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 aims to increase public awareness of Egypt. It is divided into four chapters dealing with ancient monuments, the pyramids, the Sphinx and the River Nile; the inhabitants, their way of life and the main cities (Alexandria and Cairo); the Suez Canal, Aswan and the Island of Philae; and the climate, flora and fauna of the desert. In her treatise, Pimenova references works by travellers and explorers such as Aleksandr Eliseev and Henry Stanley. The volume is illustrated with thirteen drawings.

Bio

Emiliia Pimenova (née Petrichenko) was a Russian writer and translator who was particularly dedicated to popular and children’s literature. Her father was a member of the Imperial Russian Navy, and her mother was a translator and journalist of noble origin. During her childhood, she moved around a lot due to her father’s profession. In 1868, while living on the Ashuradeh Island in the Caspian Sea, she met Henry Stanley and accompanied him on an expedition to the Caspian region as a translator in 1869. She later enrolled at the Saint Petersburg Military Medical Academy to study midwifery and practised the profession in a village near the capital for a few years. After leaving her husband, she moved to Saint Petersburg with her children, where she began working as a translator and journalist for various periodicals. An advocate of women’s rights and emancipation, she was also involved in revolutionary movements, especially the Mensheviks. She published extensively on socio-political topics, geography, and ethnography with the aim of educating the masses and raising awareness of societal issues. As well as writing her own books, she also translated works by H. G. Wells, E. Salgari, K. Hamsun, J. Conrad, R. L. Stevenson and H. Taine.

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.