Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Women, Gardens, and Agency in Imperial Russia: Empress Maria Feodorovna's Pavlovsk Park

Women, Gardens, and Agency in Imperial Russia: Empress Maria Feodorovna's Pavlovsk Park

Heath, Ekaterina

Hardcover

Series: Russian Shorts

General Gender StudiesGeneral World History

ISBN10: 1350544507
ISBN13: 9781350544505
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: May 14 2026
Pages: 144
Weight: 0.59
Height: 0.38 Width: 5.00 Depth: 8.00
Language: English

This book draws on the rich historical record of the Russian royal court to demonstrate how green spaces have been used as an instrument of diplomatic and political influence. Ekaterina Heath convincingly argues that parks like Pavlovsk are a fruitful new primary source, here revealing the previously obscured evidence of women's political activities. In 19th-century Russia, green spaces gave women voice and agency, frequently taken away from them by the patriarchal power structures. Women, Gardens, and Agency in Imperial Russia challenges the preceding narratives of these structures as being solely masculine. It also argues for the need to consider consorts in the analysis of political life at the Russian court. Their soft power strategies were deployed through their gardens, the main tool of political propaganda in the long 18th century.

Ekaterina Heath discusses Pavlovsk's use for building relationships, promoting virtues, mounting political arguments, and writing Russian history. She explores the strategies used by Empress Maria Fedorovna to influence Catherine II and Paul I to maintain her access to power in a precarious political environment. Heath then goes on to analyse Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna's use of her garden to grow her power after the death of her husband, Paul I, and her son Alexander I's ascension to the throne.

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