Pimenova, E.K.: The Country of Sphinxes and Pyramids. Egypt

Title

Strana sfinksov i piramid. Egipet, Sankt-Peterburg 1906

The Country of Sphinxes and Pyramids. Egypt

Keywords

Summary

This short essay is intended to spread knowledge on Egypt amongst the general public. It is divided into four chapters, dealing with: ancient monuments, pyramids, the sphinx and the river Nile; inhabitants, their way of life and the main cities (Alexandria, Cairo); the Suez canal, Aswan and the island of Philae; climate, flora, fauna, the desert. In her treatise, Pimenova quotes works by travellers and explorers, like Aleksandr Eliseev and Henry Stanley. The volume is illustrated with thirteen drawings.

Bio

Emiliia Pimenova (née Petrichenko) was a Russian writer and translator, especially committed to popular and children’s literature. Her father was a counter admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy, while her mother, of noble origins, was a translator and journalist. During her childhood, she moved quite a lot due to her father’s profession. In 1868, while living on the island of Ashuradeh on the Caspian Sea, she met Henry Stanley, and followed him on an expedition in the Caspian region as a translator (1869). She later enrolled at the Saint Petersburg Military Medical Academy to study as a midwife, and practised the profession for a few years in a village near the capital. Having left her husband, she moved with her children to Saint Petersburg, where she started to work as a translator and journalist for various periodicals. An advocate of women’s rights and emancipation, she was also close to the revolutionary movements and, especially, to the Mensheviks. She published extensively on socio-political topics, geography and ethnography, with the intent of educating the masses and raising awareness on societal issues. In addition to her authored volumes, she also translated works by H.G. Wells, E. Salgari, K. Hamsun, J. Conrad, R.L. Stevenson, H. Taine and others.

Sources

“Pimenova (Emiliia Kirillovna)”, in Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ Brokgauza i Efrona, dop. t. 2, Sankt-Peterburg 1906, p. 409;

E. Pimenova, Dni minuvshie. Vospominaniia E.K. Pimenovoi, Moskva-Leningrad 1929;

“Pimenova Emiliia Kirillovna”, in Russkie pisateli. 1800-1917, t. 4, Moskva 1999, p. 604-606.

A.F.