From the reign of Peter the Great Russia's country estates were oases of splendor and personal freedom in a vast sparsely settled and authoritarian land. This lavishly illustrated book is the first in any language to explore fully the vanished world of the Russian country estate. Priscilla Roosevelt brings to life these magnificent aristocratic dwellings discussing their origins their design and decoration the social family and cultural life within their walls and their physical demise after the 1917 revolution. The Bolshevik revolution destroyed both the world of the estate and much of the evidence about it. To recreate this lost world Roosevelt has drawn on many sources - including the physical remains of once-grand manor houses many photographed for this book the invaluable diaries and memoirs that chronicle a way of life that was to perish and the Russian art and literature that estate life produced and in which it was portrayed. From a Kirkus review: A lively account of social relations and material culture on the 18th- and 19th-century Russian estate. Roosevelt has made a major contribution to scholarship with this groundbreaking study of the Russian estate and its seminal role in the development of Russian culture. Roosevelt recreates in elaborate detail this almost forgotten world. Her impartial and intriguing picture is of interest to both scholars and to lay readers. Roosevelt discusses the dark side of estate life such as beatings separation of families harems rape and the denial of freedom. She also renders the fascinating cultural and artistic roles that serfs were made to fill. Educated at their master's expense serfs became actors opera singers craftsmen woodworkers and painters. Some even purchased their freedom. It was largely through the estates' nurturing of artisan skills and cultural pastimes the author argues that Russian culture took the course that it did. Roosevelt also focuses on the estate owners' search for self-definition as expressed in their material surroundings capturing in the world of the estate the dichotomy between East and West that permeated Russian culture and politics after the Petrine reforms.