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Read the article About the work Edna Dean Proctor, author Proctor's poem “Holy Russia” The mysterious Madame Romanoff Scribner's Monthly, the periodical Read more

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About the work

Personalities, places and illustrations feature prominently in Edna Dean Proctor's↗ article based on her time in northern European Russia — a land of frigid temperatures and vast forests, home to Finns, Lithuanians [and Latvians], and Russians, each with their own customs and beliefs. It also explores the impact of German influence in the Baltic Provinces and of Russification, and Russian faith and life. Lastly, the article showcases St. Petersburg and its transformation of a desolate swamp into a grand imperial capital.

How the article came to be is no less interesting.

Edna Dean Proctor, at Framingham History Center↗
"For well ye wot that fame is blowen
To and fro with every wight,
To be it wrong or be it right."
— Chaucer, The House of Fame, Book II

Edna Dean Proctor, author

How fleeting fame can be. Edna Dean Proctor (1829–1923) authored widely popularized patriotic verses which Union Soldiers carried into battle during the Civil War. Quaker poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier↗ praised her well-crafted and evocative works. No less than Henry Wadsworth Longfellow↗ included many of Proctor's poems in his copious 31-volume anthology, Poems of Places — and bemoaned that she had written her poem "Holy Russia" too late to be included. Yet she now appears absent from current assessments and anthologies of American poetry.

Proctor hailed from Henniker, New Hampshire, where her family ensured she received a strong education. Her passion for poetry emerged early. She taught art and music, and was eventually hired by Henry Bowen↗, a successful newspaper publisher and printer, to come live with his family in Brooklyn, New York, to tutor his eleven children. The Bowens actively supported her literary career, many of her poems being published in Henry Bowen's newspapers The Brooklyn Union and The Independent, appearing in print from the 1860's through the 1880's. The Bowens opened the door to New York City's social and literary circles, where Proctor met and came to count as friends numerous notable authors and poets of the day, including Longfellow.

In 1866, together with the family of mercantile merchant Charles Storrs↗ — himself, wife Maryett, daughter Sarah and several friends, Proctor embarked on a grand tour↗ of the Middle East and Holy Land, and Europe including Russia — where she remained for a number of months. Upon her return she wrote her travelogue Russian Journey — which Longfellow also praised — from her diary entries. She remained with the Storrs family until the father's passing in 1885, after which she returned to New England.

Whether in her poetry, her travelogue, or this article in Scribner's Monthly, it is clear that Proctor's experience of Russian faith and life moved her deeply.

Proctor's poem “Holy Russia”

Longfellow's enthusiasm prompted us to find a copy of Proctor's "Holy Russia." But who was the locutor of her verse: "(Sergius of Throitsa, speaks)"? We realized "Throitsa" is a transliteration from Троица (troitsa), "Trinity," pointing to the saint Sergius of Radonezh↗, an ascetic 14th century monk who built a small monastic cell and a church dedicated in honor of the Holy Trinity which became the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius↗. (A lavra is a monastary with additional out-buildings.) He gathered a following; eventually his disciples founded some 40 monasteries across northern Russia. Nevertheless, it is the site of his first church — and the eponymous town of Sergiyev Posad↗ which grew up around it — which became and remains the spiritual heart of the Russian Orthodox Church↗. (A posad↗ is the territory originally inhabited by tradesmen outside a fortified princely, boyar, or church settlement.)

HOLY RUSSIA.
(Sergius of Throitsa, loquitur.)

Have you heard how Holy Russia
Is guarded, night and day,
By saints gone home to the world of light,
Yet watching her realm for aye?—
Nicholas, Vladimir, Michael,
Catharine, Olga, Anna;
Barbara, borne from her silent tower
To the angels' glad hosanna;
Cyril, Ivan, Alexander,
Sergius, Feodor;
Basil, the bishop beloved,
And a thousand thousand more.
They walk the streets of the city,
Waving their stately palms,
And the river that runs by the Father's throne
Keeps time to their joyous psalms.
But they do not forget, in their rapture,
The land of their love below;
Blessing they send to its poorest friend,
Defiance to proudest foe.
So in cloister, and palace, and cottage,
Cathedral, and wayside shrine,
​ 
We cherish their sacred Icons,
Token of care divine;
And with beaten gold in fret and fold,
And gems the Czar might wear,
And costliest pearls of the Indian seas,
We make their vesture fair.
We set them along our altars
In many a gorgeous row,
The blessed Saviour in their midst,
And the Virgin, pure as snow;
And lamps we hang before them,
Soft as the star that shines
In the, rosy west, when the purple clouds
Drift dark above the pines.
The deep chants ring; the censers swing
In wreaths of fragrance by;
And there we bend, while our prayers ascend
To their waiting hearts on high;
And our Lord, and Mary-Mother,
With faces sweet and grave,
Remembering all their tears and woes,
Grant every boon they crave.
 
