The Princess of Siberia. The Story of Maria Volkonsky and the Decembrist Exiles

London: Robin Clark Ltd, 1985. - 339 с. На английском языке.Drawing on unpublished archives of the Volkonsky and Rayevsky families, Mrs Sutherland tells her heroine’s story with sympathy and verve. She has travelled in her footsteps in Siberia, and evokes its vast, still largely untamed landscape admirably.
The Princess of Siberia is the amazing story of Princess Maria Volkonsky, wife of one of the leaders of the 1825 Decembrist Rising, and a legend in her own lifetime. Against her family’s advice, this darling of the Tsarist court braved 4,000 miles of Russian winter to join her husband in exile.
Full of romantic ideas, her Byronic dream died under the reality of conditions. But she and the other wives protected their husbands from the prison authorities, and eventually created a curious oasis of Russian civilization amid the Siberian desert. Immortalized by Pushkin, the extraordinary story of a heroic woman is told here for the first time by a brilliant biographer.