Fielding, Nick South to the Great Steppe: The Travels of Thomas and Lucy Atkinson in Eastern Kazakhstan, 1847–1852 (review)

Abstract

SEER, 94, 4, October 2016 748 Byzantine Empire, under Greek rule, was also not part of Tsar Nicholas’s plans in the Near East’ (p. 203). Thesixthandfinalchapteranalysesthe‘Russianangeranddisappointmentat theresistancetoabsolutism’(p.16)whicheventuallyledtotheGreekRevolution of 1843. This revolution, led by veterans of the War of Independence, called for the departure of the Bavarians and demanded a constitution, and led to an era of constitutional monarchy in Greece. The analysis of Greek identity as expressed in the constitution of 1844 serves as a background to the conclusion, which analyses the long-term legacy of Russian relations with Greece during that period. Overall, this book makes an important contribution to many fields within East European history. First and foremost it contributes to the history of the early Greek kingdom and the history of Russian international relations, but also to the study of Eastern Orthodoxy in the modern era, and nation-building processes in the Balkans specifically and in Europe more generally. Its strength lies in its use of both Greek and Russian sources taken from various archives, which allows Frary to offer a nuanced analysis of Greek national identity in the early Kingdom period and of Russian politics, particularly in terms of Russia’s perception of itself as an actor in the international arena. Harari College Worldwide Orel Beilinson Fielding, Nick. South to the Great Steppe: The Travels of Thomas and Lucy Atkinson in Eastern Kazakhstan, 1847–1852. First, London, 2015. 160 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. £35.00 (paperback). A few years ago Anthony Cross published his invaluable reference work In the Lands of the Romanovs: An Annotated Bibliography of First-hand Englishlanguage Accounts of the Russian Empire, 1613–1917 (Cambridge, 2013). Lands of the Romanovs provides a fascinating reminder of just how many Britons published accounts detailing their experiences when travelling through the tsarist empire (including a thousand by those who visited the country between 1800 and 1900). Among the works listed by Cross are two written by Thomas Atkinson, and a third by his wife Lucy Atkinson, describing their travels through western Siberia and central Asia in the late 1840s and early 1850s. The books themselves are rather forgotten today, except by scholars who study the changing place of Russia in the British imagination. Nick Fielding uses his book, South to the Southern Steppe, to introduce a new audience to the Atkinson’s travels. He also casts some new light on the biography of the couple themselves. REVIEWS 749 Thomas Atkinson was an artist and architectural draughtsman from Yorkshire, who left England in the early 1840s following family bereavement and bankruptcy, and seems to have become fascinated by the idea of travel in Russia as the result of a chance meeting with Alexander Von Humboldt in Berlin. In his book, Oriental and Western Siberia (1858), Atkinson describes how he received permission from Nicholas I to ‘travel and sketch’ in the remote regions where central Asia met Siberia, visiting the region in spring 1847 in the company of the engineer Charles Austin. Before leaving St Petersburg, Atkinson had met Lucy Finley, who worked as governess to General Mikhail Muraviev-Vilenskii. Over the following year he sent her numerous letters, describing his experiences during his trip, which took him from the mining towns of the Urals and on into the steppes of central Asia. Atkinson returned to European Russia early in 1848, marrying Lucy at the British Consulate in Moscow, after which the two of them headed east again, travelling via Kazan´ to Semipalatinsk, and on towards the Altai mountains. Fielding quotes extensively from Thomas Atkinson’s published accounts of his travels, along with Lucy Atkinson’s Recollection of the Tatar Steppes and their Inhabitants (1863), a book which is both a more interesting and more reliable account than those of her husband. Fielding vividly describes the challenges faced by the Atkinsons in areas where Russian rule was at best tenuous (they faced death on more than one occasion from bandits and thirst). Despite the conditions, Lucy successfully gave birth to a son, who travelled with them over the following months, before the two of them returned to the comparative safety of Zmeinogorsk. Thomas later returned to travel again in Semirechye, leaving his wife...