Have you heard that each true-born Russian,
Child of the Lord in baptism,
Receives some name of the shining ones
With the touch of the precious chrism?—
And the saint, thenceforth, is his angel;
Ready, through gloom or sun,
To share his sorrows and cheer his way
Till his earthly years are done.
 
When friends have fled, and love is lost,
And darkest ills betide,
There's a gleam of wings athwart the sky,
And the peace of the glorified
Falls on his soul as the gentle dew
Descends on the parching plain,—
And he knows that his angel heard his sighs
And stooped to heal his pain.
Nor cares he when, or where, or how
The hour of his death may come,
For the Lord of the saints will welcome him,
And his angel bear him home.
And, to mark his faith's devotion,
As a jewel of love and pride
He bears on his breast forever
The cross of the Crucified;—
Bright with rubies and diamonds,
Fashioned of silver and gold,
Or only carved from the cedar
That grows on the windy wold;
Cut from a stone of the Ourals,
Or the amber that strews the shore;—
Close to his heart he wears it
Till his pulses beat no more.
 
O happy, Holy Russia!
Thrice favored of the Lord!
Around whose towers, when danger lowers,
The saints keep watch and ward!
She need not fear the marshalled hosts
Of her haughtiest Christian foe;
​ 
Nor Islam's hate, though at Moscow's gate
The stormy bugles blow!
Fair will her eagle-banners float
Above Sophia's dome,
When heaven shall bring her righteous Czar
In triumph to his Rome;
And Constantine and Helena
Will "Alleluia!" cry,
To see the cross victorious
In their imperial sky.
Ah! what a day when all the way
To Marmora's sunny sea—
From Finland's snows to fields of rose—
Shall Holy Russia be!

The mysterious Madame Romanoff

We could not help but wonder, who is the "Madame Romanoff" Proctor quotes in her article — and appears to have been a significant source for Proctor on Russian life? Did Proctor connect with one of the royal Russian family in her travels?

"Russian Girlhood"
by Madame Romanoff

Harriet Catherine Romanoff née Carr was born in 1832 into an Anglican family. It's not clear when she moved to Kishinev, Russia — Chișinău in today's Moldova, or married a Russian officer (Romanoff). We do know she had done so by her late 20's because in 1861 she was the Russian correspondent for the Monthly Packet of Evening Readings for Younger Members of the English Church↗, published by the Oxford Movement↗. The Movement had originated in the 1830's, looking to the example of Eastern Orthodoxy to revive Catholic traditions within the Church of England — which Protestantism had diluted during the Reformation. One of the Movement's founders, William Palmer↗ visited Russia in 1940 and lived there for a year after the future Alexander II↗ had visited Oxford the prior year. Palmer hoped to forge closer ties between the Church of England and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Carr-Romanoff was a capable linguist. Her works, variously signed HCR, H.C. Romanoff, or Madame Romanoff, included fiction set in Russia, news items, a long-running series on the customs of the Greco-Russian Church — whose customs she followed in Old Church Slavonic↗, and translations from Russian. She was known for her positive portrayals of Russian faith and life.

Scribner's Monthly, the periodical

Scribner's Monthly: An Illustrated Magazine for the People↗ was an illustrated American literary periodical. It was founded in 1870 by Charles Scribner I, along with Andrew Armstrong, Arthur Peabody, Edward Seymour, Josiah Gilbert Holland, and Roswell Smith. The magazine offered a mix of pictorial content and literary pieces, catering to a wide audience. In 1870, Scribner's Monthly absorbed the second iteration of Putnam's Monthly Magazine of American Literature, Science and Art. It ceased publishing under the title in 1881, when Charles Scribner II sold his stake in the company, leading to the magazine's renaming as The Century Magazine and the company's renaming as Century Company. Notable contributors included Frances Hodgson Burnett↗ and John Muir↗.

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