The Lives of Sofia Panina, Russian Citizen-Countess, 1871-1956

FAIN: FB-53760-08

Adele Lindenmeyr
Villanova University (Villanova, PA 19085-1478)

My project uses biography to understand the generation that made the Russian Revolution. Sofia Panina was one of Russia's greatest heiresses and a pioneering social reformer. She rose to unusual political prominence in 1917 when she became the only woman minister in the Provisional Government, then the defendant in the Bolsheviks' first political trial. Fleeing Russia in 1920, she contributed to the development of international refugee relief and emigre institutions. My book is the first scholarly effort to reconstruct Panina's life from widely scattered archival sources in Russia, Europe, and the U.S. I analyze her significance as a woman who constructed innovative institutions while resisting social and gender conventions. My book also examines why she has been appropriated as a political symbol at times of transition, both in the past and in Russia today. The audience for my book includes historians of Russia, women, and reform movements, and general readers.

Associated Products

“’The First Woman in Russia’: Countess Sofia Panina and Women’s Political Participation in the Revolutions of 1917” (2016), 159-82. (Article)
Title: “’The First Woman in Russia’: Countess Sofia Panina and Women’s Political Participation in the Revolutions of 1917” (2016), 159-82.
Author: Adele Lindenmeyr
Abstract: The unique political career of philanthropist Countess Sofia Panina in 1917 provides insight into why so few women played prominent roles in the Revolution, and what kinds of roles were open to them. Panina could be found in almost all of Petrograd’s major power centers: the Kadet Central Committee, the Petrograd Duma, and the Provisional Government, where she was the only female assistant minister. Her political involvement before October was mainly limited to the feminine sphere of education and social service. After the Bolshevik takeover, however, she turned the connections and status she had achieved through government and party service into a leading role in the anti-bolshevik opposition movement.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/22102388
Access Model: open access
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Modern Russian History and Historiography
Publisher: Brill

“Building a Civil Society One Brick at a Time: People’s Houses and Worker Enlightenment in Late Imperial Russia” (Article)
Title: “Building a Civil Society One Brick at a Time: People’s Houses and Worker Enlightenment in Late Imperial Russia”
Author: Adele Lindenmeyr
Abstract: This article approaches the question of the viability of civil society in late imperial Russia by examining the movement to create people’s houses, which resembles in significant ways similar movements in Europe and the US to establish institutions providing the urban working class with education and entertainment. The article takes an in-depth look at one particular institution, Ligovsky People’s House, founded in St. Petersburg in 1903 by a young heiress, Countess Sofia Panina. The article argues that people’s houses were an integral part of a growing public sphere in late imperial Russia, one that was created by educated elites but also reshaped by working people themselves to serve their needs and ambitions.
Year: 2012
Primary URL: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/663091
Primary URL Description: Journal of Modern History website
Access Model: subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Modern History 84, No. 1 (March 2012), 1-39.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press

“The Countess and the Soldier’s Wife: How the Great War Transformed Women: Petrograd 1914-1917” (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: “The Countess and the Soldier’s Wife: How the Great War Transformed Women: Petrograd 1914-1917”
Author: Adele Lindenmeyr
Abstract: The presentation offered a new understanding of the effects of World War I on Russian women by examining relief to victims of the war on the home front, particularly the system of state allowances paid to the wives and families of soldiers. The provision of war-related relief emancipated and radicalized both the upper- and middle-class women who administered the system, and the soldiers’ wives they interacted with.
Date Range: September 28, 2015 (Penn State) - October 2, 2015 (Harvard)
Location: Pennsylvania State University History Department; Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University

"Countess Sofia Vladimirovna Panina in the History of Russian Philanthropy and Democracy" (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: "Countess Sofia Vladimirovna Panina in the History of Russian Philanthropy and Democracy"
Author: Adele Lindenmeyr
Abstract: Countess Sofia Vladimirovna Panina deserves attention as an individual whose significance is considerable not only for modern Russian social and political history, but also for the history of social reform, women’s rights, and humanitarian aid to refugees in the 20th century. This paper provided an overview of several of the events that had the most influence on her life, and analyzed her transformation from a wealth heiress into a liberal and a democrat.
Date Range: May 29-31, 2011
Location: Moscow, the Solzhenitsyn Institute for the Study of the Russian Emigration

“The Self-Representation of a “New Woman”: Reading the Memoirs of Sofia Panina” (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “The Self-Representation of a “New Woman”: Reading the Memoirs of Sofia Panina”
Author: Adele Lindenmeyr
Abstract: This paper analyses the ways Countess Sofia Panina represented herself in various autobiographical writings over the course of her life. It explores the usefulness of archetype of the “New Woman” of the fin-de-siecle in understanding Panina’s self-representation. Although her life was repeatedly disrupted by family conflict, war, and revolution, Panina’s autobiographical writings consistently portray her as the mistress of her fate, an autonomous, active woman who made her own moral choices.
Date: 11/16/2009
Conference Name: Annual Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies

Countess Sofia V. Panina and the Russian Émigré Community in New York, 1939-1956 (Book Section)
Title: Countess Sofia V. Panina and the Russian Émigré Community in New York, 1939-1956
Author: Adele Lindenmeyr
Editor: Marina Adamovich
Editor: Tatiana Smorodinskaya
Editor: Natalia Ermolaev
Abstract: This paper reconstructs and analyzes the experiences of Countess Sofia Panina as a member of the Russian emigre community in New York City during and after World War I, in particular her role in the creation of the Tolstoy Fund and the organization of refugee relief.
Year: 2012
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/russian-emigration-at-the-crossroads-of-the-xx-xxi-centuries-proceedings-of-the-international-conference-dedicated-to-the-70th-anniversary-of-the-new-review-novyi-zhurnal-russkaia-emigratsiia-na-perekrestkakh-xx-xxi-vekov-mat
Primary URL Description: WorldCat
Access Model: open access
Publisher: The New Review / Noviy Zhurnal
Book Title: Russian emigration at the crossroads of the XX-XXI centuries : proceedings of the International Conference dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the New Review / Novyi Zhurnal
ISBN: 9780985632205

Countess S. V. Panina, Her Life and Fate (Book Section)
Title: Countess S. V. Panina, Her Life and Fate
Author: Adele Lindenmeyr
Editor: Marina Sorokina
Abstract: An overview of the life of Countess Sofia Panina, her contributions to the history of social reform and liberalism in late imperial Russia.
Year: 2012
Access Model: open access
Publisher: Belyi Veter (Moscow)
Book Title: Mysliashchie miry rossiiskogo liberalizma: grafinia Sof’ia Vladimirovna Panina (1871-1956). Materialy Mezhdunarodnogo nauchnogo kollokviuma, Moskva, 29-31 maia 2011 g. (The Intellectual Worlds of Russian Liberalism: Countess Sofia Vladimirovna Panina)
ISBN: 9785905714061

Citizen Countess: Sofia Panina and the Fate of Revolutionary Russia (Book)
Title: Citizen Countess: Sofia Panina and the Fate of Revolutionary Russia
Author: Adele Lindenmeyr
Abstract: A biography of Countess Sofia Panina (1871-1956).
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/citizen-countess-sofia-panina-and-the-fate-of-revolutionary-russia/oclc/1090280620&referer=brief_results
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780299325305
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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