first woman in the world to hold a cabinet position and the first political prisoner to face the Bolsheviks’ revolutionary tribunal.
“Her life documents the successful struggle of so many women in the modern era to emancipate themselves from restrictive class and gender norms,” says Dr. Adele Lindenmeyr, Panina’s biographer, an expert in Russian history and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Villanova University. The Moscow Times spoke with Dr. Lindenmeyr about the citizen countess herself and what women of today can learn from her story."
​
American Historical Review
Charlotte Alston, Northumbria 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. Lindenmeyr also points out, however, that it is hardly fair to interpret Panina’s life only within the framework of the Russian Revolution or the advancement of women in politics. She was her own person and made her own choices, and Lindenmeyr keeps Panina’s agency at the forefront of the narrative throughout this book."