Everyday Life of Fine Lady in Province (by Material of Letters of 1840-1850-ies of Ye. A. Solomirskaya, Ural Factory Owner’s Wife)

Abstract

On the basis of archival materials - letters of a metropolitan fine lady, wife of co-owner of Sysertsky plants (Perm province) Yekaterina Aleksandrovna Solomirskaya, written in the middle of the 19th century from the province (Sysertsky plant or Yekaterinburg) to her father in Moscow, the Moscow postal director A. Ya. Bulgakov, - daily life of a noblewoman, who grew up and shined in society, and subsequently trapped in the Ural province, is reconstructed. The process of adaptation of metropolitan lady to provincial life, the change of her value orientations, lifestyle, everyday matters, circle of friends and interests is discussed. The relevance of the work is due to the turn of world humanitarian knowledge to the anthropological paradigm of research, the desire to rethink approaches to the reconstruction of the past, close attention to the life and work of certain members of the upper class as carriers of cultural values of Russian society, as well as the unexplored daily life of the provincial nobility. Analysis of the Ural archival materials in these aspects refutes the well-established opinion that the nobles did not live in the Urals.

Keywords

• everyday life
• provincial nobility
• urals
• ural factory owners
• solomirsky
• epistolary heritage